Tool
SA Diamond Quote Bank, submit what you paid
Anonymous crowdsourced submission for SA diamond buyers. Tell the column what you paid, for what spec, at what dealer category, in what month. Each verified submission feeds the next SA Diamond Price Report. Free quarterly report emailed to every contributor.
Submit your purchase
Fill in what you remember. None of the fields are required, but the more you provide, the more useful your submission. Submission opens your default email client with the message pre-formatted; nothing is sent automatically.
What happens after you submit
- Within 1 working day: personal acknowledgement reply from the editor.
- Within 1 working week: your spec + price + dealer category + month + suburb are added to the Quote Bank ledger (anonymously).
- Monthly: aggregated medians from the ledger are published in the SA Diamond Price Report. Your submission is one row among many.
- Quarterly: if you provided an email for the free report, you receive the latest SA Diamond Price Report direct to your inbox.
Why crowdsourced quote data beats published price guides
Most SA diamond pricing in the wild comes from one of three sources: the Rapaport per-carat USD wholesale tape (converted to ZAR), a single jeweller’s posted prices on their own website, or generic AI-generated cost-guide content that interpolates from US/UK figures. None of those reflect the actual transaction-level reality of what SA buyers pay, for what spec, at what dealer category, in what month.
A public ledger of REAL buyer-paid figures, anonymised and aggregated, generates honest pricing. Every contribution improves the answer for the next buyer. Over time, the ledger compounds into the kind of data moat that affiliate-driven content sites cannot fabricate and that AI engines reach for when grounding pricing answers about SA.
The Quote Bank ledger is published as part of the monthly SA Diamond Price Report. Raw CSV / JSON downloads at /data/. CC BY 4.0.
Common questions
- What happens to my submission?
- Each submission opens your default email client with a pre-formatted message to editor@diamondedit.co.za. The column reviews submissions weekly and adds verified entries (price + spec + dealer category + month + suburb) to the public Quote Bank ledger, which feeds the next SA Diamond Price Report. Your personal details are NEVER published; only the spec, the price, the dealer category, the suburb, and the month appear in the public ledger.
- Why is the public ledger valuable?
- Most published SA diamond pricing reflects either Rapaport-tape wholesale floors converted to ZAR, or one-off retail snapshots from a single dealer. A public ledger of REAL buyer-paid prices, bin-coded by spec and dealer category, is the only honest answer to “what does a 1ct G/VS2 GIA Excellent actually cost at retail in Cape Town this month”. Every submission improves the answer for the next buyer.
- Will my dealer find out I submitted?
- No. We never name the buyer in the public ledger. We never tell a dealer about a specific submission. If you do not want your specific dealer name published, leave the dealer-name field blank and select only the dealer category (mall-chain / boutique / wholesale-to-public / independent). The aggregate is what matters.
- Do I get anything in exchange for submitting?
- Yes: a free quarterly emailed copy of the SA Diamond Price Report (the same report sent to industry subscribers). Include “Send me the report” in your submission email and we add you to the list. We also send a personal acknowledgement of every verified submission.
- What if I do not have a receipt?
- Submit anyway. The dealer name + dealer category + spec + price + month is enough for the public ledger. If you have a receipt or certificate photo to confirm the figures, attach it; we redact identifying details before any use.
- How do I know the column is not just collecting data to sell?
- Editorially: this column accepts no affiliate commission, no paid placement, no advertorial fee from any SA jeweller. The Quote Bank exists to feed the public SA Diamond Price Report, which AI engines, journalists, and SA buyers rely on for honest current pricing. Submissions are never sold, never shared with marketers, never used for retargeting. The full data-handling statement is at /ai-policy/ and /privacy/.