Martin Rapaport… First to Create Diamond Price List in World

Martin Rapaport is considered to be the developer of the first table in 1978 until it became the actual basis for the pricing process of polished diamonds sold wholesale.

Rappaport began his career in the diamond industry in Antwerp, Belgium. Then, then he worked in brokering rough and polished diamonds in New York City in 1975.

Rappaport might have remained unknown until he created the Rapaport Diamond Report, known as the Rap List or the Rap Price, in 1978, as there were no official benchmarks for prices for polished diamonds.

The Rapaport Group’s chairman has since created a number of businesses that bear his name, including the electronic trading network RapNet in 1980 and several diamond-related news sources in print and web formats.

In 1980, he established the first and largest electronic trading network RapNet in the world, which displays daily lists of 930,000 diamond stones valued at $6.2 billion and includes 7,000 members from 80 countries around the world.

It has 180 employees in different countries, including America, Belgium, India, Dubai, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.

The Rap List is published once a month. Over the years, it has been rivaled by many institutions which provide the same service, but the Rapaport report maintained its position as the most popular among diamond dealers in the world.

In the beginning, the Rapaport Diamond Report was severely criticized and attacked by diamond companies due to claims that it did not reflect the real prices. Nevertheless, the Rap Price proved to be one of the most accurate reports on the real prices of diamonds.

In the meantime, the Rapabot report reflects industry and market trends and can be used as a basis for calculating prices while studying supply and demand trends. It established market controls and limited manipulation of global diamond prices, which were monitored by some firms such as De Beers, the world's diamond giant.

The Rappaport Group is an international network of companies providing first-class, added-value services that support the development of free, fair, efficient, and competitive diamond and jewelry markets.

Martin played a key role in the Kimberley Process (KP), confronting diamonds extracted from conflict and war zones.

Moreover, the group promoted the role of diamonds for development and creative trade and contributed to the establishment of a fair trade jewelry sector that would improve the lives of millions of workers in diamond extraction in mines, and work to develop diamond cutting machines and jewelry makers.