Platinum is 30 times more rare than gold. If all the platinum ever mined were melted and poured into an Olympic-sized pool, the platinum would barely reach your ankles. Gold, however, would fill three pools.
In terms of abundance in the Earth's crust, the rarest metals are: gold, platinum, osmium, iridium, palladium, ruthenium, rhodium, tellurium and rhenium.
Different types of metals
At today's price of $351.19 per gram, rhodium has changed +10.99% so far in 2026. It is up +116.11% since the start of last year and +127.23% since the start of 2024. This precious metal is down –27.59% since the start of 2023.
Rhodium is found in platinum or nickel ores with the other members of the platinum group metals. It was discovered in 1803 by William Hyde Wollaston in one such ore, and named for the rose color of one of its chlorine compounds.
How expensive is iridium? At the time of writing, Iridium is $4,500 an ounce, whereas gold is roughly $2,082 an ounce.
World's Top 10 Most Precious Metals
The different types of base metals include:
Group 3 is the first group of transition metals in the periodic table. This group is closely related to the rare-earth elements. It contains the four elements scandium (Sc), yttrium (Y), lutetium (Lu), and lawrencium (Lr). The group is also called the scandium group or scandium family after its lightest member.
Choosing the Right Selling Method
When considering the appropriate selling method for palladium coins, sellers are presented with several options, each with advantages and disadvantages. Firstly, selling to a local coin dealer or pawn shop is a common choice.
Deposits of palladium ore are rare: the most abundant sites are located in specific parts of South Africa, Russia, Canada and the Unites States. A sizeable source of palladium is the recycling of scrapped catalytic converters.
Silver could reach $100 per ounce by March — and potentially $110 by the second half of 2026. The call reflects an acute shortage of physical silver. COMEX registered inventories have plummeted over 70% since 2020. Industrial demand keeps accelerating.
(cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium, and the eponymous lanthanum) as well as the two elements scandium and yttrium are referred to as “rare earths.”
Major brokerages expect gold to reach $5,000/oz in 2026, anticipating that safe-haven demand amid geopolitical tension, monetary policy easing, ETF inflows and central bank buying will carry forward the momentum from last year.
Noble metals refer to ruthenium (Ru), rhodium (Rh), palladium (Pd), silver (Ag), osmium (Os), iridium (Ir), platinum (Pt), and gold (Ag).
The metals of antiquity are the seven metals which humans had identified and found use for in prehistoric times in Africa, Europe and throughout Asia: gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, iron, and mercury.
Copper was first used by man over 10,000 years ago. A copper pendant discovered in what is now northern Iraq has been dated about 8700 B.C. For nearly five millennia copper was the only metal known to man, and thus had all the metal applications.
The rarest metal on earth is actually francium, but because this unstable element has a half life of a mere 22 minutes, it has no practical use. Tantalum, on the other hand, is used to make capacitors in electronic equipment such as mobile phones, DVD players, video game systems, and computers.
The value of Rhodium is 10,100.00 US Dollar per ounce.
The Earth's crust is approximately 21 miles deep, and even that is less than 1% of the planet's overall volume. It is safe to assume then that we will never exhaust the Earth's metal resources in their entirety.
Although the underlying metal may be magnetic, the rhodium plating itself is not magnetic. Thus, if you have a piece of jewelry that has been rhodium plated, it will not be magnetic.
Gold, silver, platinum, and palladium are the four main precious metals with unique uses and characteristics. Platinum is rarer than gold, making it possibly the most precious due to rarity and useful properties.