June 2024 | Lab Grown Magazine

June 2024 | The Lab Grown Diamond Resource Book 20 Mailed to 24,000 Jewelers Monthly - To advertise call (888) 832-1109 | June 2024 21 LABORATORY-GROWN LABORATORY-GROWN BY DAN SCOTT DIAMOND PART 3 OF A 4-PART SERIES eBeers just handed North American jewelry retailers, and everyone within the laboratory-grown diamond (LGD) sector, one of the best keys to added LGD success ever. Actually, it was their 85% parent shareholder, Anglo who unlocked the unintentional lab-related gift, but a welcomed gift nonetheless. Clearly, De Beers isn’t what it once was, but the diamond legend is a household name and has been for decades and will remain so for quite some time. If De Beers doesn’t find a suitable suitor / long- term partner / investor, it will still take multiple human lifetimes before the mega diamond brand is forgotten. Now, their historic headlines are disturbing in many ways. While De Beers is up for sale, there isn’t a line of courting corporations or investors making any bids. Not yet. And, how long of a process will that be? This, on top of the G7’s Russian ban on natural diamonds (representing approximately 35%of all the natural diamonds on earth) coupled with one of the largest and most aggressive diamond corporations to ever exist “suddenly” disconnected from the financial support system that a majority stakeholder holds. Now, the LGD game truly changes. Leveraging Reduced Natural Diamond Exports/ Imports De Beer’s on the block reduces the already withheld natural diamond inventory shipped to India to cut and polish and for many designers and retailers to set. De Beers had big plans for natural diamonds in China. They thought they had China in their natural diamond hip pocket. Projections on that country embracing natural diamonds were simply overshot by a significant percentage. Luxury-loving China natives just didn’t react as positively to natural diamonds as forecasted. The icing on this cake isn’t sweet for miners. We know the diamonds arriving at market today are not as outstanding in quality as those dug up ten years ago.