Dental Gold Calculator
Live gold price: $4425.90 / troy oz · updated
Dental alloys vary too much to infer gold content from color, age, or weight. Select a documented karat or assay fineness to calculate; otherwise request an itemized assay.
Why this calculator has no default dental karat
A removed crown is not standardized like a 14K ring. Dental laboratories choose alloys for strength, casting behavior, porcelain bonding, color, and clinical use, and products can combine gold with palladium, platinum, silver, copper, tin, or mostly base metals. Two yellow crowns can contain different amounts of gold, while a pale restoration may still contain valuable noble metals. Age and color do not reveal a defensible karat.
That is why the tool starts at “Unknown — assay needed” and refuses to show a dollar estimate until you provide documented gold purity. If you only know the object's total weight, you know one input but not the composition that drives value. For stamped jewelry, use the general scrap gold calculator; for dental work, treat an unknown result as a signal to get testing rather than permission to guess.
What the result includes—and what it leaves out
When you enter a known karat or assay fineness, the result is gold-only melt value: metal weight × declared gold fraction × spot gold price. It does not price palladium, platinum, silver, collectible value, buyer fees, or a settlement percentage. Those omissions are deliberate. A multi-metal assay report may produce separate payable weights, while this page only has a gold price input.
The weight must also be the dental metal, not a gross weight that includes porcelain, cement, tooth material, or packaging. A porcelain-fused-to-metal restoration can look substantial while containing only a thin metal substructure. If you cannot isolate or document metal weight, carry that uncertainty into the buyer conversation instead of treating the scale reading as pure alloy.
Full-cast, PFM, and white dental alloys
A full-cast metal crown is alloy throughout, so most of its cleaned restoration weight is relevant to an assay. A porcelain-fused-to-metal crown has a ceramic exterior over a metal coping; ceramic contributes weight but not recoverable metal. Bridges can mix multiple units, solder joints, porcelain, and attachments. Photograph the lot and record gross weight, but let the refiner report recovered or assayed metal rather than inventing a porcelain deduction at home.
Color is not a reliable sorting method. Gold-rich alloys are often yellow, but dental materials also include palladium-based, silver-containing, and predominantly base-metal systems. Keep white and yellow restorations for testing, label items if you know their clinical or laboratory history, and do not select a karat in the tool merely because the surface looks gold.
How to turn an assay report into a gold estimate
Ask for the result as gold percentage, millesimal fineness, or payable gold weight. If the report says 650 fineness, choose “Known assay fineness” and enter 650; the tool treats that as 65.0% gold. If a documented alloy specification says 18K, choose 18K. Then enter the metal-only weight and compare the gold-only melt figure with the gold line on the settlement.
Do not translate a multi-metal report into an invented karat. Karat measures gold only. A crown with less gold but meaningful palladium can have a different total precious-metal value from a gold-only estimate. Ask which metals were tested, whether the sample was screened or fully assayed, how non-metal weight is handled, and whether the quoted payment is before or after fees.
Questions to ask a dental-scrap buyer
Before mailing or handing over a crown, ask five concrete questions: Which metals do you report? Which test or assay method do you use? Is payment based on screened composition, recovered metal, or a fixed schedule? What fees and minimums apply? Will I receive an itemized settlement showing weight, metal content, price basis, and deductions? A buyer who cannot explain the settlement cannot be checked against this calculator.
For a small lot, convenience and minimum fees may matter more than the headline percentage. For a larger lot, an itemized assay becomes more important because small composition differences compound. Get written terms before surrendering the material, keep your weight record, and compare like with like—the same lot, same reported metal, same pricing timestamp, and fees included.
A worked example with known fineness
Suppose an itemized report shows 6.0 grams of dental metal at 650 fineness, and use a $4,000-per-troy-ounce illustration. Pure gold is $4,000 ÷ 31.1035 = $128.60 per gram. The report implies 6.0 × 0.650 = 3.9 grams of pure gold, so the gold-only melt value is about $501.55. The tool substitutes its displayed price and calculates the same chain immediately.
If the settlement also lists palladium, platinum, or silver, evaluate those lines separately; do not add their weights to the gold field. If you want to normalize the gold result per gram, the gold price per gram table shows the underlying conversion. If you receive a local lump-sum quote, the pawn shop offer comparison can express it as a percentage of the documented gold melt value, but it still cannot price unreported metals.
A practical evidence trail before you sell
Create a simple before-and-after record: photograph the pieces, note the gross weight and scale unit, retain any laboratory card or alloy documentation, save the buyer's terms, and request the settlement report. Do not damage a restoration trying to remove porcelain or tooth material just to make the calculator accept a cleaner number; the safe path is to disclose the gross condition and let the buyer explain how payable metal is determined.
The calculator is most reliable after testing, not before it. Used that way, it catches arithmetic and price-basis errors: wrong troy-ounce conversion, wrong fineness, stale spot price, or a gold line that does not match reported weight. Used before testing with an assumed karat, it would only turn an unknown alloy into a precise-looking guess—which is exactly what this page is designed to prevent.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is a gold crown worth?
You need the metal weight and tested composition. Color, age, and gross crown weight are not enough. Once an assay gives gold percentage or fineness, this tool calculates the gold-only melt value.
What karat is dental gold?
There is no universal dental-gold karat. Products vary and can contain gold, palladium, platinum, silver, copper, tin, or predominantly base metals. Use documentation or an assay.
Can I estimate dental gold from its color?
No. Yellow appearance does not prove a specific gold percentage, and white dental alloys may contain noble metals. Color is not a substitute for composition testing.
Does the result include palladium or platinum?
No. The result values only the declared gold content at the entered gold price. Evaluate other metals from an itemized assay as separate settlement lines.
What should an itemized dental-scrap settlement show?
Look for received or processed weight, tested metals and content, the price basis and timestamp, fees or minimums, and the resulting payable amount.