Montgomery County, VA Business Licensing & Operations: Secondhand Dealers (2026)

Outside Blacksburg and Christiansburg, Article V of Chapter 5 licenses dealers in secondhand precious metals and jewelry. Section 5-131 defines a dealer as anyone buying secondhand precious metals or gems, or removing them from manufactured articles not their own, but exempts purchases between dealers, wholesalers or manufacturers, estate-fiduciary sales, retail trade-ins, in-house repair or design work, and industrial refiners buying from retailers. Coins are wholly exempt under Section 5-134, and banks are exempt under Section 5-135. Under Section 5-136, no one may act as a dealer without a permit from the sheriff, obtained by filing a full name, aliases, address, age, birth date, sex and fingerprints along with a two-hundred-dollar application fee; the sheriff must deny the permit to anyone convicted of a felony or crime of moral turpitude within the prior seven years.

The permit runs one year and renews annually for another two hundred dollars, is nontransferable, and requires a fixed, permanent business location with weighing devices inspected by weights-and-measures officials. Section 5-137 requires a detailed purchase record for every transaction, kept twenty-four months, including the seller's name, address, birth date and identification details, mailed to the sheriff within twenty-four hours of purchase; dealers must admit the sheriff or other law enforcement to inspect records during business hours. Section 5-138 bars buying from anyone under eighteen or from a seller the dealer believes is not the true owner.

Section 5-140 requires the dealer to hold every purchased item at least ten calendar days from when the sheriff receives the bill of sale, without selling, altering or removing it from the county. Section 5-142 requires a ten-thousand-dollar bond or bank letter of credit payable to the county.