The Round Cut Diamond

Round Cut Diamonds

The most popular "shape" of diamonds remains the round shape diamond, for very sound reasons. The Round Brilliant Cut Diamond is designed to provide maximum optics for the brilliance and scintillation, making the light seem to sparkle and dance in the light.

The Round Brilliant
The most common, and most "brilliant", diamond cut is the Brilliant Cut, a.k.a. the Round Cut, American Ideal Cut, or American Standard Cut.

Back at the turn of the century, Marcel Tolkowsky, a member of a large and powerful diamond family, calculated the cuts necessary to create the ideal diamond shape. As part of his PhD thesis in mathematics, Tolkowsky considered variables such as index of refraction and covalent bond angles to describe what has become known as the brilliant cut.

Round shaped diamonds come in several varieties:

Modern Brilliant Cut
Often known as the brilliant, round, round brilliant, or brill. Has 58 facets, including the table and culet.

Eight Cut or Single Cut
Often used for very small diamonds, under 1 or 2 "points". These only have eight facets on the crown, eight on the pavilion, plus the table and culet, making 18 in total.

Old Cut or Early Modern Brilliant
An older, less precisely cut version of the modern brilliant cut.

Swiss Cut
Halfway between a brilliant and an eight cut, with 34 facets in total.

Rose Cut
Most rose cut diamonds are round, but some may look triangular, or have straight edges. Rose cuts look like diamonds which have been cut upside-down, they rise to a point at the top, and are often flat at the base.