Ok, well, in the interests of "truth in advertising" let's all be clear on one thing: most metals are butt-ugly. You have the exceptions of course (here's looking at you, gold) but in most cases you only need to look at your scissors or under the hood of your car to realize that most metals are gray and ugly. And this rare earth metal sports a decidedly non-sexy battleship gray.

But let's not pile on the poor guy. Like a Scandinavian vacationing in Fiji, cerium suffers terribly at the exposure of not so much the sun but the water and the air itself which relentlessly attack the metal and scars its otherwise shiny surface. That makes the pure metal essentially useless for pretty much any task on this planet unless it can be kept well away from the elements or used chemically paired up with other elements. The faint blue-and-orange dusty makeup seen here come with time while immersed in mineral oil. They give the cubes a distinctive character quite apart from even the other rare earth metals all of whose oxides sport slightly different hues.

Now time to sing the praises of this exotic element that is actually not all that hard to find. It's present in car batteries, glass polishing compound and the flints of lighters as well as a tediously long list of other similarly non-glamorous jobs. Luciteria is happy to have commissioned a small number of cubes made of 99.5% pure cerium; perhaps the first time any such object has been commercially manufactured from this stuff.

This is a fragile metal that easily oxidizes in plain air. It must therefore be stored under mineral oil or an inert gas. Our 10mm cubes are now offered in sealed glass casings to prevent deterioration of this delicate metal. If that glass should break place it as soon as possible in a jar with oil. It will turn dark but stabilize afterwards.

Each 10mm cerium metal cube weighs 6.8±0.1g and comes in a glass ampule. A 25.4mm version is available in glass domes.