Quench-crackled Verneuil synthetic ruby

The year start well here at ALGT ! A ruby with 'chicken-wire' pattern of fingerprints... This is what they call a 'Quench- crackled Verneuil synthetic'. Here one has artificially created the fingerprints, in order to make the stone look worse than before, but at the same time 'more natural'. A clean ruby without ANY inclusions is always suspicious. Since the fractures are created after the crystal growth, the fractures are forced to follow the crystallographic (trigonal) directions of the stone : hence the pseudo-hexagonal pattern. Curved growth-lines are present, but much less obvious due to the many fingerprints.