Cost and availability of iridium

A. Hi Khalil. Find a gold & platinum dealer -- that can't be hard. Iridium is a precious metal like gold, platinum, rhodium, etc., and worth almost as much as gold. Some of the same people who deal in those other precious metals will also deal with iridium.

But there is so much nonsense and ridiculous scams with iridium that you should be very careful. Advertisements you see on the internet of people wanting to buy iridium are usually fraudulent -- they place fictitious ads claiming to want to buy iridium at outlandish prices, but the real purpose of those ads is to trick potential buyers into believing there is a resale market at those outlandish prices but there is not -- again, the actual price varies, and can be looked up on line, but is usually a bit less than gold.

Luck & Regards,

A. Iridium Price varies according to the grade you require and quantity you require.

A. Sir, the cost of iridium is listed on www.kitco.com, but its availability is doubtful in India.

A. Hi, Prakash.

Iridium is a precious metal, and the price of precious metals fluctuate rapidly, The daily price might be found at sites like mineralprices.com, kitco.com, and taxfreegold.co.uk/iridiumpricesusdollars.html -- but to put it into perspective because of different currencies, etc., the price of pure iridium is sometimes in the same neighborhood as gold when world currencies are stable. But it's less costly when currencies are not stable, like today, because gold tends to be hoarded more than the other precious metals. Iridium has such limited applications that few people care, so it's harder to establish pricing.

A. Hi, Suriya.

Iridium is a precious metal (currently presently costing 75 to 80% as much as gold).

By definition, precious metals are rare, but the usual source is as a trace metal found when mining platinum. It is very heavy and extremely corrosion resistant, even at high temperatures. It is used as an electrical contact and even a spark plug electrode .

There is an entry for iridium in Wikipedia.

Iridium is a precious metal with a few industrial uses, but there is a lot of scamming going on about ridiculous "magical rice-pulling powers" and other nonsense. As PT Barnum put it, "There's a sucker born every minute".

Regards,

A. Hi, Nikhil.

Of course there is real iridium -- just as there is real platinum, palladium, rhodium, and gold. It is element #77 in the periodic table, and a precious metal. It has been used as a coating on spark plug electrodes. I've also seen it used as a contact point on anodizing racks, and in the balls of ball point pens; I think its high melting point makes it useful as a construction material for certain rocket components. You might find the daily selling price for iridium at places like www.kitco.com and mineralprices.com, and you'll find it at www.taxfreegold.co.uk/iridiumpricesusdollars.html. Yes it's expensive because it is a rare precious metal, but it's nowhere near as expensive as platinum.

Beware of scammers claiming ridiculous "magic powers". They are a pestilence robbing the gullible. And remember that an alloy of iridium and copper is worth far less than pure iridium, in the same way that 9K gold is worth far less than pure 24k gold.

Regards,

A. Hi, Siva.

It's usually obtained as a byproduct of platinum mining. So whatever country is mining the most platinum is probably recovering the most iridium. But it's everywhere; per "The Elements" by Theodore Gray: "A thin layer of iridium-rich clay present all around the world marks the boundary between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods" =>

Regards,

A. Hi, cousin Chandan. I'm half a world away in the USA, so I'm not familiar with India's laws. But it would seem to me that if you are allowed to sell gold coins and precious metals, then you are probably allowed to sell iridium coins; they are similar precious metals, and pure iridium is only slightly less valuable than gold.

Of course if you are selling them for substantially more than their intrinsic metal value, and they are not legitimate collectible coins of established value, you could certainly be accused of being involved in a rice-pulling nonsense scam. And as far as I know, there's no corner of the world where scams are moral or legal.

Regards,

A. Hi, cousin. In view of what you have just read, I really can't understand your question. Please read the page again, slowly.

But some people will not be dissuaded from belief in magic. And I suppose it's okay to believe if it makes you feel good, as long as you don't scam anybody by selling them such a coin, and as long as you don't throw away money that your family needs on such foolishness.

Regards,

A. Hi, Sagar.

I am half a world away so I really can't tell you the names of precious metal dealers in your neighborhood, but anyone who buys and sells silver, gold, and platinum may buy and sell iridium and other precious metals. Just be careful to not be so stupid as to get involved in nonsense like "rice pulling" scams, where people post nonsense like they're willing to pay astronomical prices; the people doing such postings are trying to trick you into believing there is a resale market so you will be more willing to buy, but there is no such market.

Regards,

Thanks Jay. I think I am understanding you to say that iridium is cheaper than gold but tests as if it was gold. So jewelry with, say, 10 parts gold, 4 parts iridium, and 10 parts copper would test as 14k gold rather than 10k gold?

Regards,

A. Hi Santosh.

According to Jay, above, it is possible to cheat people and sell iridium for the same price as gold by mixing it into gold, because there isn't a real easy way to distinguish iridium content from gold content. But sophisticated instruments like x-ray fluorescence machines ⇦this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] and atomic absorption spectrophotometry ⇦this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] should easily distinguish real gold from iridium.

