What is the most valuable metal on earth? If you guessed gold or silver, think again. There are many different metals out there. Each piece has a diverse historical background and financial merit. Since the beginning of time, jewelers have used every kind of metal they can get for their creations. When new metals emerge, such as steel and titanium, they’re quick to embrace them.
Similarly, jewelers adapt them for jewelry making. They end up creating elegant pieces from them. Like any other global trend, fashion trends using sleek metals come and go. However, six metals have withstood the test of time. They continue to have a powerful presence in modern-day jewelry. Read on to learn more.
- Gold
As a precious metal, gold is dense, amenable, and has a bright yellow color. It can also be polished to a high luster. Part tradition, part durability, gold tops in being a versatile commodity in the precious metal domain. It’s used in jewelry, but it also has significant applications in electronics and aerospace. If you’re looking to invest in precious metals like gold, visit here to learn how you can diversify your investment portfolio. Gold holds inherent value for its visually striking qualities. Golds’ stereotype as a precious metal didn’t originate from anything: In the early times of colonization, Spanish explorers used gold to measure wealth, prestige, and power.
- Rhodium
This is another valuable metal and exists within the platinum group of metals. Rhodium is used in jewelry for a final finish on white gold jewelry. It also occurs in the same ore in which silver and gold exist but in small quantities. Compared to other precious metals, rhodium is used to design catalytic converters used in automotive exhaust systems. However, in jewelry, white gold is an alloy of gold and white metal, such as silver or nickel. Also, rhodium is used in the electroplating process to make the alloy achieve a white color.
- Palladium
Palladium was discovered by William Hyde Wollaston, an English Chemist in the early 1800s. Two centuries later, it still stands tall in the list of precious metals on earth. Wollaston named palladium after the asteroid Pallas. Palladium is a glossy white material under the six platinum-group metals. It’s an essential compound used in the manufacture of pollution-control devices for automobiles. Because of its acute shortage, palladium’s price has skyrocketed in little more than a year; this makes it even more expensive than gold. This is because supply isn’t responding to the growing demand. Recently, usage is increasing as governments place regulations to crack down on automobile pollution.
- Silver
Throughout history, people have valued silver more than gold. Silver has long been used as an exchange medium for many years. Today, silver has found many uses. It’s now used in photography, batteries, magnetic strips, auto glass defogger, among others. Many factors make silver one of the most popular precious metals. One, it’s luster gives it a visual appeal. Second, silver is more available and cheaper than platinum or gold. However, silver conducts heat highly more than gold, making it challenging to work with. For this reason, jewelry makers first learn how to solder on silver. Once they understand the soldering process on silver, regulating the heat on gold becomes easy.
- Platinum
Platinum is a dense, malleable, and highly unreactive silverish-white transition metal. Platinum almost shares the same characteristic with palladium: both can withstand vast quantities of hydrogen. The largest producers of platinum include Russia, Canada, and South Africa. Platinum is one of the rarer metals in Earth’s crust. Because of this, only a few hundred tonnes are produced annually. Also, given its critical use, platinum is expensive, valuable, and a precious metal commodity. Additionally, platinum is less reactive. It has a high corrosion resistance even at high temperatures. This is why it’s considered a noble metal.
- Ruthenium
This metal is part of the larger platinum-group of metals. It’s widely used in electronics because it’s a distinctive material to use for playing. Ruthenium is rigid and robust and can be used to harden various metals. Similar to other metals of the platinum group, ruthenium is inert to multiple chemicals. Ruthenium gets its name from Russia. It was named by Karl Ernst Claus, a Russian-born scientist of German ancestry, in 1844. Ruthenium can also be used for jewelry but not in its purest form.
You, too, can start your own precious metal collection today. The metals above are an ideal investment option for any person looking to diversify their income streams. Metals such as gold and silver have a long reputation for being valuable materials. This means an investment today in these metals will still be valuable in the future. Over to you!
