title: The boy with the golden tooth: a 1593 case report of the first molded gold crown.
abstract: The case of the Boy with the Golden Tooth, a "miracle" in a remote village in Silesia, in what is today southwestern Poland, was reported extensively in 1593. Here we report that the hoax, perpetrated by someone close to the family and with knowledge of goldsmith techniques, is the first documented case of the use of a molded gold crown. Using period instruments available to goldsmiths and a 0.001" copper sheet, we reproduced, on a plastic pediatric model, what the gold crown could have looked like.
authors.affiliation: Department of Basic Science & Craniofacial Biology, New York University College of Dentistry, 345 E. 24th Street, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10010, USA. andrew.spielman@nyu.edu
authors.forename: A I
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: Spielman
mesh_terms: D003442:Crowns / Q000266:history*; D008192:Deception; D006047:Gold Alloys / Q000266:history*; D049669:History, 16th Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011044:Poland
chemical_list: D006047:Gold Alloys