Jewelry Tips: Precious metals are gold, silver or any of what are now called the PGM or “platinum group metals” (platinum, iridium, palladium, ruthenium, rhodium and osmium); all others are “base” or ”industrial” metals. “Precious” refers only to their use in jewelry; many “base” metals are extremely valuable to industry. For example, copper is a monetary metal, used in coins for millennia, and rhenium’s value is nearly ten times that of gold, but it’s so rare the entire output is committed to industrial use. Likewise, precious metals have industrial applications. Only two-thirds of gold mined and less that forty percent of silver becomes jewelry or coins. The rest goes to electronics, photography, medicine or elsewhere.

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