For about 2200 bucks you can get yourself some platinum. The US Mint has coins with a face value of 100 bucks containing one troy ounce of 0.9995 platinum. Like gold and silver, element no. 78 is a “precious” metal and is used for both bullion (non-coin applications like ingots and bars) and specie (coinage). Of course only an idiot would actually use platinum, gold, or silver as legal tender. We have paper for that! Here’s a platinum coin:

Platinum is rare, similar to gold in crustal abundance. Like gold, it doesn’t corrode. One of its uses is in catalytic converters so all of us are connected with this “noble” metal in some way.

Platinum has a variety of specialized industrial uses but only a tiny amount of the stuff (about 200 metric tons annually) is actually mined and sold on the world market. That’s a little over six million troy ounces. By comparison world gold production is nearly 100 million troy ounces per year.

Platinum is obtained as a by-product from copper and nickel mining.