This infamous element has the dubious credit of being the tool by which who knows how many people were murdered. While the pure element as shown isn’t highly toxic its oxides sure are. A little bit in food goes unnoticed and over the course of days or weeks the victim’s health declines until they have just enough strength to sign over a last will and testament to the merriment of the poisoner. It was a death that back in the old day, before blood lab tests and autopsies, left few clues as to what did in the poor sap.

Once autopsies and blood tests came into use during the late 19th century and into the 20th arsenic’s role in killing people gave way to its use as a poison of vermin but this, too, was eventually phased out in favor of other chemicals. The 21st century has resuscitated arsenic for use in the making of gallium arsenide transistors.

It is this last for which high purity arsenic is refined today in electronics laboratories. And for you we’ll pick a big, beautiful crystal for your collection. Well, if you have a liberal interpretation of beauty at least.