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Element coin. Dave Hamric sells element samples under the name Metallium. He's developed a line of coins struck out of various common and uncommon metals: They are quite lovely, and very reasonably priced, considering the difficulty of creating some of them. Here is the back side of this coin (click either picture to see it larger):  Click the Sample Group link below to see many other coins made of various elements, or click the link to his website above if you want to buy one like this. Source: Dave Hamric Contributor: Theodore Gray Acquired: 24 December, 2007 Text Updated: 24 December, 2007 Price: $65 Size: 0.75" Purity: >99% Sample Group: Coins |
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Cut off corner. This irregular lump was sawed off a large 500 gram piece (for lutetium, 500 grams is a lot) by Tim Worstall. Tim is the world's leading expert on the scandium and scandium oxide trade by virtue of the fact that he is about 60% of the world's scandium trade. (And some day I may actually have some scandium from him, but for convoluted reasons, at the moment I have a couple of other rare earths instead.) In a bizarre twist that lends credence to the theory that there are really only a few thousand people in the world and it's all a whole lot smaller than it seems, the lump from which this piece was cut spent several years unknown to me sitting at a company just a couple of miles from where it is now, having been sold there by Tim. They eventually sent it back to him in Belgium where it sat for a while longer before it got sold to my friend Max Whitby who knew about it because I told him about the small piece that Tim sent from Belgium back to within a couple of miles where he'd sent the whole thing earlier. The small piece traveled a couple miles down the road by way of Belgium, and the big piece went from Belgium to England because of a website operated out of east-central Illinois, not usually thought of as a hotbed of activity in the lutetium market. Source: Tim Worstall Contributor: Tim Worstall Acquired: 2003-05-1 Text Updated: 11 August, 2007 Price: Donated Size: 1.2" Purity: 99.9% |
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Sample from the Everest Set. Up until the early 1990's a company in Russia sold a periodic table collection with element samples. At some point their American distributor sold off the remaining stock to a man who is now selling them on eBay. The samples (except gases) weigh about 0.25 grams each, and the whole set comes in a very nice wooden box with a printed periodic table in the lid. To learn more about the set you can visit my page about element collecting for a general description and information about how to buy one, or you can see photographs of all the samples from the set displayed on my website in a periodic table layout or with bigger pictures in numerical order. Source: Rob Accurso Contributor: Rob Accurso Acquired: 7 February, 2003 Text Updated: 29 January, 2009 Price: Donated Size: 0.2" Purity: >99% |
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Lump. David Franco told me that lutetium would be the last element I would find, and he was almost right. This sample arrived with a full set of lanthanides at a time when I was missing europium, terbium, holmium, ytterbium, and of course lutetium. This very kind donation from Max Whitby of The Red Green & Blue Company in England completed my element collection, to the extent that it gave me a plausible sample of every element one can plausibly have a sample of. (The Red Green & Blue Company is selling a periodic table collection containing similar samples of the same stuff, and if you want a ready-made collection of elements, that's the first place I would look.) To learn more about the set you can visit my page about element collecting for a general description or the company's website which includes many photographs and pricing details. I have two photographs of each sample from the set: One taken by me and one from the company. You can see photographs of all the samples displayed in a periodic table format: my pictures or their pictures. Or you can see both side-by-side with bigger pictures in numerical order. The picture on the left was taken by me. Here is the company's version (there is some variation between sets, so the pictures sometimes show different variations of the samples):  Source: Max Whitby of RGB Contributor: Max Whitby of RGB Acquired: 20 December, 2002 Text Updated: 11 August, 2007 Price: Donated Size: 0.5" Purity: 99.95% |
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Kuliokite. Kuliokite rich in lutetium, thulium, and holmium. Source: Jensan Scientifics Contributor: Theodore Gray Acquired: 25 April, 2009 Text Updated: 27 April, 2009 Price: Anonymous Size: 0.1" Composition: (YLuTmHo)4Al(SiO4)2(OH)2F5 |
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Lutetium bromide. Lutetium bromide, very pure, but sadly not mine, just borrowed for photography. Source: Anonymous Contributor: Anonymous Acquired: 17 April, 2009 Text Updated: 17 April, 2009 Price: None Size: 0.25" Composition: LuBr3 |
