Unlike the related pyrites or blendes, glosses are not considered ″colored″ because they do not have the yellowish or reddish ″copper″ tones, although impurities may well give individual varieties shades of color.

However, even in the 17th-19th centuries, at a time when luster or pyrites were considered generally accepted scientific terms, mineralogists treated them without due categorical rigor, understanding them purely broadly as a morphological group united by external characteristics.

These include: lead glance (galena), copper (chalcocite), antimony (stibnite), molybdenum (molybdenite), as well as cobalt (cobaltine), silver (stephanite) and some others.

[2]: 195  Most lusters are ore minerals, from which the titular metals included in their composition (in particular, copper, lead, molybdenum, antimony) are isolated on an industrial scale.

[1]: 10 Based on the chemical hypothesis put forward, Berzelius transferred it to the field of mineralogy and created a separate group of sulfur minerals, mainly ore, similar to oxygen compounds.

These substances have long been empirically grouped together by miners and practicing geologists on the basis of outward physical characteristics only, without any reference to their structure or chemical formula.

[1]: 11 The chemical theory of the structure of sulfides by Berzelius in general terms confirmed the previous division of ores into lusters, pyrites and groups close to them, although it forced several significant amendments to be made.

They were firmly entrenched in old, well-known ores and retained their relevance, first of all, beyond the boundaries of scientific mineralogy itself, — in industrial and economic practice, as well as in literary language.

In particular, the property of metallic luster on the surface of a fresh fracture looks very clearly and literally catches the eye, which is highly characteristic of a number of ore minerals that are most important in practical terms.

However, among the most famous, widespread and important in terms of ore lusters are the so-called "pure" minerals, in which the content of the base metal significantly exceeds impurities.

They are scattered throughout the planet and correspond to those places in which ores of individual chemical elements are found, which also form the glance minerals that are part of the group.