Platinum and Gold FYI

I have been involved in gold mining off and on most of my life. I learned a lot from Ray Nailer of California who is no longer with us. Ray sold 50 gold claims on the American River for $55-million dollars. He solf another five for five million and retires. He sold and flew much of his gold out of the country to the Bahamas where is put it in banks for Dean Martin, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.

Ray also moved the Spruce Goose across town to it's birth in the Los Angelos boat harbor. I had the privalage to examine the many phothgraphs of his exploits in his basement office. There were pictures of a giant gold dredge being over overland on rollers by eight large bulldozers. It was the largest moving job ever attempted. 

Over the years I trecked over half of Arizona, Nevada and NewMexico examining old gold mines and consulting with miners.

Off the top of my head, there are six platinum group metals. Platinum, Iridium, Osmium, Ruthenium , Osmeridam, Rhodium. Rhodium is the most expensive selling for around $5000.00 to $8,000 per ounce. Rhodium is used in hydrogen fuel cells to make electricity. iridium is alloyed with rhodium and other metals to make them more heat resistant. All of these metals flores under extreme heat which makes them vvaluable for catylitic chemical reactions. In othe words, these metals clean up the environment by removing corsonigenic or cancer forming particles. They also make it easier for you to breathe... 


Osmium is used in the catalytic converter in your car because it is one of the cheapest platinum group at around $500 per ounce. Iridium is the rarest metals on earth and is found in meteorites and volcanic sand. Layers of pink clay containing iridium mark the various timeline of extinctions of life on earth from incoming meteorites. Iridium is used wherever resistance to extreme high temperatures are needed such as rocket nozzles, turbine blades, and light bulbs. Rhodium is also used in turbine blades. The turbine of a PT-6 used in Bell helicopters is a one piece unit. Japan is the only country that can make them.

Spectrographic analysis is one way of testing metals but the spectrographs in America are too small to detect platinum group metals. They only have 3/8th inch diameter carbon electrodes which burn away before the higher elements above iron are detected.

A small sample is put in a hollow tip of a carbon electrode and another electrode above is lowered down until the sample is inside an electric ark. Everything has a melting point, boiling point and a flash point. The melting point of water is 32 degrees F and its boiling point is 212 degrees. The melting point of Iron is around 1800 degrees while some platinum group metals melt at 2100 degrees. You can look up the melting point and flash point in any handbook of chemistry and physics. I have one here but I am too lazy to get exact data. While the metals are being burned into nothingness the light from the arc is fed through a narrow slit and recorded on film. The film strip rotates slowly during the time of the burn thereby recording when the flash point of various metals is reached. By comparing the various film strips of known composition metals a person can gauge how much this or that is in the sample by the intensity of the flash. When it flashes indicates what kind of metal it is. Again, Rhodium flashes in 386 seconds.

To test the platinum group you need 900-amps of electricity and one-inch carbon electrodes capable of burning 400 seconds. Rhodium is the toughest metal on earth. It can survive inside an electric arc for 386 seconds.

If you want to know the prices go to MSN Money or TD Ameritrade, click on commodities scroll down to precious metals. Current prices are:

Gold qt the present time: $1,750.00
TD Ameritrade prices are as follows:

Silver Nov '11 ¢/troy oz. 3,527.50 +17.90 (+0.51%)

Platinum Jan '12 $/troy oz. 1,649.60 +8.20 (+0.50%)

Corn Dec '11 ¢/bushel 656.00 +4.50 (+0.69%)

Wheat Dec '11 ¢/bushel 647.00 +3.00 (+0.47%)

High-grade Copper Nov '11 ¢/lb. 371.20 +2.35 (+0.64%)

Natural gas Dec '11 $/mm btu 3.93

You never see prices where the price of gold is more than platinum. Weird! Silver, gold, platinum prices are in troy ounces. Copper is in pounds. There are only four refineries in the Americas that can separate all of the platinum group for their various specific uses. It is done chemically by dissolving them in aqua regia or acids. Go on Youtube and type in platinum and recycling catalytic converters. There are hours of informative videos on how it is done. The chemical process is not necessary if a person is melting the concentrate into dore bars. These can be sent to a refinery capable of extracting the platinum group.

http://www.guarddogbooks.com/ book: Philosopher's Stone