Gold skyrockets, silver prices skyrocket, platinum rushes. But if you’re looking for precious metals or exclusive jewelry, there’s another alternative: osmium, a precious metal that is increasingly used in jewelry. It is a metal, but it can also be transformed into small blue-white crystals to create a pavé similar to and, according to some, more brilliant than diamonds. Osmium was the last of the eight precious metals to be discovered, after gold, silver, ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, iridium, and platinum. Since then, its price has increased significantly, also because osmium is the rarest metal in the world.
Gold is 1,500 times more common than osmium. And, for example, in 250 40-ton trucks filled to the brim with platinum ore, only one ounce of osmium is found, about 30 grams. In short, it is extremely rare and, according to geologists, it is destined to run out soon. This is why some say that the price will rise further. It can also be purchased in bars for investment, but be careful: it is not listed on the stock exchange.
Osmium is found in nature in the form of a natural alloy of osmium and iridium, osmiridium, in river sands rich in platinum and in some nickel mineral deposits, mainly in the Urals, Australia or South Africa. The value of the metal, however, does not lie so much in the material as in the work required to complete the setting when it is in the form of crystals. This metal also has an advantage: it is counterfeit-proof, because each piece is stored in a global database with an identification code and a scan of the crystalline surface: it is subjected to a certification process at the Osmium-Institut für Inverkehrbringung und Zertifizierung von Osmium in Germany.
However, there is also a dark side to osmium: it is only marketed in its crystalline form, since all other forms, such as raw osmium, can form a toxic oxide when in contact with air. This is why the transformation process is particularly dangerous. Once transformed into crystals, however, the metal is no longer risky. The invention of the crystallization process is quite recent: it was invented in 2013, after 40 years of laboratory work.
In jewelry, osmium is also used in alloys with other metals, such as platinum. According to the Osmium World Council, “osmium diamonds” currently cost about a tenth of traditional diamonds. However, experts are expected to change this situation in the coming years. Diamonds are very beautiful, but not as rare as osmium.
