No more forever? Lab-grown diamonds pose serious challenge to natural ones

Suddenly, the legendary advertising line - a diamond is forever - is losing its shine. Worse, the prices of natural diamonds are declining

Most of the diamonds we have in the world today were forged 1 billion to 3 billion years ago. We are speaking about the natural variety here.

 

There is another kind, which is also created under extreme heat and pressure, but in a matter of half a dozen days or so, and in a laboratory. This is creating a problem for the natural kind because lab-grown diamonds are also widely considered to be — well —diamonds, chemically and physically. And they look just like natural diamonds, to the extent that you need sophisticated machinery to tell the two apart.

 

Unsurprisingly,