Can You Sell Gold Crowns on Extracted Teeth?

Why gold crowns on extracted teeth are accepted as they are

Gold crowns on extracted teeth turn up more often than people expect. A molar is extracted, the dentist hands it back in a little plastic tub, and months later somebody looks at it properly and notices the gold. Or a crowned tooth comes out on its own, root and all. Either way you end up holding one object made of two very different materials: a cast gold alloy cemented onto a piece of natural tooth.

Dental Gold Experts accepts gold crowns on extracted teeth exactly as they come, and buys them the same way loose crowns are bought — by the gold the metal contains, established by melting and assay rather than by appearance. There is no minimum quantity; a single crown is welcome, so a single tooth is a perfectly normal thing to send.

Why you do not have to remove the crown from the tooth

This is the question that stops most people who have gold crowns on extracted teeth, and the answer is genuinely reassuring: leave it alone. Before anything is weighed or melted, we sort your material and remove as much non-metal material as practical. Separating a crown from a tooth is routine work at that stage, and doing it yourself gains you nothing at all.

Your payout is based on the gold content of the recovered metal after melting. Tooth material does not contribute to the gold value. That is also why separating the two yourself gains you nothing: tooth structure, cement and porcelain do not survive melting as metal, so the figure only ever runs on the gold in the recovered alloy.

So the practical instruction is short. Do not chisel, grind, drill or boil anything. Do not try to crack the tooth to free the crown. Gold crowns on extracted teeth are sent as single objects, and the separation is our problem rather than yours.

How to tell whether the crown is actually gold

With gold crowns on extracted teeth, colour is a hint and nothing more. Dental alloys are made in a wide range of compositions, and the classification the profession uses is based on metal content rather than on looks.

The American Dental Association's materials for indirect restorations resource sets out the ADA Council on Scientific Affairs' 2003 classification of casting alloys, which the ADA now keeps as archived reference material: high noble alloys contain at least 60% gold and platinum-group metals with gold at least 40%; noble alloys at least 25%; and predominantly base alloys less than 25%. The same resource notes that high noble alloys "may be used for Type 3 high-stress crowns and onlays", which is the class a traditional full-cast gold crown belongs to.

Two consequences matter when you are looking at a tooth in your hand:

• A yellow crown is a reason to have it assayed, not proof of gold. Gold-coloured alloys vary widely in gold percentage, and the crown is not stamped with a karat mark. Dental work is not hallmarked the way jewellery is, so the absence of any marking tells you nothing.
• A silver or white crown is not automatically worthless. White and grey dental alloys include palladium- and platinum-based ones, and a porcelain-faced crown can hide a metal substructure. Our guide to white dental gold explains those alloys and states plainly that Dental Gold Experts pays for gold content only.

For photographs and a fuller walk-through of the signals to look for on gold crowns on extracted teeth, see how to identify dental gold. You do not have to reach a conclusion before you send anything: send pieces you are unsure about, and remember that base metal pieces add no gold.

What gold crowns on extracted teeth are worth

There is no list price for a crown. Your offer is calculated from four things: the post-melt weight, the gold percentage, the gold spot price shown in your written report, and the payout rate. A full-cast gold crown is a small piece of metal, so gold crowns on extracted teeth usually mean a figure reflecting a few grams of alloy rather than a few ounces — and if the crown turns out to be a base-metal alloy with a gold-toned finish, there is no gold to pay for at all.

If you send more than one item, everything you submit is melted together as one lot, and Blake analyzes multiple spots on the melted material by XRF to determine its gold content. Pieces are not valued separately, so gold crowns on extracted teeth, two loose crowns and an old bridge all come back as one figure for the lot.

Note what is absent from that calculation for gold crowns on extracted teeth: the tooth itself. It has no step of its own, because it contributes no metal. For an estimate using your own weight and estimated purity, use the dental gold value calculator, and if you are weighing up whether the exercise is worth the trouble for one crown, is dental gold worth selling? works through that question.

Contact us before you ship

One step comes before the post office: contact us before shipping gold crowns still attached to extracted teeth, and we will confirm how to send yours. Acceptance itself is settled — this material is bought, on gold content — but we do not publish handling or mailing instructions for extracted teeth, so ask us rather than improvising.

Everything else about selling gold crowns on extracted teeth runs as it does for any other dental gold. When you request your label, say that the crown is still on the tooth. We email a free prepaid, insured USPS shipping label and packing instructions, usually the same business day, you sign a pre-melt agreement before anything is melted, and then come the melt, the XRF reading and your written report.

Getting the tooth back from your dentist

You can only sell gold crowns on extracted teeth once the tooth is actually in your hands, so if it is still at the practice, ask for it — and ask before the appointment if you can, because that is far easier than asking after the fact. The same goes for a crown being replaced: if a dentist is removing an old gold crown to fit a new one, say explicitly that you would like the old restoration back.

On who is entitled to what, our guide to who owns extracted dental gold covers the questions that come up with inherited and estate material, and Dental Gold Experts buys from sellers who own the material or are authorized to sell it.

Where to sell gold crowns on extracted teeth

The market you want is the one that buys dental metal by weight and assay rather than by appearance, because an extracted tooth looks like nothing anyone would pay for and the gold on it is easy to undervalue by eye.

• A dental gold buyer or refiner, by mail. This is where gold crowns on extracted teeth belong. Dental Gold Experts buys nationwide using a free prepaid, insured USPS shipping label, melts your material, and reports what the melted material contained. Dental Gold Experts performs refining, including separating and purifying gold.
• A local pawn shop or jeweller. They will usually test the surface and make an immediate offer, without melting the piece or analyzing the melted material — which is harder to do usefully when the metal is still cemented to a tooth.
• Your dentist or dental lab. Practices and labs accumulate this material and send it in as one lot; see the section below if that is your situation.

If you would rather hand the material over in person, pickup is available in Houston, San Antonio, and Central Texas — contact us to discuss direct pickup options. Everywhere else in the United States, the mail route is the one to use. For a wider comparison of the options, selling dental gold sets out how the different buyers work.

Sending yours by mail, step by step

Once you have checked in with us about the tooth, gold crowns on extracted teeth follow the same three steps as any other dental gold shipment.

Dental Gold Experts is based in Houston, Texas, and buys from anywhere in the country by mail. Material is usually processed the day your package arrives or the next day; packages received on a weekend are processed the next business day. For the process end to end, see how to sell dental gold.

Extracted teeth in a dental practice or lab

Dental Gold Experts accepts gold crowns on extracted teeth from practices and labs, alongside the crowns, bridges, lab sweeps, grinding dust and polishing waste they already collect, and offers are based on gold content only. Practices and labs follow their own handling procedures for this material, so contact us before shipping gold crowns still attached to extracted teeth from a clinical setting and we will confirm how to send them. Our guide for dental practices selling scrap covers lot handling and record keeping, and the scrap gold SOP sets out a written procedure.

Other dental gold you may have alongside it

An extracted tooth rarely turns up on its own. If you are going through a box of old dental work, these guides cover the rest of what tends to be in it: gold fillings, inlays and onlays, gold dentures and partial frameworks, and dental bridges. It all goes in the same box, and it is all melted as one lot — so there is no advantage in sending gold crowns on extracted teeth separately from everything else.