If I have misunderstood your question, it is probably because after many years of the rice pulling scam, and hundreds of postings about it, I prefer to read honest intent into the questions rather than to believe that people are so incorrigable as to insist on being scammed despite years & years of warnings.

But in the words of Mark Twain:

Regards,

A. Hi Rithik.

The price of precious metals is very volatile, and you can get live prices for iridium and other precious metals instead of relying on out of date rumors. For example, see www.taxfreegold.co.uk/iridiumpricesusdollars.html for today's iridium price. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Dear Sir,
Iridium is used for higher end weapons. Iridium also a radioactive metal. In atmosphere 2% iridium is available. One ounce of iridium can power all of India for 365 days. It is the best propellant.
It can be used for artificial disasters. If you have any doubt check the Second World War German secret weapons: they had iridium-red, iridium-black, iridium-green and other powder form compounds. By the grace of almighty, Mr. Hitler did not use that against human beings.
Even handling of iridium raw materials causes urinary bladder cancer.
In our moon surface, iridium is so rich that is the first reason human beings are not ready to settle there, okay?
One kilogram iridium bomb is more dangerous than Japan's Hiroshima and Nagasaki destroyed by "Little boy".
Please do not play with green world, okay.

----
Ed. note: You said it, not me -- and you're being ridiculous :-)

A. Hi David. Unless someone from the trade that uses this instrument stumbles upon your posting I don't think you'll learn anything from such a generic stamping on it. There are many companies with "Iridium" in their name, many trade names based on "Iridium", and countless things made in Italy. It's not solid iridium, and I doubt that anyone would stamp "iridium" on an iridium plated item; and plating is usually too thin to add intrinsic metal value.

On the other hand, most "We buy gold" places can probably quickly determine if the item has any value -- although, sorry, I doubt it; my bet is it is stainless steel. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi Vishal. Rice pulling is a scam whereby (through static electricity, magnetism, wind, sleight of hand, standard magician tricks, or whatever) a coin or chunk of metal is made to attract or seem to attract grains of rice; then a ridiculous story is built up around it, attributing miraculous historic powers to it. What then happens is that the people who want to SELL these coins for ludicrous amounts of money post fictitious internet messages claiming that they desperately want to BUY the coins (there are no buyers, it's all a fiction).

The victims then think that:
1). the coins have miraculous power and
2). that they can easily re-sell them at a profit.
Neither is true, of course, and they lose their life's savings to the scummy scam artists.

Iridium is a fairly valuable precious metal; if pure, it is worth maybe half the price of gold. It is an element, so there are simple chemical and x-ray techniques for identifying it, just like all other metals.

Regards,

A. Hi Amar. The price of most precious metals can be found on the London Fix. Iridium, although quite rare, has no role in currency and such limited uses that very few people in the world care about it, which makes it harder to find on-line prices -- but as I already mentioned on this page, you can find it at www.taxfreegold.co.uk/iridiumpricesusdollars.html

Added to very low demand, the fact that 99% of all chatter about iridium is scam nonsense makes it even harder to connect seriously. I'd suggest that you go to kitco.com and search that site for iridium, which may help inform you about it's potential worth, and possibly to sell it. But I doubt it.

Regards,

A. Hi Ezhil. The overwhelming majority of all metals look silvery. This business is all about scams; don't be scammed.

Regards,

A. Hi Asad. Iridium is not soluble in aqua regia. Sorry. You would need to dissolve it in molten sodium cyanide or potassium cyanide. It can be done, but I'm not sure that such an operation is within the reasonable safety zone of a jeweler.

Regards,

Hi John.
1. No
2. No

Who tells you these ridiculous stories? Why do you believe in such nonsense?

Regards,

A. Hi Dileepa. It's complete nonsense. And you will eventually find out that they are trying to sell, certainly not offering to buy.

Often they will place fictitious ads on the internet or newspaper offering to buy such garbage, but the offers to buy are a fake; the only reason for them is to mislead you and make you believe you could re-sell something if you bought it from them. No, you can't, it's a scam.

Regards,

A. There is so much nonsense on here about iridium; I am not going to address those because I would be wasting breath.

However, there is a peacetime use for Iridium in manufacturing. High brightness LED's have a very thin layer of industrial sapphire in their base. These wafer's are grown as crystals, then machined into the final form. The process that I observed over a period of a few months is that the industrial grade sapphires, which melt at 2,200 °C (approx.) were liquified inside cylinders fashioned from iridium, which melts at 2,500 °C (approx.). The light and heat are intense, and one must wear special goggles to look into the process when it is underway. The cooling water demand for the equipment is also enormous. A tiny amount of the iridium is lost with each batch, and the cylinder eventually begins to look more like an elephant's foot than a cylinder, at which point it is re-machined. Sometimes I wonder if the cooling water requirement doesn't consume more energy than is saved over the life of the LED, but that is a research project for somebody who can get the funding.