Element 97 joined the transuranic party in 1949 when they took the recently discovered element curium and bombarded it with helium. Although the most stable of berkelium's isotopes has an impressive half life of 1380 years most of the metal produced is Bk249 which has a still decently long half life of nearly a year - enough, anyway, to allow research to take place.

Our stand-in for the real thing (which is of course impossible to acquire) is a photograph of tiny pile of this artificial metal. Comes in a 5cm acrylic cube meant for our large periodic table display case.