Taylor Swift's Engagement Ring: Old Mine Cut Diamond Worth $550,000

An old mine cut diamond, estimated at around 8 carats, set in a hand-engraved yellow gold band. The cut is an antique style from the 18th and 19th centuries with a tall crown, a small flat table on top, and chunky uneven facets that throw broad warm flashes of light rather than the sharp white sparkle of a modern round brilliant. The setting was custom-made by New York jeweller Kindred Lubeck of Artifex Fine Jewelry.

The Instagram caption from Swift and Kelce when they announced the engagement on 26 August 2025 was "your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married", which has nothing to do with the ring but is the line most people remember.

Estimates from jewellery industry experts have ranged between $550,000 USD and $1 million, with $550,000 the most widely cited figure from professional appraisers in the weeks after the announcement. The variation comes from the fact that nobody outside the design team has seen the diamond up close, so the estimates rely on photo analysis to guess at the carat weight, colour, clarity, and origin. Antique mined diamonds with documented provenance command a premium over freshly-cut stones of the same specs, which widens the range.

Roughly where the cost sits:

• The stone does most of the heavy lifting on price. An 8-carat antique old mine cut diamond of high colour and clarity sits in the $400,000 to $900,000 range at retail, depending on the grades.
• The setting in custom-made hand-engraved yellow gold is a five-figure cost on top, somewhere between $15,000 and $40,000 for the metalwork and labour at this level of finish.
• The Artifex premium. Lubeck's antique-revival work has a waitlist and a name attached, which adds an increment that's harder to quantify.

The $550,000 figure is a midpoint estimate rather than a confirmed sale price. Swift and Kelce haven't disclosed what the ring cost and almost certainly won't.

Kindred Lubeck, the founder and designer behind Artifex Fine Jewelry in New York. Artifex specialises in antique-style and revival cuts (old mine, old European, rose cut, and other 18th and 19th century shapes) set in hand-engraved gold settings inspired by Georgian and Victorian jewellery.

Lubeck has been quietly designing engagement rings for clients who want something that doesn't look like a chain-store solitaire, and the Artifex aesthetic has been rising in celebrity engagements for the last two or three years. The Swift commission is the highest-profile example so far.

An antique diamond cut from roughly the 1700s through the late 1800s, before electricity changed the way diamonds were cut and polished. Each old mine cut was shaped by hand to follow the natural form of the rough stone, which is why no two look quite the same.

The defining features:

• Cushion-ish outline with rounded corners and a soft squarish shape.
• Tall crown and small table. The top of the stone has more bulk than a modern brilliant, and the flat top facet is much smaller in proportion.
• Big open culet. The bottom point is usually flattened into a small facet, which you can see as a tiny circle through the table.
• Chunky uneven facets. Hand-cutting produced asymmetry that catches light in broad lazy flashes rather than the pin-point fire of a modern cut.

The look is sometimes called "candlelight sparkle" because the cuts were originally shaped to look beautiful by candle and oil lamp, well before electric showroom lighting existed. They photograph warmer and softer than a modern round brilliant, especially in natural light.

Around 8 carats, based on photo analysis by jewellery experts. Without a hands-on appraisal the estimate could land anywhere between 7 and 9 carats, but 8 is the most commonly cited figure. For context, the average natural diamond engagement ring sits between 1 and 1.5 carats and the average lab-grown is closer to 2 carats, so an 8-carat stone is genuinely large even by celebrity engagement ring standards. Our 2 carat diamond guide gives a more realistic size reference for everyday rings.

The Swift ring sits at the intersection of two trends that have been building since around 2022:

• Yellow and rose gold are back as the default for fine jewellery after a decade of white gold and platinum dominance. The shift has been visible everywhere from designer collections to high-street brands.
• Antique and revival cuts (old mine, old European, rose cut, Asscher, emerald) are taking share from modern round and oval brilliants, especially among couples who want something that doesn't look mass-produced.

The Swift engagement gave both trends a significant boost. Jewellers across the US, UK, and Australia reported a spike in enquiries for old mine cuts and yellow gold settings in the weeks after the announcement, and several lab-grown diamond producers added old mine cut options to their cut lists to meet the demand.

Yes, at a much lower price point if you're open to a few substitutions. The Swift ring is built from four ingredients (old mine cut, large carat weight, yellow gold, hand engraving) and each is achievable at different budgets in Australia:

• Lab-grown old mine cut diamond. Most major lab-grown producers now offer the cut. A 2-carat lab-grown old mine cut in a similar yellow gold setting lands somewhere between $4,000 and $8,000 AUD, depending on grades and setting complexity.
• Old mine cut moissanite. The cut has been adopted by moissanite cutters too. A 2-carat moissanite old mine cut in a hand-engraved gold setting sits between $2,000 and $4,000 AUD.
• Antique natural diamond. If you want a genuine 19th-century stone, antique dealers in Melbourne and Sydney carry them, and a 1-carat antique old mine cut in a Victorian-era setting starts around $5,000 AUD and climbs from there.
• Hand-engraved yellow gold setting. The engraving work itself can be added to any setting and costs the same regardless of the centre stone, usually $300 to $1,500 depending on the complexity of the pattern.

A 2-carat moissanite in an engraved 14k yellow gold setting comes in around $3,000 to $5,000 AUD total, which gets you the overall look of Swift's ring at roughly 1% of the estimated price.

If you'd like one made, contact us and we'll talk through what's possible. Our custom engagement ring guide explains the design process, and our engagement ring collection has the current range of lab-grown diamond and moissanite designs.

Thanks for reading,
Jared & Brie