Jewelry traders naturally want to defend their most valuable asset. But Dr. George Harlow, curator of minerals and gems at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and editor of The Nature of Diamonds (Cambridge University Press), agrees with Sutch that natural stones are more appealing than synthetics. One consumer, posting on an online forum for an Internet-based diamond exchange, put it this way: “It’s kind of like the difference between a genuine brand-name watch that costs $4,500 and a $10 knock-off I can buy on the street corner.”

As the technology to make lab diamonds improves at lightning speed, Linares predicts that distinguishing mined diamonds from those cooked up in a lab will be almost impossible in as few as three years. No wonder companies are erring on the side of clarity by laser-inscribing their gems as synthetics to appease the mining side of the industry. After all, the jewelry trade is built on consumer trust. If that trust erodes, so could its approximately $70-billion-a-year retail diamond business worldwide.

Beyond disclosing that a gem is synthetic, diamond branding in general is one of the industry’s biggest issues – especially in Canada, where some argue that trademark issues will hurt the burgeoning diamond-mining industry. (After Botswana and Russia, Canada is now the world’s third largest diamond producer.)

But for companies like Apollo and Gemesis, the real diamond mine is in the next generation of high tech. Industrial applications for synthetic gems will create a massive market for entrepreneurial operations, like the outfit Linares started 15 years ago in his garage. Even some of the biggest gem companies make diamond grit and dust for industrial and research groups.

“My personal feeling is that the genie is out of the bottle,” says Larry Wadell, who is president of New York-based M. Ben-Dor Diamonds. “I love the idea of cultured diamonds,” says Wadell. “Side by side, it’s the same diamond.” Now consumers will have a choice, he maintains. “What is wrong with that?”

When my wedding day arrived, I decided to blow off technology for tradition. I reset the princess diamond my fiancé gave me in a custom gold band, adding a couple of glittering rubies to make it my own. After all, there’s more to a rock-solid marriage than a ring.