Something like this actually happened. There was a super rare element that was shiny and light weight and incredibly rare. They made the crown jewels of France out of it so the King could show off the wealth of the country to everyone by having this unique and rare element in his crown.

Then they discovered a chemical process to extract this incredibly rare element from bauxite.

Now we make pop cans out of it. Yep, aluminum was at one time a precious metal.