Looks like another "brand" of Rhodium bars

[jim4silver]

Saw this yesterday. Looks like another Rhodium bar is being sold. Also noticed that this new 'brand" is made by Baird, which is the company that started making Rhodium bars not too long ago. I have some of the Baird bars myself, and I am glad to see more different companies selling these. One fear I have about Rhodium is that very few coin stores even handle these. Hopefully in time they will become as common as palladium and platinum bars.

PS I am not advocating anyone by Rhodium, but it did hit over $10,000 in 2008 and its current price is below its past few years average.

Here is the ad for the degussa bars: Hard to imagine having to pay approx 20% VAT (a type of tax popular in Europe and will be here someday probably if we get more broke) on each bar. Talk about "high premiums"!


1 oz Degussa Rhodiumbarren - Degussa Goldhandel GmbH



and the original Baird bar:

Rhodium Bars: Baird Mint One Ounce Rhodium Bar - Golden Eagle Coins



Jim

 

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[Marchas45]

Saw this yesterday. Looks like another Rhodium bar is being sold. Also noticed that this new 'brand" is made by Baird, which is the company that started making Rhodium bars not too long ago. I have some of the Baird bars myself, and I am glad to see more different companies selling these. One fear I have about Rhodium is that very few coin stores even handle these. Hopefully in time they will become as common as palladium and platinum bars.

PS I am not advocating anyone by Rhodium, but it did hit over $10,000 in 2008 and its current price is below its past few years average.

Here is the ad for the degussa bars: Hard to imagine having to pay approx 20% VAT (a type of tax popular in Europe and will be here someday probably if we get more broke) on each bar. Talk about "high premiums"!


1 oz Degussa Rhodiumbarren - Degussa Goldhandel GmbH



and the original Baird bar:

Rhodium Bars: Baird Mint One Ounce Rhodium Bar - Golden Eagle Coins



Jim

Are you trying to lure me in Jim? LMAO but I will check it out. Lol

 

[Marchas45]

Are you trying to lure me in Jim? LMAO but I will check it out. Lol

Oop's Just Checked it Out. To Rich For Me. Lol

 

[jim4silver]

Oop's Just Checked it Out. To Rich For Me. Lol

Maybe I was trying to lure you in Charlie. LOL!

I was lucky enough when I got mine that one of my coin dealer acquaintances ordered some for himself and he sold me some at roughly $125 over spot, which is high premium wise, but still better than the online stores. I think that the premiums would come down if there were other manufacturers competing for business.

I would probably recommend palladium over rhodium, but I want to have both since I have no stocks, bonds, etc.

Jim

 

[TreasurePirate69]

Very interesting. To me, palladium would be more desirable than rhodium. But if you have the money and don't mind taking a gamble then a little rhodium could result in a pretty big pay day if things go right. If not, well, at least you can say that you own some rhodium.

 

[jim4silver]

Very interesting. To me, palladium would be more desirable than rhodium. But if you have the money and don't mind taking a gamble then a little rhodium could result in a pretty big pay day if things go right. If not, well, at least you can say that you own some rhodium.

I have more palladium than rhodium dollar wise, but rhodium could be the metal of the year once it "awakens" again. What is key is that they keep needing rhodium in catalytic converters. The trend has been to use palladium to substitute for platinum and rhodium as much as possible.

But in reality this can only be done so much. Due to its molecular structure, rhodium is used in 3 way catalytic converters which are only used in gas engines. The 3 way converters have two phases in them that take place: oxidation and reduction. The rhodium is used in the reduction part of the process, where nitrogen oxide (harmful) is reduced to oxygen and nitrogen (non harmful). Right now, no other element can do what rhodium does. There is one company that has made a converter that reduced (no pun intended) the amount of rhodium needed by half, but still requires some for the reduction phase. I believe that this is only used in the 2013 Honda Accord for now. But as palladium keeps going up and rhodium hasn't yet, I doubt any new such developments will be warranted price wise. So for now, rhodium is irreplaceable and is considered one of the rarest elements based on its percentage in the earth's crust. Rhodium has other uses but not worth discussing since over 80% goes into converters.

Palladium on the other hand is used in the oxidation phase, which adds an oxygen to CO to make it CO2 and to some hydrogen compounds I believe (you often see water dripping from an exhaust pipe due to H20 creation). Platinum can be used for this phase too, but its cost makes palladium a wiser choice. Thus in a gas engine, no platinum is even needed.

But, platinum is used in diesel converters. Some companies are finding ways to use palladium in combination with platinum in diesel converters, but they still require some platinum. They don't need any rhodium in diesel converters.

Since diesels are so popular in Europe and the car demand in Europe is not doing so great, I believe palladium and rhodium offer better choices. But speculators can still drive platinum up high depending on what happens in South Africa this year, etc.

Over 80% of all platinum and rhodium come from SA. There is going to be some f'd up stuff happening there again this year within the mining industry I believe and it seems speculators see that too, for now at least. Further, palladium is mined in Russia and allegedly their "reserves" are pretty much gone. Russia has sold lots of palladium into the markets each year for a long time, but they have reduced them over the past couple years and claim, as does Johnson Matthey (real big in the PGM markets), that the Russian reserves/sales should be complete as of this year. About 40% of palladium comes from SA and a bit over 40% comes from Russia, the rest comes from Canada, the US and a couple other places.

The neat thing about PGMs is that they really are "rare" as compared to silver and gold. As long as they are needed and irreplaceable and the costs of mining keep going up in SA, there should be limited downside (I hope).

Just my opinion.

Jim

 

[TreasurePirate69]

As usual Jim, you are a wealth of information. You sure make me want to look into all of the PGM's. I think you could be on to something.

 

[jim4silver]

As usual Jim, you are a wealth of information. You sure make me want to look into all of the PGM's. I think you could be on to something.

Thanks. Maybe we might get a needed pullback in PGMs. I plan to buy more palladium if it dips back below 700.

Jim