Guide
The six platinum-group metals.
Platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, and osmium are found together in the same ores and share a lot: they're dense, resist corrosion, and make excellent catalysts. Only two of them, platinum and palladium, trade like gold and silver.
Updated October 30, 2026
We pay more than pawn shops, jewelers, and mail-in gold kits: in Consumer Reports' tests, jewelers and pawn shops paid 36% to 71% of melt value, and mail-in kits 11% to about 29%. We pay 94% for scrap gold. Who pays the most?
The six at a glance
| Metal | Density (g/cm³) | How it trades |
|---|---|---|
| Platinum | 21.45 | Exchange price; coins and bars |
| Palladium | 12.02 | Exchange price; coins and bars |
| Rhodium | 12.41 | Kitco bid and ask; thinly traded |
| Ruthenium | 12.36 | Refiner price, thinly traded |
| Iridium | 22.56 | Refiner price, thinly traded |
| Osmium | 22.59 | No published price |
Where they come from
The platinum-group metals occur together, mostly in South Africa, Russia, Zimbabwe, and North America, and are mined chiefly for platinum, palladium, and nickel. The rarer four, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, and osmium, come out as byproducts when the ore is refined. That means their supply depends on platinum and nickel mining, not on their own prices, which is one reason their prices can swing so sharply.
Which ones you can invest in
- Platinum and palladium trade on exchanges with a live price, come as coins and bars, and can be held in an IRA when they meet the purity rules. We buy and sell both; see our bids.
- Rhodium, ruthenium, and iridium are priced by the big refiners. You can buy small bars, but they're thinly traded, buyers pay well below the quoted price, and they can't go in an IRA.
- Osmium has no published price at all. It's sold to collectors as solid pieces, priced one sale at a time. We have a few arc-melted osmium pellets for sale.
This is general information from the sources below, not investment advice.
Sources
- U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Platinum-group metals.
- 26 U.S.C. §408(m)(3) (the gold, silver, platinum, and palladium bullion that an IRA may hold).
- Wikipedia, Platinum group, and the articles on each metal (densities and uses).