Quote:
Originally Posted by fireant911
My wife just recently lost her wedding band. After searching throughout our home and her work, she finally accepted the fact that it is gone... We went shopping yesterday for a replacement wedding band and looked at gold and platinum bands. The jeweler informed us that platinum was much higher priced - we he showed us the price, the platinum was about four times higher (presumably for the same karat). We went to a second jeweler and received the same story. Years ago, I used to follow the precious metal market and platinum was always higher than gold... but not by much. I checked the prices of these metals yesterday after getting home and saw that gold was $1667.60/ounce whereas platinum was $1,683.00/ounce. Why is there such a huge difference in price between these two metals for a ring when the actual price difference is less than 1%?
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Platinum is also more dense, but about 10%, so you need more material. It is also harder to work with. Melting point of Platinum is 60% higher than of gold. (3214.9 °F vs. 1947.52 °F). And Historically, Platinum has been more expensive, so I think the jewelers are pricing platinum at twice that of gold.