Featured 3 loose gemstones

hi folks

bought these 3 little gemstones at a local auction, thought id take a gamble at £3 but presumed when i got them they would be glass

so i was happy to see the pinkish one glow bright red under uv, (7.8cts)

reading into it though lab created rubies can react they same way, so perhaps thats what it could be

anyway of telling the difference between the two ?

looks like one of the amethysts, was once mounted in something, so perhaps they were all taken out of scrapped items

dont worry im not expecting a lot out of these, but thought worth checking

any thought appreciated

 

In general lab rubies glow more brightly than mined rubies (with some exceptions). Technically given the tone if it is corundum it would be a pink sapphire (it's not red enough for a ruby). Natural rubies have inclusions which you can see under magnification, usually a 10x loupe is good enough, a binocular microscope is easier. You can get flawless rubies, but they are rare and one wouldn't be cut into a basic heart gem, so that would pretty much rule it out as natural. Other stones such as spinels, scapolite and some glass gems can also glow red so you can say for sure without testing.

 

the square one looks good for an amethyst

 

Great info thanks ce b

They'll be enough to impress my little niece anyway !!

 

If it's bright pink and shiny, you're generally in. I think the oval one is an amethyst too.

 

If you are going to be buying gem stones you may want to think about buying a gem tester. However - a gem tester will not be able to distinguish between man made and natural stones.

 

And buy a loupe. On the other hand, if you're buying for the Pretty ... get one anyway, so you can look at them up close. If you really want to have fun, I think they still make USB microscopes that display the images on your computer screen.

 

Quite handy that would be evey, the usb microscope. I'll look into that.