Alas - I thought my future vet bills were no longer an issue...After all I had my grannie's Alexandrite ring to rely on. And then I read the following: While determining the exact origin of a gem is a matter for professionals, here is a brief guideline. If the gem has good clarity, strong color change, reasonable size, and your grandmother was not exceptionally wealthy, it is most likely a synthetic.
And that is the epitome of an anticlimactic sentence!