  We report temperature and field dependent measurements of the magnetic
susceptibility, specific heat and resistivity of sintered YbB2 pellets,
prepared via two distinct reaction routes, utilizing different temperatures,
pressures and sintering times. Sample behavior is affected by the preparation
procedure, as a consequence of different secondary phases, most of which were
identified via x-ray diffraction. These experiments show that YbB2 is a metal
with the Yb atoms in or very close to their 3+ state. YbB2 appears to order
anti-ferromagnetically at TN ~ 5.6 K, which can be considered a relatively high
ordering temperature for an ytterbium-based intermetallic compound.
