When a North Carolina precious-metals dealer is required to hold a purchased item for five days before sale or melting under G.S. § 66-170, exactly how do you count those five days, and does the count include or exclude weekends and holidays?
Plain-English summary
NC enacted Article 25 of Chapter 66 in the early 1980s to deal with a specific problem: gold and silver thefts were running high, and the easiest way for a thief to launder a stolen necklace was to walk into a precious-metals dealer and sell it for cash. The dealer would melt it down within hours, the gold became a generic bullion bar, and the chain of custody was gone forever.
The General Assembly's response was the five-day hold. Under G.S. § 66-170, a dealer who bought a covered item had to keep it on the premises, unchanged, for five days. During that window, the police could check the item against stolen-property reports and recover it before it disappeared into the melting pot.
Charlotte's police attorney, Robert F. Thomas, Jr., asked AG Edmisten a precise question: when exactly does the five-day clock start, and how do you count it? Special Deputy AG Norma Harrell laid out the answer in detail.
NC statutes that prescribe periods of time are computed under Rule 6(a) of the Rules of Civil Procedure (G.S. § 1-593 makes that explicit). Rule 6(a) has three key features for short periods:
- Exclude the first day (the day of the triggering act, here the purchase).
- Include the last day, unless it falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday (in which case the period runs to the next non-holiday weekday).
- For periods of less than seven days, also exclude intermediate Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays.
The AG worked through several concrete examples:
- A dealer who buys an item at 9:00 a.m. Wednesday must hold it through Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The earliest disposal is Thursday.
- A dealer who buys on Friday, with Monday a holiday, starts counting Tuesday. Day 5 is the following Monday. The earliest disposal is the following Tuesday.
- A dealer who buys on Friday or Saturday with no intermediate holiday holds through Monday-Friday. Day 5 is Friday, and disposal is allowed on Saturday (because only intermediate Saturdays are excluded, not the disposal day itself).
The AG anchored the result in the statute's anti-theft purpose and the language requiring a "period of five days." Five days had to mean five real, full business days, so police had a meaningful window to identify stolen goods. The AG also cited two out-of-state cases (one from Connecticut, one from New York) that had reached parallel conclusions when retail installment statutes required dealers to hold repossessed goods before resale.
Currency note
This opinion was issued in 1983. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here. The NC Rules of Civil Procedure were amended in 2007 to revise the time-computation rules (Rule 6(a) was modernized so that the under-7-days exclusion of weekends and holidays was eliminated). Anyone analyzing a current precious-metals dealer hold question must check the current text of Rule 6(a), the current G.S. § 66-170, and any recent Department of Justice or local enforcement guidance.
Background and statutory framework
Article 25 of Chapter 66, "Regulation of Precious Metals Businesses," was the General Assembly's response to a documented run of thefts in the late 1970s and early 1980s when gold and silver prices spiked. The legislative findings at G.S. § 66-163 were explicit: the statute existed to "prevent thefts, disposal of stolen property, and other abuses upon its citizens."
The framework imposed five layers of regulation on covered dealers:
- Definitions of who is a "dealer" and what is a covered "precious metal" (G.S. § 66-164).
- A permit requirement, issued by local law enforcement (G.S. § 66-165).
- A small-merchant exemption for businesses whose precious-metals trade was a small share of overall business (G.S. § 66-166).
- Recordkeeping requirements for both permitted dealers and exempted merchants (G.S. § 66-169).
- The five-day no-modification, no-removal hold on each purchased item (G.S. § 66-170).
The five-day hold was the key operational tool. Without it, recordkeeping would be archaeological: useful for prosecuting thefts after the fact, but useless for recovering the actual stolen item. The hold preserved the item in its original identifiable form, allowing the police to match it to a stolen-property report and recover it intact.
G.S. § 1-593 is the cross-reference statute that pulls the Rules of Civil Procedure's Rule 6(a) into all statutory time computations. The 1983 version of Rule 6(a) (the one in effect when this opinion issued) had the under-7-days exclusion of weekends and holidays. The opinion's worked examples reflect that version of the rule.
