If you are new to different diamond shapes, you can easily get confused between an emerald-cut diamond and a radiant-cut diamond ring. They have almost similar shapes but have significant differences between them. Both diamond cuts are widely used in engagement ring diamonds and are quite popular. In this article, we are discussing the major differences between these two diamond cuts and the aspects to consider when buying one.
About Emerald-Cut Diamond
The emerald cut is one of the oldest cuts in diamonds and the origin of this cut dates back to the 1500s. An emerald-cut diamond typically has 57 facets and cropped corners. You may observe that most emerald-cut diamonds are rectangular, but square-shaped emerald-cut diamonds are also available. As it is a step-cut diamond, the sparkle of an emerald-cut is inferior to brilliant-cut diamonds, but that is no reason to avoid emerald-cut diamond rings.
About Radiant-Cut Diamond
In 1977, a prolific diamond cutter named Henry Grossbard invented the original radiant cut. He knew that there are many admirers of the rectangular shape of emerald-cut diamonds. But most of them hesitated to buy them for their inferior brilliance. As a solution to this problem, Henry combined the features of round brilliant cut and emerald-cut to make radiant-cut diamonds. The radiant-cut diamond has the brilliance close to a round brilliant-cut diamond and has the elongated rectangular shape of an emerald-cut diamond.
Radiant-Cut Vs The Emerald Cut
Let us now compare the major features of both radiant-cut and emerald-cut diamonds.
Cut
The cut is one of the major differences between these diamonds. The emerald cut is a step-cut design whereas the radiant cut is a brilliant cut.
Parallel facets on the step-cut stones give them a neat and polished appearance and make it simpler to observe their pattern. This is why it is crucial to select good clarity and color grades when selecting emerald-cut diamonds. On the other hand, the radiant cut has greater fire, brilliance, and scintillation, but the facet pattern is harder to identify without proper training.
Facets
The shape of the facets of an emerald-cut diamond is rectangular and they are parallel to each other, whereas radiant-cut diamonds have triangular-shaped facets.
Brilliance And Scintillation
As we mentioned earlier, radiant-cut diamonds are brilliant-cut diamonds. Hence they have more brilliance than emerald-cut diamonds. Emerald-cut diamonds are specifically cut to enhance their clarity. Clarity grades are more important with emerald cut diamonds, as flaws and inclusions in them can be easily spotted.