Sell dental gold: crowns, bridges and inlays

Crowns, bridges, inlays: what each one is

Dental restorations were cast to fit one person's mouth, and the alloy was chosen for strength and fit. There is no standard alloy and no useful rule of thumb, but there are a few recognisable shapes.

Full gold crown

A solid metal cap, yellow, shaped like a tooth with a hollow underside. Usually the richest thing in the envelope.

Porcelain-fused-to-metal crown

A tooth-coloured ceramic shell over a thin metal cup. Turn it over and the metal shows at the rim; most of what you can see is not metal at all.

Inlay or onlay

A cast filling, often no bigger than a grain of rice, that sat in the chewing surface of a back tooth.

Bridge

Two or more crowns joined by a solid span, replacing a missing tooth. Sometimes with ceramic on the front face only.

Denture clasp or framework

The metal skeleton of a partial denture, with wire arms. Sometimes precious alloy, more often chrome-cobalt, which is worth nothing as metal.

A crown often still holds a fragment of the tooth it was cemented to. That is normal, and it is not something to deal with at home. It stays where it is until you have accepted an offer, and its weight is estimated and left out.

Why colour is no guide at all

Dental alloys range from under 400 to around 900 parts per thousand gold. Many of them look yellow whatever their gold content: pure gold is yellow, and the copper and silver mixed with it shift the shade without showing how much gold is left. An alloy rich in palladium can look almost white.

So a bright yellow crown may be modest and a dull white one may be the best thing in the envelope. White crowns in particular go both ways: some are palladium-rich precious alloys, some are nickel-chromium or cobalt-chromium with no precious metal in them whatever. None of this can be settled by eye.

Handling, hygiene and what not to do at home

Dental items are handled with gloves and kept apart from jewellery from the moment the parcel is opened. Nothing is cleaned off them before an offer is made, because cleaning alters a piece and clause 4.2 of the terms needs your written consent for that. Please do not clean them at home either.

• Rinse the pieces in warm water. That is all the cleaning that is wanted from you.
• Do not pick at cement or tooth with a knife, pliers or a screwdriver. Small pieces of alloy fly, and they are gone.
• Do not try to break the porcelain off a crown. It is taken off here, after you have accepted, and never before.
• Put dental items in their own small sealed bag inside the parcel. An inlay is the size of a grain of rice and it will not survive loose among chains; posting gold and silver safely covers the rest of the packing.
• Send the whole envelope, including the pieces you think are plastic or base metal. Sorting them is our job.

Amalgam fillings are the one thing to keep out. They contain mercury, they count as hazardous waste, and the right place for them is back with a dentist for disposal. If amalgam does arrive, it is set aside untouched and we contact you about it before anything else is done.

What is left out of the weight

Metal and not-metal in common dental items

Scroll sideways for more →

Porcelain and cement can be a large share of what a crown weighs in your hand, which is why a figure based on the whole crown would mislead you. The ceramic is taken off only after you have accepted the offer, and a crown you decline goes back as it arrived.

Send the whole envelope, and the box it came in

Dental items turn up in ones and twos, or as a jar somebody kept for years. The service is built for boxes and bundles, and a single crown is welcome to ask first: send a photograph. The process is the same for one piece as for a jarful.

If they came from someone who has died, they belong to the estate like the rest of the jewellery, so the person dealing with the estate decides what happens to them. Whether to sell is your family's choice. If you do, the same identity and authority questions apply as to any other estate item. Probate and estate jewellery covers the paperwork side, and identity and provenance checks explains what is asked for and why.

A photograph is less useful here than anywhere else in this catalogue, because the thing that matters is inside the alloy and no camera can see it. What a photograph can do is rule out the obvious: acrylic dentures, chrome frameworks, ceramic-only crowns with no metal in them at all. If the box is mostly those, we tell you before you pack anything. How it works follows a lot from that first photograph to payment, and selling gold by post covers the jewellery that often turns up in the same drawer.

What happens to dental items when they arrive

1. Kept separate from the startDental items are logged apart from jewellery, counted and photographed as they arrived, and handled with gloves throughout.
2. Nothing cleaned offCement and debris stay where they are. Any test is made where bare metal shows. Cleaning a spot first needs your written consent, and anything left on the surface can distort a result.
3. Checked piece by pieceEach piece is weighed and checked for its metal on its own. The methods used depend on the piece and are listed on the offer. An acid touchstone test is used only with your written consent.
4. Listed with what was foundEvery piece appears on the list with what it is, what was left out of its weight and what the checks found. Nothing is averaged into a single line.
5. One offer, then your decisionCeramic removal and anything else irreversible happens only after you have accepted. Decline, and the envelope comes back as it arrived; offers, returns and payment covers each answer you can give.

A small curved crown is hard to test accurately without marking it, and your offer says so where it applies. Melting and assay would settle a batch whose results vary widely, but nothing is melted before you have accepted an offer (the terms, clause 4.4). A piece that stays uncertain is priced on the lowest figure the checks support, with the doubt written on your offer, or left out of the offer and returned if you prefer. The dental gold testing guide goes through the alloy families and where the difficulty lies.

What we buy, and what we leave out

Stopped before anything is treated as scrap

• A large batch of one alloy is best settled by melting and assay at a refiner that offers it, and we will say so
• White crowns are never written off on colour: a pale alloy may be rich in palladium, and the offer says what could be established
• Historic gold dentures and early gold work occasionally interest collectors of dental history
• Anything that turns out not to be dental at all, which happens, is identified and dealt with on its own terms