Botswana’s diamonds are not merely precious stones. They have also been central to the country’s public finances since independence. For someone seeking a mining job, recruitment is a possible point of contact between national mineral wealth and a household’s income. Yet the price of a gemstone does not guarantee a job for everyone. Skills, location and employers’ hiring decisions all matter. The revealing contrast is between a diamond in a shop window and the administrative process of applying to work where it was mined. A stone that travels across the world can begin with very local hopes for a wage. The source record does not, however, establish when or where applicants physically queued at a particular mine. This is an editorial exploration of a proposed queue, not a reconstruction of a witnessed scene.