Platinum is a rare metal of silver-steel color, like gold, it has a high chemical inertness: resistant to acids, alkalis and other compounds, it dissolves only in aqua regia. It is rightfully considered a noble metal. Platinum is now more valuable than gold, but this was not always the case.
In the New World, for centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards, platinum jewelry was made on a par with gold, but platinum became known to Europeans only in the middle of the 16th century. For the first time, the Spaniards noticed grains of platinum in the gold mines of the South American continent. They noticed it and threw it back into the river, believing that it was silver with impurities. They tried to get rid of her. It was from this misunderstanding that the name of the metal came about: in translation from Spanish, the word plata literally means "silver" or "bad silver". In those days, platinum was valued at half the price of silver and several times cheaper than gold. For a long time it did not find application, platinum jewelry was not made at that time, and it was difficult to mint coins, due to its refractoriness. Gold interspersed with platinum was called "rotten", at the mines the authorities demanded to carefully separate the "silver" from the reclaimed gold. It was soon noticed that platinum and gold could be alloyed, and counterfeiters took advantage of this property. Platinum began to be reckoned with only in the middle of the 18th century, after Louis XVI called it “the metal of kings”. But it took about a hundred more years before scientists proved in 1838 that platinum is an independent chemical element. A little earlier it was found on the territory of Russia, the new metal began to be called "white gold". In 1824, platinum mining began for the first time in Russia. The largest platinum nugget weighing almost 8 kg was found at the Isovsky mine in 1904, it was named the "Ural Giant", and is currently kept in the Diamond Fund. With the development of radio engineering, medical equipment, the automotive industry, the computer and space industries, parts made of wear-resistant metals were required that would not corrode and would not interact with adjacent materials. Platinum possessed such properties, so the demand for it began to grow. Along with the demand, prices for this rare metal have skyrocketed. By the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, platinum became the most expensive of the noble metals, almost doubling the cost of gold. During the 2009 crisis, the demand for cars fell, and since more than half of the annual production of platinum is used in the automotive industry, the price of platinum has dropped sharply. However, a year later, due to the improvement of the economic well-being of society, the need for the production of new cars increased, and the cost of platinum increased. By the end of 2010, one ounce of platinum was worth three times the price of an ounce of gold. This jump was associated with the recovery and relative stabilization of the world economy. And in 2011, due to the crisis in the United States, gold began to lead again in the world market. Currently, the price per ounce of platinum is slightly higher than the price of an ounce of gold.
