France, 1825: Bovy's Medal; High Paris Price

1825: 1 Troy Ounce platina (ore @ Paris) = Fr 15.47 (USD$ 2.87)
c.1824: 1 Troy Ounce Platinum (refined) = Fr 30.48 (USD$ )

1825: 1 Troy Ounce Platinum (refined, mfg.?) = Fr 32.51 (USD$ 6.32)

The first significant production began in 1824 and was communicated in May-July 1825. In Paris, von Humboldt's summary news of recent discoveries may then have diminished Continental prices. (He was certainly among the most informed and current, at that period.)

A shortage of actual Platinum for the market, however, persisted.

Late May, 1825: Presentation of Ural Platinum source; doubts remain.





Early Summer, 1825: Boussingault's 1824 Colombian discovery (1824) and the Russian discovery (1824) confirmed.



Citation: Nouvelles annales des voyages, de la géographie et de l'histoire ..., Vol. 9 (1826) p.408

May > July 1825 news: Colombian platina price falls ~50% in Europe.

"The value of Russian platina, far from being dependent on that of America, has an opposite influence on the latter, whose price dropped by half when the first mine was opened in the Urals"

c.1824: 1 Troy Ounce Platinum (refined) = Fr 30.48 (USD$ )
1825: 1 Troy Ounce Platinum (refined, bulk) = Fr 32.51 (USD$ 6.32)
1825: 1 Troy Ounce Platinum (Swiss Mkt Price) = Sw.Fr 40.63 (~USD$ 7.90)

Soret’s unpublished correspondence about striking a commemorative medal in Geneva for the jubilee and golden wedding in 1825 of Grand Duchess Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt (wife of Goethe’s and Soret’s employer Grand Duke Charles Augustus of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach; Goethe was a member of the Grand Duke’s privy Council, Soret tutor to the princes).

Page 129, part of a numbered paragraph (undated, but apparently from October 1825) :

3rd: "A discount has also been requested on the platinum medals. (Designer of the medal) Bovy’s first proposal was Fr. 36 per Unze with a discount on the usual price; Platinum costs Fr. 30 per Once in Paris; let's assume that in Geneva it costs Fr. 40 it still wouldn’t reach the very high price of the medals. Have you inquired only about the price of the metal?  The medals [each] weigh 2 3/16 Unzen. Supposing that the platinum doesn’t cost more than Fr. 40 per Unze, which is already exorbitant, each medal wouldn’t contain more than Fr. 90 worth of raw material. Is it thus necessary to pay Fr. 35? These gentlemen are advertising a discount of Fr. 35 on each; they earnestly request you to settle the matter more favorably once and for all."

Late 1825: High price of platina noted, unspecified. Jean-Robert Bréant first reports the successful working of refined, pure Platinum leaf by a Paris gold-beater (artisan of gold-leaf) in January 1826.

Citation: Bulletin de La Societe D'Encouragement pour L'Industrie Nationale... ; Ministre secretaire d'Etat de l'Interieur (1825) p.416

c. June 1826: 1 Troy Ounce platina (ore @ Paris) = Fr 15.47 (USD$ 2.87)

1825: The French importation of platina was 259.82 Kgs (~ 8,353.4 Ozt.)
 


In 1825 (following the death of Janety Père in 1820) Bréant assumed control of 'Maison Jeanetty.'