Platinum Printing Costs...

ilesmatthew said:

Can't believe a Google search landed me at a Forum post from >20yrs ago. Were there even forums in 2002?? Anyway, am curious if the cost of an 8x10 pt/pd print has gone up or down?

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From Carl's post in 2002: 5 grams of palladium chloride from ArtCraft cost around $85 dollars

That 5 grams will cost you $345 from Artcraft today, so have increased about 4x. Good watercolor paper has also become a lot
more expensive, too.

Looking at an inflation calculator, the cost of that 5g would be $140, but the value of Pd has risen much faster than inflation. It was insanely high a year or two ago and has come down since then. Alt printing paper seems to be paced with general inflation. I don’t see many younger alt process artists using Pt/Pd anymore—they’re doing beautiful work with less expensive processes like cyanotype and salt printing.

The price of platinum should be down, given how many catalytic converters are being stolen. Maybe it's actually Pt/Pd printers stealing them!