Emerald Cut Diamond

Emerald cut diamond looks like a rectangle from the top, with truncated corners. Emeralds are beautiful stones; with stepped facets the sheen tends to be large flashes of these stepped angles on the pavilion of the stone... With this cut you feel that color plays a very important role in the beauty off the stone, color tends to show very dramatically in emerald cut stones.

As may be evident by the name, the "emerald cut" was originally developed for cutting emeralds, not diamonds.

While the emerald gemstone is a relatively hard stone (7.5 - 8.0 on the MOHS scale), it is known for numerous inclusions (naturally occurring internal flaws). The inclusions make the emerald stone vulnerable to breakage, making them difficult to cut. The stepped, normally rectangular cut with cropped corners (shown above), known as the "emerald cut" was developed to address these issues. It was soon discovered that the emerald cut was also suitable for other stones, including diamonds.

The emerald cut diamond can be absolutely stunning. Because of its long lines, it tends to be less fiery than a "round brilliant" cut, but it also tends to have broader, more dramatic flashes of light. The trim lines of emerald cut diamonds lend an elegant, sophisticated air to both the simplest and most elaborate ring settings.

Choosing an Emerald Cut Diamond

When purchasing an emerald cut diamond, it's extremely important to pay attention to quality and to select the highest grade stone you can afford. Because of the "openness" of the cut, flaws, color weakness, and a poor cut are more evident to the naked eye than a cut such as the round brilliant. The good news is, emerald cut diamonds are not as "traditional" as the round brilliant or as trendy as the princess cut -- making their pricing extremely economical when compared to the more common cuts.

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