There are many reasons why cut is (only slightly arguably) the driving factor in the value and longevity of a diamond’s value. It is also significant to the look of the stone, especially the way it sparkles – and that alone can affect the stone’s resale value! Let us take a look at diamond cuts, and assess why they are so important when you are buying a stone.
The Look of It All
Diamonds are perhaps the most image conscious items in our image conscious world. No one, for example, has ever bought a diamond and then painted it black (hopefully not, anyway!). This is because diamonds are made to shine and sparkle, and preventing them from doing this means that you have a nicely shaped pebble and not much more! With such a focus on image, it is no surprise that the cut – which gives the diamond an attractive and fashionable shape as well as freeing its inner sparkle from the natural, rather unimpressive skin with which diamonds are mined – is an important factor.
Princess cut diamonds tend to be larger, retaining much of the original stone, while round brilliant cut diamonds can lose as much as fifty percent of the original stone – and yet both will have the same value on the high street, giving the impression that princess cut diamonds are cheaper when in fact both stones started out with the same volume of raw material.
Round brilliant cut diamonds are also very popular, accounting for over half of the commercial diamond trade – not bad considering that there are about eight reasonably popular diamond cuts!
Value Added
While round brilliant or princess cut diamonds are the two most popular, between them accounting for something like seventy percent of the market, popularity is not the only criteria considered when a cutter is thinking how best to showcase the stone they are examining. Sometimes the natural configuration of the stone will demand that one cut or another is used – for example, an emerald cut lends itself very well to a shallow flat diamond, maximizing the width and length, and adding elegance with the long lines that makes up in no small measure for the loss of sparkle caused by the stone’s flatness. Treating the diamond this way adds value, and a good cutter can make even a fairly mediocre stone into a great one by removing flaws and fractures and making the best job of the remaining stone.
Perfect Symmetry
But the Holy Grail of diamonds are those who do not need cutting tricks to help them do better – they are stones that are naturally almost without flaw, of excellent color and large carat weight, that can be even more enhanced by exquisitely precise cutting. These stones, known as A Cut Above diamonds, are those deemed to be the very cream of the crop, and they are to all intents and purposes perfect. A good cutter, crafting one of these D or E rated, internally flawless, four or five carat stones can see its value skyrocket from thousands to tens of thousands!
And that is the value of a well-cut diamond. With so much value added by a good cut, it is a wise diamond buyer who considers the cut of their wares above all else!
