The Mysterious White Metal That’s Rarer Than Gold

Platinum is 30 times more rare than gold. If all the platinum ever mined were melted and poured into an Olympic-sized pool, the platinum would barely reach your ankles. Gold, however, would fill three pools. Think about that when you compare platinum with other precious metals, especially if you’re in the market for an engagement ring or wedding band. Precious platinum is truly as rare as your love.

The metal you choose to symbolize your marriage has some amazing beginnings. Johnson Matthey, one of the world’s largest platinum producers, gives us a little history: When the Spaniards searched for gold in the New World, they found a strange white metal. Unaware of its potential, they hurled the ore into nearby rivers, hoping that in time, the rocks would “mature” into gold. Calling it “platina,” or “little silver,” the prospectors did not realize that the very rocks they threw away contained an element that was more precious and rare than the metal that drove their ambitions.

If translated into numbers, platinum—for all of its known deposits—is considerably more rare than gold and is the rarest metal of all. And it is, truly, a gift from the heavens. Found in just a few known regions of the world, including Russia and South Africa, platinum has also been discovered in heavy concentrations in meteorites- first reported in F. G. Hawley’s research papers, published in 1939. Yes, the precious metal that graces your beloved engagement ring is a celestial metal with incomparable qualities of strength, purity and durability.