What to do with gold teeth?

April 9, 2014 2:37 PM

I must take care of some gold filled teeth. Each one is mostly tooth, with a gold filling. Do these actually have value? Do I go to a pawn shop, jewelery shop, dentist, other?

I am not a ghoul, and I don't consider the previous owner to be particularly ghoulish. If these have value I need to turn them into cash for the charity to which they were donated; otherwise I will quickly and respectfully dispose of them.

posted by Classic Diner to Work & Money (8 answers total)

Hit them with a hammer to loosen and free the fillings, and send them in to Cash4Gold. No, seriously.
posted by DarlingBri at 3:06 PM on April 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

My boyfriend works in the dental field and people will occasionally want their teeth back when they pull a tooth with a gold crown or filling. From what he says, I don't think they're worth much, but you might as well do what DarlingBri suggests. Please don't take them to your dentist -- he/she won't want them.
posted by jabes at 3:20 PM on April 9, 2014

I would frame them in a shadowbox. But then, I may be a bit ghoulish. I guess what I'm getting at is there may be people who would be interested in buying them as-is to incorporate into art.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 3:31 PM on April 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

Bring them to a reputable gold buyer. They're worth money with the price of gold these days.
posted by quince at 3:34 PM on April 9, 2014

I spent a brief stint working for a pawn shop; teeth with gold in them were sold frequently enough for me to notice. You can get a not-so-insignificant amount of cash from them.

They will ask you to remove the gold however. They don't want to pay for the weight of the tooth, and there's no good way for a gold buyer or pawn shop to calculate a weight with the gold still in the tooth.
posted by furnace.heart at 3:56 PM on April 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'd find someone who is ghoulish and offer to sell them the teeth with the gold still in.
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:44 PM on April 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Etsy has a whole section of bone jewelry which includes many items made from human teeth. You might find an interested buyer among those jewelers.
posted by alms at 6:56 PM on April 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Most of the gold in fillings is an alloy, and not worth all that much. I occasionally have patients ask to have the gold when i remove a filling, and i give it to them (it's usually sliced up or if it's a full crown it can be nasty with decay or old cement), but if not we sterilize our waste metal and sell it to a buyer, but a year's worth is pocket cash, no great windfall.
posted by OHenryPacey at 7:16 PM on April 9, 2014 [2 favorites]