Precious Metal Determinants: Rarity And High Economic
Value
A metal is considered "precious" if it is rare and is
of high economic value. Under these two factors, nine
metallic chemical elements qualify as precious metals.
These are, in no particular order, gold, palladium,
silver, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium, platinum, osmium,
and rhenium.
So that while the chemical element tellurium is considered
one of the rarest element in the Earth's crust (its
mass abundance being the same as that of rhodium, iridium,
and ruthenium), its estimated price is only less than
5 U.S. dollars per troy ounce, and, therefore, cannot
be considered a precious metal. The same can be said
of bismuth, which has a mass abundance half less than
that of palladium, but with a price of only a little
more than a tenth of tellurium's price.
In terms of mass abundance, expressed in parts per billion
(ppb), here's how the nine precious metals are ranked
(rare to rarest): 9th: silver (75 ppb); 8th: palladium
(15 ppb); 7th: gold (4 ppb); 6th: osmium (1.5 ppb);
5th to 3rd: iridium, rhodium, and ruthenium (1 ppb);
2nd: rhenium (0.7 ppb); and 1st: platinum (0.003 ppb).
The ranking appears different when the estimated world
market prices, per troy ounce, of these nine precious
metals are considered (estimates as of January 2010):
1st: Rhodium - USD2,750
2nd: Platinum - USD1,555
3rd: Gold - USD1,131
4th: Palladium - USD424
5th: Iridium - USD408
6th: Osmium - USD380
7th: Rhenium - USD194
8th: Ruthenium - USD173
9th: Silver - USD18
Of the nine precious metals, gold and silver are the
best known. Apart from being traditional coinage metals
(along with copper), both gold and silver are also well
known for their uses in jewelry and art; they likewise
have certain industrial uses.
A third important factor that will qualify an element
as a precious metal, as may be noted from the uses of
gold and silver above, is that it should not be radioactive.
Thus, the chemical elements actinium, polonium, and
radium are not considered precious metals because they
are highly radioactive.
Compared to most other elements, precious metals are
chemically less reactive, have higher melting points,
and are more ductile - properties that make them ideal
for many commercial and industrial applications.
In earlier times, precious metals were mainly used as
currency. Today, however, they are highly regarded as
investment and industrial commodities. Four of them,
in fact - silver, gold, platinum, and palladium -, are
minted into coins or cast into ingots and traded on
commodity markets. All four are assigned the ISO 4217
currency code.
Hence, the role of precious metals as investments, on
top of their practical use, drives the demand for them.
For thousands of years, precious metals have demanded
prices that are much higher than those of common industrial
metals, such as nickel (about 36 cents per troy ounce)
and copper (about 11 cents per troy ounce). As a matter
of fact, there have been significant increases in the
prices of precious metals at the turn of the Twenty-First
century. This has encouraged many enterprises to go
into precious metal recycling.
Precious Metals
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Precious Metal Determinants: Rarity And High Economic Value
Gold And Silver: The Two Precious Traditional Coinage Metals
Gold Standard: Definition And The Three Distinct Kinds
Rhenium: Last Naturally Occurring Stable Precious Metal Discovered
Ruthenium: Most Versatile Of The Platinum Group Metals
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Precious Metals Discoverers And Name Etymologies
The Six Precious Metals Of The Platinum Group
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