The Pefect Princess

[journalists_do_it_better]

Any experts care to weigh-in on the specs for a perfect princess?

I''m new to diamonds, and would like some basic guidelines to help narrow down my search to a quality rock (carat size 1.5-1.75)

You guys rock.

 

[Paul-Antwerp]

Hello Journalist,

I am from Europe, and we still have princesses here, and from what we can observe in our royal families, princesses can be perfect in many different ways.

The same is true for princess-cuts in diamonds. It is very difficult to give you guidelines, since the information that can generally be obtained will not suffice. We can continue the comparison basically with European royalty.

In the old days, princesses needed to already have royal blood in their veins, and a prince looking for a wife had less options. Because of that, the quality of the traditional princesses was generally low. The same is true in the traditional way of cutting princess-cuts. They are generally cut for weight-retention with lower performance.

Nowadays, it is possible that royalty chooses a wife among common folk, and we see real beauties as the princesses of today. In the same way, the fact that AGS started grading princess-cuts has created a supply (still limited) of princess-cuts with AGS-0-reports, and generally speaking, their performance cannot be compared to the traditionally cut princess.

Therefore, if you are looking for the perfect princess, starting with AGS-reports will be good. However, within AGS-0, there still are various levels of performance, just as in rounds. So, if you want to go further in detail, I would suggest aiming for extreme squareness and symmetry.

At the same time, do pay attention too to the taste-aspect. You have a choice between princess-cuts with 2, 3 or 4 (maybe even 5) chevron-lines. Each of these has a clearly different look, and you need to decide which one appeals most to your taste.

So, you thought life was easy for a prince. Well, choosing the perfect princess definitely is not easy, but the search can surely be pleasant.

Live long,

 

[niceice]

I agree with Paul, beginning your quest by narrowing the field to Princess cut diamonds graded by the AGS Laboratory as AGS Ideal 0 will go a long way to improving your chances of finding a diamond with truly magnificent performance without a lot of guesswork. Both the GIA and the AGS currently provide the proportions of the diamond, as well as grades for polish and symmetry, however the AGS also takes the overall visual performance of the diamond into account.