Richard Kerschagl’s 1956 economic survey examines the postwar production, industrial uses, trade, and prices of platinum-group metals. Updating a 1952 report, it asks whether rising prices reflect a temporary boom or a structural change in demand. Its analysis connects industrial expansion with concentrated production, limited substitution between metals, and speculative instability.
Das Platin und die Platinmetalle haben seither im allgemeinen eine Steigerung zwischen 15 und 20% im Bezug auf die Preise erfahren.
English translation: Platinum and the platinum metals have since then generally experienced an increase of between 15 and 20% with respect to prices.
This increase supplies the starting point, not a sufficient explanation of the market. Kerschagl reconstructs world production while emphasizing the incompleteness and uneven comparability of available statistics. Differences between international series, particularly their South African estimates, complicate assessments of growth. Changes in coverage partly explain the apparent production discontinuity at the end of the war, but real reallocations of resources also contributed to the postwar decline:
Hievon bleibt allerdings die Tatsache unberührt, daß mit dem Ende des zweiten Weltkrieges größere Mengen der früher benützten Maschinen und menschlichen Arbeitskraft wieder in der während desselben stark reduzierten Goldgewinnung eingesetzt wurden.
English translation: This, however, leaves untouched the fact that with the end of the Second World War larger quantities of the machinery and human labour formerly employed were again put to use in gold extraction, which had been greatly reduced during that war.
Recovery followed different regional paths. Canadian platinum production depended on nickel and copper extraction, whose expansion could offset declining platinum content in the ores. South Africa developed increasingly distinct platinum-producing areas after renewed gold-mining activity. Together, Canada and South Africa supplied slightly more than four-fifths of world production, making aggregate supply sensitive to developments in a few regions.
Eine große Unbekannte in den Ziffern der Weltplatinproduktion ist selbstverständlich die UdSSR.
English translation: A great unknown in the figures of world platinum production is, of course, the USSR.
Soviet production and sales introduce a distinction between extraction and market availability. Kerschagl treats the unexpected sale of 60,000 ounces in 1954 as an exceptional release rather than reliable evidence of permanently increased supply. Observed trade cannot straightforwardly establish either current production or accumulated reserves.
The survey then turns from the geography of output to its composition. Palladium production had probably reached or surpassed platinum production worldwide, but platinum predominated in South Africa while palladium predominated in Canada and the United States. Since the metals are not freely interchangeable, growing palladium supplies could not necessarily meet demand for platinum’s particular catalytic and heat-resistant properties.
Industrial use provides the principal explanation for platinum’s strengthened position. Petroleum refining, chemicals, synthetic fibres, electrical engineering, and nuclear physics widened its applications. Chemical and electrical industries absorbed more than three-quarters of platinum output, whereas jewellery had accounted for almost half in 1946. Palladium’s uses did not expand proportionately to its production, weakening its price relative to platinum. Possible substitutes offered no immediate solution to platinum scarcity.
Kerschagl distinguishes industrial importance from reliability as a store of wealth. Producer competition, differences between British and American markets, exchange-rate movements, and the separation of allocated industrial metal from freely traded platinum all contributed to volatility. The New York price series therefore describes a particular market segment, not a uniform world price. Postwar fluctuations also reflected changing controls, Soviet sales, producer policies, and American defence purchases. Stabilization efforts could moderate movements without eliminating market segmentation.
The concluding assessment balances structural demand against the possibility of abrupt price reversals. Platinum’s limited wear in industrial use and accumulated strategic, industrial, and speculative stocks could undermine the boom. Kerschagl estimates these holdings at five to six years of production while acknowledging their uncertain extent; even partial releases could depress prices substantially. Conversely, the absence of major new deposits, declining platinum content in Canadian ores, a rising palladium share in total output, and expanding platinum applications support a cautiously favourable medium-term outlook.
The survey’s central contribution is its separation of categories often conflated in market assessments. Annual extraction is not total available supply, related metals are not necessarily substitutes, and sustained industrial demand does not eliminate speculative risk. Platinum emerges as a strategically important industrial material whose price depends on inventories, institutions, and geopolitics as well as physical scarcity.
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