What does a dentist do with crowns or bridges that he removes from a mouth?

When a crown or a bridge is removed, many patients ask if it has any value? I guess they are hopeful that they can apply some of the value to the new restoration that will be needed.

The answer is not much. Most crowns that I remove I place in the trash. There is a market for scrap metal, but the value of a scrap crown is usually not high. I haven't checked recently(the price of gold is sky high!), but the dental scrap dealers generally don't reimburse us much for old crowns.

Scrap gold is worth more than semi-precious or non precious metal scrap. The last time I sold my scrap gold t, I had collected a batch for over five years and I received less than three hundred dollars.

Unfortunately, unless a dentist has a large amount of gold, dental scrap dealers tend to make low offers for it(they like to make a profit on their purchases). When scrap is present in large quantities it can be sent to a refiner and it can be worth more, but the refiner is paid a fee for his work.