Element Collectors

So I was browsing online and came across periodictable.com/ and found a forum of sorts (actually a long list of individual contributions but no responses) for element collectors, with lots of different interesting stuff posted. Not just minerals but a knife for example that had pure niobium in the handle, and copper nodules as a result of electrotwinning processes.

Anyway, it just made me curious: what's hot in the world of element collecting these days? Anyone get any cool new element samples? Does anyone have a list of what elements can be found in nature? (Too lazy to look it up:)

I'm learning about the activity series of reactive metals in Chemistry class, and we got the list yesterday and I looked at it and thought wow I already know all this! Native gold (except the tellurides), native silver, native copper and lead but no zinc, Fe, Li, etc.. Anyway.

What's up with all you element collectors?

Ben Kirchner

You can find native iron from places like Disko Island and a large number of meteorites. Native zinc is a bit more controversial.

arsenic, most notably from France and Germany I believe
antimony, I'm going to say best from Nova Scotia Canada and see if anyone disagrees
bismuth, biggest piece I ever saw was from Bolivia but I think the best crystals come from Germany again

If you read old papers about native niobium and tantalum from the Urals, you should know that it has been determined lately as (Nb,Ta)C. See: MINDAT: niobocarbide and tantalcarbide

Oops, I was just reminded that the antimony is from New Brunswick, not Nova Scotia. Check out Rob Woodside's antimony-filled calcite doughnut!

[www.mindat.org]

Also, alluvial nuggets of platinum group elements from British Columbia

Ben:
Besides the various naturally-occuring elements, which some of are easy to obtain (carbon, diamond, gold, silver, sulphur, iron, antimony, mercury, arsenic, copper), there are some sources for pure elements of a more curious nature. Some of these advertise & sell on e-bay (http://stores.shop.ebay.com/Elemental-Collectibles__W0QQ_armrsZ1). They carry rare and odd elements like rhodium, palladium, zirconium, hafnium, and many others in various sample sizes & presentations. I have put together a modest collection over the years as a metallurgist, and am still adding to that.
Chris van Laer

William C. (CHRIS) van Laer: "I'm using the chicken to measure it..."

Most element collectors seem to forget that oxygen and nitrogen are common, pure elements as well.

...and hydrogen too. You can make it yourself with zinc and acid, and catch it in a bottle.

For those who may be seriously interested in native elements, the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum in Golden has a number of large arsenic specimens from several localities available through the gift shop. They are not on display, but can be seen by inquiring at the front desk.

If you are interested, e-mail me directly and I can provide more details.

Cheers,

Richard

Museum gift-shops selling native arsenic? Wow :) much better than the baked amethyst "citrine" and fake "magnetic hematite" beads that most museum shops sell.

Jolyon

My native elements section of my collection are Carbon (Diamond and Graphite) Sulphur, Antimony, Tellurium, Bismuth, Platinum, Gold, Silver and Copper, I could day i have Native iron in my meteorite collection, but its not pure iron, and its not terrestrial, so i dont count it, i have found a place which has native iron from Disko so i will get some eventually.

Jason, if you can't count your meteoritic iron because it's not pure then, for consistency, you shouldn't count your native platinum either, as I'll bet it's really a Pt-Fe alloy!
(Sorry, just being my usual anally retentive stickler-for-consistency self )

Cu, Agx2 (cub. & hex.), Au, Ru, Os, Ir, Pt, Fe, Zn, Cd, Hg, Al, In, Sn, Pb, Ta, Ti, W, Mo and Mg(?),
Asx2 (arsenic & arsenolamprite), Sb, Bi, Sx2 (sulphur & rosickyite), Se, Te, Cx3 (graphite, diamond & shungite)
all them are in my systematic collection.
So I am looking for Re, Ni, Pd, Rh, Co, Cr and chaoite. ;)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2009 11:09PM by Pavel Kartashov.

Pavel, what about pararsenolamprite?
...and "rubber sulphur"?

Alfredo, a time of "rubber sulphur" life is 20-30 hours... I don't like so unstable minerals. ;) And elements similar to Rn also...:X

What about pararsenolamprite, its discovery avoid my attention.:? But of course it is extremely interesting mineral. As I remember on researcher from our institute had described "unoxidizing arsenic" from massive pitchblende ores. Probably it was pararsenolamprite, but without Sb admixture. Unfortunately I had lose the chance to obtain such material. From other hand, it is quite probably, that these specimens still are preserved somewhere in our radioactive depository.

I have recently found in the Uppsala collection three pieces of palladium from the original (refined) batch sold by the mineral dealer Forster (early 1800) in London. For reference see [www.minersoc.org]
By the way we have the original leaflet as well: [www.platinummetalsreview.com]
Pavel this is probably not your cup of tea as I suppose you're only interested in the natural stuff ;)

all best

My collection includes native Cu, Ag, Au, Ru, Os, Ir, Pt, Pd, Fe (terrestrial and meteoric), Zn, Cd, Hg, In, Sn, Pb,
As (trigonal arsenic & arsenolamprite), Sb, Bi, S (orthorhombic sulphur & monoclinic rosickyite), Se, Te and C (graphite & diamond)... and also several alloys (nat. brass, amalgams, PGE alloys etc)
However I have some doubts about the validity (natural occurence) of the Zinc, Tin and Indium, although all three have been obtained from well-respected systematic mineral dealers.

If someone has other nat. elements available they can contact me, I would be extremely interested!

Lefteris.

Johan, you are right - it isn't my cup of tea. I have metallic Ni, Co, Cd, Cr, Mn, Sm, Gd, Zr, Ge, W, Ga etc. in big pieces, but micrometre size grains of native Co from Aidyrli will glad me much more than 1 kg silver bar.

Lefteris, mostly I obtain my natives right from investigators or geologists, so I am quite sure in my Zn, Sn and In. Some of my natives I had divided from rocks personally (Zn, Si, Ta, Al, Cu3Zn, (CuSn), Sn, Ru, Pb e.a.). Unfortunately I had found native Si too early, before acces to microprobe, so I lost this particle during LMA test. :(

Pavel, I'm shocked!!!

Cd, Cr, Mn, Sm, Gd, Zr, W, Ga in big pieces????

Cd, Cr and Mn from heavy concentrates are probably anthropogenic.

Where are the native rare earths from???? Sm isn't posted here.

Ge and Ga, not even Mendeleev could find these!!!!

Zr and W??? I met Stepanov in 1987 and asked him about W in wolframite from Transbaikalia and he replied with a good thick Russian accent "Product of American technology!"

One of the great joys of collecting native elements is that they occur in a wider variety of geological environments than any other chemical division. Until you discover Gibbs' phase rule, it is amazing that all rocks aren't just the same frozen chemical soup. Even so it is truly remarkable that geology can segregate chemicals right down to USP elements!!! It has taken biology 3 billion years to that!!!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2009 06:42PM by Rob Woodside.

Dear Rob,
You hadn't understand. :) Johan had write about antropogenic metal (Pd refined by Wollaston from Columbian PGM concentrates). I'd answer him also about my technical metals chunks.

The single native lanthanoid known for now is native Ce, which we had found in Lunar regolith. Unfortunately its size is ~1 micrometer.

Real native W was twice met on Prepolar Ural (the second find was mine 8-)) and it isn't product of any technologyes. ;) Unfortunately Victor Ivanovich hadn't live enough long to know about this fact... :(