What Are Single Cut/Full Cut Melee Diamonds and Diamond Chips?

What Are Melee Diamonds?

Melee diamonds are small stones that are usually used in diamond jewelry as accents to larger diamonds. These stones weigh less than 0.2 carats and are used in such settings as the halo or the pave setting. They are often used to complement the center stone (as an example, check out these halo settings, in which the central diamond is surrounded by smaller accents)

Melees can have two types of cuts: single cut and full cut.

Single-Cut vs. Full-Cut Diamonds: What Is the Difference?

What Are Single-Cut Diamonds?

Diamonds that are cut as round brilliants but have fewer than the standard 57 or 58 of facets are referred to as “single cut”. As a rule, single-cut diamonds will have only 17 or 18 facets (many have 16).

Usually, round brilliants are shaped into single cuts first, and the additional facets are added afterwards, making the stone into a full-cut diamond. However, some diamonds will not be cut further and will remain single-cut stones. This is most often the case with smaller diamonds, for which having fewer facets doesn’t make much of a difference when it comes to appearance.

Single-cut diamonds are rarely produced and used nowadays. 

What Is a Full Cut?

A full-cut diamond is a stone that is shaped into a round brilliant cut and has 57 or 58 facets. For example, take a look at these round diamonds — they are all full-cut stones. The round cut is considered a classic diamond shape, as opposed to the so-called “fancy cuts”, which can take many different forms and have a varying number of facets.

It should be noted that a diamond can be cut into a round brilliant shape and have fewer facets than the standard 57 or 58. In this case, the stone will not be considered a full-cut diamond.

Most melee diamonds nowadays are full cut stones as the cutting technology is advanced enough to produce full-cut small stones.

Related: Check out this selection of diamond rings and see how you can design your own ring.

What Are Diamond Chips?

Diamond chips, as their name suggests, are small pieces that were broken off a bigger stone. They are not polished or shaped in any particular form.

A diamond chip is a piece of diamond that is not faceted. Diamond chips are usually small (less than 0.2 carats in weight) and are often used as accent stones surrounding a bigger center diamond. Since chips are not polished, their surface is not smooth but is rough to the touch.

People use the term “diamond chips” to refer to the small stones surrounding a center diamond.

These chips are not really symmetrical, and they can most often be seen in vintage jewelry, where they are used as accent stones.

Real Diamond Chips: Rarely Used Today

Most people use the term “diamond chips” to refer to the small stones surrounding a center diamond in a piece of jewelry. However, in most cases, these stones are not really chips. In reality, diamond chips are rarely used in jewelry these days.

In the past, when cutting and polishing technology was not as advanced as it is today, it was very hard to shape a small diamond and cut facets in it. Nowadays, this is not such a big problem, and the stones customers often call “chips” are actually diamonds that are cut and polished single-cut or full-cut diamonds.

The Value of Diamond Chips

Diamond chips are much cheaper per carat compared with diamonds that are cut and polished. The reason for this is not only the small size of chips – they are also cheaper than cut and polished diamonds of the same size.

Here you can see offers for diamonds chips and their prices.

Tennis bracelets are often made with diamond chips.

Diamond chips have low value manly because they are not faceted. As a result, these stones do not bend and reflect light the same way faceted diamonds do. Because of this, chips have much lower brilliance than stones cut with facets. The lack of polish also contributes to the low sparkle of diamond chips – the roughness of their surface further impedes the reflection of light.

Evaluating Diamond Chips

If you happen to be looking at a piece of jewelry with diamond chips, here’s what you should know about the characteristics that determine their price:

Color of Diamond Chips

As with all diamonds, how colorless a diamond chip is affects its value: The more visible yellowish color you can see in a stone, the less valuable it is. It is also important for diamond chips to be uniform in terms of color when a lot of them are set together in a piece of jewelry: You don’t want a patchwork of stones with visible darker and lighter clusters. Also, if there is a center stone in the setting, the diamond chips surrounding it should match its color.

Clarity and Diamond Chips

This characteristic affects the value of chips in much the same way as it does that of faceted diamonds: The fewer inclusions inside a stone, the more valuable it is. However, for diamond chips, clarity is not as important as color because they are often so small that individual flaws are usually not visible from a normal viewing distance. However, jewelry with diamond chips that have prominent flaws should be discounted.

Cut of Diamond Chips

As already mentioned, this characteristic is not really applicable to diamond chips as they are not cut and faceted. If anything, the lack of definite cut makes chips much less valuable than faceted stones of similar size.

Carat and Diamond Chips

In general, bigger diamonds are more expensive per unit of weight than smaller ones. The reason for this is rarity: Larger diamonds are simply found much less often. All else being equal, the same principle holds for chips of different sizes: Bigger ones cost more per carat than smaller diamond chips.

Diamond Chips vs. Single-Cut and Full-Cut Diamonds

Whereas chips don’t really have a symmetrical shape, single-cut and full-cut diamonds are round and faceted.

Diamond chips were used in jewelry in the past, when cutting technologies were not precise enough to allow jewelers to cut small diamond pieces into faceted stones. Nowadays, full-cut diamonds are used instead of diamond chips.

It is worth noting that single-cut or full-cut small diamonds can actually be referred to as chips, so when this term is used, you should clarify whether the diamonds are uncut or are actually faceted.

Why Single-Cut Diamonds Are Better Than Chips

So, what difference does it make if single-cut or full-cut accent stones are faceted while diamond chips are not?

Well, as a result of being cut in certain proportions, faceted diamonds can reflect light in a way that allows them to exhibit brilliance and sparkle.

Chips, on the other hand, do not bend light as faceted stones do, and as a result, diamond chips do not have the same brilliance. That’s why a ring decorated with faceted diamond accents will have more sparkle than one with chips.

Another plus for jewelry made with full-cut and single-cut stones is that their uniform shape gives the piece a more even appearance than that of jewelry made with chips.

Price of Diamond Chips

Since real diamond chips are rarely sold today, the prices you will find quoted for chips will most likely pertain to single-cut or full-cut small diamonds. If the “chips” sold are referred to as “melee,” “single cuts,” “diamond accents” or something similar, then they are actually single-cut or full-cut stones.

Just as the price of regular diamonds rises with their carat, so does the value of diamond chips. A melee diamond of 0.01-0.02 carats (or 1-2 points) can cost between $300 and $700 per carat depending on the stone’s color and clarity as well as the seller (wholesale prices are lower than retail ones).

A 0.10-carat melee can cost more than $1,000 (again, retail prices are higher, and stones with better clarity and color sell for more). Keep in mind that these prices can vary significantly over time.

Related: If you are interested in the prices of full-cut loose diamonds, you can use this loose diamond search engine for your research.   

Should You Buy Jewelry with Diamond Chips?

Although a lot of stones called chips these days are simply melee diamonds, some pieces of jewelry are made with real diamond chips. This is why you should look closely at any piece with small stones to check whether they are faceted or not.

In general, jewelry with diamond chips should be cheaper than that made with melee diamonds. However, you should ask yourself whether it is worth it for you to buy such a piece. For one thing, because they are not faceted, chips don’t have much brilliance.

If you are trying to decide whether to buy a ring with chips, for example, compare it with one made with faceted stones. You might find that the additional sparkle of melee stones is worth paying a little more and getting a ring with faceted diamonds.

In sum, if brilliance is important to you, pick jewelry with faceted diamond accents.