# 90% platinum



## phillg (Mar 6, 2012)

Simple question, but i cant find a answer for.
With 90% platinum jewerly what is the other 
10%? Silver? And are their any refinerys that 
pay for the other metals besides the Platinum
thanks for your help


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## jimdoc (Mar 6, 2012)

phillg said:


> Simple question, but i cant find a answer for.
> With 90% platinum jewerly what is the other
> 10%? Silver? And are their any refinerys that
> pay for the other metals besides the Platinum
> thanks for your help



It may be 10% iridium, but usually that is marked. I think there are other possibilities also, especially in newer jewelry. I doubt you will find any buyers pay for the other 10%, I think they consider that their bonus.
This is the platinum choices at Precious Metals West;
http://www.preciousmetalswest.com/platinum.php

Ganoksin info;
http://www.ganoksin.com/borisat/nenam/jewelry-platinum-alloy.htm

Jim


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## goldsilverpro (Mar 6, 2012)

Unless things have changed, the 2 most common Pt alloys used for jewelry are 90 Platinum/10 Iridium and 95 Platinum/5 Ruthenium


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## Lou (Mar 6, 2012)

I consider the ruthenium my bonus, given how dangerous it is to refine. That and it's not worth a terribly large amount. I usually sell it as RuCl3 or a ruthenate salt.

Some alloys are platinum and cobalt. Some jewelers make custom alloys that have palladium in them. Or Pt and rhodium. 

The iridium I will pay on if it amounts to over 5 ounces. This means on 50 ounces of scrap jewelry, I need to see 5 ounces of iridium.
For the record, iridium is a serious dog to refine and only worth doing if you have 100 ounces or so. You can get it to 99% purity just by dissolving everything else away from it. At that point things get complex (and also proprietary).


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## nickvc (Mar 7, 2012)

I can sympathise with you Lou on the Iridium, I found some in a job I was doing for someone else, not a clue how it got there but the damn stuff keeps turning up in my wastes when I do a recovery from my stock pots and this was a job I did years ago. I got excited when I first did the job as I found fairly large pieces of a silver metal that had survived the AR, Platinum a good bonus...no Iridium and no Platinum. I know it titters at hot AR!


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