THE CIRCULAR BRILLIANT DESIGNATION

GIA addresses older-style diamonds that do not meet the cut grade standard criteria of the Old European Cut or the new Round Brilliant Cut. Previously, GIA graders had to decide whether to call a stone a round brilliant and grade it according to contemporary standards, or to call it an old European cut and simply record color and clarity without a cut grade.

Circular Brilliant Cut Diamnds resembled the old European cut style, but do not meet GIA's required proportion parameters for that description.  GIA decided to introduce a new description for 58-facet round brilliants. The requirements for a stone to fall into this new category are:

•  Lower half length: less than or equal to 60 percent
•  Star length: less than or equal to 50 percent
•  Culet size: medium or larger

The new description used on GIA reports for these diamonds is “circular brilliant.” All three criteria must apply for the diamond to be designated as a circular brilliant on the GIA grading report. This designation acknowledges that the diamond is not a modern-day round brilliant, suggests a description for rounds of earlier times, and keeps the historic old European cut definition unaltered.