Orange County platinum & palladium buying
Sell platinum and palladium privately in Orange County.
Platinum wedding bands and settings, platinum and palladium bars and coins, and palladium jewelry from a brief moment when it was fashionable. These metals cross our table less often than gold, and we buy them all the same.
Request a Gold OfferThe overlooked precious metals
Gold and silver get the attention, but platinum and palladium are precious metals in their own right and we buy both. Platinum turns up most often as fine jewelry — engagement rings, wedding bands and the settings that hold important diamonds, chosen for their density and durability — and as investment bars and coins such as the Platinum American Eagle and the platinum Maple Leaf. Palladium is rarer in the jewelry box; it had a jewelry moment, appears in some wedding bands and in white-gold alloys, and trades as bars and Palladium Eagles and Maple Leafs. Both are worth real money and both are worth identifying correctly, because they are easy to mistake for white gold or silver at a glance. Platinum in particular has spent long stretches trading above gold and long stretches below it, so its value is never a fixed fraction of the gold price — it lives on its own market and has to be looked up fresh at the time of sale.
Telling platinum from white gold and silver
This is the crux, because a platinum band and a white-gold band can look identical. The stamp is the first clue: platinum is marked PLAT, PT, PT950, 950, or 900, and its fineness is stated as parts per thousand rather than in karats — PT950 is 95 percent pure platinum, PT900 is 90 percent. Palladium is stamped PALL, PD, PD950 or PD500. Platinum is noticeably denser and heavier in the hand than silver or even gold of the same size, and it does not tarnish the way silver does. Where a mark is worn or absent we confirm the metal by test rather than assume, because paying platinum value for white gold, or the reverse, helps no one.
How a platinum or palladium offer is built
The framework is the same as gold, with the metal swapped: verify the metal and its fineness, weigh the net precious metal with stones and non-precious parts deducted, and set that against the live market for platinum or palladium at the time of sale. Both are weighed in the same troy ounce as gold, about 31.1 grams. The two metals trade on separate markets that move independently of gold and of each other — platinum and palladium each have their own price, and both can swing on industrial demand, since much of the world's supply goes to catalytic converters rather than jewelry. The offer reflects the live metal value net of refining and handling, and as with everything we buy, no fixed price is published because these markets move continuously.
Why these metals are quoted with care
Platinum and palladium refine differently from gold and are handled by fewer refiners, so verification is done deliberately rather than quickly. Purity confirmation on an unmarked piece takes a proper test — electronic or XRF — because the density that makes platinum feel valuable also makes it easy to confuse with dense base-metal imitations. A clearly marked PT950 band or a sealed platinum bar from a recognized refiner prices cleanly; an unmarked white ring of uncertain metal needs testing before any number is real. None of this is a barrier, it is just why we look closely instead of quoting off a guess.
What to bring or photograph
Photograph any stamp inside a ring shank or on the clasp — PLAT, PT950, PD950 and the like — and note the metal feels unusually heavy for its size, which is itself a signal worth mentioning. For bars and coins, capture the refiner, weight and fineness, and keep coins and sealed bars in their capsules and assay cards. If a platinum setting holds a significant diamond, tell us: as with estate jewelry, the stone may carry more value than the metal, and we would weigh selling it intact against scrapping it. Palladium jewelry is often lighter in the hand than platinum despite looking identical, so do not assume a white ring is one metal or the other from appearance — the stamp and a test settle it, and a mistaken guess in either direction costs someone money.
Why a specialist for platinum and palladium
This is the category most gold-buyers get wrong, and expensively so. Many mall and pawn buyers do not test for platinum at all and will pay you a silver or white-gold price for a platinum ring that is worth considerably more, simply because they cannot tell the difference on sight. As a private buyer we identify and test the metal, then pay from the correct live platinum or palladium market rather than a mistaken gold or silver number, which on a heavy platinum piece is a meaningful difference. We buy by appointment in Orange County or by insured shipping, and settle in cash or wire once the metal, purity and weight are verified. Because these metals are less familiar even to some in the trade, a second opinion from a buyer who actually tests for them is worth getting before you accept any number. We are an independent private buyer, not affiliated with any jeweler or refiner.