The name of the element is quite telling. Although the substance itself has been recognized as a previously unknown element only in 1750 by William Watson and William Brownrigg, the metal has been known for at least two centuries. It has been first observed by South American prospectors looking for gold in the the Darien area (of the ill-fated Scottish Darien Expedition fame), located in modern-day Panama, close to Colombian border. There, a silvery metal was often found in the riverbeds, usually in the vicinity of gold sands. It has been first described by Julius Caesar Scaliger, and Italian scholar, who noticed that the Colombian gold is often contaminated with some sort of metal or mineral that was apparently impossible to melt off. This silvery-grey material has been later commonly named platina (sometimes platina de Pinto after Pinto river), a diminutive form of plata, meaning 'silver' in Spanish. Although allegedly used for decades prior, the term 'platina' has been first recorded by Antonio de Ulloa and Jorge Juan in their 1742 book Plan del camino de Quito al río Esmeraldas, según las observaciones astronómicas de Jorge Juan y Antonio de Ulloa. As one can easily guess, the derogatory name was a result of a low opinion of platinum, considered to be worthless substance.

Physical properties of platinum also did not facilitate its popular usage. With a melting point equal to 1770 °C it was much harder to melt than iron (1530 °C), not to mention gold (1064 °C) or silver (961 °C), especially in earlier times. Its hardness and tendency to fuse with gold nuggets also made it difficult to remove, leading to its treatment as a troublesome contaminant. In addition, although pure platinum is very malleable, it tends to be brittle when contaminated, and efficient purification methods of this metal were developed only in mid-18th century, when the principles of inorganic chemistry have been adequately understood.

Platinum also seems to be quite scarce in comparison with gold or silver. Although it indeed is slightly more abundant than gold (0.0000005% vs 0.0000004% in the Earth crust), its practical availability is much lower. Even today, with high demand for both metals used in modern science and engineering, global production of gold is roughly 25 times as high as that of platinum. After the metal has been discovered in South America, and was initially almost completely ignored economically and used only for scientific experiments, Colombia was the only source of this material until 1819, when its deposits have also been discovered in the Ural mountains. More than half a century later, in the end of 1880s, additional sources were also found in Canada. The breakthrough for modern supply of platinum came in 1924, when a Transvaal farmer found platinum nuggets in a riverbed. Shortly after that, a geologist Hans Merensky who arrived in the area, managed to find two large deposits stretching for dozens of miles. This place, later named 'Igneous Complex' and now located in the territory of South Africa produces roughly 75% of the global demand for platinum.

Interestingly, the production of platinum in Spanish colonies and later in Colombia were quite closely monitored, as in late 18th and early 19th century, this metal has been used by money counterfeiters because of its high density. As platinum is marginally more dense than gold, a coin made from it and later gilded on the surface was very hard to expose as a counterfeit without cutting it, because it weighed almost as much as the original (people checking the gold purity generally expected fakes to be significantly lighter, as most people apart of few scholars were not even aware of metals denser than gold).

When the platinum deposits have been found in Ural Mountains in the early 19th century, this metal was, however, used to mint coins. Here you can see a 3-rouble coin from 1828 that has been made of platinum. As most Russian coins of the era, it shows the mass and metal it has been made of. The description on the rim gives its weight and composition as '2 zolotniks, 41 dolyas of pure Uralian platinum', corresponding to 10,35 grams of metal (zolotnik was equal to 4,266 grams and dolya was 1/96th of a zolotnik). The coins also bear statement of value '3 roubles in silver' what meant that the coin was worth 54 grams of silver or 3.6 grams of gold (estimates based on the nominal amount of metal in the Russian coins minted in 1824-1828).

Thus, preference of gold and silver over platinum is a result of relatively low prevalence of the latter that caused it to be discovered only in 16th century, while silver and gold were known and used for millennia. In addition, physical traits of platinum, especially its relative hardness, high melting point and brittleness when contaminated made it quite difficult to process and thus unattractive to metalworkers until fairly recently, when technical developments made it desirable.