Gold Vs Platinum Price

Your recollection is correct. The reason is that while we obsess on this forum over the use of PM's as investment/hedge/aesthetic collectibles, these metals also have an industrial use that often drives the value of the metal. Platinum has been heavily used in the catalytic converters of cars and trucks to help reduce the harmful gas emissions from combustion. Over the past 5 yrs or so, Platinum has been largely supplanted by Palladium. In terms of values, Platinum is down 10% over the last 5 yrs, Palladium is up 275% and Gold up 31%.

Gold is also an industrial metal but it has a long established history as a financial instrument... Platinum less so and as such its fortunes rise and fall more with industrial consumption rather than investor positioning.

Jewelers have a different perspective though and that comes from the ability to work the metal. Most jewelers with repair/light manufacturing ability can fix or adjust gold and silver Jewelry onsite. Platinum is a much harder metal to work and requires specialized equipment so a ring sizing will require a jeweler to send a platinum ring out... For these reasons, PT jewelry is often more expensive to buy and repair than gold regardless of the base price of the metal.