Price of crude platinum sand.—For many years quotations for crude
platinum sand have varied within wide limits, so as to leave much doubt
in the minds of the producers of platinum and osmi-ridium as to what
they should justly receive for their product. This fluctuation has been
due to two factors, the principal one being the wide variation in the
quality of the sand sent in for sale. As a rule it contains some
magnetic ore or valueless grains of sand, and the grains of the metal
itself are impure, containing iron, gold, and silver. Exception is
made for the gold, but payment is not made for any other material. In
order to determine a fair return for samples of sand sent in for sale,
the Geological Survey divided a sample of crude platinum sand obtained
from the Coos Bay region of Oregon into several lots, and sent them to
as many different platinum purchasers, with the request for bids on the
material. The bids were uniformly between $41 and $42 an ounce for the
pure metal contained in the sand. The analyses of the sand by these
purchasers were fairly uniform in their results, showing from 48 to 50
per cent of valuable metals in the said. The valuable metals averaged
about 33 per cent platinum and 17 per cent osmiridium and gold (or
about 50 per cent of each sample), making the value of this sancl as
sampled about $21 per ounce.
In
regard to the price of the osmiridium. or iridosmine, contained it
should be noted that this is frequently called "iridium" by the miners.
Pure iridium would be worth much more than platinum because of its
scarcity and its value for alloying with platinum to increase its
hardness. As elsewhere stated in this report, iridosmine (or
osmiridium) is not pure iridium, but contains from 30 to 50 per cent or
more of osmium, which is of little value.
