A South African column
The Diamond Edit
A column on diamonds, jewellery, and the South African trade, written from the inside, edited from the outside.
A diamond is the only purchase most South Africans will ever make for which the price has no clear public referent. The trade prefers it that way. This column is not against the trade, it is in conversation with it. I write about the dealers I'd send my own family to, the dealers I wouldn't, and the questions every buyer should ask before parting with the money.
New columns publish irregularly. The full archive is in the columns hub, and there is an RSS feed if you'd like to follow at a distance.
Reference and guides
The buyer’s reference set: price, channel, certificate, decision. Updated for 2026.
Diamond price in South Africa, 2026
The rand tracker, the wholesale-to-retail spread, and how to read a quote without getting carved.
Engagement rings in South Africa
The bracket guide. What R10,000, R30,000, R50,000, and R100,000 actually buys you on the SA trade floor.
Diamond jewellers in Johannesburg
A corridor map: Bedfordview vs Sandton vs Kerk Street. Where prices differ 30 to 40 percent and why.
Lab-grown vs natural diamonds in SA
The 74 percent price collapse, identical visual quality, and the residual-value gap nobody publishes.
Wholesale-to-public diamonds in SA
The Bedfordview model that saves 40 to 60 percent on a certified centre stone. How it actually works.
How to read a SA diamond invoice
Twelve required fields, what each means, and how to verify the paperwork before money moves.
Recent columns
Prodiam, Prodiamine, Prodia: name-collision and verification
Six unrelated trademarks share the syllable "prodiam" in 2026. South African buyers searching for the Bedfordview diamond wholesaler are routinely routed to the wrong one. The reference that disambiguates them.
South African diamond statistics: a 2026 reference
Fifty working figures on the South African diamond trade in 2026: production, pricing, certification, lab-grown, Kimberley Process, retail and wholesale market structure. Sourced.
Bespoke in Bedfordview: a four-week commission, documented
Thirty days inside a Bedfordview workshop, watching a 1.4-carat oval-cut bespoke commission come together from brief to handover.
The Cape vs. Johannesburg buying experience
Two cities, two operating models, two sets of trade-offs. The honest comparison the marketing on either end of the country will not write.
Where Johannesburg’s diamond money actually goes
A scene piece on Bedfordview, the suburb where most of South Africa’s working diamond trade actually lives, twenty kilometres east of Sandton.
Lab-grown in 2026: a position
Lab-grown diamonds are real diamonds. They are also, in the South African wholesale context, not the right purchase for most buyers. The argument, in plain terms.