Cut Grade, Depth, Table, Crown, Pavilion???

[ppacheco07]

Hi Everyone,

I'm a little confused about the diamond cut grade. I'm currently in the market for a 1 ct round diamond. I see that some diamonds have an ideal cut, yet the depth, table and symmetry or not ideal. How is this possible? How important is polish and symmetry to the overall brilliance of the diamond compared to the depth and table %?

I'm trying to find out what the best combination is for my price-range (around $5500, but I can go to a $6K if necessary)

Thanks everyone!

 

[crashprime]

Hi Everyone,

I'm a little confused about the diamond cut grade. I'm currently in the market for a 1 ct round diamond. I see that some diamonds have an ideal cut, yet the depth, table and symmetry or not ideal. How is this possible? How important is polish and symmetry to the overall brilliance of the diamond compared to the depth and table %?

I'm trying to find out what the best combination is for my price-range (around $5500, but I can go to a $6K if necessary)

Thanks everyone!

There is no agreed upon standard for a "cut" grade of a diamond. GIA and AGS both have different ranges for what they consider to be "Ideal" (or "Excellent" in the case of GIA). To further confuse you, there are "branded" stones which are cut for optimal performance (usually referred to as "Hearts & Arrows" or similar). These will usually exhibit the very best optics for light return, but until you see some photography (ASET and IdealScope are well known and understood here on PS) you really don't know how beautiful your diamond will be.

If you want to get an idea of which ballpark you are in, you can use the dimensions of a diamond and plug your numbers into an HCA calculator. You will get a plot where on a colored band your diamond would fall. Both GIA Excellent range and AGS Ideal range will be outlined. This will give you a general idea of how close to ideal you are. The advice around here is to aim for under 2.0, but there are many beautiful stones that fall out of this excellent range as well.

To simplify things, you can go with well known online vendors which have high standards for their top stones. James Allen has their "True Hearts & Arrows". Whiteflash has their "A Cut Above", Good Old Gold has their Superior H&A, and Brian Gavin has his Signature line.