There were fruitless attempts to resume the platinum mint in 1859, which resulted in a scientific study on the usage of platinum in coins by academician Moritz von Jacobi, published in 1860. No country had used platinum for money after 1846, and one reason for that could be that platinum was about 2.5 times cheaper than gold in the 19th century. Currently, the platinum coins of the Russian Empire are rare, especially for the period from 1839–1840 when only a few coins were minted. All platinum coins minted in 1840 were bought by the famous numismatist Earl Ivan Ivanovich Tolstoy directly from the Saint Petersburg Mint; on the numismatic auction of the United Bank of Switzerland (UBS Gold and Silver Auction 50) held in autumn 2001 in Basel, one of the two 12-ruble coins minted in 1839 was sold for US$60,500 (with a starting price of $22,000).