Why is platinum so valuable

Platinum is more difficult to work with, and often needs a jeweller with experience to produce a good job. Platinum cannot be re-used and re-melted like white gold. Therefore, any scraps and filings must be sent to a refiner which is very expensive. Store your platinum jewellery in boxes or bags separately, so as not to be scratched by other pieces.

Though most household cleaners will not harm platinum, other stones and metals may be damaged. Remove platinum rings and bracelets when house cleaning. Work with certified jewelers to polish, resize, or make any other adjustments to your platinum jewellery. We have an array of platinum jewellery — why not pop into one of our stores to chat with a Jenna Clifford consultant?

This gives investors peace of mind, since they know can resell the metal at market value at any point in the future. This phenomenon of using gold and silver as a means to store wealth is ancient, and was independently discovered by nearly every major human society. Throughout history, gold and silver were the two precious metals that dominated trade and used as stores of value.

One of the biggest reason for their success is the fact that both gold and silver are easy to mine, and simple to isolate in relatively pure, concentrated forms through the use of fire and melting. This is just the production stage of platinum. Jewelers looking to turn platinum into rings, necklaces etc.

This too is much more complex than the one used for creating gold and silver jewelry, which adds to the cost of the end product. Why Platinum is so expensive and valuable Rarity Platinum is 10 times rarer than gold, with only about tons of platinum mined every year, compared to some 3, tons of gold.

However, the places with the most easily accessible platinum deposits have already been mined. Platinum is even found in outer space. Hawley's research papers, published in ," Luker says.

Although platinum's strength and beauty have made it a jewelry favorite since the ancient Egyptians and Mayans, jewelry-making is hardly its only useful application. About half of platinum's demand is actually for use in catalytic converters for transportation vehicles like buses, cars and trucks, in large part because it's adept at converting harmful engine emissions into less damaging waste. Platinum is also used as a catalyst to make chemicals like silicone, nitric acid and benzene.

In fact, the six platinum group metals iridium, palladium, platinum, rhodium, ruthenium and osmium are all known for their impressive catalytic skills meaning these metals increase the rate of chemical reaction between substances without changing their physical properties. In the healthcare field, platinum compounds are a component of some chemotherapy drugs, and are also used in pacemakers and even dental fillings.

The electronics industry has various applications for platinum, too — for instance, computer hard disks. From a defense standpoint, platinum has been long valued for its strength, which goes far beyond simple scratch resistance. The metal holds up well under high temperatures, boasts stable electrical properties and is highly resistant to chemical attacks. For example, coating jet engine blades with platinum-based products protects them where temperatures can reach 2, degrees C 3, degrees F.

Even today, platinum is so important to economic and defense efforts that it was listed as one of the 35 minerals "deemed critical to U. With a resume like that, it appears that platinum's reputation and price tag are well-deserved, indeed. Ironically, Spaniards who discovered platinum in Colombia were less than impressed, tossing it by the wayside as an impurity in the coveted silver they were mining.

So disdainful of the metal were they that they dubbed it "platina," which means "little silver. Sign up for our Newsletter!