Aswad
Posts: 6619
Joined: 4/4/2007
Status: online
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ORIGINAL: Elisabella
Hi Aswad! Merry Christmas!
Thanks. Christmas isn't my season, though. I spend it alone for a reason.
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Anyway I know that there's a bit of a backlash against diamonds, mostly because of the huge marketing hype surrounding them that increases the price, but I have a weak spot for gemstones and jewellery in general.
Gemstones, certainly. Diamonds just aren't my thing. That buying them supports state sanctioned organized crime is just another nail in the coffin. I think they make great heat conductors, cutting discs and so forth, but I don't particularly like them as gem stones. Incidentally, they're a very common stone, with stockpiles to last centuries. Talking about price is kind of moot, as it's set by the cartel and the efficiency of their propaganda. It's a testament to human pack behavior and susceptibility to manipulation that natural diamonds have any real value at all.
That aside, there hasn't been a backlash here. They just aren't traditional, s'all. If you're wearing a diamond ring in a bar here, someone will check you out. Wear a plain gold band, and they'll figure you're spoken for. It's on its way in, along with the rest of the cultural elements exported from the US, but so far hasn't gained very much ground.
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there was a great part about how Goreans hated falsehood and they were appalled by the thought of wearing fake gemstones. That's how I feel...I think CZ is a fine stone for costume jewellery but if you're wearing a CZ to pass it off as a diamond I'll only say it's nice to be polite if I don't feel like getting into a discussion over it. Same with gold-plated jewellery, moissanite-as-fake-diamond, and lab created stones. I admit I've been tempted with the lab created stones but I just can not let myself buy one. I'll take pale sapphires and dark sapphires over a bright blue lab created sapphire.
I'll have to agree with regard to imitation gemstones. Not so much with regard to synthetics, which stand as a testament to human engineering being able to produce real stones that are purer than those created by nature, without excavating large land masses in order to do so. I know, I know, it's not love unless some ten year old lost a finger digging it out of a cave in the middle of a war zone somewhere. Still, I happen to think synthetics are cool, so long as they're not made as imitations.
Incidentally, a lab created sapphire is clear, not blue. And both clear sapphire and clear ruby are available up to a size of 10mmØ for virtually nothing, since they are actually created for an entirely different use than jewelry. Since I rather fancy the 694nm fluorescence of pure ruby, I'm inclined to think that's rather neat. Good luck getting a jeweler to set such a stone in anything, though. They're likely to lose their licence to sell diamonds and the like if they do that.
As was noted in the thread on emulating culture, vs imitating culture, there's a difference between pretending to be something one is not, and actually being something, whether something known or something new. If I pick up a pure ruby that's meant for use in telecommunications, drill it and set it in an earring, that's a bit different from picking up a ruby simulant or reconstituted ruby that's been made to be passed off as a natural stone, as far as I'm concerned. Consider it similar to bead jewelry, if you like. In any case, whether other people agree or not, isn't particularly important. It looks great, and isn't trying to be anything other than what it is: optical grade Cr:Al2O3 beads.
Health,
al-Aswad.
_____________________________
"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.
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RE: ok do you celebrate chistmas - 
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