15 Popular Types of Gemstone Cuts and Which is the Most Expensive Cut?

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Curious about how different types of gemstone cuts affect the outcome of gemstone processing? Do you know which is the most expensive cut of stones? We’ll also explain how various gemstone cuts work!

Table of Contents

Different Types of Gemstone Cuts:

1. The Most Expensive Gemstone Cut: Round Brilliant

The round brilliant cut holds the distinction of being the most expensive cut (especially for diamonds) and for having the highest degree of sparkle among all the other cuts.

It features the most number of facets per gemstone, and the results are usually fantastic fire and extreme clarity. This cut is highly demanding and requires more time to accomplish, as well as more expertise from the person performing the cutting and polishing.

2. Asscher or Square Emerald Cut

Asscher Cut

The Asscher cut combines the better-known princess cut and the mythic emerald cut (square cut). This cut features cropped corners, a square figure, and several step-cuts and facets to increase gem clarity. This cut first emerged in 1902, and the innovation is credited to the Asscher brothers.

3. Baguette Cut

Baguette cut

Baguette-cut gemstones are rectangular and are ideal as accent stones. The name comes from the Italian term “bachetta,” which means “stick” and the French word “baguette,” which is an elongated loaf of baked bread. The Baguette cut stands out for its symmetry and clean lines, a departure from the eclectic look of the round brilliant cut.

4. Briolette Cut

The Briolette is a most demanding cut because it doesn’t have the usual sections of a cut diamond. A single Briolette-cut gemstone will have eighty-four individual facets. The sheer number of sides can produce fire (brilliance) like round brilliant-cut diamonds and gems. A piece of metal is affixed to the tip of a teardrop-shaped Briolette gem to be used for dangling earrings.

5. Cabochon Cut

The cabochon cut is one of the most familiar cuts in existence because it is often used for more affordable gems that have a waxy luster and are translucent and opaque. Cabochon gems are affixed with glue on a single bezel, and they have rounded tops, like pillows. The name of this cut originates from the French term “caboche,” which means “a head.” The cabochon cut is often used when the gem features visual effects like chatoyance or cat’s eye effect and asterism.

6. Antique Cushion Cut

Also called the Old European, the antique cushion cut is a square rendition of a gemstone with an average of sixty-four facets. It is also called the classic pillow cut, and it was devised a long time ago to reduce the wastage of gems during processing, so jewelers will be able to retain as much of the raw gem as possible while increasing its fire and clarity.

7. Emerald Cut

Emerald-Cut

The emerald cut is another rectangular gemstone cut with characteristically trimmed corners. This cut has an average of fifty facets, and admittedly, it has one of the lowest numbers of sides compared to the previous cuts we mentioned earlier.

Despite the emerald cut’s seeming weakness, it does present the deep and vivid color saturation of emeralds well, and it remains the classic choice for emeralds and related gemstones. The shape of the emerald cut allows light to bounce around the gems’ interior, highlighting its brilliance even more.

8. Heart Cut

The heart cut is a fancy gemstone cut that has a top cleft. The heart cut is not an exact model of the elegant heart shape that most people know. Instead, the cutter creates an oval gem with tipped ends. Heart-cut gems have an average of fifty-nine facets designed to deliver maximum fire when hit by natural light.

Heart-cut gems have a high level of symmetry to maximize their beauty. The sides of heart-cut gems are also made to be somewhat rounded to balance the movement of light through the gem’s crystalline structure.

9. Marquise Cut

The marquise cut has fifty-seven individual facets and is also known to the jewelry world as the Navette cut. The marquise cut was designed to create the most sparkle by maximizing the space where light can be reflected.

The tips of a marquise-cut gemstones have to be perfectly aligned with each other so the gem can sit perfectly on a flat surface. This reduces the chances of mishaps and subsequent chipping of the gem.

10. Octagon Cut

The octagon cut utilizes the step-cut method in cutting gems and has multiple rows of concentric facets. When you look at the gem from an angle, the concentric sides look like stairs. An average octagon cut has fifty-three facets and is used primarily to showcase the deeper regions of the crystalline structure. Gemstones that have visible internal inclusions will most clearly exhibit these inclusions, so jewelers are careful to select only the best gems for the octagon cut.

11. Oval Cut

The oval cut was first devised in the latter part of the 1950s by Lazare Kaplan. It is a teardrop-shaped cut with an oval bottom, and it is an experimental hybrid of the marquise cut and the round brilliant cut. Surprisingly, it has one of the highest numbers of facets at sixty-nine facets, and it said that it possesses the high-quality fire of round brilliant cut in a stunning shape beyond the norm.

12. Pear (Teardrop) Cut

The pear cut is the third teardrop-shaped cut in our rundown, and this cut can only be described as the child of the sovereign marquise cut and the standard oval cut. The pear cut tends to taper toward the end and is credited to Louis van Berquem.

13. Princess Cut

Decidedly one of the most well-known cuts, especially for engagement rings, the princess cut is a crowd favorite because of its brilliance and beauty. And why shouldn’t it be pretty – it is the shortest square version of the round brilliant cut, the most expensive cut of them all.

14. Radiant Cut

Radiant Cut

The radiant cut is essentially the rounder pillow form of the princess cut. First used by Henry Grossbard in the late seventies, the radiant cut features a rounded and symmetric top with a square form factor. Hollywood celebrities are notable for picking radiant cut over the others.

15. Round Cut

The round cut is not equivalent to the round brilliant cut. It is known as the American Standard and holds substantial fifty-seven facets. It is said that this cut was around since the 18^th century and traced its origin to Italy, under the skilled hands of a polisher named Vincenzio Perruzzi from Venice.