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Himalayan sea salt. There is a list of 84 elements that seems to pop up repeatedly in the ingredient lists of "natural" mineral products, supplements, pills, and the like. Even, it turns out, in salt. Here then is the list of minerals claimed to be found in all-natural organic Himalayan sea salt: hydrogen, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluoride, sodium, magnesium, aluminum, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, chloride, calcium, scandium, titanium, vanadium, chromium, manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, gallium, germanium, arsenic, selenium, bromine, rubidium, strontium, yttrium, zirconium, niobium, molybdenum, ruthenium, rhodium palladium, silver, cadmium, indium, tin, antimony, tellurium, iodine, cesium, barium, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium, hafnium, tantalum, tungsten, rhenium, osmium, iridium, platinum, gold, mercury, thallium, lead, bismuth, polonium, astatine, francium, radium, actinium, thorium, protactinium, uranium, neptunium and plutonium.I wish someone would tell these people that, for example, neptunium and plutonium do not occur in nature at all, let alone in salt. Unless, I suppose, if you count nuclear fallout as a "natural" source of ingredients. What bothers me most is what this says about the level of scientific literacy, both of the people selling the stuff, and the people buying it. Does no one actually read the list? Or do they read it an not realize how preposterous it is? It's enough to make you despair for the future of mankind. Pretty salt, though. Source: eBay seller saltwonders Contributor: Theodore Gray Acquired: 28 March, 2009 Text Updated: 4 April, 2009 Price: $15 Size: 0.25" Composition: NaClSbCsDyErEuGdHfHoInLaLuNdPrSmScThTlTeTbTmYbY |
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Himalayan salt lamp. A pretty hollow lamp made of solid rock salt from the Himalays. The composition I list is a partial list of the elements claimed to be in this type of salt (see my other Himalayan sea salt sample for a discussion of how silly this is). Source: eBay seller saltwonders Contributor: Theodore Gray Acquired: 28 March, 2009 Text Updated: 3 April, 2009 Price: $29 Size: 8" Composition: NaClSbCsDyErEuGdHfHoInLaLuNdPrSmScThTlTeTbTmYbY |
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Insane mineral capsules. These minerals capsules are called "Immune Boost 77", from Morningstar Minerals. They are either being incredibly honest, or they really don't understand what they're saying when they list what amounts to nearly the entire periodic table on the label, as the "trace minerals" they contain. Here is the list in all its glory, typed in by my daughter in exchange for my paying for a membership in the Miley Cyrus fan club: Antimony, Barium, Beryllium, Bismuth, Boron, Bromine, Calcium, Carbon, Cerium, Cesium, Chloride, Chromium, Cobalt, Copper, Dysprosium, Erbium, Europium, Florine, Gadolinium, Gallium, Germanium, Gold, Hafnium, Holmium, Indium, Iodine, Iridium, Iron, Lanthanum, Lithium, Lutetium, Magnesium, Manganese, Molybdenum, Neodymium, Niacin, Nickel, Niobium, Osmium, Palladium, Phosphorus, Platinum, Potassium, Praseodymium, Rhenium, Rhodium, Rubidium, Ruthenium, Samarium, Scandium, Selenium, Silicon, Silver, Sodium, Strontium, Sulfur, Tantalum, Thallium, Thorium, Tellurium, Terbium, Thulium, Tin, Titanium, Tungsten, Vanadium, Ytterbium, Yttrium, Zinc, Zirconium. Some of them are just silly, like thulium, which has absolutely no biological function. Others are a bit scarier, like thallium and thorium that are deadly poisons, and tellurium, which makes you smell of rotten onions for weeks. Basically what they've done is list everything that occurs in even trace amounts in mixed monazite sand, which is kind of what the stuff inside looks like. The only reason they aren't seriously harmful (I assume) is that most of these are not actually present in any meaningful quantity. My attention is drawn to these and other similar mineral supplements every time I decide to see if anything interesting has popped up on eBay for one or another of the obscure rare earths. Generally speaking if you search eBay for those guys you get very little of interest unless you turn on the option to search the text of the item description as well as the titles. Then you get lots of trace mineral supplements that one can only hope don't actually contain them. Source: eBay seller grandma-adams Contributor: Theodore Gray Acquired: 24 March, 2009 Text Updated: 29 March, 2009 Price: $15 Size: 0.75" Composition: SbCsDyErEuGdHfHoInLaLuNdPrSmScThTlTeTbTmYbY |
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Euxenite from Jensan Set. This sample represents lutetium in the "The Grand Tour of the Periodic Table" mineral collection from Jensan Scientifics. Visit my page about element collecting for a general description, or see photographs of all the samples from the set in a periodic table layout or with bigger pictures in numerical order. Source: Jensan Scientifics Contributor: Theodore Gray Acquired: 10 January, 2009 Text Updated: 10 January, 2009 Price: Anonymous Size: 0.6" Composition: (Y,Ca,Ce,Lu,U,Th)(Nb,Ta,Ti)2O6 |
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Photo Card Deck of the Elements. In late 2006 I published a photo periodic table and it's been selling well enough to encourage me to make new products. This one is a particularly neat one: A complete card deck of the elements with one big five-inch (12.7cm) square card for every element. If you like this site and all the pictures on it, you'll love this card deck. And of course if you're wondering what pays for all the pictures and the internet bandwidth to let you look at them, the answer is people buying my posters and cards decks. Hint hint. Source: Theodore Gray Contributor: Theodore Gray Acquired: 19 November, 2008 Text Updated: 28 October, 2017 Price: $35 Size: 5" Composition: HHeLiBeBCNOFNeNaMg AlSiPSClArKCaScTiVCrMn FeCoNiCuZnGaGeAsSeBrKr RbSrYZrNbMoTcRuRhPdAg CdInSnSbTeIXeCsBaLaCePr NdPmSmEuGdTbDyHoErTm YbLuHfTaWReOsIrPtAuHgTl PbBiPoAtRnFrRaAcThPaUNp PuAmCmBkCfEsFmMdNoLrRf DbSgBhHsMtDsRgCnNhFlMcLvTsOg |
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