Sciencemadness Discussion Board

For the Element Collectors

oxybate - 4-7-2007 at 11:48

This place is awesome!

Metallium, Inc.

Check out the Bromine and White Phosphorous sold in a resin casting. Makes for the coolest desktop toy ever.

Bromine in Acrylic

White Phosphorous in Acrylic

I have no relation to this place, but it looks wonderful. I might be the Element coin series!

phj - 4-7-2007 at 12:07

They've even got niobium metal, covered with the blue oxidation layer!

Furthermore I like the tellurium sample.

chemkid - 4-7-2007 at 12:30

wish i could afford any of the samples

pantone159 - 4-7-2007 at 13:21

I've got a number of my samples from Dave, I even got to meet him once. He even let me hold a big hefty iridium rod when I stopped by. (I didn't get to keep it, though.)

12AX7 - 4-7-2007 at 17:58

What th...? 10 grams scandium for $79? That's got to be counterfeit.

Tim

Fleaker - 4-7-2007 at 20:46

Scandium price is based solely on its purity. It might be 99.999%, but only with respect to its nearest neighbors. Ultra high purity on a 20 or 30 metals basis is extremely expensive.

jackson2004 - 5-7-2007 at 08:10

They are the most expensive prices i have ever seen. 3 grams Bromine for $50 !!!

I dont pay more than £10 for 100g. These guys are rippoffs.

Notice how the more questionable products such as red phosphorus they do not even tell you the quantity your getting.
And for the $15 price for a vial will less than a gram and actually an unknown quantity.

Where i live Red Phosphorus can be purchased for £15 in quantities of 250gram, my mistake, they have put there prices up recently, red phosphorus now sells at £45 a half killo

If your looking for collectable chemcials your best off going to a propper chemical supplier.

You can make 100 collections for the same price.

pantone159 - 5-7-2007 at 10:27

I'd guess that the phosphorus is intentionally packaged in small amounts, to skirt around the problematic legal issues.

Where I live, btw, phosphorus can't be purchased in any amount for any price (Metallium being the sole exception that I am aware of), at least to civilians like me.

woelen - 5-7-2007 at 11:17

Quote:
Originally posted by jackson2004
They are the most expensive prices i have ever seen. 3 grams Bromine for $50 !!!

I dont pay more than £10 for 100g. These guys are rippoffs.

Notice how the more questionable products such as red phosphorus they do not even tell you the quantity your getting.
And for the $15 price for a vial will less than a gram and actually an unknown quantity.

Where i live Red Phosphorus can be purchased for £15 in quantities of 250gram, my mistake, they have put there prices up recently, red phosphorus now sells at £45 a half killo

If your looking for collectable chemcials your best off going to a propper chemical supplier.

You can make 100 collections for the same price.

They indeed are expensive when you only consider the price of the chemical. Yes, $50 for three grams of Br2 seems ridiculous. But if you buy 100 grams of bromine, you have it in a dark bottle with a cap, from which always small amounts of bromine can escape. From Metallium you have the element sealed in a good glass ampoule, nicely shaped and safely put in an acrylic resin cylinder. The sealing and packaging of the chemical greatly adds to the price.

I myself have a similar sample of bromine:

http://woelen.scheikunde.net/science/chem/compounds/bromine....

I paid appr. $15 for this 1.3 grams sample of bromine, but it is beautiful for displaying the element's properties. I myself cannot make such a nice thing for that price of $15.

strontiumred - 6-7-2007 at 08:16

Hi,

I have spent about $5,000 with Dave Hamric - he's not a rip off merchant but undoubtedly the best supplier of element samples on the internet.

He is unbeatable on price for Lanthanide & Group 3 elements and for Ruthenium, Osmium, Rhenium & Iridium. I have his white Phosphorous in Resin and it is safe and beautiful.

IF you have access to chemical supply houses then you will find better prices for Li, Na, K, Ca, As, Br, I, Hg and Tl - But many people prefer to have smaller or embedded samples of some of the more reactive or dangerous samples anyway.

I would MUCH rather Dave sold tiny quantities of Red P than bulk lots - That way we get to keep him around and not sitting in Jail!

Regards,

Simon.

oxybate - 6-7-2007 at 18:40

amen. I have the bromine and white p in acrylic on the way.

jackson2004 - 6-7-2007 at 22:00

All i am saying is that i wouldnt waste my money for what your getting.
And spending $5000 is not a good thing. You probably got only a few hundred quids worth of chemicals.
The reason why red phosphorus is not terribly difficult to get where i live is that in the UK methamphetamine is rare and almost unheard of.

