Remember Ni-Cad batteries? Yeah, those rechargeables back in the olden days that powered camcorders and first-gen cell phones. They sucked. Sure, they were cheaper in the long run than constantly buying double A’s for your Walkman but after a few recharging cycles your they’d poop out before Side A of your Journey casette was done. Then lithium came to town in the late 90’s or thereabouts and thoroughly whooped cadmium’s ass into the dustbin of history. Oh, sure, you might still find some at a Goodwill but they’re firmly yesterday’s tech.

And that shift just about shuttered the cadmium mining industry. It was already on life support. Prior to the first portable 80’s gadgets greatly boosting the demand for cadmium, a lot of business was being channeled into the paint industry. Everything that needed a splash of yellow or orange made use of it. And then, whoa, lab tests showed that cadmium compounds were actually really unhealthy. Suddenly nobody wanted anything to do with this nasty chemical and pigment manufacturers scrambled to reformulate with alternatives.

Without batteries or paint, cadmium became an industry orphan. A trickle still finds its ways into specialty uses (and more than a trickle into old recipe batteries meant for the Third World where health and environmental regulations are - wait, what regulations?) but as a whole the world of business looks on cadmium today with much the same appreciation as asbestos or mercury.

And now this. Cute metal bars made out of pure cadmium. What can possibly go wrong? To be sure, cadmium was never a candidate considered to be turned into bullion bars. But, like lead, its reputation is overtarnished. Both of these heavy metals are indeed quite toxic to humans and other animal life alike but their danger lies when it gets inside your body. You would get far more cadmium exposure by eating a burrito or hanging out downwind of an industrial smokestack than you would by holding cadmium bars all day long. Both lead and cadmium, in fact, have a similar toxicity profile and significant effort by the FDA and the EPA focus on keeping these toxins out of the food we eat and the air we breathe. Consider, however, how you can find for sale lead buckshot and fishline sinkers at your nearest Target or on Amazon. It’s because the pure metal doesn’t pose much danger in solid form.

Not that, to be honest, you should be fondling your cadmium bars every day for the fun of it. And if you do, in the interest of safety, wash your hands afterwards. And definitely keep them well out of reach of small kids of the age where they’re still putting anything that fits into their mouths.

Measures 15x8x1mm