Edit: I found what you were looking for, if a little broad. From the same paper sourced below: "Gold is the oldest dental restorative material, having been used for dental repairs for more than 4000 years. These early dental applications were based on aesthetics, rather than masticatory ability. The early Phoenicians used gold wire to bind teeth, and subsequently, the Etruscans and then the Romans introduced the art of making fixed bridges from gold strip. During the Middle Ages these techniques were lost, and only rediscovered in a modified form in the middle of the nineteenth century."

Original comment: I don't know what people used to do, but the reason for gold teeth in any age is that gold is almost an exact match for the hardness of your naturally occurring enamel. This is important so that your crowns don't harm the opposing teeth over time. It's also very malleable, which makes for a good filling/crown materialism terms of working with it in a clinical setting.

Honestly, it's still one of the best materials to put in your mouth. For aesthetic reasons, other materials that can be color matched may be used for visible teeth, but even a lot of the modern composites are not better than a gold alloy, clinically speaking.

Source: wife is a dentist. I have a lot of gold in the back of my mouth.

Here's the abstract from a paper on the subject: "The current uses of gold in dental applications are reviewed and the major gold-based dental alloys are described with reference to current International Standards. Newer techniques, such as electroforming, are highlighted with suggestions for potential future areas for research and development. The future role of gold in restorative and conservative dentistry is also discussed in the light of increasing competition from alternative materials. It is clear that if longevity, functionality, aesthetics and biocompatibility, together with ease of manufacture are considered as the most important selection criteria, the optimum material for dental restorations is still an approved gold alloy." http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF03215496

Hopefully there is a dental historian around here. But from the pirate side of this, no record of golden teeth has show up to this date for the Golden Age of Piracy as far as I know.

hi! you might consider x-posting this question to /r/AskAnthropology; there may have been gold teeth found in various archaeological digs

It was a commonplace action to remove the gold teeth from the mouths of recently murdered Jews at concentration camps by the Nazis.

Pirates mostly had an earring, not tooth, of gold to pay for funeral expenses and, if he had one, help his family get through life until the oldest son could work if he wasn't already.