Perhaps in order to confuse chemistry students for decades, the chemical symbol for Tin is Sn. The reason for the confusing symbol, as students of Latin will surely know, the chemical symbol comes from the Latin word for tin- stannum.

Copper and tin together create brass. Utensils and other brass products date back as far as 3500 BC. The fourteenth century witnessed the development of tinned iron, and tinned steel became popular in the seventeenth century.

Tin has many applications. Electroplating requires a coat of tin applied to copper, aluminum, steel or other metals. There are countless household applications that require tin as well as pharmaceutical solutions, capacitors in electrodes, fuse wires, ammunition, fungicides and pesticides, solder and pewter. Even the paste that you brush your teeth with requires tin fluoride as a key manufacturing component.

While tin is a generic term; think of tin foil, tin cans or tin roof, these products are generally produced from steel or aluminum using only a thin coat of tin metal to prevent rust and corrosion.

Tin is a rare element in the earth's crust. While iron content is 50,000 parts per million, tin has only two parts per million. Tin ore collected at mine site undergoes a washing process separating the ore from sand and soil. Tin concentrates result from passing ore through screens and treating it with chemicals to separate the tin particles, which rise to the surface in floatation tanks.

The process of smelting and refining tin concentrates creates pure tin metal. Tin itself has no toxic effects on the environment however there are some byproducts of the smelting and refining process that are hazardous, such as arsenic and lead. Tin has replaced lead in solder because of the lead's toxicity.

Annual production of tin is 350,000 tons. China is the world's largest producer followed by Malaysia, Peru Indonesia, Brazil, Bolivia and Russia. Malaysia has the second largest tin reserves in the world. The Malaysian state of Penang is the center of massive tin mining and refining operations. China, the United States, Japan, Russia and Germany are the largest consumers of tin metal. Due to the rarity of tin metal, a number of governments around the world hold strategic stockpiles of tin. The exact size and location of these hordes are governmental secrets.

Trading tin is difficult due to the limited supplies of the metal making its price highly volatile and illiquid at times. Up until 1985, the International Tin Council (ITC) controlled the price of tin. The ITC represented a number of producing countries in order to support the price of tin during periods of weak demand. The ITC was, essentially, a cartel of international tin producers. The ITC maintained a buffer stock, which bolstered prices during periods of oversupply. The theory underlying the buffer stock is that when prices fall the buffer stock grows and as prices rise sales from the buffer stock prevent shortages and restrain price extensions to the upside. In 1985, there was a lot of tin produced and the buffer stock grew to a level where the ITC could no longer finance the metal. The price of tin collapsed, causing a Tin Crisis.  The ITC dissolved shortly after the Tin Crisis and the price of the commodity trades in the free market since.

Tin trades on the London Metal Exchange (LME). Each contract represents 5 metric tons of tin metal with brands from LME approved refineries. There is a physical delivery mechanism for tin at LME approved warehouses around the world. Tin has a very delicate annual supply and demand balance, which can cause enormous price volatility over time. Tin has traded between $4,000 and $33,000 per ton since 2001. The tin market is also subject to periodic supply squeezes where the nearby price of tin soars relative to the price of deferred tin.

The price of tin is the most volatile and illiquid of all LME traded non-ferrous metals.