The oft-seen phrase "where art meets science" might be a little overused if we consider that Google shows 13.6 million hits for it but this is one instance where it truly is deserved. This beautiful cube is made of 99.999% pure germanium and then lovingly polished to a perfectly reflective mirror on all sides. A final touch includes the laser engraving of the element's name and atomic symbol and number.

We realize this is not a trivial purchase. Germanium is a rare and expensive metalloid and in this particular case a lengthy list of processes are required to turn the raw element into the final piece. As germanium is brittle even slight errors in machining cause fractures leaving an overall high failure rate which must be amortized across the remaining pieces in the set. Most labor-intensive of all is the final polishing which runs into the tens of hours using progressively finer grits. This starts out in the initial phases with computerized polishers but must be finished by hand to avoid chipping and hairline scratches.

After all that work one is rewarded with a perfect six-sided mirror of an ultrapure rare element. Could there be a nicer gift for the terminally geeky?

Each 10mm cube weighs 5.3±0.01g and the 20mm ones are 42.9±0.1g