Rhodium

[scyther]

So apparently Rhodium was worth over $9,700 an ounce in June 2008, obliterating the records for platinum, palladium, or gold. You can now buy an ounce on provident metals for $930. Sounds tempting. But that's really a lot of money for me and the buy back price is only $750.

Does anyone here own Rhodium? Would you recommend it? What do you think the odds are it will ever get anywhere near the old highs?

[highroller4321]

Rhodium was only near $10k an ounce for a brief period of time. Its an interest metal, and I have owned some, but its extremely hard to resell lots bigger than 1/10 ounce at a time.

[Thogey]

Rhodium was only near $10k an ounce for a brief period of time. Its an interest metal, and I have owned some, but its extremely hard to resell lots bigger than 1/10 ounce at a time.

Who do you sell it to? Plating outfits?

[highroller4321]

Rhodium was only near $10k an ounce for a brief period of time. Its an interest metal, and I have owned some, but its extremely hard to resell lots bigger than 1/10 ounce at a time.

Who do you sell it to? Plating outfits?

Up until I believe 2-3 years ago there weren't any companies who made rhodium in a "bullion" form, because rhodium is extremely brittle. I believe Cohen Mint was the first one to come up with a bullion form. They first issued a 1 gram round and it sold very quickly, but they had production problems with the grams crumbling. I believe they finally fixed the problem but they took 6 months+ and had to refund a LOT of pissed off people.

I am not sure if there are many other but Baird is now the biggest maker of rhodium in bullion form.



My experience in selling rhodium is my buying it at a wholesale dealer level and then flipping it gram by gram to those who want some. I have seen dealers sell 1/10th-5 ounce bars but I haven't seen anyone ever willing to buy it back. A quick google search shows there are now at least 1 company who will buy it back, but I have no experience using them.

[scyther]

Rhodium was only near $10k an ounce for a brief period of time. Its an interest metal, and I have owned some, but its extremely hard to resell lots bigger than 1/10 ounce at a time.

http://www.kitco.com/scripts/hist_chart ... graphs.cgi

Looks like it was over $9,000 for a few months, and over $4,000 for over 2 years.

EDIT: The link's not working. But Google "rhodium price chart", go to kitco, and click 2000-2009.

[InfleXion]

I believe rhodium's price spike was due to a temporary supply shortage. Could it happen again, sure. It could happen to any metal as they are all finite resources. That price spike was not based on fundamentals so I wouldn't count on it happening again.

I still like silver better, because silver (and gold, but gold is harder to control) are the metals that get suppressed as competition for the dollar. The powers don't have any vested interest in keeping rhodium down, so IMO it has less upside.

[beauanderos]

I believe rhodium's price spike was due to a temporary supply shortage. Could it happen again, sure. It could happen to any metal as they are all finite resources. That price spike was not based on fundamentals so I wouldn't count on it happening again.

I still like silver better, because silver (and gold, but gold is harder to control) are the metals that get suppressed as competition for the dollar. The powers don't have any vested interest in keeping rhodium down, so IMO it has less upside.

actually... the price spike was based on fundamentals, albeit very short-lived ones.

[Rodebaugh]

I see that Pamp is making these now.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Coins-Paper-Mon ... kw=rhodium

[InfleXion]

I believe rhodium's price spike was due to a temporary supply shortage. Could it happen again, sure. It could happen to any metal as they are all finite resources. That price spike was not based on fundamentals so I wouldn't count on it happening again.

I still like silver better, because silver (and gold, but gold is harder to control) are the metals that get suppressed as competition for the dollar. The powers don't have any vested interest in keeping rhodium down, so IMO it has less upside.

actually... the price spike was based on fundamentals, albeit very short-lived ones.

Well you've got me there my friend. I should have said longterm fundamentals. Merry Christmas

[Mr Paradise]

Tulip mania.


I wouldn't bother with it as a speculation metal.

[scyther]

One solid thing rhodium has going for it is that there is a very limited supply. It's much rarer than platinum, let alone gold or silver.

[Recyclersteve]

One solid thing rhodium has going for it is that there is a very limited supply. It's much rarer than platinum, let alone gold or silver.

Rarity is fine but without true utility (like silver and copper and oil have), you've got something that very few people would pay much for. Imagine having some for sale and the potential buyer asks you to prove beyond doubt that your rhodium is authentic. How would you do it?

That big spike years ago could have been due to a single wealthy person (with a penchant for gambling) trying to move it up sharply. All they have to do is buy all the easy stuff they can quickly. Let's say that might be 50 oz. After that, call about 50 well known dealers and tell them you want 20 ounces from each of them. And tell them you are going to another 50 dealers until you get at least 1,000 additional oz. of rhodium.

Even if you did get it all, good luck selling and making any kind of profit.

