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Diamond Cut Grade: For GIA Certified Diamonds, a cut grade of “Very Good” will look great. You will, however, be able to notice an improvement in brilliance by upgrading to “Excellent.” For AGS Certified Diamonds, a cut grade of “Excellent” will suffice, but you will notice added brilliance by upgrading to “Ideal”

For Maximum Brilliance: Consider a cut. Brian is a leading industry expert in the field of cut optimization. His Signature cuts are on par with the famed brand – only far cheaper.

For Round Brilliant Cut Diamonds, don’t give any credence to an online vendor’s cut grade. 

Only focus on the GIA or AGS cut grade on the certificate.

Diamond Cut refers to how well proportioned the diamond is. For example, what percentage of a diamonds diameter is its depth? What are its various angles and how do they interact with one another?

While these may seem like esoteric questions, these are the essential factors that determine how beautiful your diamond will be. For a great visual representation of why these issues matter, have a look at that.

Until January 1st, 2006, you basically had two options when it came to diamond cut grade.

You could either buy a diamond with an AGS certificate and trust their diamond cut grading system, or you could learn about the various proportions of diamond cut and trust your own education about what numbers translated into a beautiful diamond.

On that day, though, the GIA introduced a new certificate format that included their very own diamond cut grade. They claim that their Diamond Cut Grade system is based on 15 years of research testing and retesting different combinations of measurements with real life light performance tests.

As opposed to the old AGS system which simply defined what an “ideal” diamond is and then gives lower grades the farther away from that “ideal” the parameters are, the GIA system does not have any one single definition of perfection.

They claim that in their research various differing combinations of proportions equally produced diamonds that reflected the most light.

To be fair, in the middle of 2005, AGS also realized that their way of doing things was antiquated. So beginning on June 1st, the AGS lab began offering its certificates with a new light performance-based cut grade.

As it would turn out, though, this new method made it even more difficult for stones to receive the coveted “Ideal” grade for cut. Thus, when the GIA cut grade was released a half a year later with its more elegant solution, AGS lost much market share to the GIA.

Realizing their error and almost facing extinction, the AGS lab in 2008 decided to copy the GIA and began offering a “new” proportions based cut grade.

I write “new” in quotation marks because, really, there was nothing new about it. The AGS cut grade prior to 2005 had always been proportions based.

They simply re-introduced it, just this time with more flexibility. They made the smart decision to mimic the GIA and award Ideal cut grades to different non-concentric combinations of proportions.

In my opinion, the GIA & AGS systems are clearly a much more elegant solution to the question of what cut proportions produce the most beautiful diamonds.

The fact is, it’s a more elegant solution than your typical diamond dealer’s instincts, as well. What I mean is, before GIA introduced their cut grade, most diamond dealers thought about cut grade the same way the AGS did.

They had in their mind what was the perfect set of parameters, and basically, diamonds got uglier the further they strayed from that ideal. This revelation of how GIA Diamond Cut Grade worked was a boon to diamond manufacturers as well.

Now, the cutters had more options when assessing a piece of rough for cutting. If a diamond with a 57% sized table couldn’t fit into a certain piece of rough and still maintain the weight category, then they could try a diamond with a 60% table and see if that would maintain the weight.

If the diamond cut is too shallow, entering light strikes the pavillion facet at a low angle and passes through the facet (refracts), escaping through the bottom of the diamond.

If the diamond cut is too deep, entering light strikes the first pavilion facet at an angle sharp enough to reflect to the second pavilion. But the light strikes the second pavilion at too low an angle, causing the light to refract (pass through the facet), escaping through the bottom of the diamond.

In a well cut diamond, the light strikes each pavilion facet at an angle which allows most of the light to reflect back to the crown (top). As it passes through the crown facets at a low angle, the light refracts upon exit. In this case, refraction is a good thing, as the bent light travels to the observer's eye and is perceived as a lively fire.