In the collectibles scene lutetium has taken some setbacks in recent years. It used to be that it was the undisputed king when it came to bedevilling those in search of a high purity sample of this metal. It’s always been too rare and difficult to extract to be of much use and that was enough to dissuade refiners from looking for it or labs to stock it. Skip to today and apparently it’s just about as useless as ever but production methods have improved, making its recovery more attainable. Demand, however slight, ensures that those refiners can do something with their stockpiles besides using it to prop open the doors to the cafeteria. Meanwhile, thulium, and especially terbium, have seen a turnaround in their own fortunes with demand soaring. While not quite as rare as ol’ lute, the change in the supply-demand equation has cast them in the ouch-so-expensive category.

As you can see from the price menu, lutetium is still anything but affordable. For cost’s sake let’s hope someone doesn’t soon find that it has some heretofore unknown magical properties. Actually, come to think of it, maybe that would be a good thing after all.