A Brief History of Crowns and Bridges
Everyone’s seen the old cowboy movies where the bad guy smirks at the good guy and shows off his golden tooth. This might be a standard in old movies, but you don’t really see it anymore. The truth is that gold teeth have a long and illustrious history, but they’ve fallen out of fashion in dental practices today.
Ancient Golden Teeth
Gold has been used to repair and decorate teeth for thousands of years. In fact, archaeologists dug up a man with two gold teeth in Giza, and date his dental work to around 2,500 BC. Moving forward in time a little, the Etruscans, a civilisation that predated the Romans, also enjoyed the look of gold teeth. Etruscan women used gold to decorate their teeth until about 100 AD. The history of this type of dental work may be long, but using gold for teeth didn’t become popular in the modern world until fairly recently.
Modern Uses for Gold Teeth
Today, gold teeth have become something of a fashion statement. Made popular by rappers and R&B stars such as Kanye West and Nelly, gold teeth have become an accepted part of the fashion world. In fact, so called ‘grillz’, fake teeth that can be fitted over your original teeth, can be bought in shops today and are sported by a variety of music, television and sport stars. Whatever form they come in, gold dental work has come to represent power and wealth. This actually makes sense because gold isn’t cheap, and the cost of gold teeth or ‘grillz’ can range from a few hundred dollars for basic sets, to over 150,000 dollars for more elaborate ones.
Golden Dental Work
Gold can be used to form crowns to repair broken or damaged teeth, or to create a bridge to replace missing teeth. It’s a strong material that’s easily moulded into the correct shape to replace broken sections, and the strength of the material means that it lasts a long time. However, it isn’t often used in modern dental practices. As Dr. Amrinder Oberoi from Paramount Dental Sydney states, “Gold is actually stronger than porcelain but we use porcelain of course because it can be colour matched”. Using porcelain for crowns means that the dental work can blend with the rest of your teeth, so the only attention you’ll get is because of your great smile.
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