Gold prices are so high now—over $1,500 an ounce—that consumers are cashing in anything they've got that has gold in it, including teeth, bridges, crowns and other dental work.
"I've seen them pop the gold right out of their mouth," says Dave Crume, president of the National Pawnbrokers Association and executive vice president of Wichita, Kansas, pawnbroker A-OK Enterprises.
"It's a little awkward," he admits, "but I've see them take out a tooth." More often they bring in family heirlooms they don't want or jewelry they no longer wear. The gold-selling trend, which started picking up steam two years ago, has become only stronger now, as new ways have arisen for customers to unload their gold. It can be sold via mail, the Internet and Tupperware-like "gold parties," such as Premier Gold Parties, where a group of friends meet to sell their gold in a home setting.
In Texas, a seller can pick up dinner and sell her tiara at the same time: most of the 50 locations of Gold & Silver Buyers, the state's biggest precious metals buyer, are inside or alongside supermarkets. So great is the volume of their business that they do their own smelting—an added efficiency that translates, according to president Larry Gray, into better prices paid to customers. Items sold have included a platinum surgical implant, discovered in the cremated remains of a loved one.
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