Jdurg - 7-7-2007 at 08:24

Listen, before you start attacking and insulting people do some god damned research. Dave Hamric is NOT a chemical supplier. He is NOT selling chemicals for use in chemical experiments. He is a dealer for the element collector and is as far from a rip-off artist as you can get. If you want a rip-off artist, go to http://www.smart-elements.com.

You sound like you know everything, so why don't you obtain all these chemicals and seal them up in ampoules as well as acrylic resin castings and sell them. You obviously can do so much better of a job than Dave can. I guess it's easy to bitch and whine on an internet message board where you can sound like a genius.

I have met with Dave MANY times, and nearly all of my samples have come from Dave. Have you ever considered the fact that perhaps Dave doesn't have an acrylic resin casting setup in his own home? Or the fact that he doesn't have an arc-melting furnace in his own home? What happens when you don't have these materials in your own place of business? Yes, you have to pay for others to do that work for you. But that MUST be free and you musn't have to pay anybody anything in order to get that done. If you do, then you aren't allowed to make a profit at all.

jackson2004 - 7-7-2007 at 11:18

All i am saying is that the markup rate is a little high. Fair enough there not being sold as reagents, But encased chemicals are worth little more than there contents.

12AX7 - 7-7-2007 at 11:31

Quote:
Originally posted by jackson2004
...but encased chemicals are worth little more than there contents.


...And the casing, and the processing for that casing, and the labor involved, and th....................

Tim

jackson2004 - 7-7-2007 at 12:32

I still find the cost a little expensive even after considering the cost of production.
Fair enough, If there is great expenses involved,
but I honestly believe you could find a cheaper source of sealed chemicals

And i do not claim to know everything,
I just fail to See how the markup rate could be so expensive for the product packaging

oxybate - 7-7-2007 at 20:53

Quote:
UK methamphetamine is rare and almost unheard of.


Apparently, dental hygiene is as well. What's your point?

pantone159 - 8-7-2007 at 07:14

Quote:
Originally posted by oxybate
Apparently, dental hygiene is as well. What's your point?


And what is the point of that comment???

oxybate - 8-7-2007 at 14:28

I posited a (perhaps, biting) irrelevancy to point out the absurdity of his entire collection of posts in this thread. What is the point of bragging about the availability of redP due to the lack of meth use in england (probably the *only* drug not an epidemic in that country, by the way). What purpose did it serve other than to weaken his argument that Metallium, Inc. was a ripoff?

This is classic thread-crapping of the worst kind, and I thought it was uncalled for - and judging from other responses, I'm not alone in thinking this.



[Edited on 8-7-2007 by oxybate]

woelen - 8-7-2007 at 23:03

Quote:
Originally posted by jackson2004
I still find the cost a little expensive even after considering the cost of production.
Fair enough, If there is great expenses involved,
but I honestly believe you could find a cheaper source of sealed chemicals

If you can do better, or if you can find someone else doing things better, at the same quality of product, but a lower price, then please come back on this, otherwise please quit from this thread.

Making good and beautiful element samples is an art on its own.

[Edited on 9-7-07 by woelen]

jackson2004 - 9-7-2007 at 00:13

Name the chemical and i can probably name you a cheaper location

evil_lurker - 9-7-2007 at 00:51

Quote:
Originally posted by jackson2004
Name the chemical and i can probably name you a cheaper location


I'm sure you probably can.

But what part of "your paying for the packaging and not the chemical itself" do you not seem to understand?

Elements intended for collections are specially packaged for long term preservation and viewing in a state of utmost purity thus requiring the use of very specialized equipment and procedures.

I'm sure the equipment to do such feats costs many thousands of dollars not to mention skill as I imagine each is hand crafted.

Waffles - 13-7-2007 at 13:07

Metallium is a good place to find good-quality element samples for not too much money. If you think Dave's stuff is expensive, take a look at smart-elements. Hoo boy.

I'm a lot more involved with element/metal collecting right now than any sort of actual chemistry, just because of my living situation. What I would say is that Metallium is a good place if you want a decent sample of each element- but that's it. I very much prefer interesting, rare, exotic forms, stuff like monocrystals, zone-refined pieces. Smart-elements has many more of these- but once again, only if you have fistfuls of money to throw out the window.