If rhodium had a lot of uses and nothing that could be used as a cheaper substitute, then the price likely wouldn't have tumbled as quickly as it did.

[scyther]

One solid thing rhodium has going for it is that there is a very limited supply. It's much rarer than platinum, let alone gold or silver.

Rarity is fine but without true utility (like silver and copper and oil have), you've got something that very few people would pay much for. Imagine having some for sale and the potential buyer asks you to prove beyond doubt that your rhodium is authentic. How would you do it?

True to a point, but rhodium does have some utility and gold doesn't have a huge amount. Will anyone stop valuing gold? Even silver seems to be valued more as a precious than industrial metal.

Selling it would be a serious concern, though, which is why I'm having doubts about it. I probably would want to sell to a store or company, rather than an individual. What if the price hits 10,000 and I can only get 2,000? I feel like that could happen with rhodium, where there's no way it could with gold...

[highroller4321]

One solid thing rhodium has going for it is that there is a very limited supply. It's much rarer than platinum, let alone gold or silver.

Rarity is fine but without true utility (like silver and copper and oil have), you've got something that very few people would pay much for. Imagine having some for sale and the potential buyer asks you to prove beyond doubt that your rhodium is authentic. How would you do it?

That big spike years ago could have been due to a single wealthy person (with a penchant for gambling) trying to move it up sharply. All they have to do is buy all the easy stuff they can quickly. Let's say that might be 50 oz. After that, call about 50 well known dealers and tell them you want 20 ounces from each of them. And tell them you are going to another 50 dealers until you get at least 1,000 additional oz. of rhodium.

Even if you did get it all, good luck selling and making any kind of profit.

If rhodium had a lot of uses and nothing that could be used as a cheaper substitute, then the price likely wouldn't have tumbled as quickly as it did.

+1 Platinum is about 10x more rare then gold, but generally is cheaper then gold.

[InfleXion]

Gold has plenty of utility. It's just not cost effective for the utility you get out of it. If gold and silver were priced the same, gold would replace silver in certain applications due to lack of corrosion even though silver is a better conductor of heat and electricity.

That platinum is so much more rare than gold and priced the same is one reason why I've invested a small position into physical platinum, since it is at greater risk of a supply squeeze especially considering platinum producers have somewhat of a monopoly and it doesn't come from many different places.

This could be looked at two different ways though. Either platinum is very undervalued (or gold is overvalued comparatively, even less likely), or in my opinion the more correct assumption is that monetary metals demand more value than metals that are strictly industrial. The demand is coming from two different segments of buyers with different reasons for buying.

Because of that dual demand I like gold and silver the best, but prefer silver due to the current GSR as compared to the historical GSR. I suspect the current GSR being skewed in favor of gold is due to silver no longer being used as currency even though central banks do still use gold to settle their debts, but I have little doubt that silver will return to being legitimate currency at some point such as when fiat currencies fail and we face a choice between hard money off the books vs. a cashless society. BitCoin won't suffice for that because it requires grid dependency. So we could see 2 segments of money users - physical vs. electronic. The electronic side of the house would compete between government sanctioned electronic currency and BitCoin (and its ilk), but those who use BitCoin could still be required to go along with whatever other utopian measures come with a cashless soceity if they can't live without technology, and it's also possible that BitCoin becomes the government sanctioned currency as with Amsterdam.

According to the definition of money, silver always has and always will fit the criteria (although copper and nickel, all metals fit the criteria, they just aren't "precious"). It's just that silver is not sanctioned by the current government to settle debts so the opportunity is there to buy a monetary metal in the absence of monetary demand. Where as with metals like platinum and rhodium you are entirely at the mercy of suppliers and the economy which in my opinion is less stability than precious metals which transcend into the human psyche as being desirable even in the absence of a concrete explanation as to why that is the case.

[68Camaro]

More interested in palladium than rhodium but don't have either yet. Have a little platinum.

[ZenOps]

Rhodium used to be available in sponge (powder) form until the last few years. You can get some in bar form now, but no coin so far.

Its not a very liquid asset, meaning that even if you have a precious metal dealer within a hundred miles of you - there is a good chance that he will sell but not be able to buy if you just show up unannounced.

The price spike corresponded to nickel. If you ask me, nickel is the only money (as its the only money around the world that still circulates as pure or cupronickel) At that price spike nickel was also $23 per pound. By my estimation, a pound of nickel should roughly buy 30 one pound loaves of bread if things really got bad (two and a half rolls of Canadian pure nickels)

People tend to say gold is a liquid asset, I'd argue that nickel by volume is definitely more liquid.

[scyther]

I wouldn't say nickel is money in any meaningful sense. And plenty of copper still circulates- just as dimes and quarters (and nickels), rather than pennies.