This is the question the category is arguing about right now, and most of what gets written about it is written by someone with a side to sell. Here is the version we would give you across the counter.
They really are the same material.
A lab grown diamond is carbon in the same crystal structure as a mined one. Same hardness, same refractive index, same sparkle. It is not a simulant. Cubic zirconia and moissanite are different materials that look diamond-ish; a lab grown diamond is a diamond that was grown rather than dug up.
Nobody can tell them apart by eye, including us. It takes specific equipment looking for growth patterns and trace elements. Anyone claiming to spot a lab grown stone with a loupe is guessing.
Supply, and therefore price.
Natural diamonds are finite and the supply chain is slow. Lab grown stones can be produced to order, and capacity has expanded rapidly. The result is that the price of new lab grown stones has fallen a long way and has kept falling.
That is excellent news if you are buying. It is the entire problem if you are selling, because what a used stone can fetch is capped by what a new equivalent costs today, and that number keeps moving down.
What each is worth to sell.
Material
- Natural
- Identical
- Lab grown
- Identical
Appearance
- Natural
- Identical
- Lab grown
- Identical
Supply
- Natural
- Finite and slow
- Lab grown
- Made to order, expanding
New price trend
- Natural
- Broadly stable
- Lab grown
- Falling
Resale
- Natural
- Established market
- Lab grown
- Thin, and priced against falling new stock
None of this makes a lab grown stone a bad purchase. If you want the largest, cleanest stone your budget allows and you are buying it to wear rather than to resell, lab grown is a rational choice and an increasingly popular one.
It does mean you should go in knowing that the resale conversation is a different one. The trouble arises when somebody was not told that at the point of sale.
Check the paperwork first.
- Look at the grading report. Reports for lab grown stones state it explicitly, and reputable labs have done so consistently for years.
- Check the girdle. Many lab grown stones carry a laser inscription on the girdle edge stating their origin and report number.
- Look at the original receipt or the setting paperwork if you still have it.
- If none of that exists, it needs testing. That is not something you can settle at home.
Bring it in either way.
We will tell you what you have and what it is worth, and if it is lab grown we will tell you that plainly rather than making an offer and letting you work out why it was low.
The evaluation is free and there is no obligation. If the answer is that you are better off keeping it or having it reset into something you will actually wear, we will say that too.