Gold Found Among Cremated Remains
A Thai funeral worker has gone viral after revealing that he spent years collecting gold left behind in cremated remains before taking the pieces to a gold shop in Saraburi. The unusual discovery attracted attention online after a video showed the elderly man carrying more than 10 small pieces of gold for testing. The footage was posted by a Saraburi gold shop owner and quickly spread across social media.
The worker, who has spent many years working at a cemetery in Saraburi province, said the gold came mainly from the teeth of deceased people. The cemetery is commonly used by Thai-Chinese families, according to reports. In some cases, people were buried with gold teeth still in place and were later cremated. After cremation, small pieces of gold could remain among the ashes and bone fragments.
Gold Shop Checks The Pieces
The worker reportedly brought the collection to a local gold shop because he and his colleagues were unsure whether all the pieces were genuine. The gold shop owner, Namo, checked the pieces with an X-ray machine to see what they were really made of. Turns out, they were legit gold, with most of it coming from old gold teeth.
After the gold was verified, the individual pieces were melted together into a single bar weighing 21.13 grams. The finished bar was valued at around 59,371 baht, equivalent to roughly S$2,300 at the time. The amount surprised viewers because the collection had been built up gradually over many years rather than coming from one person or one funeral.
Families Allegedly Gave Permission
The funeral worker said the gold had not been taken without the families knowing. According to his account, many families did not want to keep the gold after their relatives were cremated and instead allowed funeral workers to take it. He insisted that the pieces had been collected legally and with the knowledge and permission of the deceased’s families.
He also said he planned to use part of the money from the gold for merit-making in honour of the deceased. The practice is linked to the worker’s long-term role at the cemetery, where he and his colleagues had encountered gold dental pieces over the course of their work. Reports did not identify the worker by name.
Video Draws Online Attention
The story first came to wider attention after Namo posted a video showing the worker bringing the gold to his shop in late April 2025. The footage shows the pieces being examined before they were melted into the small gold bar.The video had people online doing a double take, with many shocked by where the valuable metal actually came from.
Before long, international media picked up the story, turning an ordinary trip to a gold shop into one very unexpected viral moment. For the longtime funeral worker, the collection represented years of small pieces gathered from cremated remains. Once tested and melted together, those pieces became a single bar worth nearly 60,000 baht.
Watch the video here:
@namobanchangtongdaengso0
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