The geekosphere is awash with tungsten doodads. Wherever science lovers shop for a cool new gadget to add to their crowded desks, tungsten is sure to feature prominently. From the ever popular cubes to balls and even rings everyone loves this super-dense element. Look high, look low however and you won’t find a single tungsten bullion bar or coin. Maybe an oversight in the world of business? Nope. The metal is just about impossible to work with, unfortunately. Unless you were to alloy it heavily with other metals tungsten is unyielding to fire and hammer. Force the issue and all you get for your troubles is to be showered with shrapnel.

What about all those tungsten gadgets then? Those are formed. Since the metal can’t be hammered or tooled into shape the alternative is to turn it into powder and bake it under great pressure. And the end result is reasonably acceptable but it comes at the expense of structural integrity and the near-total lack of fine detail. Look closely at this bar and you’ll see it differs from most of the others on this page. Its lettering has been laser etched rather than physical relief and the edges meet at right angles - the telltale signs of a stiff material that refuses to fill the tiny crevices of a die.

And yet, here we finally have a proper tungsten bullion bar. What it lacks in subtle aesthetics it makes up in affordability and purity; each providing that unfamiliar heft for its puny size that will delight whoever holds one!

Measures 15x8x0.51mm