The most noteworthy thing you can say about iron - the metal most familiar to everyone in the world - is that it’s actually pretty rare to find it in pure form. Whether it’s a car, a beer can or a bundle of rebar the iron you come across in everyday life is actually steel; an alloy usually consisting of 85%-98% elemental iron with additives to make it more resistant to rusting and/or harder wearing. The pure metal is just not very useful and those additives barely add to the cost so that even the cheapest 10-penny nails get the upgraded treatment.

Pure iron therefore has to be specially ordered by asking the refinery to pull some out of the melting pot before the other stuff goes in or by sending it to a lab to purify it further. If any of this makes you feel like you’re special in some way by getting your hands on ultra-rare pure iron, heh, then we’re pretty good with our sales pitch because the stuff is still dirt cheap :-D