Quality

Platinum is considered as a native element even though it is never 100% pure platinum. When extracted, platinum is rather impure and it normally contains small quantities of other elements. Well-formed crystals of platinum are very rare and the frequent appearance of platinum is in nuggets and grains. Platinum most common source is from placer deposits. The usual variety of native platinum is polyxene. It is 80 to 90 per cent platinum, with 3 to 11 per cent iron, in addition to the other platinum group metals as well as gold, copper and nickel. Native platinum is the primary ore of platinum. However, platinum may also be obtained from the very rare native alloy platiniridium. Moreover, it may be found combined with arsenic as sperrylite mineral and with sulfur as cooperite mineral, being also associated with minerals as chromite and olivine.

In jewelry platinum is mainly processed to a grade of 95% as stamped in the different jewelry items through the Pt 950 hallmark. This degree of purity contrasts with the one of other precious metals like gold, which is normally between 33 and 75%.