My wife's engagement ring is a semi-mustachian (as precious metals and gems go) example of the phenomenon. It seemed ridiculous to pay so much money and support horrible working conditions when we could get a 'superior' gem elsewhere. She wanted a ruby in a platinum setting. I was able to find an old platinum solitaire setting on Ebay for $500, which was the scrap price for the weight of metal, and a 2 carat marquise Chatham ruby for $350. A jeweler got the stone set in the prongs, and then later made a matching wedding band to go with it. Overall, I think about $1,200 for a very memorable item.
This is pretty similar to my ring's origins. I took a (science) class on gemstones in college so I was pretty interested in the different properties of gemstones. But, like most of my class, I hated mined diamonds because of the slavery and also didn't want that much spent on a ring, even if I wore it every day. So DH got it from a pawn shop. It's smaller, but I told him I wanted that, since I use my hands a lot, and not carefully. Mine is also a marquise, though it's sapphire. I absolutely love it and feel no guilt at all from it.
But yeah, I'm solidly a millennial, and even when lab diamonds were just as expensive, everyone I talked to that wanted a diamond preferred those over a mined one. To me at least, this isn't a new trend. But most of my college friends took that gemstones class as a group for fun, so we may be outliers.
Also, that's cool that platinum is dropping in cost, I always liked it, and that's good for the industrial uses of it too. Or is gold just surging?
