De Beers Slashes Prices at First Sight With Much Smaller List

By Rob Bates | July 10, 2026

De Beers dramatically slashed prices on certain smaller goods at its sight last week—its first with a new client list that’s been shorn by at least a third.

Yet while most media coverage focused on the decline in prices, one source tells JCK that the adjustments were “both up and down, depending on the specific box,” with some in-demand large goods receiving slight boosts. That said, the decreases were far more drastic, reportedly reaching 50% in some cases.

The actual percentages were hard to determine since, as Bloomberg reported, De Beers has changed the way it presents assortments.

“Rather than giving the price for each individual box of diamonds, it invoices a single total,” the report said, noting the new practice makes the actual “price cuts hard to determine.”

Despite the media coverage, many in the industry argued the price drops weren’t worth panicking about. Stuart Samuels, president of the Diamond Manufacturers &d Importers Association, as well as Premier Gem Corp., said in a YouTube video that De Beers’ action simply reflected the market and doesn’t mean prices will drop further.

“For quite some time, De Beers deliberately maintained its official rough diamond prices above the prevailing market levels while restricting supply rather than flooding the market during a difficult time,” he said.

“Recent reports indicate that the company now has chosen to bring its official pricing much closer to where the market already has been trading,” he added. “This appears to be less about discovering a new market price than about aligning De Beers’ official price book with the realities of today’s market.”

The new assortments were favorably received by the company’s clients—so much so that sources say some sightholders asked for more goods, for the first time in years. And in most cases, they were told, to their surprise, they weren’t available.

This was also the first sight De Beers held with its considerably reduced sightholder list—which it initially notified clients about in late March. While De Beers began the year with 69 clients, its current roster consists of about 43 to 48 companies. (Though its customer directory is public, it’s difficult to calculate an exact number, as many of the listed companies are divisions of the same business. De Beers has declined to provide an official tally.) The current list also includes one new sightholder, Shivam Jewels, based out of India.

New York City was hit particularly hard in the latest culling, with at least three well-respected companies losing their sights. Grandview Klein is now the sole remaining New York City gem company on the roster. Another New York company, Lieber & Solow, remains an industrial sightholder, and the list includes two U.S. retail names: Signet and Tiffany & Co.

De Beers executives say they had no choice but to narrow their list, as the company now has fewer goods due to ongoing production cuts. In addition, its new contract with Botswana will let that country sell more of its goods independently, and its Canadian mine, Gahcho Kué, is due to shut by 2028.

Still, while in the past many considered losing a spot on the De Beers list to be a massive blow, the company has cut its list so many times—at one point it had over 300 clients—that becoming an ex-sightholder no longer has the same stigma.

“It used to hurt if you lost your sight,” says one industry veteran who’s spoken to some companies that didn’t make the cut. “You felt like you were being kicked out of the most amazing club in the world. Today, it’s not even close.

“A lot of them are going into different directions, like jewelry. Some people who were cut off didn’t take a lot of goods. Why should they keep taking losses?”

(Photo courtesy of De Beers)