Platinum turns up in Kelowna more often than people expect, usually as a wedding band, a ring setting, or a bar or coin bought years ago as an investment. It is also the metal most often mistaken for something else, because a platinum ring and a white gold ring can look identical across a counter.
5 Star Gold Silver & Diamond buys platinum in both jewellery and bullion form at our Banks Road office. We check the markings, confirm the purity, weigh the piece, and price it against the platinum spot rate on the day you visit. We explain how the number was reached before you decide, and there is no obligation to sell.
Platinum reaches us in a fairly narrow set of forms, and each is valued a little differently:
Wedding bands and rings. Plain bands, engagement settings, and rings where platinum holds a diamond or coloured stone.
Chains, bracelets and earrings. Including single earrings and pieces with broken clasps.
Damaged or unwearable pieces. Bent, snapped or badly worn platinum still holds its metal content.
Platinum bullion. Bars, coins and rounds, including one-ounce coins such as the Canadian Platinum Maple Leaf and the American Platinum Eagle.
Platinum found in an estate lot. Platinum pieces are often mixed in with gold and silver and only identified once everything is sorted.
If you are not sure what a piece is, bring it anyway. Sorting a mixed lot is part of the appointment, not something you need to do first.
Platinum jewellery is usually stamped, and the stamp is the fastest way to confirm what you have. Look on the inside of a band, on the clasp of a chain, or on the back of a setting. The marks you are looking for are:
PLAT or PLATINUM
PT or PT950
950, meaning 95% platinum, which is the most common purity in jewellery
900 or PT900, meaning 90% platinum, common in older and antique settings
PT850, sometimes used for chains
A stamp is a starting point rather than a conclusion. Marks wear away, they can be added to a piece that does not deserve them, and older or handmade items may never have been stamped at all. Weight is the second signal: platinum is far denser than the metals it resembles, so a platinum piece feels noticeably heavy for its size. From there we confirm purity using professional testing methods appropriate to the item before any offer is made.
An unstamped piece is not a problem and does not disqualify it. It simply means testing carries more of the weight in the assessment.
This is the single most common confusion we deal with, and it is worth understanding before you sell anything.
White gold is not a white metal. It is yellow gold alloyed with paler metals such as palladium, nickel or silver, then plated with rhodium to make it bright white. The plating is a surface finish. It wears through over a few years of daily use, which is why a white gold ring gradually looks warmer or slightly yellow near the edges and around the shank. Replating is routine jewellery maintenance, not a defect.
Platinum is white all the way through. There is no plating to wear off. What platinum does instead is develop a patina: daily wear pushes the surface metal around rather than removing it, so an old platinum band looks softer and slightly greyer than a new one while still holding essentially all of its original weight.
Sterling silver is a distant third. It is stamped 925 or STERLING, it tarnishes to a dark grey or black in air, and it is roughly half the weight of platinum for the same object.
| Platinum | White gold | Sterling silver | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Common marks | PLAT, PT, PT950, 950, 900 | 14K, 585, 18K, 750 | 925, STER, STERLING |
| Precious metal content | 90% to 95% platinum | 58.3% gold (14k) or 75% gold (18k) | 92.5% silver |
| Surface finish | None; white throughout | Rhodium plated over a yellowish alloy | None |
| Ages by | Developing a patina | Plating wearing through to a warmer tone | Tarnishing dark |
| Relative weight | Heaviest | Middle | Lightest |
A useful rough test at home: pick up the piece. A plain band in 950 platinum weighs roughly one and a half times what the same band weighs in 14k white gold, because platinum is a much denser metal. If a ring feels surprisingly substantial for its size, platinum is worth ruling in.
Two things follow from all of this. Platinum pieces carry more precious metal by weight than white gold pieces of the same design, because 95% beats 58.3% and the piece is heavier to begin with. But whether that makes your platinum item worth more than a comparable gold one depends on where the two spot prices sit on the day you sell, and platinum and gold trade on separate markets that do not move in step.
