[1] These discoveries prompted Demidov to start looking for platinum around his Nizhny Tagil plants, where it was quickly found along the river beds.
The decree of 24 April 1828 A.D. noted that "among the treasures of the Ural Mountains also occurs platinum, which previously was located almost exclusively in South America.
[1] The first coin was sent to the prominent German scientist Alexander von Humboldt, who was previously asked to evaluate the use of platinum as a currency and confirm its price relative to silver.
After his death, the emperor Alexander II bought that coin, and in 1859 it was returned to Russia and later became an exhibit of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.
Count Georg Ludwig Cancrin, the Minister of Finance in the Russian cabinet, addressed a letter to Humboldt on August 15, 1827.
[4] Count Cancrin also was "requesting information as to the proportionate value of that metal with respect to gold and silver... Humboldt, in his reply, dated November 19, 1827, treated the subject from a truly scientific point of view ; he discountenanced the project of instituting a platinum coinage, on account of the impossibility of its maintaining an unalterable value with respect to gold and silver"[5] In the same letter he mentions having counselled the Mexican Government against the introduction of a platinum coinage.
[7] The 11–32 tonnes of platinum, raw and in coins, that had accumulated at the St. Petersburg Mint by 1846 was sold to the British firm Johnson, Matthey & Co.