2021-01-26: S, Se, Sn, Er

I generally try to limit my posts here to my exploration of nature. Hikes, walks, and excursions often provide for fantastic views of mountains, valleys, cliffs, canyons, rivers, waterfalls, and countless other natural features, and this site allows me to share them with the world.

However, geographical features are not the only parts of nature that one can explore. For over ten years now, I have very slowly been collecting samples of the chemical elements. All atomic matter in the universe can be broken down to 118 (known) elements, each with unique chemical and physical properties. These are the known atoms, one of the most basic building blocks of matter.

A small business known as Metallium has sold various element samples in various forms and at fairly reasonable prices for the past seventeen years. One of their more popular series is a set of small, penny-sized coins made from each of the chemical elements. This allows for the exploration of our universe's building blocks in a novel and collectible form. I've been collecting these coins since high school, and as my most recent shipment has arrived, I figured I'd share with the world.

The lightest coin in this shipment was made of sulfur. As a brittle and non-metallic substance, sulfur is very difficult to put into coin form, and must be kept in a protective container to keep from breaking. Even through the container, the element's characteristic rotten-eggs smell can be faintly detected.

Although this wasn't my first experience with pure sulfur, I was surprised by how bright the coin was. The reverses of all the coins are the same, depicting a (somewhat outdated) periodic table.

Selenium, which occurs below sulfur on the periodic table, shares similar properties, including its brittleness (hence the container). One of the rarest elements in the earth's crust, selenium is a metalloid, sharing properties with both metals and non-metals.

Pure selenium (in its most stable 'grey' allotrope) has a distinct bluish hue, which I hadn't anticipated or read about before. The hue is hard to see here but is unmistakable in person.

Erbium is a rare-earth metal, part of a series of chemically similar, reactive metals known as the lanthanides. Erbium has few practical uses and, like all rare-earths, is difficult to find in pure form.

Unlike most of the lanthanides, erbium is fairly stable in dry air, and I will probably remove it from its protective container in a few months. Some chipping is visible around the coin's edges, likely a result of the striking process.

A rod of pure tin, from Metallium's less-popular (and more expensive) Element Rods series. The small rod is fairly heavy and has a distinct yellowish hue.

Although they are both silvery poor metals, tin's seemingly subtle yellow color is vibrant enough to distinguish it from aluminum (R).

A view of the collection so far, consisting of nineteen coins and four rods.
Rods (L to R): Carbon, aluminum, copper, and tin.
Coins (1st row): Magnesium, aluminum, sulfur, titanium.
2nd row: Iron, nickel, copper, zinc
3rd row: Selenium, zirconium, niobium, silver
4th row: Cadmium, indium, tin, gadolinium
5th row: Erbium, lead, bismuth

A checklist on the inside of the package. I unknowingly ordered these samples on the eve of a production shutdown, and the tin rods aren't kept stocked. However, they were all produced and shipped in a very reasonable amount of time.