Despite the exotic sounding name, zirconium is no stranger to metallurgy. Although significantly more expensive than steel, it is so resistant to corrosion that one major use is for industrial pipes meant to carry fluids that would destroy steel or PVC.

Zirconium and hafnium are found together in nature and are chemically so similar that separating the two is considered one of the great challenges in metallurgic engineering. Commercially speaking, refineries dealing with the purification of this metal usually go no farther than 95%-97% before further processing becomes so expensive that it is no longer cost effective for the industrial applications they were intended for. The impurities in this case consist almost entirely of its sister element hafnium which, again, is so similar in its chemical properties that it makes no difference anyway.

While laboratories can produce crystalline zirconium of 99.95% purity for the purposes of bullion we find the threshold at 99.2% to be most practical as a balance between the desire for absolute purity and the cost effectiveness.

We offer the standard (yeah, boring) normal type that looks perfectly gray, you know, like a battleship or a winter Seattle sky or - four a couple bucks more - the new fancy type that looks like some fairytale golden zebra. It’s just a peculiarity of this metal that allows for two-tone anodization with this particular shading alternating between a brassy yellow and purple. No two are exactly alike but all feature the same banding and color scheme.