| | |  Strange lump. Ed Pegg found this strange-looking lump of metal/crystal in some sand when he was 6 years old, and has managed to keep it for 33 years through about 20 moves.  He never knew what it was until I took it in for analysis by x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy at the Center for Microanalysis of Materials, University of Illinois (partially supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under grant DEFG02-91-ER45439).
 
 You'll never guess what it is: I was certainly quite surprised to find out and so was Ed.  It is a mixture of 62% iron and 38% titanium (!).  Since he found it near an air force base in Florida, it's almost certainly some kind of alien space metal that fell off a truck transporting a crashed flying saucer to the secret lab at the air force base.
 
 Either that or Ed should go back to where he found it and become fabulously wealthy after staking a titanium mining claim.
 
 Source: Ed Pegg Jr
 Contributor: Ed Pegg Jr
 Acquired: 18 December, 2002
 Price: Donated
 Size: 1"
 Purity: 62%
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