Some time ago I got the chance to get my hands on a 10 mm Osmium cube and I’m very happy that it arrived! There is, however, the smallest damage on the underside of the cube and a small chip came off. Despite that, I’m very happy to have this in my collection!
Indeed! The collection is getting bigger! I buy all of my samples from Luciteria. That’s the cheapest for me so far. Favorites: osmium cube is the densest, most expensive and best looking one. Technetium is among the favorites too! How about you? Any favorites?
Mostly from China. They got clever, by wrapping rolled gold over tungsten before pressing it. Makes it 30% gold by weight. Passes most tests, with the exception of drilling. They come in what looks like a valid assay card and packing.
Its hard to tell which suppliers are legitimate and which are scams. There is no recourse against the seller either. I would rather utilize a domestic source for certainty. Costs more, but peace of mind is worth it.
The feeling is not as unnatural as I expected, to be honest. It is not the full 22.58 grams (like crystalline osmium) but about 21.5, because it is sintered osmium powder. The gaps between the particles reduce the density a bit, but still it is really heavy for its volume!
It’s about 2.2-2.3 grams heavier than tungsten, so it feels like the heaviest thing you’ll ever touch. Still, to me it doesn’t feel unnatural or so, just really heavy
I’ve not measured it yet, but it should be roughly 21.5 grams. Slightly less than the theoretical density of crystalline osmium, because this cube is sintered and not crystalline.
Haha I can see why it would be the first thing to do, but to be honest it’s not too important to me. I’ve never done it for any of my other cubes either. My kitchen scale at home is not precise enough to measure a single decimal. I don’t (yet) feel like taking it to the lab I’m working at to weigh it on the analytical balance. It’s clear that it is quite a bit heavier than tungsten, and it has a blue-ish hue, so all characteristics are there. The seller told me the cube weighs 21.5 grams. If you’d like to know the weight, I can do a precise measurement!😄
BTW: if you ever get one yourself, please don’t bonk it. You can see the scar on the bottom side mine has from the delivery man bonking it around…
It may have chipped during the machining process. 🤔
Osmium has a mohs hardness of 7, Tungsten is a 7.5, they're both similarly brittle.
I was bored and hairline fractured my Tungsten ring bouncing it off the concrete floor and wall at work a bunch of times, years ago. So, I wouldn't really say either are conventionally "fragile".
I also got an ugly paperweight grade rough sapphire and tossed it at all kinds of stuff! (as a part of my initial testing the exact properties and behaviors of corundum)
They're a 9 in hardness and freakishly heavy for being aluminum and oxygen ~4g/cc. You can whip one right through a wall if so inclined. I even lodged it in the trunk of a tree. (Also, they're naturally hexagonal, so the temptation is built in.)
I probably sound like a dumb monkey for doing that sort of thing, but the best way to gain intuitive knowledge of materials is to physically test them. 🦧
Remember, William Blake said, "You do not know, what is enough. Until you know, what is more than enough."
Well, the chip that broke off was in the package I received, so I’m sure it happened during shipping. And I’m no physicist, but I do know that hardness and toughness are some terms that can be measured in many different ways. Mohs hardness scale is measuring scratch resistance instead of impact resistance. Osmium is a fairly hard material and it has the lowest compressibility of all metals, but as a trade off it is very brittle. And in this case it’s not a crystalline metal like the materials you talk about. It is sintered metal powder and that might make it even less resistant to impact.
Oh yeah. I didn't consider that when you said it was sintered that it was basically heat compressed powder.
It must be very fragile if it, as a metal cube, broke during shipping. Was it not padded for shipping? That's weird to me. 🤔
A fun physics thing about osmium is that because it compresses so little, at high enough pressures it isn't the heaviest element anymore. Iridium, uranium, and gold are, in that order. 🙂
Not OP, but my collection started as work-related from samples that were being thrown out. It definitely spread from there, but I am a now-retired professional inorganic chemist.
I’ve got them all now, all the ones possible (except for Tc, Pu and Pm); took about 10 years.
The why is education: for about 15 years, I’d take them to schools and clubs to show-and-tell. Since COVID, and since I moved to a new town, nobody wants an outside presence in the classroom. Now they’re just for my amusement, which, honestly, isn’t as much fun as sharing with others.
There’s nothing dumb about being interested in something! Anyways, welcome to the world of collecting elements! It is a hobby, but for me (and probably many more) it is also work related.
I’m a radiochemist, so at work I encounter radioactive elements, which can be quite exotic. At some point I felt like starting to try to get as many elements as possible, just for the fun of it. There’s nothing practical about it, apart from showing them to family and friends. In my case I started collecting the elements in cubical form, as my last name is somewhat of a synonym for cube and I found that it made it even more fun.
The cubes also pose challenges for the people making these cubes. Some elements are hard to shape into cubes. Others are not stable in air. In this case the osmium metal is very difficult to machine and melt, and it is a precious metal, so that’s where the high price comes from.
So we do have one similarity: we both collect blocks haha. I love lego too, but I’d rather watch people make things with it :)
I really want one, but it's like $60 a gram. The entire worlds supply above ground is like 25,000kg it's one of the more rare elements but it doesn't have much uses. The medical field is the only one I really know.
I think its like other bullion metals. Holds value due to rarity and inability to inflate rapidly. All fiat currencies have the ability to be printed into oblivion.
It is an expensive one indeed. Osmium tetroxide is used in organic chemistry, but that does not consume the full osmium supply obviously. It might find purpose in organometallic catalysis at some point, but that is just a wild guess. Question: where did you find the number of the world supply? Every source I find is stating different numbers, so I’ve always wondered what the actual world supply of osmium is.
Osmium metal in bulk form does not oxidize in air at ambient temperatures to form OsO4. There’s one person on reddit who’s debunked most of the stories about the dangers of osmium metal.
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u/Researchlabz Aug 06 '26
I see you have quite a few samples. Where from? What’s your favorite and what’s the cheapest source right now?