are diamonds worthless?

Question

I have read that diamonds only worthless. True?

Answer 1

Besides the arbitrary value placed on diamonds for jewelry purposes, there are significant industrial uses for diamonds. They are the hardest substance known, and have exceptionally high heat conductivity, which is how diamonds are typically identified when testing them.

Cutting tools and polishing are just one of the many applications for diamonds. Diamonds are used for surgical cutting tools and coatings on industrial cutting tools. Thin films of diamond are used on tweeters in stereo speakers and as scratch-proof coatings on watches. Diamond-coated windows for infrared-scanning systems and light-filtering are also in common usage. Diamonds offer exceptional promise for new electronics materials, including solar energy production.

Diamonds with trace amounts of other elements, known as dopants, radically change the electrical properties of the material. These doped diamonds are semiconductors, and for some applications may replace electronics based on silicon and gallium arsenide. Because undoped diamonds are non-conducting insulators and conduct heat more rapidly than other semiconductors this material has great potential and could be used to build faster computer processors. Diamond-based chips have the advantage of being able to handle high power loads, operate at 1000 °C, and operate in highly radioactive environments where silicon chips will fail. Space and satellite technology is likely to be developed around these exceptional qualities of diamond.

There are a number of methods and manufacturers of synthetic diamond. However, every method requires enormous amounts of energy, and as long as the price of energy is high, and the demand for industrial diamonds is growing diamond in any form will continue to have value. If you believe the world economy might collapse, then in that event, diamonds, gold, and anything that isn't either a source of energy or food will lose value. There has been speculation that synthetic diamonds might be manufactured for the jewelry market in such quantities that the gemstone value of diamonds will fall, and while this is certainly possible, so far the market has distinguished between man-made gem quality diamonds and natural diamonds and assigned a premium to natural gemstone diamonds. I would not invest in diamonds as a long-term investment as I think the synthetics will someday displace the natural diamond market, but that is just my opinion.

Answer 2

The market value of diamonds is a product of clever advertising coupled with artificial shortage. DeBeers teamed up with Hollywood to create the mistique that "diamonds are a girl's best friend", "you're not engaged unless you have the diamond to prove it", etc. And, as has been said already, the shortage only exists because of corporate and government decisions not to flood the market.

The first synthetic diamonds were made by dissolving carbon in metals and crystalizing under extreme pressure the product was
detectible because of its flaws. Now, the best synthetic diamonds are made by vapor deposition; they are detectible because of their absolute flawlessness, which never occurs in nature.

Answer 3

No, not sandpaper, those are garnets. Much cheaper.

Gemstone grade diamonds are rare and very valuable when split and polished into jewelry.

Much more common industrial diamonds are less expensive, but have multiple uses as abrasives. Diamond rock saws, for example, are dull to the touch, but will cut through the hardest rocks. Diamond dust is used to polish gemstone diamonds.

Not all diamonds are jewels, but all have valuable uses.

Answer 4

de Beers has several tonnes of large carat uncut high quality gem diamond in it vaults. Canada, Russia, and Australia could flood the world with diamond if they so wished - outside de Beers' control. White diamond in modest sizes is worth about $5/carat at the minehead.

Abrasive grade is worth less than $0.5/carat.

Diamond retail prices are at least double wholesale prices. If you see a diamond at a common jeweler it is probably swindle cut (table too large, diamond too shallow) to maximize carat yield from the raw stone. A properly cut diamond will dazzle you.

Don't buy a stone unless you bring along a Firescope or such to verify its optics. Don't buy them mounted. Absolutely don't buy them as an investment unless you are an insider.

Answer 5

Diamonds are the hardest naturally-occurring substance ever found. They make such good abrasives (like sandpaper) that they have hundreds of industrial uses. Additionally, their high index of refraction makes them pretty to look at when cut into the right shape.

They have aesthetic and industrial value, so they're not worthless at all.

Answer 6

Everything in the universe is worthless until a human being places some value on it.

Answer 7

Well if you look at them from what they are, just carbon, then you can make that argument. But society has placed value on them therefore they are not worthless. They are rare and can be beautiful works of nature. As long as society treats them as valuable they will be.

Answer 8

people that pay lots of money for them make them valuable. If nobody put a wgole lot of value on them like thinking you must have a diamond then the vanity of it might fade away but people put value on alot of material things. Its just something that comes out of the earth.

Answer 9

No. Diamonds have important industrial uses such as in laser or optic technologies and in cutting equipment, which gives them value outside of their ascetic appeal.

Answer 10

they are not worthless. they are very expensive and hard to find. also diamonds are made of carbon. by a couple of million years, the diamond will evaporate because it is carbon. but you will be dead by the time it even does.