Sarah Gonzalez
Appearances
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
OK, so now lab grown diamonds, though, they enter the mix.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Does that not bring the price of natural diamonds down? Yeah.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Because people who would have bought natural diamonds started buying the lab-grown ones.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
OK, I see a machine. I see like a big machine with like knobs all over it. Kind of looks like a big, giant, like ice machine.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Oh, so you can buy the thing to make your own diamond for just $158,000. Yeah, yeah. Steal. Do you want to buy one? No, I'd rather just buy $158,000 worth of diamonds.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Okay, so this is how you got our diamond for so cheap. You got it wholesale, direct from the supplier.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
And the normal wholesale price for a diamond is something like $137, I guess.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
So you overpaid for extra sparkly labrum badly made in a microwave diamond.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
I'm Sarah Gonzalez. And Jeff, this is the start of a real mystery here. Or a scam. Is it a diamond? Is it real? How is it $137?
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Okay, but there is this like disconnect for me because Paul is saying that the wholesale price for a lab-grown diamond like this one is $100-ish. But if you walk into like any diamond store right now, this exact kind of diamond is not going to cost you $100. At a store, it'll cost you like $1,000.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
I think we should buy one of these diamond making machines.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Okay, logically, this should not happen, right? Someone else should just open a store next door, sell the lab-grown diamond for a lot less than $1,000, like $500, $300. They would still make a huge profit. And then everyone else would cut their prices and all the prices would go down.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Right. People don't really know what the price of diamonds are until they're at the store buying it. And when you see, oh, this one is $3,000 less than a natural diamond, you think like, wow, what a steal. You don't know that it should actually be even cheaper than that.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
PSA, news you can use. You're paying too much for your lab-grown diamonds.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
I'm just going to say this would not matter to me personally. If it's as sparkly as the diamond I'm looking at right now, like I don't care if it's natural, lab made. Don't you just want something sparkly at the end of the day? Isn't that the only thing that really matters?
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Wait, what are we doing with our diamond? Did you try to sell our diamond?
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Yeah. No, I think it's just going to be a fake diamond. So, Jeff, when you sent me this diamond that you apparently bought sight unseen off of this website in China for $137, my first thought was, obviously it's not real, right?
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
I don't know. I don't know if you didn't want to so much as they were not going to let you.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
I'm glad they didn't let you sell it because I have actually grown kind of fond of our little Planet Money diamond. Jeff, how dare you try to sell it?
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
This episode was produced beautifully by one of the sparkliest producers in the business, James Sneed, Planet Money's true diamond. It was edited by Keith Romer with help from Jess Jing, fact-checked by Emma Peasley, and engineered by Kwesi Lee. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Well, I don't know. You should say it. No, you take it.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Like smash it? The first actual test that you had me try was to try to scratch something really hard with this diamond of ours.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
It literally created like a gash in my glass kombucha jar. Oh my God. Test number one, kind of promising. It's feeling real.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
All right, I'm dropping in the diamond. Let's see if it makes a clink. Okay. It sank straight down to the bottom.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Wow, it looks even sparklier in water. Test number three, you had me hold the diamond up against my cheek.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
It doesn't feel hot. Maybe warm. Okay, so the last test, I'm going to say not looking good for you, Jeff, but yes, the other two experiments are... We're leaning diamond. Obviously, these tests are not like super scientific.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Wouldn't it be a Jeff Guo story if cat hair wasn't involved?
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
I wasn't expecting this. But hold, okay, hold on. There are diamonds, right? And then there are You know, there's there's natural diamonds and then there's like the lab grown diamonds. So is this is this where we're headed?
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
I mean, tell that to the real diamond crowd. But okay, I will say the big difference between natural and lab-grown is still price.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Jeff, what is this? Is it a fake diamond or a real diamond?
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
So the planet money diamond is a real diamond just grown in a lab. And Ulrika is like 100% sure about this.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Yes. Yes. So it's not the perfect, perfectly imperfect lab-grown diamond.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Okay, but here's the thing that still doesn't make sense. If you were to walk into a diamond store today and try to buy a lab-grown diamond like this one, like our Planet Money lab-grown diamond, that would cost you like a thousand whole dollars. And yet you bought this lab-grown diamond for $137. Wow.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Wait, this is like creme de la creme, top of the top, like perfect cut, perfect clarity. Dude, it's...
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Yeah, like why do we even pay whatever amount of money for a rock, basically?
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
De Beers, the diamond company. They got us all to think diamonds are special.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
They convinced all of us that... If you love someone, you get them a diamond.
Planet Money
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
Yeah. And of course, when you have high demand and you have a company that's like keeping the supply of diamonds low, that is... Obviously going to make the price of diamonds go up.