http://www.marketwatch.com/story/diamond-prices-latest-frontier-in-industry-battle-2011-09-30TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) — Diamonds, coveted by millions of people around the world, undertake a convoluted journey from the earth’s interior to a prized consumer object capable of holding deep emotional meaning.
For many, the diamond industry is synonymous with the enormous influence that the De Beers family of companies traditionally exercised over the entire market. The mining firm founded by Cecil John Rhodes still does — through its London-based Diamond Trading Company unit — sort, value and sell the lion’s share of the world’s rough diamonds in terms of value. The other thing that often comes to mind is the moral Pandora’s box opened up by blood or conflict diamonds.
Less well-known is that, for an industry that employs over 10 million people around the world and generates jewelry revenues in excess of $70 billion year after year, the pricing of polished diamonds, the key part of the diamond pipeline that directly affects the prices of our rings, earrings and watches, is a contested practice going through a period of reexamination.
Since the late 1970s, one man, Martin Rapaport, and his firm, The Rapaport Group, has largely been responsible for setting the prices of the polished diamonds that thousands of manufacturers, dealers, wholesalers and eventually retailers around the world rely on to conduct their transactions, and to make sure they get a fair price.
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