Drab and colorless as iron, erbium shares little else with its ferrous cousin. It is expensive and difficult to isolate from its ores and, unlike most other metals, nearly all of it is mined and process only by a single country: China. Its ability to provide a unique tint of a very narrow band in the visible spectrum when added to glass has found demand for this metal in the making of exotic lasers and optical fibers. This latter being a key component of the explosion in demand for data pipelines has put a good strain on the availability of this metal. It certainly should make Chinese monopolies happy (and the buyers equally nervous).

These cubes were painstakingly polished over the course of many days to yield impressively reflective surfaces and will make for a peerless addition to anyone’s element collection.