The gold recycling industry is doing particularly well these days. It is pretty much impossible to open a newspaper and NOT find it filled with ads from people who are offering to buy your old gold, usually at very aggressive prices. A lot of people have begun to ask why these gold dealers have suddenly become so successful, especially considering the fact that just a few short years ago the gold buying and reselling trade was basically limited to a few jewelers (who would generally only buy high end articles of jewelry) and a few pawn shops, who were generally seen as very disreputable and would purchase all kinds of goods – even stolen goods – at extremely low prices.

This is a stark difference to the dental scrap field which has been around for decades, since dentistry began, gold has been used as an excellent tooth repair medium for centuries.  It contains properties that make it superior for many applications.  It’s used in the making of a gold tooth, fillings, inlays, dentures, bridgework, dental crowns and more.  As a scrap gold buyer the majority of gold you’ll see in a dentist’s office will be in the form of a gold crown or dental bridges.  These items have been removed from patient’s for many years and/or replaced, some dentists will give them back to the patient and inform them of their value but many will not and keep a stockpile, some will cash their pile in yearly, others will hold on to it for a decade, some for the duration of their career as a sort of retire nest egg.

Overnight, however, the gold merchant industry seems to have gone from these very limited roots to becoming a legitimate business that has made a large number of people very, very rich. What caused this to occur so quickly? Experts suggest that there are a lot of reasons relating to the economy that have contributed to it, but these reasons are only a small part of the story – a lot of it has to do with the business savvy and competence of the gold merchants themselves, and their ability to eye out areas of potential profit and seize these areas quicker than any of their competitors are able to do so.

Take, for example, the booming trade in dental scrap. It is very difficult to see the connection between the dentist’s office and the gold merchant’s shop, and at first glance there may seem to be no obvious commonalities between them, but in fact the gold industry is quite heavily dependent upon the scrap gold that is generated as a result of the dentist’s trade. Dentists deal with a lot of patients who use fillings, and a lot of these fillings – all, in fact – are made of precious metals, with gold being a very popular one. These fillings need to be replaced as time goes on, and this means that the average dentist’s office will have a very large amount of scrap gold flowing through it. Of course, this gold is still gold, and so it retains its value. It is not as usable in the raw form that the dentist receives, perhaps, but when processed to remove impurities and irregularities, and then melted down and re-created as gold bars, it is basically no different from gold in any other form.

As a result, then, it makes a lot of sense that gold merchants make a huge deal out of plying dentists for the chance to purchase the large amount of scrap gold that flows through their offices, little do these merchants know that dentists are keenly aware of the value of their scrap.  The dental industry is huge – there are a lot of dentists’ offices in modern western countries, and each office deals with a lot of customers that use dental fillings – and thus they receive a lot of gold. This represents one of the easiest and cheapest places from where gold merchants can purchase their gold, and so there is bitter competition between gold dealers to secure the rights to purchase scrap gold from dentists’ offices. And when we say bitter competition, we mean bitter competition – the gold dealing trade is a very cutthroat one, and a lot of dealers employ tactics that are designed to squeeze their competitors out of the business as soon as they possibly can.

Generally, these dealers are large enough that they can afford a few months of not making a profit off their dental scrap, because they know that they will create a good relationship with the dentists, and will be able to compete more effectively against the other dealers as a result. The dentists, of course, simply want to get the highest prices that they can, and so they will go with dealers or refiners who offer the highest price.  In this way, the large dealers use their influence and size to persuade dentists to deal only with them, at the expense of their competitors.

If you are entering this business, then, it is best to know what you are doing. Not only will you be facing some very tough competitors, but the nature of the business itself requires a lot of expertise – after all, you are dealing with gold, a material that has a long and infamous history of trickery. Gold is a very fickle metal, and can deceive – the most lustrous gold does not necessarily mean the purest. In fact, purity of dental scrap is usually no more pure than 80% at best, and on average is about 65% pure (in other words, slightly less than 18 karat). The rest is usually alloyed (that is, mixed) with a variety of other metals, which can range from zinc to copper to tin. It takes an expert to be able to gauge the value of gold, because as mentioned above, its visual appearance can actually have very little or nothing to do with the quality of the metal.

There are several types of materials you’d be dealing with from dentists, let’s look at a few now.

1. Dental scrap can be a big money making business but without knowledge you can also lose your shirt in a hurray.  The key is to make sure you know what kind of material you’re dealing with, test everything, and don’t take anyone’s word regarding the karat of the scrap, especially the dentists!

There are many, many different gold and other precious alloys used in dentistry today. They range from 30% alloys, or 7K, to pure gold, or 24K. These alloys can range in color from white to yellow, so color is not a reliable indicator of value. We will concern ourselves with yellow alloys primarily, as this is what the majority of ‘good’ gold is.

There are many precious metals used in dental applications today, they can vary from 7k or 30% actually gold content alloys to 24k or .999 fine gold.  The colors range from deep yellow to white thus the color of the metal is not an accurate indication of the metal.  Other precious metal you’ll find when melting lots of dental alloys are palladium and silver with trace amounts of platinum.

As a general rule if you come across a deep yellow bridge or filing you will find it’s at least 66.5% gold content or 16k, this is also a good average with lighter colored scrap.

2.  Another alloy used is dental amalgam, in the past this was used in fillings and is normally around the 70% silver content, the remainder is made up of zinc, copper, tin or copper, the dentist would then mix this with mercury.  Older dental amalgam contained mercury, you’ll find that many refineries will not deal with it due to Environmentally Protection concerns.  After the dentist finished he mix the resulting amalgam would contain approximately 30% actual silver.

3. Another material contain precious metals in the dentists surgurey is dental fixer solution, this is used when developing dental x rays. Dental fixer solutions can have up to 1 oz of silver per gallon of solution, some dentists pour the solution down the drain, others will save it in large drums.  If one was ambitious enough you could offer a service to provide the dentists with the drums and pick them up on a regular basis, this will get you into the office and allow you access to his gold scrap in the future.

4.  Dental X Ray Scrap film also has amounts of silver to be worthwhile if you’re collecting other material at the same time.  After 7 years dentist clear out the films but some store them longer. This material is bought by the pound and obviously it takes a great deal of film to add up to a pound and a decent amount of silver as well.

If you are an expert in gold, however, there is a lot of room for people in the dental gold industry, which has grown so huge that now gold dealers themselves are looking for experts who will be able to help them price the scrap gold that they find at the dentists’ offices. Obviously, this is a lot less risky than going into the gold dealing business on your own, and it is equally rewarding, as these skills are in very high demand. There will always be a place for people who have a good eye for value when it comes to dental gold.