How Dental Gold Affects Gold Price!
The use of dental gold is nothing new. In fact, dental molars have been found dating back to about 2500 BC. The teeth are bound together with gold wire, perhaps anchoring a weak tooth to a stronger tooth. Around 700 BC, the Etruscans fastened replacement teeth into their patients’ mouths with gold wire, and may also have used gold to fill cavities. Later, in about 1280 AD, Marco Polo reported that the Chinese covered their teeth with fine gold leaf, as a decoration; this use of gold was not, apparently, a dental treatment, but rather a cosmetic one.
Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, the most important industrial use of gold is in electronics and computers. The second most important use of gold is in dentistry. Gold is the perfect material for dental work, in many ways. It is durable (dental gold repairs last about 20 years, and sometimes much longer), safe, strong, comfortable, highly flexible, and very resistant to staining or chipping. Gold is extremely smooth, and thus is easily cleaned in the mouth. It is also gentle to the opposing teeth, just like your own natural teeth. In olden days, a flash of gold showing in a person’s mouth was taken as a sign of prosperity. In more recent times, more “natural-looking” materials like porcelain, ceramic, and amalgam implants and crowns are much more widely used than dental gold, and are considered esthetically superior. Nevertheless, since sensitivities to gold are extremely rare, compared with allergies to mercury-silver amalgams and nickel alloys, we can still speak of “the Gold Standard” with regard to dental gold.
Pure gold used for false teeth has the disadvantage of being relatively soft, and therefore wearing quickly. Various alloys are now used, of a high percentage of gold and including such metals as copper, platinum, silver, and even nickel. The best alloy for dental gold contains about 76% gold, which equates to about 18 carats.
The price of gold and other precious metals has escalated rapidly over the last couple of decades. As a result, cheaper alternatives for dental gold have been sought. Sometimes compounds that contained only about 30% actual gold were accepted for use as dental gold. Beginning in the 1980s, palladium began to be used in alloys for dental gold inlays, bridges, and crowns. The palladium alloys generally contain gold (often only about 2%), as well as silver, zinc, copper, and sometimes iridium.
In the United States, dental gold was used less and less as Social Security and health care insurance companies imposed limits on coverage for dental gold work. Consumption of gold by the dental industry dropped from 64 tonnes to 47 tonnes, between 1980 and 1988. At the same time, the Japanese and the Germans in particular were still favoring dental gold: in 1982, for example, half of the world’s dental gold, some 31.3 metric tons, went to Japan and Germany. By 2006, it was estimated that the US demand for dental gold had dropped to some 750,000 ounces, probably due in part to the lower price of palladium and other metals used for porcelain-to-metal bonded dental work.
So what is the future of dental gold? According to many dentists, there is no substitute for the strength, beauty, flexibility and durability of gold. Results are consistently superior and longer-lasting than dental work of ceramic, porcelain, or amalgam. However, at least in the US, many dental patients still prefer not to show “sunshine in their smile,” and tend to gravitate toward the white ceramic implants – if they can afford them. It appears that dental gold will continue to hold its place as a reliable, usually affordable, choice for many dental patients worldwide.
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