Marilyn Monroe made famous the saying “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend”. These days there is a company that seems to be going beyond that phrase. For a fee, you can now have a diamond made from your best friend, be they human or animal, when they are gone.
LifeGem is a U.S. based company that will take the carbon from the cremated remains of your loved one and turn it into a diamond. They will even let you choose the color of the stone, and for an additional fee will even have it mounted into the setting of your choice. The idea is disturbing for most, but many people have already used the service, and more people appear to be signing up every day.
The folks at LifeGem can also create the diamond using a lock of the person’s hair if you prefer to have them buried or would like to make a diamond from someone who is not deceased. They require eight ounces of cremated remains or enough hair to be equivalent to that lost in a standard haircut in order to create the stone. The carbon is then removed from the hair or remains and heated to exceptionally high temperatures to turn it to graphite.
The graphite must be exceptionally pure, so it is put into a special container that is only used one time and is etched with a unique number that is given only to your diamond. The graphite itself is also unique, which means that each diamond is one of a kind. The container holding the graphite is heated to over 3000 degrees, which purifies the graphite within.
The graphite is then subjected to intense heat and pressure of over 1,000,000 P.S.I. This causes the graphite to break down internally, breaking down individual atoms and forming a unique diamond. All of these diamonds are structurally identical to natural diamonds, and are the same with the exception of having been created in a lab. The diamonds are then cut according to the wishes of the person having them created and etched with the unique number assigned previously.
The prices on LifeGem diamonds range from three thousand to twenty-five thousand dollars, depending on whether you choose red, green, or yellow stones. The general idea of marketing is to keep someone precious whom you have recently lost close to you forever. While many people choose to do this through memory, it seems to be a growing trend now to instead have them turned to jewelry.
In a somewhat unique move, the LifeGem Company announced the completion of a set of three diamonds made from the hair of Ludwig van Beethoven. One of the diamonds was put into an archive and one kept by LifeGem to start a collection of famous LifeGems. In a surprising move, the third diamond was put onto the popular auction site eBay from which the proceeds were donated to charity. Originally listed at $1,000,000, the gem only sold for just over $200,000.
LifeGem adds to their list of unique services by offering to turn your deceased pet into a diamond. For the same price as with a human, you can have your dog or cat turned into an everlasting diamond. For some pet owners, this means never having to go a day without their beloved furry companion.
The company also offers a family plan for people who wish to provide the service for all members of the household in the event of great personal tragedy. For those who long to provide family members with diamonds after their own passing, there are even pre-planning options that allow you to make payments so that your family members do not have to pay to obtain a LifeGem after you have passed.
In all honesty, this service, while unique, is not a necessity. In addition, it is not something that appeals to the general public. While the company may have had grand intentions, it is at best a niche market, and at its worst it is disturbing. LifeGems appeal mostly to the lonely, to people dealing with an immeasurable loss and looking for something to hold on to. Most people would be better off to buy a comparably priced piece of diamond jewelry that reminds them of their loved one, through a favorite color or an engraving.
While perhaps not the biggest selling idea ever, LifeGems have had the unexpected effect of drawing people’s attention back to why they buy natural diamonds. Perhaps these stones are made of the remains of dinosaurs, compressed over millions of years, but we are not buying them as such. While the company may make thousands off of brokenhearted and devastated people, most jewelry connoisseurs are truly better off to purchase memorial jewelry in memory of their loved ones rather than jewelry made from their loved ones.
January 3rd, 2012 at 6:07 am
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