Dental Gold Calculator

What dental gold actually is

Crowns, bridges, inlays, and onlays are cast from dental alloys, not pure gold. Most run between 10K and 18K depending on the manufacturer and era, which is why this calculator defaults to 16K as a middle estimate. The interesting twist: many dental alloys also contain palladium or platinum, metals valuable in their own right — so a lab assay can reveal your dental gold is worth more than its karat alone suggests. For stamped jewelry with a readable karat, the main scrap gold calculator is the right tool; this page exists for the gold your dentist removed.

Full cast gold crowns vs. porcelain-fused-to-metal

Not every gold crown carries the same amount of metal. A full cast crown is solid dental alloy through and through — the classic yellow molar crown — and delivers the most recoverable gold for its size. A porcelain-fused-to-metal (PFM) crown is built differently: a thin metal coping hides under a ceramic shell, so much of what you see and weigh is porcelain with no scrap value at all. Expect a PFM to yield noticeably less gold than a full cast crown of the same apparent size.

Color is a weak guide to value. Yellow alloys are visibly gold-rich, but many white or silver-colored dental alloys are heavy in palladium — sometimes with platinum — and can settle for strong money at assay. The practical rule: never throw away a crown for looking wrong, and never let a buyer dismiss a white-metal crown as worthless without testing what is actually in it. When in doubt, treat every crown as gold worth assaying rather than scrap worth guessing about.

How much a gold crown weighs

A typical full gold crown weighs 2–3 grams. If yours has a porcelain veneer fused to the metal, part of that weight is ceramic and must be mentally discounted — the porcelain has no scrap value. Bridges weigh more, roughly in proportion to the number of units. Weigh what you have, enter the metal-only estimate above, and treat the result as a working floor for negotiations.

Palladium and platinum: why assay beats karat math

A karat number describes gold content only, and dental alloys refuse to be described that neatly. Manufacturers blended gold with palladium, platinum, and silver in proportions that varied by product line and by decade, so two identical-looking crowns can differ meaningfully in composition. No stamp survives on a crown, and no counter test reads palladium reliably — only a refiner's assay, which melts the lot and measures each metal, reveals what your dental gold actually contains.

This is why the calculator's 16K default is a floor-setting estimate rather than a final answer. The gold math gives you a defensible minimum for negotiation; the assay settlement can only add to it, with any palladium and platinum recovered appearing as separate line items on the report. That uncertainty cuts in the seller's favor for once: the karat estimate prices only the gold, so surprises at assay tend to be pleasant ones.

Skip the pawn shop: where to sell dental gold

Dental scrap is the one category where the usual local options serve you worst. A pawn shop cannot identify a palladium-bearing alloy across the counter, so it will quote your crown at the lowest plausible karat — or refuse it outright. Refiners that accept dental scrap run an assay: they melt the lot, measure exactly which metals it contains, and pay on the verified content, typically 95–98% of the recovered value. For anything beyond a single crown, the assay route pays meaningfully more.

Step-by-step: what three gold crowns are worth

Suppose you have three full cast crowns at 3 grams each — 9 grams of dental gold — and take a spot price of $4,000 per troy ounce for illustration. Pure gold is $4,000 ÷ 31.1035 = $128.60 per gram; at the 16K default (16 ÷ 24 purity), the alloy is worth about $85.74 per gram, so the lot melts at roughly $771. A refiner paying 95–98% of recovered value returns about $733–$756 — before any palladium or platinum the assay finds on top. Weigh the crowns yourself first on a 0.1 g scale; the gold calculator in grams covers choosing one.

Now the pawn-counter counterfactual: a shop that cannot assay quotes the same 9 grams at the lowest plausible karat, 10K, giving 9 × $53.59 ≈ $482 of assumed melt, then applies its 55–70% band for an offer of $265–$338. The refiner route pays more than double for the same gold — the entire difference is who measured it. Unlike a stamped bar you would price with the 24k gold calculator, dental gold's value stays invisible until someone does.

Porcelain, teeth, and cleanup: sell dental gold as-is

You do not need to clean or separate anything before sending dental scrap to a refiner. Porcelain layers, cement residue, even a crown still attached to an extracted tooth — refiners process all of it routinely and settle on the net precious metal recovered, so the debris costs you nothing but adds nothing. Package it as-is, get an itemized settlement report, and compare the payout against the melt estimate this calculator gave you. If the settlement lists palladium or platinum recovered alongside the gold, that is the assay doing its job — those line items are money a karat-only quote would have missed.

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