Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 345
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[Page 345]
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with Shreeve and Coy, manufacturing jewellers, where I was promptly ushered into the presence of the General Manager, who welcomed me most effusively on learning that I had platinum to sell. Only very recently, watch chains with alternate gold and platinum links and rings with diamonds set in platinum claws, had become very fashionable, the main source of supply of the precious metal having been the Ural Mountains in Russia. But just before my arrival, the Russian revolutionary government realised that platinum was just as good a currency backing as gold and had prohibited the export of it. Consequently the American jewellers were faced with an exceptional demand for this metal, but almost a nil supply. The General Manager was amazed to hear that platinum was being mined in Australia, that there was little demand for it locally, and no organised export of it existed. He wanted me to go right back to Australia at once and get a lot more of it for his company. To which I had to protest that I had only just arrived in the United States, and certainly didn't wish to return home before I had had a good tour around it. However, he agreed that Shreeve and Coy would have the platinum refined at once, at my expense, and would pay me the current market price for the pure metal.
Unfortunately for me, the refining took a few weeks - it was a difficult process which could not be done in Australia - and in the meantime platinum bearing sands were discovered in the bed of a river in Colombia, South America, with a resultant drop in the price. It turned out that the Fifield native platinum was only about eighty seven per cent pure; and the refining was expensive. So in the end my conversion was equal to only about four dollars to the Australian Pound, but even this was much better than getting only three and a half through the Banks. After I had finished my business with Shreeve & Coy, I arranged with the American Express Company to store my big Saratoga trunk and some other pieces of luggage, and about lunch time installed myself in a comfortable enough bedroom, with attached bathroom and a telephone, at the Taylor Hotel in Turk St; the price was two dollars a day for the