Leaf through any dictionary or surf Wikipedia’s pages and you’ll see most metals described as silvery in color. More often than not, it’s BS that’s been repeated for generations by people who had never seen those metals in person. Tin, however, is one exception. It really does look like silver. It has the flashy white brightness with maybe the slightest hint of yellow and just like silver if it gets dull it can be polished to a mirror-like finish with ease.

Tin’s superficial likeness to silver is skin deep though. It’s far softer and prone to tarnish. It is, honestly, pretty useless besides solder. Even in that humble role it sucks which is why it’s heavily alloyed with other metals. Which is a shame because tin is quite abundant in nature.

But in this limited role, as bullion, tin can wear its superficial beauty with pride as all it has to do is look pretty with no one caring whether the square bar is actually useful for anything. Heh.