A precious white metal from the platinum family, rhodium (at the time of writing this guide) costs eight times more than pure gold (23 times more than 9k gold) and four times more than its relative platinum!
A very hard and scratch-resistant metal, it is sometimes used to plate silver, where it also prevents it from tarnishing. As it is whiter in appearance than white gold and platinum, it is often used as a coating and is sometimes referred to as rhodium flashing. It is often electroplated on the shoulders or prongs of yellow gold rings, in order to create an illusion setting for Diamonds.
Englishman William Hyde Wollaston discovered rhodium in 1804. While studying Medicine at Cambridge University, William became fascinated by chemistry, crystallography and physics. On leaving university he became a chemist; while developing new methods of processing platinum in 1803 he discovered palladium, and a year later he found rhodium.
