Tellurium looks like a metal, but besides its appearance, metallic properties only are developed very weakly. At best, the element can be regarded a metalloid. The very pure sample (99.999%), shown here, shows that the element is really lustrous and has a silvery appearance.

The element also can have a really beautiful crystalline appearance. Here follows a picture of another sample (99.99%), with a size of approximately 2 cm. This has a beautiful radial crystalline structure. This sample is approximately one quarter of a disk.