There was a time when you would rather wear this metal than gold to decorate yourself!
And to think that now you can see this metal as a tumbler to wash even in a prison toilet!
Ages ago even the most powerful kings used to wear a piece of this on their crown with pride!
No! It is of course not Gold or even Silver! It also cannot be platinum since the biggest fear a platinum user has is that it would be mistaken for silver!
The metal in question is a shiny silvery one called Aluminium!
How precious it was can be gauged by this fact that in the mid 1850’s the annual production of aluminum in the United States was less than 93 kilograms, while gold production was more than 90,000 kg per year!
That is how rare it was!
Aluminum was so rare, scarcer than gold, that it was highly valuable. One story that illustrates this concerns the Roman emperor Tiberius. When he was gifted a plate made of a silvery-white metal that he had ever seen before, he was so shocked that he ordered the smith who had crafted it to be executed. This was because he feared that if people learned of this new wonder metal, it would drive down the price of his gold and silver reserves!
Another example of aluminum’s reputation as a precious metal involves King Christian of Denmark, whose crown was made of aluminum.
Napoleon III ate dinner with utensils made of aluminum rather than silver!
To be served on Aluminium plates, with crude Aluminium eating utensils was considered the highest honor. Napoleon offered the aluminium utensils only for the most important guests!
While the “Lesser” guests were served on plates and eating utensils made of “cheap” Gold and Silver! Imagine that when you do eat food on a silver or gold plate while prisoners in a poor country eat with Aluminium along with the great kings!
Even in the 1880s, the Washington Monument was built with an aluminum capstone when the metal still cost roughly the same as gold! So it was the aluminium which made it so costly!
Now Gold has always been a pride and for ages it will be since it is always shiny and alone! You know its gold since it does not react with anything but the extraction is easier since you know that is gold!
But pure aluminum was much rarer than silver and gold because it was never alone! While the other precious metals were not very reactive, aluminum was just the opposite; it was highly reactive and pure aluminum is therefore hard to find. Aluminum ores such as alum and bauxite were extremely common, but scientists were unable to reduce them down to elemental ingredients!
It was like the proverbial water water everywhere but not a drop to drink!
It took many years and a great deal of effort for metallurgists to isolate aluminum, and even longer to develop an economically feasible process for extracting it for commercial purposes.
Today Aluminium is produced by the electrolytic reduction of molten Bauxite. The use of electricity and electrolysis is the chief reason why now the Aluminium became so common and sadly, cheap!
Then again Aluminium is still an amazing metal! It is used everywhere from building jet aeroplanes to bicycle frames, refrigerators, computer and smartphone casings, cooking foil and and thousands of other common objects! One of the best and common use is in the Aluminium foils!
You are literally folding your old sandwich with the metal which had once been on the crown of some of the most powerful kings of the world!
If that does not make you feel like a king, well then use Gold or Silver like the ‘lesser’ guest of the past!
Of course those were the days of the Butler with elegance and sophistication! Which reminds me of Albert aka Michael Caine in Batman trilogy!
Now wrap some leftover in aluminium foils and sleep like a king!
Shubh ratri!
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