Founder & Precious Metals Expert
Blake Plummer
Dental Gold Experts — Houston, Texas
I've been in precious metals for over 15 years. Before Dental Gold Experts, I worked the pawn counter — which is exactly where I learned how most people get underpaid for dental gold, and why.
Dental scrap sits in an awkward category: too specialized for most pawn shops to value correctly, too small for most refiners to bother with, and too opaque for most practices to feel confident about. I built DGE to fix all three of those problems at once.
Most pages like this one read like a press release. This one is going to read like what it is: a straightforward account of who I am, how I got here, and why this business exists.
If you're a dental practice manager, a lab owner, or an estate executor trying to figure out whether to trust a company you found online with a package of gold crowns — that's a reasonable thing to be careful about. I'd rather give you enough information to make an honest decision than try to sell you on it.
In Brief
Blake Plummer has 15+ years in precious metals and pawn industry operations. He founded Dental Gold Experts in Houston, Texas, to serve dental practices, labs, and estates that generate dental scrap gold and need a trustworthy, process-transparent buyer. Every submission goes through XRF testing and fire assay. Every client receives a written report before any payment is requested.
Background
My path into precious metals started in the pawn industry — which, if you know anything about the business, is one of the fastest ways to develop a working knowledge of how metals are actually valued, bought, and resold. You see a lot of gold in a pawn shop. You also see a lot of ways people get taken advantage of when they don't understand what they have.
Dental gold was a recurring item. Someone would bring in a bag of crowns from a deceased parent's dental work, or a dental assistant would come in with a jar of scrap from the office. The problem, from the pawn side of the counter, was that dental alloys aren't karat gold. They're complex multi-metal alloys — gold, palladium, silver, sometimes platinum — and the standard tools for testing jewelry gold don't work properly on them. Most pawn shops either turned the material away or priced it conservatively and hoped for the best. Neither outcome was good for the person selling.
That inefficiency is what Dental Gold Experts is designed to correct.
How We Got Here
Precious Metals & Pawn Operations
Learned the mechanics of metal valuation on the floor — acid testing, electronic testers, negotiation, spot pricing, and the daily reality of buying and selling gold from the public. Also learned the limits of those tools when material got complex.
Dental Scrap as an Underserved Category
Over years of handling miscellaneous precious metals, it became clear that dental scrap was consistently mishandled — either undervalued by generalist buyers or sent to refiners who didn't communicate meaningfully with the people submitting it. The practice manager who mailed off a bag of crowns had no way to know if the number they received was fair.
Dental Gold Experts — A Process-First Approach
Built the business around the things most buyers skip: XRF testing on every piece, true fire assay rather than visual estimates, and written reports with the math visible. The family-run structure — my family member handles the physical assay side — means there's no revolving contractor floor and no distance between who you're talking to and who's processing your material.
Nationwide Mail-In Service
Serving dental practices, DSOs, dental labs, individual patients, and estates across the country. The submission process is the same whether you're sending 3 crowns or 300 — fully insured kit, same-day processing on arrival, same-day payment on approval.
What "Dental Gold Expert" Means Operationally
The word "expert" shows up in a lot of business names. Here's what it means in this specific context — the things someone actually needs to know to value dental scrap correctly.
Alloy Classification
The ADA classifies dental alloys as high-noble, noble, or predominantly base metal. Most generalist buyers don't know or apply this distinction. It's the single biggest variable in what your material is worth.
Fire Assay Process
Cupellation — the industry-standard method referenced by the LBMA — isolates gold from a melted sample by weight. It's the only way to arrive at a precise gold content number, not an estimate.
Palladium Pricing
Palladium is frequently present in dental alloys, especially "white" crowns from the 1990s–2000s. It has traded above gold per troy ounce. Buyers who ignore it — or price it as silver — are leaving money that belongs to you.
Operational Context
Knowing what to buy is only part of it. Understanding how dental practices collect scrap, what their office manager needs to document it, and how to make submission frictionless — that's what makes a service actually useful to a practice.
Blake Plummer — Dental Gold Experts
The pawn shop background sounds like an unlikely credential for a dental gold service. But it's exactly where I learned to spot the difference between a buyer who knows what something is worth and one who's pricing it on what they can get away with. I've been on both sides of that counter. I know which side I want to be on.
How the Business Works
Dental Gold Experts is a mail-in precious metals buying service built around five commitments that most buyers in this space can't or won't make:
- XRF testing on every piece, not visual inspection or batch estimates.
- True fire assay (melt-and-assay), not spot-price guessing against a visual grade.
- Written assay report showing composition, weights, and payout math before you decide anything.
- Same-day payment once you approve the offer — by check or wire, your choice.
- Transparent payout calculation — the formula is in your report, not hidden in a black box.
The physical assay work — smelting and fire assay — is handled by a family member with deep refining experience. This isn't outsourced to a third-party refiner you'll never meet. It's a family operation, which means the same judgment and process applies to every submission, regardless of size.
Why the written report matters: The single most common problem in this industry isn't dishonest buyers — it's buyers who genuinely don't know what they have, and price conservatively to protect their margin. A written report with visible math doesn't just tell you what you're getting — it tells you whether the number makes sense. If a buyer won't show you the calculation, you have no way to verify it. We show you the calculation every time.
Who We Work With
| Client Type | What They Send | Typical Volume | Key Need |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dental Practices (solo / group) | Gold crowns, PFM restorations, bridges, mixed scrap | Quarterly or annual accumulation | Simple process, reliable payout, documentation for records |
| Dental Labs | Sprues, failed castings, polishing waste, broken restorations | Monthly or higher | Volume-based pricing, consistent process, chain of custody |
| DSOs / Multi-location Groups | Consolidated scrap from multiple locations | High, ongoing | SOP documentation, referral structure, centralized reporting |
| Individual Patients | Extracted gold crowns, retained restorations | One-time or rare | Clear explanation of value, simple process, fair offer |
| Estates | Dental prosthetics from estate contents | One-time | Honest valuation, quick turnaround, documentation for estate records |
Blake Plummer — Dental Gold Experts
I personally respond to inquiries from practices and labs. If you've got a question about your material before you send anything — what it might be worth, how to collect it, whether the crowns you have are likely gold or base metal — reach out. That conversation costs nothing, and it's often the fastest way to figure out whether this makes sense for your practice.
Questions About Blake & Dental Gold Experts
Who is Blake Plummer?
Where is Dental Gold Experts based?
Does Blake Plummer do the assay himself?
What makes Dental Gold Experts different from other buyers?
How do I reach Blake directly?
Ready to Talk or Ready to Send?
Request a shipping kit or reach out directly with questions about your material.
Contact Blake See the Full Assay Process