Palladium, as one might imagine is a sort of "wierd" metal and is part of the precious metal family which means that it will not oxide or tone etc. Another unique property is that when palladium is minted in uncirculated conditions, they are very dull, in fact, dull grey and when they are minted in proof conditions, they have a stunning color effect to it.

Images from the Central Bank of Russia:

Russia palladium uncirculated



Against:

Russia palladium PROOF



The first palladium coin was minted in a "remote" country called Tonga in 1967. Major countries soon followed after that, like Russia, China, Canada, Australia and even small countries like Bermuda. If I am not wrong, Portugal, France, Isle of Man and Singapore also did mint some coins in palladium too. Feel free to add other countries that have minted coins in this metal.

Because of the extreme violite pricing of palladium, it soon was difficult to mint coins in Pd. The crisis started in 1997 and soon no countries were able to mint coins in metals other than bullions. Australia had to stop minting their emu coins, Russia was not able to mint their ballerina set since 1995 in such metal and no other countries dared to participate. And in 2000, palladium has come to a crisis as some mines threatened to stop producing this scarce metal and there was too much hoarding going on. In fact has surpassed gold prices for a very short period of time. And palladium coins are just thought to be "scarce" because of this event...

However, just last year, China started to mint panda coins in 1/2 ounce Pd and Canada too recently just announced that they will mint Canadian maple leaf on palladium too. This probably indicates that palladium has reached a point that it is stable enough to mint coins in such bullion.

And this is one example of a palladium coin that I have is...



Sorry for the crappy picture... didn't want to wreck the coin out from it's protective cover.

A better one can be found here at eBay: Link

Personally i love them! But i like weird metals, although i don't think of palladium as weird really. I think of it as the fourth precious metal after Ag, Au and Pt.


Word to the wise about Pd though, after handling them do wash your hands. I'll have to double check but i have the feeling that Pd compounds are poisonous. Pd itself can cause irritation to some people.

Actually If you want Four metals I would have to Say Rhodium is #1

Yes Rhodium most certainly is... very, very expensive.

If I am not wrong... rhodium can't be made into sheets unless they are alloyed...



At least I never dared to touch such coins with my bare hands... I haven't even rip out that plastic casing around my palladium proof coin to take a better picture...

Im not sure if you can with rhodium? i used to work with platinum and rhodium a bunch, but I have seen it in lots of forms, just not coin form....

I don't think I have ever seen a Palladium coin. I like silver the best as a coinage material so I always suspected I would like palladium similarly. But, it is ends up in a dull Unc finish, I probably wouldn't like it as much...

As I understand it from my metals supplier, palladium is a nonreactive metal which alloys readily with gold and is used in making white gold as a substitute for chromates. The palladium is much less likely than nickel to cause an irritable reaction on the skin and makes a safer alloy for use in earrings and other body jewelry.

Rhodium is another of the very expensive nonreactive metals used in jewelry but it's used more often for plating than for alloying.

Those proof palladium coins are very nice. Maybe I'll have a few someday.

There's one in the PCI competition Stu.

http://www.lenntech.com/Periodic-chart-elements/Pd-en.htm


Palladium really does fall in line with the metals nearby; cadmium, silver, mercury etc.

All make fairly nasty compounds and all are poisonous at some level.

Wait, I am awfully confused. Isn't palladium used in dentistry products???

Isn't mercury?

If you think that's bad try this;

http://www.lenntech.com/Periodic-chart-elements/Ag-en.htm


I think all heavy metals are poisonous. Why is silver such a good antisceptic? Because it's toxic to lower life forms. Of course in elemental form it's not dangerous (neither is palladium), and even the dangerous ones like cadmium and mercury aren't that dangerous.

But when the metals start to react with other things (especially when they form chlorides and nitrates) they can become lethal. Silver Nitrate isn't exactly nice stuff, Mercuric Chloride well you really are getting to the dangerous stuff there a very violent poison indeed.

I do understand that mercury is used in thermometers and barometers but in dental products... I don't think so...

Silver amalgam fillings? Surely you know they contain mercury, quite a bit of it too.

Over time fillings of course break down and the mercury is slowly released and it vapourises in your mouth and then you breath it in and it gets into the blood stream via the lungs (which is the most effective way of Hg poisoning). If you've ever had a filling drop out that's because it's shrunk and no longer holds in. Why has it shrunk? Something has got out...

Of course they say removing fillings is potentially more dangerous than leaving them in! I had one taken out and then redone due to it being botched... one lot of Hg comes out, more Hg goes in.

But i weren't paying for a Hg-free white filling, far too expensive. Thus i took the cheap option. (Like 90% of the population).

Ah, didn't thought of dental fillings. Never had bad tooth so I only go there for checkups... that's all.

I never had any trouble either until two years ago when i thought a box of hard toffees would be a good thing to have... was i wrong. Cracked tooth and nothing but hastle since...


As much as i like toffee i don't have much these days... i can't afford the dentist bills.

Oh my... that sure is bad not to have toffees.

But yes... this time, a palladium coin is going to make it in PCI

I meant seen in person. I know what they sort of look like from pics...they always seem about halfway between silver and clad from the pics I have seen. But, I have never seen them in person to really get the proper effect.

They have a certain look in person (based on the sole example i have), not quite silver, not quite grey, very hard. The edges on mine are actually sharp, when i say sharp i don't mean sharp in strike, i mean sharp as in cutable.

The way they reflect light dues give very subtle colour hues... an interesting metal i think.

You are probably right on that Stujoe, when it's an uncirculated piece. The odd thing about uncirculated palladium coins is that they give out awful reflections so whatever details would look "bent" and distorted. For that very reason, I hated uncirculated palladium coins. I have one somewhere but I don't remember where I put it...

And unfortunately, palladium coins are still ridiciously expensive... you can always find it at eBay.de with their specialized metal bullion area but still, prices are too prohibitive.

Follow this link and you will find there the reasons why Pd it is so expensive.
http://www.stillwaterpalladium.com/productionoverview.html

Palladium coins are expensive considering that they cost way over the bullion value. I mean, if you can find a full ounce of palladium coin around 200USD, or in smaller ratios in apporiate ratios, you are doing good!

Today's exchange rate of 1xpd to USD is 207.403 at xe.com...

I have never seen it in person and I know you can't tell how something really looks from an internet picture but the metal really doesn't look all that attractive. Silver looks better to me and it cost less then 1/25 what palladium cost.

That's right they all are. And your right about elemental Mercury too, it really isn't anywhere near as dangerous as everyone likes to make it out to be.


You think Mercuric Chloride is bad, try mercury fulmanate.