Hi everyone,
This is my first post to the forum. I have pretty much finished the course for the IGS certification, and now all thats left is to take the certification tests and get certified, but to be honest im a little bit nervous about a stone that im trying to identify for someone. After going through all the steps, I have positively confirmed that I have a ruby on my hands, and its a rather large one, cabochon, 40 cts approximately. The next step was to identify if it was natural or synthetic. After closely examining, I saw what I thought at first was a burst from heat treatment, so I was inclined to believe the stone was natural. I went on to look for curved striae, and this is when I started to have doubts. One by one, they started to increase. First I found tiny “striae” like curves on parts of the stone, but wasn’t able to confirm that they were actually striae because I’m not familiar with it. I than went on to capture with my microscope what looked like a “nail head” inclusion. After that, I assume that I saw “rain” (could be a finger print inclusion). Finally, I saw something which looked like flux veils. The only thing is, they are different colors than described in the texts. I took photographs of everything, and was hoping someone could help me to identify what I am looking at. Thanks alot for your help!