That uphill -- if unsteady -- climb is why gold teeth are showing up regularly on EBay.
Bidding was brisk recently for three teeth posted by Bruce Jenkins, a semi-retired railroad manager in Colorado. He said he found them "in a little container of things I bought for $1 at a garage sale in Denver."
"I stirred my finger around in there and that's when I saw them," said Jenkins, whose auction brought him $173.06.
Gold is used in dental work a lot less than it was when an international agreement fixed its price at $35 an ounce. The gold standard was abandoned by President Nixon in 1971.
"If you want something long-lasting, it's still the best way to go," said Dr. Gary Herman, a San Fernando Valley dentist. "The mouth is a harsh environment, and gold doesn't corrode in it."
Herman said he always offers patients their gold after removing it. "Some say yes, some say no -- yech!" he said. "I haven't noticed an increase in the number of patients requesting it."
Dental gold is 16-karat -- pure gold is 24 -- and must be chemically treated to leach out other metals in the alloy before it's melted down.
"You need a lot of it to make it worth your while," said Los Angeles pawnbroker Sam Shocket, owner of King's Jewelry & Loans and vice president of the Collateral Loan and Second Hand Dealers Assn., a pawnbrokers trade group.
"Dentists come in from time to time with a baggie full of these things," he said.
In Camarillo, dental gold crosses the counter at the George Thompson Diamond Co. as often as four times a week.
"People are hurting for money," said manager Kathleen Thompson. "And I wouldn't call these things keepsakes."
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steve.chawkins@latimes.com