The two out-of-state cases the AG cited illustrate the broader principle. In Auto Acceptance v. Veneziano, a Connecticut court held a fifteen-day "retain before resale" period meant a resale on day 15 was premature, since the buyer had a full fifteen days after repossession. In Fisk Discount v. Brooklyn Taxicab, a New York court reached the parallel conclusion for a ten-day period, with the resale only allowed after midnight of the tenth day. The shared logic: when a statute gives a dealer a period to wait, that wait must be complete before the dealer can act.
Common questions
Why does the day of purchase not count as Day 1?
That is the standard rule under Rule 6(a) (and under most state and federal time-computation rules). The triggering event (purchase) marks the moment from which time starts, but the partial day on which the event occurs is not counted as a full day. The dealer who buys at 9:00 a.m. Wednesday has Wednesday as Day 0; Thursday is Day 1, and so on.
Did intermediate weekends really not count?
Under the 1983 version of Rule 6(a), they did not, but only because the prescribed period (five days) was less than seven. If the statute had said "ten days," intermediate Saturdays and Sundays would have counted toward the total. The under-7 rule was meant to give parties a workable week of real action time for short statutory periods.
What happens on Day 5 if it falls on a weekend?
Day 5 itself, even if it falls on a Saturday or Sunday, does not get excluded by the intermediate-weekend rule (which applies only to intermediate days). But the broader Rule 6(a) principle does say the last day, if it falls on a Saturday or Sunday, is extended to the next non-holiday weekday. The AG's examples reflect this practical effect.
Could a dealer dispose of an item on Day 6 even if Day 6 was a Saturday?
Yes, per the AG's example. Only intermediate Saturdays and Sundays are excluded under the under-7 rule. If the dealer had counted five business days and arrived at a Friday as Day 5, then Saturday (Day 6) was a permissible disposal day. The hold ended at the close of Day 5; the dealer could act starting on the next calendar day.
Source
Citations
- N.C. Gen. Stat. § 66-163
- N.C. Gen. Stat. § 66-164
- N.C. Gen. Stat. § 66-165
- N.C. Gen. Stat. § 66-166
- N.C. Gen. Stat. § 66-169
- N.C. Gen. Stat. § 66-170
- N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1-593
- Rule 6(a), N.C. Rules of Civil Procedure
- Jackson v. Stanwood Corp., 38 N.C. App. 479, 248 S.E.2d 576 (1978)
- Auto Acceptance Corp. v. Veneziano, 2 Conn. Cir. 708, 205 A.2d 788 (1964)
- Fisk Discount Corp. v. Brooklyn Taxicab Trans. Co., 270 App. Div. 491, 60 N.Y.S.2d 453 (1946)
Original opinion text
Requested By:
Robert F. Thomas, Jr.
Police Attorney
Charlotte Police Department
Question:
What method is used to calculate the time period in which a precious metal dealer must hold purchased items before sale pursuant to North Carolina General Statutes § 66-170?
Conclusion:
The five-day time period during which a precious metal dealer must hold purchased items before sale is calculated under Rule 6(a) of the Rules of Civil Procedure, and the dealer may sell such items on the sixth day.
A dealer who has purchased an item covered by the provisions of Article 25 of Chapter 66 of the North Carolina General Statutes, "Regulation of Precious Metal Businesses," is required by G.S. § 66-170 to hold those items for five days before any sale, disposition, or change of form or before allowing the item to be removed from the dealer's premises. That statute reads as follows:
"§ 66-170. Items not to be modified. No item included in a dealer purchase shall be sold, traded or otherwise disposed of, melted, cut or otherwise changed in form nor shall any such item be removed from the licensed premises for a period of five days from the date the purchase was made."
This Article was enacted by the General Assembly "in order to prevent thefts, disposal of stolen property, and other abuses upon its citizens" of the precious metals regulated by the statutory provisions. G.S. § 66-163. The statute defines dealers covered by the act and the precious metals which may be disposed of only subject to the statutory procedures. G.S. § 66-164. Dealers are required to obtain permits from local law-enforcement agencies. G.S. § 66-165. Merchants may be exempt if their transactions in gold, silver, or platinum are a sufficiently small percentage of their business. G.S. § 66-166. Records must be kept both by dealers who have received permits and by merchants who have received exemptions. G.S. § 66-169. These statutory provisions are apparently designed to enable law-enforcement officers and agencies to recover stolen gold, silver, and platinum items which may be purchased, whether innocently or knowingly, by dealers in such items.
