Santa Baby, a Platinum Mine

“Santa honey, one little thing I really need / The deed to a platinum mine,” sings Eartha Kitt in her 1953 holiday hit song “Santa Baby.”

If, like the singer, you’re interested in the deed to a platinum mine, you might check with your county clerk’s office or the federal Bureau of Land Management (until 1996, known as the U.S. Bureau of Mines) for actual deeds and mineral and land records. But, if you’re interested in the history of the platinum industry, you can do a little digging into the collections of the Library of Congress.

One very detailed source you can find in the library collections is “A History of Platinum and Allied Metals” (1982). In this book, the story of the platinum industry started in the Pre-Columbian Americas, where the Indigenous peoples of present-day Ecuador and Colombia knew and used platinum well before Europeans arrived. When the Spanish colonists did arrive, they valued it less than silver, even referring to platinum as “platina,” the diminutive form of the Spanish word for silver, “plata.” The colonists found that platinum was difficult to separate from gold, and they had no particular use for it, often discarding it on the ground.

Platinum entered the European scientific discourse around 1750, after following two different paths. First, in the mid-1730s, two expeditions were sent to determine the exact spherical shape of the Earth. One group went to measure the length of a degree of latitude close to the Arctic Circle, and the other, joined by scientifically trained Spanish naval officer Don Antonio de Ulloa, made similar measurements near the equator in Ecuador. Once Ulloa returned to Spain—a journey made years longer by being captured by privateers, escaping, and then becoming imprisoned on a British naval vessel—he wrote about the expedition, in a work which was published in Spanish in 1748. It contained the first published accounts of “platina,” and was translated into many languages, including an English language version, which was read to the Royal Society in London in 1750.

In the meantime, Charles Wood, a British assayer in Jamaica, acquired samples of platinum while working there. In 1749, Wood brought the samples back to his home in England and conducted a full scientific examination of the properties of the metal. Wood’s work and samples were sent to the Royal Society in 1750 by a society member, William Brownrigg, and further publicized by another, William Watson. In succeeding years, scientific experiments would continue to uncover the properties of platinum, and a set of later-discovered, chemically similar elements – the platinum-group metals – palladium, ruthenium, rhodium, iridium, and osmium.

Over time, uses were found for the metal once discarded by Spanish colonists. Platinum’s resistance to wear and tarnishing made it a favorite in the jewelry industry. Because pure platinum is a softer metal, jewelry made using it was, and still is frequently manufactured using an alloy of platinum and another platinum-group metal, often palladium.

By the 1920s, platinum’s increase in popularity led the jewelry industry to debate regulations around a mark indicating the quality of platinum. The Jewelry Crafts Association, National Jewelers’ Board of Trade, and American National Retail Jewelers’ Association all weighed in on whether to create a standard similar to those for gold and silver products. Editorials published in trade publications like the “Jewelers’ Circular” and the “Manufacturing Jeweler” were collected into one volume, “The Platinum-Palladium Controversy in its Relation to the Jewelry Industry.”  The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Bureau of Standards issued Commercial Standard CS66-38, “Marking of Articles Made Wholly or in Part of Platinum” in 1938, which was later replaced in 1977, and eventually withdrawn. Today, the Federal Trade Commission continues to publish Jewelry Guides for the industry.

While at first platinum was primarily used in jewelry, decorative arts and luxury household items, by the turn of the 20^th century its importance in chemical and electrical manufacturing was growing.

War further boosted the importance of platinum. During World War I, platinum became subject to the Explosives Act, which gave the Bureau of Mines the authority to make rules and regulations around its use. No one could use platinum or platinum scrap in the manufacturing or repairing of jewelry, nor could one make any metal dentistry parts containing more than 20% by weight of platinum. A license was required to mine, purchase or sell platinum, and to manufacture the electrical appliances, surgical appliances, scientific instruments, and other products requiring the metal.

According to the Year Book of American Bureau of Metal Statistics, 1940 –the year before the U.S. entered WWII—was the first time ever that platinum and platinum-group metals use in chemical and electrical industries surpassed the jewelry industry. During World War II, the War Production Board issued similar regulations for the jewelry industry and other manufacturers, limiting the ability of metal dealers to sell and deliver the metal, as well as the amount of platinum companies could hold in inventory.

In 1953, “Santa Baby” singer Eartha Kitt or song writers Philip Springer and Joan Javits could have referenced the Minerals Yearbook, published annually by the U.S. Bureau of Mines (and later, the U.S. Geological Survey) to learn more about the platinum industry of their time. They would have found that, in 1953, the top platinum-group metal producing countries outside of the United States included Canada, Colombia, South Africa, and Russia. Of them, South Africa was the country with the largest estimated reserves of platinum and the most platinum mines in the world, a position it still holds today. Within the United States, platinum could be found most often in states along the Pacific Coast, such as Alaska and California. The Minerals Yearbook also reported prices for crude and refined platinum. In 1953, the retail price for refined platinum was $93 per fine troy ounce.

If Santa did bring the deed to a platinum mine, let’s hope the singer didn’t re-gift it right away. Consumption of platinum metals increased 46% by 1955, and then exploded in the early 1970s, thanks to new automotive regulations. Starting with model year 1975, cars were required to have catalytic converters, and platinum and palladium were key materials in fabricating them. This quickly led the automotive industry to become the number one consumer of platinum in the United States, surpassing chemical and electrical industries in 1974.

“Santa Baby” lyrics feature requests for expensive things, but platinum is the only item in the song that the United States government considers a strategic material. It was featured on official strategic and critical lists dating back to 1922, and is currently on the U.S. Geological Survey critical minerals list, and the Department of Energy’s critical materials list.

Incidentally, Eartha Kitt’s “Santa Baby” has only been certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America, not quite reaching platinum.

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