Gold and other precious metals have risen enough in value that a lot of people are taking advantage of their high price and are selling their unwanted jewelry. (In November 2008 gold had returned to over $800 per ounce.) Another type of item that can contain precious metal and be sold, and something that might be overlooked by some people, is scrap dental work. Dentists return old crowns and dental bridges to patients because they know that they can contain some precious metal content. And because these items have absolutely no value otherwise, the high price currently commanded by precious metals means that now is a good time to sell them.

For the uninitiated, it can be hard to determine what potential value their old dental work may have. Truth be told it's also difficult, and actually impossible, for even experts to know what the precise gold or other precious metal content of old dental work is. At least by just looking at it.

Take, for example, the yellow-colored metal alloys that are used in dentistry. If you see a golden-colored crown you might think that it's pure gold. Well it's not. That's one fact that you can be sure of. Pure gold (24 karat) is too soft of a metal to be suitable for making dental crowns.

Even the silver-colored alloys that are used to make cast dental restorations can have precious metal content. You have probably heard of the term "white gold." Since an alloy's color is determined by its composition, some precious metal alloys that contain high percentages of platinum or palladium have a silver coloration rather than a yellow gold one. But at the other extreme, some of the white metals used in dentistry are base metals and have no real precious content at all. Which is just another example of "you can't tell by looking."

Since you can't tell which of your scrap dental restorations have value, much less precisely how much, you should submit them all to a refiner. First off, it seems unlikely that a dentist would bother to return to their patient any scrap dental restoration that they didn't anticipate had some value. So, that should be hint number one. You would also have to expect that any yellow-colored dental restoration probably does have some gold content (hence its color).

Some of the types of dental work that are not expected to have any significant scrap value are amalgam fillings ("silver fillings"). These types of items typically don't have a perfect, highly polished silver-colored surface but instead are grayish and quite possibly have some surface imperfections (pitting). The metal aspect of old removable partial dentures usually doesn't have any precious metal content either. Having said that, in previous decades (typically the 1950's and before), some partials were made using gold alloys. The metal portions of these partials typically had a yellow appearance. It's not necessarily expected that anyone living would still be wearing a partial this old, but one might have been saved or even passed on after the person passed away.

By now this lens has probably provided you with enough of an education that that you know that any old dental restoration may or may not have any real scrap value, you just can't tell. So what should you do? The answer to this question is that you should send everything you have on to the refiner. Let them determine what has value and what doesn't. That's their job. This uncertainty is the nature of their business.

And also, when you get ready to send your items in, don't worry that they have bits of tooth, cement or porcelain on them. To the uninitiated, removing these things can be a difficult and disagreeable task. Refiners are used to dealing with these inclusions and have ways to remove them.

The second part of this article will discuss how to pick out a precious metals refiner to send your scrap dental work to.

Here are two references if you need more information. Dental-Picture-Show.com discusses the various types of dental crowns. Animated-Teeth.com has a section that discusses the types of alloys (precious and non-precious) used in dentistry.

Thanks to Animated-Teeth.com for letting me use some of the graphics they have created.