Find Your Perfect Diamond
Made to sit flush against the engagement ring it was designed for.
Every ring is made from start to finish in our Los Angeles atelier.
The round brilliant's fire in a square frame, at the friendliest price per carat of any major shape. The princess wastes almost none of its rough crystal and passes the savings to you, asking only one thing in return: that its four sharp corners live under prongs and pass a video check.
The princess is a square brilliant: a modern cut, developed in the second half of the twentieth century, that maps the round brilliant's light performance onto a square outline with four sharp, uncropped corners. Its pavilion is faceted in chevrons, V-shaped tiers that fold light into a distinctive cross-and-X pattern face up, giving the princess a glitter all its own, denser and icier than a round's.
Its quiet superpower is economics. The princess retains more of the rough diamond crystal than any other major cut, roughly eighty percent against the round's sixty, and that efficiency flows straight into price: carat for carat, the princess is consistently the most affordable of the major shapes. The same budget buys visibly more diamond, or the same diamond at higher grades.
Its one genuine demand is at the corners. Four true ninety degree points are where a diamond is most vulnerable to chipping and where inclusions do their only real damage, so the corners drive both the video check and the setting choice. Solve the corners, and the princess is the sharpest value in brilliant-cut diamonds.
| Facets | Typically 57 to 76, brilliant style with chevrons |
| Cut grading | No formal lab cut grade, evaluate by eye |
| Face-up size | Smaller than a round of equal weight, deeper profile |
| Length to width | 1.00 to 1.05, crisply square |
| Relative price | The lowest per carat of the major shapes |
| Watch for | Corner inclusions, dark corners, corner protection |
The princess runs deep to feed its chevrons, so it faces up a touch smaller than a round of equal weight. Its price advantage more than covers the difference: the budget that buys a round often buys a princess a healthy step up in carat, which settles the size question in the square's favor.
| Carat Weight | Typical Measurements | How It Wears |
|---|---|---|
| 0.75 ct | 5.0 x 5.0 mm | A crisp, precise square on slender hands |
| 1.00 ct | 5.5 x 5.5 mm | The classic princess, dense with sparkle |
| 1.50 ct | 6.4 x 6.4 mm | Confident geometry, unmistakably modern |
| 2.00 ct | 7.0 x 7.0 mm | Serious presence with icy fire |
| 3.00 ct | 8.0 x 8.0 mm | A commanding square across the finger |
Measurements are typical for well proportioned stones. Individual diamonds vary with their cutting.
The princess forgives clarity and color almost as generously as the round, then concentrates all its risk in four small places. Here is where your attention belongs.
Read the certificate's clarity plot and find the inclusions nearest the four corners. A crystal or feather at a corner sits exactly where prong pressure and daily knocks land, and it is the one place an SI grade can genuinely matter. Center inclusions vanish in the chevron glitter; corner inclusions are the real question.
A well cut princess sparkles edge to edge. A poorly cut one goes dark in the four corners or dull across the center, flaws no certificate line reports. On video, turn the stone and confirm the fire reaches all four points and the cross pattern stays lively through the middle.
The chevron faceting shreds inclusions and hides body color nearly as well as a round, so VS2 and eye clean SI1 stones are genuine smart buys, and H or I color reads white in most settings. Spend the savings on carat or cut quality, the two things you will actually see.
Every stone we recommend is scored by ROSI™, our gemological intelligence, built by our gemologists, and verified by a human eye before it reaches you. Request a ROSI™ Score Report on any diamond you are considering, ours or anyone else’s.
Found a princess cut you are considering, here or anywhere else? Send the GIA or IGI certificate number and our gemological team returns its ROSI™ Score and a read of where it sits in the current market. Complimentary, within minutes.
Score a DiamondWhere stones of the same exact specifications are trading on the open market right now. You get a straight answer, even when the diamond is not ours.
Every princess setting has one non-negotiable job: cover the four corners. Within that rule, the shape's clean geometry gives you three strong directions, each made to order around your exact stone.
One V-prong or corner claw on each point, nothing else. The classic princess mount: maximum stone, full protection exactly where the shape needs it.
The square outline continued in a channel of princess accents flush along the band. Seamless, armor-strong at the edges, and the pairing that made the princess a wedding set favorite.
A frame of pavé that rounds the square's presence and shields its corners in one move. Adds visible size and softens the geometry for wearers torn between princess and cushion.
The princess is the best price in brilliant diamonds because the cutter wastes nothing. Your only job is to protect four corners the cutter left sharp.
We will give you the arithmetic straight: the princess converts rough to polished more efficiently than any major shape, and that is the honest reason it costs less per carat than a round, not any defect in its beauty. The risks are small, specific, and permanent: inclusions at the corners matter more than the clarity grade suggests, dark corners are a cutting flaw only video reveals, and an exposed point will eventually find a doorframe. Buy the stone on video, keep inclusions away from the points, and never accept a setting that leaves a corner bare. Do those three things and the princess delivers more sparkle per dollar than anything else we sell; skip them and the savings were never real. Wearers who love the square but want softer insurance should look at the cushion, and we will tell you honestly which suits the hand in front of us.
We are a Los Angeles fine jewelry atelier with family roots in the diamond trade going back to 1967. That history buys you four things you will not find together anywhere else.
Send us the certificate of a stone we do not sell and we will still score it. No other jeweler will grade a competitor’s diamond for you and tell you if it is the better buy.
Every ROSI™ report shows where stones of identical specifications are trading right now, drawn from live market data. You see the range before you see our price.
Every score is verified by our gemological team before it reaches you, and John Anderson, our Lead Gemologist, is one phone call away for the questions a report cannot answer.
Every setting leaves our Los Angeles atelier built around your exact diamond, at one confident price, with 40 day returns and 60 day complimentary resizing behind it.
John Anderson, our Lead Gemologist, reviews princess cuts with clients every day. Send him the certificate of any stone you are considering and he will tell you what the paper says and what it leaves out. The consultation is complimentary and there is no obligation.
1-800-779-1726