Platinum is quoted in troy ounces on a global market, the same way gold and silver are. One troy ounce is 31.1035 grams. Your platinum is weighed in grams, converted using that figure, and multiplied by its purity to arrive at how much actual platinum is in the item. That figure is then priced against the live spot rate at the time of your visit rather than a rate we set in-house.
Three things make platinum behave differently from gold in practice:
It is an industrial metal as well as a precious one. A large share of platinum demand comes from manufacturing, so its price responds to industrial conditions in a way gold does not. Gold and platinum can move in opposite directions in the same week.
The market is much smaller. Less platinum is produced annually than gold, and there is less of it circulating second-hand, so day-to-day price swings can be sharper.
Its position against gold changes. Platinum has traded well above gold for long stretches historically, and well below it for others. Neither is a permanent state, and neither should be assumed.
For jewellery, the same principle applies as with any other precious metal: a plain band is valued on its metal content, while a signed, period or designer piece may be worth more than its platinum alone and is assessed on that basis before a metal price is ever applied. For bullion, the same logic covered under buying and selling bullion applies to platinum: recognised mint products verify faster than generic bars.
The platinum items themselves, in whatever condition they are in.
Any original boxes, certificates, assay cards or receipts, if you still have them. They speed up verification. Their absence does not stop a sale.
Government-issued photo ID.
Do not clean or polish anything before you come in. Polishing removes a small amount of metal and can flatten the hallmarks we need to read.
Bring your items. Visit our Banks Road office during business hours, seven days a week.
Sorting and identification. Mixed lots are separated first, and platinum is identified and set apart from white gold and silver.
Marks, testing and weight. We read the hallmarks, confirm purity by testing, and weigh each piece.
Market check. We check the live platinum spot rate at the time of your visit.
A no-obligation offer. We explain how the figure was reached, item by item, so you can decide with the reasoning in front of you.
Completing the sale. If you accept, payment is immediate. If you decline, nothing further happens and there is no charge.
Platinum often arrives alongside other metals, so if you also want to sell gold Kelowna items or sell silver Kelowna pieces from the same lot, both can be handled in the same visit.
Check the inside of the band first. Platinum is stamped PLAT, PT, PT950 or 950, while white gold is stamped 14K, 585, 18K or 750. If there is no readable mark, weight is the next clue, since platinum is considerably heavier than white gold for the same design. A white gold ring that has started to look warmer or slightly yellow at the edges is showing worn rhodium plating, which platinum does not have. We confirm the metal by testing before making any offer.
Yes. Older, handmade and heavily worn pieces frequently have no readable stamp, and marks wear off with decades of use. Testing confirms the metal and its purity, so an unstamped item is assessed the same way as a stamped one.
Sometimes. Platinum and gold trade on separate markets and their relative prices have changed direction repeatedly over the years, so there is no fixed answer. What we can tell you is the live platinum rate on the day you visit and how your item’s weight and purity translate against it.
Yes. We buy platinum bars, coins and rounds. As with gold and silver bullion, recognised mint products verify quickly because their weight and purity are already established, while generic or unmarked bars need testing first.
Yes. The platinum and the stones are assessed separately, since a diamond can carry value well beyond the metal holding it. If you would rather understand the stones on their own terms first, our page on how to sell diamonds Kelowna covers that in more detail.
Yes. There is no minimum, and a single band is a normal appointment. If it is part of a set, you are welcome to bring both and sell one, both or neither. See sell engagement and wedding rings Kelowna for how ring sets are handled.
If you accept the offer, payment is provided immediately before you leave.
Bring your platinum to 307 Banks Rd #206, Kelowna, BC V1X 6A1. We are open 9:00 to 17:00, seven days a week. Call 250-801-1129 or use our contact page for directions and hours. There is no charge for an assessment and no obligation to sell.