"The time within which an act is to be done, as provided by law, shall be computed in the manner prescribed by Rule 6(a) of the Rules of Civil Procedure." G.S. § 1-593. This statute has been applied in determining the expiration of a thirty-day negotiation period, provided by statute before a fifty-day period during which a shareholder dissenting from a corporate reorganization is allowed to file a petition for the appointment of appraisers. Jackson v. Stanwood Corp. 38 N.C. App. 479, 248 S.E.2d 576 (1978). Thus, it appears that G.S. § 1-593 should also be applied to determine the expiration of the five-day period required by G.S. § 66-170 to run before a precious metals dealer may dispose of items governed by Article 25 of Chapter 66 of the General Statutes.
The language of G.S. § 66-170 forbids a dealer to dispose of or permit removal of covered items "for a period of five days from the date the purchase was made." Clearly, the intent of the General Assembly was to require the dealer to retain those items in their same form for five full days. Consequently, no disposition, change of form, or removal may be made until after the five days or, in other words, on the sixth day. In similar types of situations, the courts have reached similar conclusions. Thus, a seller improperly resold goods which he had repossessed under a retail installment contract when statutory language required him to retain the goods for fifteen days after retaking them and when he resold them on the fifteenth day. Auto Acceptance Corp., v. Veneziano, 2 Conn. Cir. 708, 205 A.2d 788 (1964). The court there felt that the buyer had a full fifteen days after, not including, the date of repossession in order to redeem. Thus, a resale on October 29 after repossession on October 14 did not meet the statutory requirement. Similarly, where a seller was required to retain goods for ten days after retaking in order to permit a buyer to redeem the goods, the tenth day must expire before the resale, the ten days being computed by excluding the first day and including the last day, with sale only permissible after midnight of the tenth day. Fisk Discount Corp. v. Brooklyn Taxicab Trans. Co., 270 App.Div. 491, 60 NYS 2d 453 (1946).
Both the language of G.S. § 66-170 and the interpretations of other courts in analogous types of circumstances require a conclusion that the dealer must hold the goods in the same form on his premises for five days and wait until the sixth day before any disposition or change of form. The question then becomes how to calculate the expiration of the five days. Since G.S. § 1-593 requires computation according to Rule 6(a) of the Rules of Civil Procedure, it is necessary to refer to that Rule to make the computation. Rule 6(a) provides that the first day, in this case the day of purchase or acquisition by the dealer, should be excluded. The last day, the date which will be reached as the fifth day after acquisition by the dealer, is included unless it is a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday. The last day will be the first succeeding day which is not a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday. Additionally, Rule 6(a) requires exclusion of all intermediate Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays if the period of time prescribed or allowed is less than seven days, as it is here. This would mean that if a precious metals dealer acquired items of jewelry at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, he would be required to hold these items through Thursday, Friday, the following Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and could not dispose of them until the following Thursday. If a dealer acquired items on a Friday, and the following Monday were a holiday, the first day under the statute would not be until the following Tuesday, and the fifth day would fall on the Monday after that, so that the dealer could not dispose of the items until the next Tuesday. Since only intermediate Saturdays, Sundays and holidays must be excluded, a dealer may dispose of an item on Saturday if the fifth day of the holding period is a Friday, as would be the case if the dealer acquired the item on a Friday or Saturday and held the item the following Monday through Friday, none of which were legal holidays. Regardless of what time of day the dealer acquires the items, he must begin counting the five-day period on the succeeding day and hold those items through five full business days, excluding all Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays, and neither dispose of the item, remove it from his premises, or change the form until the sixth day after acquisition, not counting the day on which he acquired them and excluding all intermediate Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays.
RUFUS L. EDMISTEN
Attorney General
Norma S. Harrell
Assistant Attorney General