Selling dental gold: what it fetches
Dental gold carries no hallmark and rarely looks like gold. Yet a handful of crowns often holds more precious metal than a chain – and nothing needs doing to it before you bring it in.
What is in a crown
Dental alloys are made to stay in the mouth for years, and that takes precious metal. The high-noble alloys hold 60 to 90 percent gold, platinum and palladium together; the gold share within that often lies between 700 and 900 thousandths.
There are also alloys that look silvery white and are valuable all the same: those are built around palladium. Colour therefore tells you nothing here. A white crown can fetch more than a yellow one.
And there are base alloys – chrome-cobalt, nickel – that are indistinguishable by eye and are worth nothing. Which of the three you have only shows in a measurement.
What does it weigh? A single crown usually weighs 1 to 3 grams, a three-unit bridge easily 5 to 10 grams. A cigar box holding thirty years of dental work not seldom passes fifty grams.
Leave the porcelain, tooth remains and cement
This is the question asked most often, and the answer is: do nothing. The porcelain facing, the piece of tooth still in it, the cement – we take that off, and it does not count towards the weight we settle on.
Cleaning it yourself serves no purpose and can do damage. Pulling at a crown with pliers deforms the metal, and cleaning with an aggressive agent can attack the alloy. An old jar or an envelope is enough.
What does help: keeping it all together. Loose crowns get lost, and with dental gold every gram counts heavily.
How we establish the fineness
Because there is no hallmark, measuring is the only way. We first remove the non-metal, then weigh the clean metal, and determine the composition with X-ray fluorescence (XRF). That measurement is non-destructive and gives every metal separately: gold, platinum, palladium, silver.
That last point matters, because dental alloys are mixtures. A crown of 2.4 grams with 78 percent gold and 6 percent platinum is paid on both, each against its own price.
You can stand and watch the measurement. We prefer it that way: with dental gold the customer can read the fineness off nothing, and then watching is the only thing that makes an offer checkable.
A worked example
Say: eight crowns, together 14 grams of clean metal after the porcelain and tooth remains are removed. The measurement gives 76 percent gold and 4 percent palladium.
That is 14 × 0.76 = 10.64 grams of fine gold and 14 × 0.04 = 0.56 grams of palladium. Both are calculated against the price of that moment, less the margin shown on the page.
What to remember: it is about the clean weight times the measured fineness. Not about the number of crowns, and not about how it looks.
- Collector value or material value: when not to meltMost gold and silver is worth its material, but not all of it. Which signs mark a piece that rises above melt value – and what not to do when it does.Read on
- Recognising and selling platinum and palladiumPlatinum weighs a third more than white gold and carries a different mark. How to tell them apart, where palladium sits, and why weight says more than colour.Read on
- Why the buying price sits below the market priceThe market price applies to large lots of pure metal, not to your chain. What sits in between, why a bar comes closer than an old coin, and how to check the gap yourself.Read on
Questions about selling dental gold: what it fetches
Do I have to remove the porcelain first?
No, and we would rather you did not. We remove the porcelain ourselves, and it does not count towards the weight we settle on. Working at it with pliers or a solvent gains you nothing and can deform or attack the alloy underneath.
May there still be a piece of tooth attached?
Yes, and it makes no difference to what you receive. Tooth material, cement and porcelain are all removed before weighing, and we settle on the clean metal that remains. Bringing crowns in exactly as they came out is entirely normal.
My crowns are silver-coloured. Are they worth nothing then?
Not necessarily. White dental alloys are often built around palladium and can pay well, while others are chrome-cobalt or nickel and are worth nothing at all. The two are indistinguishable by eye, so only a measurement decides. That measurement is free.
Can I sell dental gold belonging to someone who has died?
Yes, that happens regularly and it is nothing unusual. Within an estate the same rules apply as to the rest of the inheritance, so the heirs decide together. Our article on precious metal in an estate sets out how that works in practice.
Is your question not listed? Ask it below, call 085 060 3009 or go to contact.
Still something unclear?
Ask it here. You will receive a personal reply by email, usually within one working day – no automated message and no phone call you did not ask for.
- An answer from a valuer, not from a template
- We keep your question so that you need not repeat anything
- No sales pitch afterwards
Sources
Where you can verify what you have just read.
- LBMAThe London gold and silver price our daily rate is built on
- WaarborgHollandThe Dutch assay office that verifies fineness and strikes hallmarks
Rather just have it looked at?
A valuation is free and without obligation, at a location near you.