. . . with gold & platinum fillings. How could I turn it into spendable cash at reasonable value, without facing pesky questions best avoided?
Hypothetically speaking, of course.
I’d find a way to melt the metals out of the teeth.
Gold melts. Teeth oxidize. Do you have access to a kiln?
Heh. I should have known something was out there like that.
I actually only have one soon to be removed tooth with a large gold filling, but it got me thinking. I wonder what those services would say if I inquired about bulk rates . . .
Say that I had several square feet of human skin…
…what would be the best way to make a lampshade out of it?
Hypothetically speaking, of course.
I had a neighbor lady who had her fillings of gold and silver, she had a full upper set of false teeth and a partial lower set, so she had a good amount. This was in the 80s when Gold and Silver went up so high (or was that the 70s?) Well anyway, she just took it to the gold dealer tooth and all and he bought the gold and silver fillings along with the tooth.
If you made a project of making a lampshade out of your own skin – necessarily over the course of several months, if not years – now that would be something.
I could also try belly-button lint crochet.
Oooh. Gruesome.
There are skin stretching techniques used to help victims of severe burns - the scarred skin tends to shrink as it heals. It involves placing balloon-like sacs under the skin and inflating them over time with saline, I believe. Seems to me it would be technically possible to grow yourself a swath of extra skin and harvest it this way.
Eeygh.
‘Koxinga has a large bag of teeth.’
Not sure about crochet, but you may be able to “felt” it.
I would experiment with putting a tooth in a baggie and then giving it a tap with a hammer. I would bet the tooth would shatter and leave the filling free to pluck from the shards.
Could one toss the teeth in a bag with mercury, then heat the mercury to release the gold?
I’ve often wondered about that…
“…Is it safe” 
C’est la vie!
Now, dammit. 
You want a baseball glove? You grow your baseball glove!
It’s done, but you want to be very careful
http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AgwRbGl5CgUf8H18u23Hx4ibvZx4?p=mecury+vapor+lung+diseased&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-311
Hah, I guess my google-fu is strong tonight, here’s a case I had some involvement with from 10 years back.