The town of Ytterby near Stockholm, Sweden, yielded the chemistry world with ores rich in mysterious new elements. Named after its namesake town, ytterbium is one of the rare earth metals misnamed for not actually being all that rare but infamous for the tremendous difficulty needed to separate it from its neighbors in this group. 

For no reason other than its weird name, ytterbium is a popular first choice for those looking to expand their collection into the mysterious rare earths group. Here we include a few grams of this slightly yellow and exotic metal.