Like any market, the world of precious metals has its ups and downs. Yet, compared to the rest of the world’s markets, its fluctuations are few and most often result in an increase in value. Because precious metal represents such a stable source of value, people are often motivated to make ends meet by releasing unwanted or used bits of metal that would otherwise be of little use.
In the world of unusable metal, dental scrap is king. Because each tooth, crown, or bridge is made specifically for the individual’s mouth, these items cannot be reused should they fall out or become damaged. Their strong connection to the scrapping industry is then justified by the unique nature of each individual piece. Further, replacement costs for these pieces are not cheap and many find that reselling them as scrap helps to alleviate the cost of acquiring new dental work.
Yet, because the world of dental scrap is intrinsically tied to the world of precious metals, dental scrap prices have been widely beneficial for individual sellers. As each metal price rises and falls there is a flurry of sales that benefit the precious metals economy. Thus, the sale of dental scrap is also intrinsically tied to keeping the price of gold at a valuable rate.
Examining the value of precious metals is the easiest way to estimate the history of dental scrap prices. For instance, should someone have sold a quarter of a troy ounce of gold in 1997, after refining out any purities, they would have made about three hundred dollars. While this is a large amount of money and not necessarily representative of the amount of gold in someone’s mouth, one can see that the price of gold would certainly effect how much money they received.
Therefore, one can begin to see that keeping an eye on the precious metals market can help sellers and investors in dental scrap and precious metals increase their profit. Recently, the world of precious metals has been experiencing a boom in sales and value. Most often, dental work using metals is done in either gold or silver, although dental work with platinum or palladium is not all together uncommon. Yet, for the informed investor keeping an eye on gold and silver is their primary engagement. With that in mind, here are some brief synopses on trends in gold and silver prices.
Between January 2009 and October 2010 the price of gold steadily rose. Like any other market it experienced dips and divots from a straight rise, but an increase without any fluctuation is highly unlikely. All products have their moments of lows, but this is not reason to decrease sales of these products. With a keen eye on the market, one can see that in this time the price of gold went from the mid seven hundred dollars and ounce to over thirteen hundred dollars and ounce. This growth is amazing and has experienced few setbacks, enabling many people to benefit from the general rise in price.
Dental Silver
Silver has also experienced a general rise in price, though its travel around the charts has been somewhat more erratic than gold. Silver will often climb in a stair-step or hilltop manner: rather than rising in a sheer cliff silver ducks up and down in a general upwards motion across the charts. For example, in early 2009 the price of silver was climbing higher, only to duck down in March. April saw a return in the value and that general motion has been reoccurring ever since. While erratic at times, silver represents a valuable investment.