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New synthetic diamonds are so closely resemble mined diamonds that the naked eye cannot tell the difference, often saving consumers enough money to make a down-payment on a new home or buy a car. Unfounded diamond jeweler arrogance, pretentiousness, and snootiness has gone too far!

My girlfriend has been parading around town with a magnificent 4-carat Round Brilliant cut synthetic diamond set in a stunning 14K solid gold filigree solitaire ring setting for a year now. She has been to restaurants, work, shopping, night clubs, museums, and parties. Family and friends have scrutinized her ring. She has been stopped repeatedly by others who were dumbfounded by her ring. Hundreds of people have seen her ring, astonished by its majesty, gushing about it. And despite its ostentatious size, no one has asked if it is a fake diamond!

How could this be? The latest breakthrough science in lab-created diamonds has brought them in line with mined diamonds. Long gone is the aurora borealis or “disco ball” effect that was seen in synthetic diamonds of the past decades. New millennium synthetic diamondswith similar hardness, clarity, fire, and brillianceare indistinguishable with the naked eye and simply don’t look fake. High quality synthetic diamonds even have the coveted hearts-and-arrows effect.

This begs the question: If one were to saunter into a jewelry store with a synthetic diamond, can a jeweler tell the difference? Since all mined diamonds have color disparities (flaws), birthmarks (flaws), and inclusions (flaws), and lab-created diamonds have none of the above, a trained eye can tell the difference. A sneering glance under a loupe or even under discriminating examination with a magnifying glass, a jeweler will often proudly declare a synthetic diamond as a fake. Modern synthetic diamonds are too perfect in the world of jeweler snobbery when pushing over-priced high profit diamonds is the agenda at hand.

With the use of scientific testing equipment, mined diamonds will conduct electricity and synthetic diamonds will not. That is because mined diamonds are a carbon gem material and synthetic diamonds are polycrystalline. A thermal probe will produce different readings, differentiating the two. But does this really matter to a jewelry lover who is interested in aesthetic beauty and saving thousands of dollars? In the year my girlfriend has been showcasing her synthetic diamond on her finger; no one has walked up to her with scientific equipment asking to test her gemstone.

Why do virtually all brick-and-mortar jewelers carry only mined diamonds? Why do jewelers scoff at synthetic diamonds? You need to look no further than your wallet. A 1-carat high quality mined diamond is about $3000, a 2-carat about $18,000, a 3-carat about $40,000, and a 4-carat goes for about $90,000. Respectively, synthetic diamonds run about $79, $158, $237, and $326. It’s about the money. Don’t kid yourself.

It’s also about indoctrination. For over a century, the diamond cartel has spent billions of dollars convincing the public that jewel quality mined diamonds have intrinsic value like gold. Not true. Why? During this time DeBeers has limited production, bought up supplies from others, stockpiled inventory, and imposed its monopoly position on jewelry manufacturers in the successful effort to keep prices inflated. And to make matters worse, the diamond industry as a whole has a checkered past with conflict stones, debt-slave child labor in India used in cutting operations, and shady techniques used to enhance perceived quality to further squeeze out ridiculous prices from beleaguered jewelry lovers.

Smart jewelry shoppers today are considering synthetic diamonds as an alternative to mined diamonds for some very savvy reasons: (1) They can acquire fine jewelry pieces set in solid 14K gold. (2) They will save literally thousands of dollars. (3) There is no need to buy insurance. (4) When wearing there synthetic diamond jewelry nobody will know that they are not mined diamonds unless they tell them!

Robert Joseph is an expert jeweler and founding partner of Diamond Nexus Labs, a renowned online jewelry store that specializes in pristine affordable diamond simulants set in Solid 14K Gold.

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I love words. They are tiny windows from which our Soul shines through. Even the most un-educated among us has choices in words. So how do we choose our words?

It is my belief that our true identity, Soul, directs our mind and tongue to use one word and not the other, when both words would convey the same meaning. In these tiny preferences lie glimpses into our heart, our beliefs, our fears and our hopes.

When we say, winding down instead of relaxing, or wound up instead of tense, our fascination with time shows and perhaps our fear of mortality. We choose these words as reminders to ourselves to be watchful.

“What does all this have to do with wrist watches?” you ask.

In my view, everything.

Wrist watch is a portable timepiece designed to be worn. Its history goes back to shortly after 1500, when Peter Henlein, a locksmith in Nrnberg, Ger., introduced the mainspring as a replacement for weights in driving clocks.

Looking back over the last forty years, I can see how things have sped up and I can imagine how laid back events were over 500 hundred years ago. There weren’t any soccer moms who had to rush from game to game in their SUVs. No 7 AM meetings across town through a hellish traffic that seems to get worse by the minute. No rushed five minute snack breaks to give us the energy boost we need to keep our zone diet. No Hollywood to show the latest Cartier watch or Baume Mercier watch on the shapely wrists of the most beautiful people in the world.

Why then the need for a portable timepiece called watch?

On the surface, we can say Peter Henlein introduced the mainspring as a replacement for weights in driving clocks. According to Britannica, “A mainspring consists of a flat spring steel band stressed in bending or coiling; when the watch, or other spring-driven mechanism, is wound, the curvature of the spring is increased, and energy is thus stored.

In a watch, this energy is transmitted to the oscillating section of the watch (called the balance) by the wheel train and escapement, the motion of the balance itself controlling the release of the escapement and consequently the timing of the maintaining impulse. A friction drive to the hands is provided from a wheel that rotates at a convenient rate, generally one time per hour. The friction drive permits the hands to be set.”

Fascinating enough to put me to sleep, I don’t know about you. The short version is that Peter Henlein found a way to move the clock handles so that they don’t take so much room. He was on the way to help us all watch time fly on our wrist, twenty four hours a day.

This ability to know the exact time brings with it a curse and a blessing.

A curse if we think about all the lost opportunities and all the missed goodbyes. A blessing if we consider that we live and we still hope and dream and with a little self discipline and a lot of help from the Divine, we can use our wrist watch to measure all the hellos we say, all the I love yous and all the contributions we make by just being who we are.

I love the idea that we exist because God loves us. Not particularly because we do wonderful things with every minute of every day, but simply because we are who we are.

Next time you check what time it is, I hope you look beyond the small handle and big handle and the wonderfully expensive watch makers and the rushed pace of life that carries us from one meeting to the next. I hope you can remind yourself that maybe it is time to say thank you to some one for just being there, smile at another because life is precious or pick up the phone and call your mate to just say, “I love you.”

If I ever feel pride in wearing a wrist watch and use its chime, it is for these reasons. How about you? Why are you wearing your watch?

* DISCLAIMER: Vishy Dadsetan, http://www.wristwatchsite.com/ or My Favorite Shop, Inc. do not endorse any purchase or sale of any products. Although Vishy Dadsetan has made every effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the information contained in this site, it assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions, inaccuracies, or inconsistencies.

Vishy Dadsetan writes articles that can actually help and entertain your clients. Articles just like this one. Additional information at: baume mercier and wrist watch.