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Dental gold: ugly, real, and worth bringing
Crowns and bridges can be high-karat gold. They look terrible. Shops still buy them by test and weight. Do not throw them out.
Dental gold is the yellow metal in the pill bottle you do not want to look at.
Bring it anyway. A lot of it tests in the 16k to 22k range. That is better gold than most fashion chains. It fails every jewelry photo. The shop does not care how it looks.
What happens on the pad
We test it. We weigh it. We bid melt. Nobody is making a necklace out of it on Saturday. Karat. What the tests mean. Weigh in front of you.
Some yellow tooth caps are not gold. Porcelain with a gold-colored wash exists. The test settles it. If it is mixed with teeth and cement, we can still work with it. We have seen worse.
What not to do
Do not mail it to the first “dental gold kit” advertisement. Mail-in vs walk-in. Do not boil it. Do not grind it at home to “make it nicer.”
If an estate left you a bottle, treat it like the rest of the metal: photograph, do not clean, bring it with ID. Estates. ID.
More on the coin and money library.