Periodic Table Poster   My periodic table poster is now available!Periodic Table PosterPeriodic Table PosterPeriodic Table Poster
3D3DLone Ranger Spinthariscope Ring.
Amazingly, these rings were given out, for 15 cents and one box top, with KIX cereal in 1947. How times do change. By all accounts they actually did work, but unfortunately the radioactive source used (yes, in a breakfast cereal prize) was polonium-210 with a half-life of only 138 days. So by now they are dead as a doornail, and no longer the slightest bit luminous. At least that's what people say, I haven't actually tried this one.
Spinthariscopes are explained here, in case you're wondering what it means for a bomb-shaped ring to "work".
The red plastic tail fins pull off revealing a tiny glass lens, the screen and source are at the front end of the "bomb".
Source: Theodore Gray
Contributor: Theodore Gray
Acquired: 8 May, 2007
Text Updated: 19 May, 2007
Price: $203
Size: 1"
Purity: 20%
Sample Group: Spinthariscopes
Polonium