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Promethium is one of those elements I really never expected to get. It seems so exotic. But it turns out that there was a brief period of time between when radium was judged too dangerous for common use in luminous products and when tritium because available, when promethium gas was used in sealed glass tubes to make luminous markings. It was used on such products as the thermostats of electric blankets, of all things.
But it was only used for a short time before being replaced by tritium, which is far safer than either radium or promethium. I have not yet located any actual products using promethium.
Promethium is an anomaly in that it is one of only two elements with atomic number less than 84 that have no stable isotopes. Elements 84 and higher all have no stable isotopes.
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Luminous disk.
I was sure I would never got a proper sample of promethium.
Fortunately, Max Whitby of The Red Green & Blue Company in England located a Swiss company that still had a supply of promethium paint, originally made by a Japanese company. Max sent them some glass buttons to be painted and then sealed shut. The Red Green & Blue Company is selling a periodic table collection containing these buttons, which may be one of the very, very few ways in all the world to acquire this element.
To learn more about the set you can visit my page about element collecting for a general description or the company's website which includes many photographs and pricing details. I have two photographs of each sample from the set: One taken by me and one from the company. You can see photographs of all the samples displayed in a periodic table format: my pictures or their pictures. Or you can see both side-by-side with bigger pictures in numerical order.
The picture on the left was taken by me. Here is the company's version (there is some variation between sets, so the pictures sometimes show different variations of the samples):
Source: Max Whitby of The Red Green & Blue Company
Contributor: Max Whitby of The Red Green & Blue Company
Acquired: 15 October, 2002
Price: Donated
Size: 0.4"
Purity: <5%
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Sample from the Everest Element Set.
Up until the early 1990's a company in Russia sold a periodic table collection with element samples. At some point their American distributor sold off the remaining stock to a man who is now selling them on eBay. The samples (excepted gasses) weight about 0.25 grams each, and the whole set comes in a very nice wooden box with a printed periodic table in the lid.
Radioactive elements like this one are represented in this particular set by a non-radioactive dummy powder, which doesn't look anything like the real element.
To learn more about the set you can visit my page about element collecting for a general description and information about how to buy one, or you can see photographs of all the samples from the set displayed on my website in a periodic table layout or with bigger pictures in numerical order.
Source: Rob Accurso
Contributor: Rob Accurso
Acquired: 7 February, 2003
Price: Donated
Size: 0.2"
Purity: 0%
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