The Princess Cut
The princess cut is probably one of the best known styles of diamond you can buy today, often set in gold or platinum. It's a relatively recent innovation having been developed in 1980 by the Ambar Company. It's particularly popular as a solitaire stone in rings, earrings or studs.
What Is The Princess Cut?
The princess is a form of diamond cut. In other words it's a standard design shape used by diamond cutters when taking raw diamonds and turning them into stones for rings and other jewelry. There are many such cuts and the choice of which to use depends partly on the features of the raw diamond and partly on current fashion.
The princess is a modified form of the standard and ever-popular round brilliant cut and is sometimes referred to as a square modified round cut. Whereas the top of the round brilliant is circular, the princess cut produces a square or rectangle - an ideal princess is square, however the exact shape varies. Thus whilst the round brilliant resembles a cone the princess is more like a four sided pyramid.
Why are princess cut diamonds so popular? Partly it's because the shape maintains more of the original stone than the round brilliant. An octahedral rough diamond can often be split in two to yield two stones which in turn produce two princesses with a total weight greater than a round brilliant from the same original stone. Because less of the orginal stone is wasted the price of the princess cut diamond is often less than would be expected for a round brilliant of similar carat weight.
The princess cut isn't without its problems. The corners are prone to chipping and damage so they are often protected by the setting using metal prongs.