De Beers makes historic u-turn by selling man-made diamonds

For the first time in its 130-year history, De Beers will sell diamond jewellery made in a lab rather than underground over billions of years.

The move is a historic shift for the world’s biggest diamond miner, which vowed for years that it wouldn’t sell stones created in laboratories. The diamonds will be marketed in the US under the name Lightbox, a fashion jewellery brand, and sell for a fraction of the price of mined gems.

The strategy will create a big price gap between mined and lab diamonds and pressure rivals that specialise in synthesised stones. A 1-carat man-made