[tomstockmail]

When I was looking at diamond rings the synthetics available to me were at a high cost, not much less than a "traditional" diamond. Same goes for alternate stones such as Moissanite which HackerNews has discussed below. So, not being pro-diamond here, but simply stating it looks like marketing has brought up the prices of these alternate methods too.

Diamonds Suck/pro Moissanite website: http://diamondssuck.com/ (2006)

HN Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17186457

[okmokmz]

Perhaps you were shopping with an unscrupulous jeweler then, because, all else the same, a Moissanite stone is significantly less expensive than a comparable diamond