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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
Zoe Forsey

Princess Eugenie's engagement ring is more impressive than Kate Middleton's due to special detail

The Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Eugenie are both proud owners of pretty stunning engagement rings.

Even though they are very different pieces, their basic design is pretty similar - a huge sapphire surrounded by a number of gorgeous, high quality diamonds.

They differ in colour, with Jack Brooksbank picking a pink sapphire for his bride-to-be while Kate's ring, which she inherited from her late mother-in-law Princess Diana, is blue.

And while we might assume that Kate's stunning ring was more expensive and valuable as Prince William is our future king, that's not technically the case.

It's a stunning ring (Splash News)

The centre stone of Eugenie's ring is an extremely rare padparadscha sapphire, which gets its pink colour from the mixture of its red and yellow make up.

Known as a "lotus blossom" sapphire, which an expert has valued at around £7,000, it's one of the rarest types of sapphire out there.

It was based on her mother Fergie's ring (PA)
Kate's engagement ring once belonged to Diana (PA)

Jack's design was based on the ring Eugenie's dad Prince Andrew  proposed to Sarah Ferguson with in March 1986 - a Garrard & Co ring that featured a large ruby stone, surrounded by a halo of 10 diamonds.

Kate's blue sapphire on the other hand is far more common, although still incredible beautiful.

Sophie Lomax, head of design at 77diamonds.com, told the Express : "Princess Eugenie's ring features an oval cut padparadscha sapphire encircled with a cluster of pear-shaped diamonds.

"Padparadscha sapphires are typically found in Sri Lanka and are one of the rarest colour of sapphire, being a beautiful and unique mix of pink and orange."

Jack and Eugenie officially shared their happy news in January (AFP)
The history behind Kate's ring makes it priceless (Getty)

Despite not technically not being as rare as Eugenie's, the history of Kate's ring makes it incredibly special and impossible to fairly value.

It was £28,000 when Prince Charles bought it in 1981, and the piece new would be worth about £85,000 today .

However the ring caused a bit of drama in the Royal Family when Charles proposed to Lady Diana Spencer.

After popping the question, Prince Charles presented Lady Diana with a selection of rings by Garrard of Mayfair, the Crown Jeweller at the time.

She picked the white gold ring with 14 solitaire diamonds surrounding the famous sapphire.

Antique Collector's Club book 'If these jewels could talk'. Pictured - Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles (Corbis)

But there was a problem with is - it wasn't bespoke.

The ring had actually featured in a catalogue which means, unlike most royal engagement rings, it wasn't unique, reports the  Sun .

In fact, anyone could have bought exactly the same ring.

Diana continued to wear her engagement rings for four years after she separated from Prince Charles out of respect for her sons.

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