In the Garden of Eden, periodic table of the elements edition, this vial contains a bit of the Forbidden Fruit.

If the world is fascinated and alarmed at the ease with which Americans can own firearms they may be outright shocked to learn that sale and ownership of radioactive uranium metal is perfectly legal too. And a surprisingly generous amount at that: citizens and permanent residents alike may own up to seven kilograms; that’s a little over 15lbs., or enough to make yourself an industrial sledgehammer! And for this generosity Uncle Sam stipulates only that the owner not ‘abandon’ it, that doing so may not unduly endanger the public or the environment. This surely is the Land of the Free!

Despite wide belief to the contrary, US law even explicitly allows for the export of uranium (within the legal limits) to any but a handful of countries on the Naughty List which includes well-known members Iran, North Korea, Yemen and similar locales where pretty much trade in any type of business is already severely restricted anyway.

But…. sorry to disappoint all our foreign customers who were getting their hopes up after reading the above paragraph. While selling these samples internationally is perfectly legal we’re not aware of a single country on earth that allows radioactive material to be imported for ordinary consumers. So what this means is that if we send it there’s a chance that it could be confiscated, which sucks for us, and you potentially get sent to Guantanamo as a terrorist, which sucks for you. To avoid these risks we think it therefore more expedient to limit the sale of these samples to US addresses.

Now for a bit of nerdy trivia. Uranium as sold to the public generally means rocks from Out West Somewhere which make up anywhere from half to over three quarters of its weight in uranium oxide - along with a veritable witch’s brew of trace elements. In fact, a chunk of uraninite is its own self-contained Periodic Table. For a collector it’s cool in the sense that it’s one stop shopping but also not so cool in that, well, it’s an ugly ass rock with everything all mixed into a mess.

Number two option is the actual, pure metal which is available through a handful of enthusiast outlets including this here site. In all cases, the initial source of the pure metal was the U.S. government which produces vast quantities of it as an intermediary step in the hunt for that very special type of uranium known as U235. Through its fissile nature it is used to make nuclear fuel for powering nuclear power plants. Natural uranium being however just a pitiful 0.7% of the total mass of uranium means that the other 99.3% is considered useless chaff. Not just useless but a positive headache. Since it’s radioactive and chemically toxic it has to be managed and stored and transported and, most importantly, state and local governments will bend over backwards to ensure it’s sent Elsewhere to be somebody else’s problem.

And the tiny, tiny percentage of that titanic of amount of metal that is spared the fate of being stored in a steel drum with scary labels? Ah, that goes into making anti-tank rounds for the military. It is nightmare fuel for tank operators. Uranium that is shaped into a projectile and slung at supersonic speeds is a very scary weapon with radioactivity being the absolute least of the worries on whoever is so unlucky to be its target. As that round slams into the steel armor that is safeguarding the occupants on the other side it heats up to a gajillion degrees turning the steel into a soupy plasma that basically vaporizes any organic matter it comes into contact with. Chance of survival out of a million hits is estimated to be riiiiight around zero.

The amount of uranium that has been fashioned into military projectiles is a state secret but conservative estimates gleaned from indirect sources place the amount used during the brief Iraq war of the early 1990’s at at least 400 tons. Considering that much of that was vaporized and now remains in the former war zones as breathable particulates should be concerning to anyone living in the region. The scientific world will be paying attention to cancer trends in the Middle East… as if those people don’t have enough to worry about already!

Anyway, the ampule for sale here contains uranium shavings from the making of those rounds. As the metal was lathed into the necessary bullet shape the turnings were recovered and sold commercially for who knows what reason. Eventually, we got our hands on some and it makes for the perfect type to be housed in glass as the risk of breaking is eliminated. Solid pieces of uranium easily shatter glass as it moves within due to its tungsten-like density. As an extra precaution the interior of the glass is slightly oiled to prevent the formation of dusts which are, again, a health hazard in the event that the ampule did break at some point. This is a special collectible. Take good care of it. Your government demands this of you ;-)

Ampule contains approximately one gram of pure uranium-238 and is 15mm in diameter and about 60mm in length with a flat bottom for easy placement in our Ampules display case.

Sorry, we cannot send uranium metal to international destinations.