OpenFile

In an unstoppable monologue, Russell Oliver holds forth on gold and jewels while greeting customers and awaiting the presence of a CBC crew. The latter are coming to interview the proprietor of Oliver Jewellery about the soaring price of gold, currently more than US$1,200 an ounce.

Oliver also drops some disparaging remarks about what he refers to as “the competition across the road” from his shop at 366 Eglinton Ave. W. in north Toronto.

The competition is Mr. Gold Buyer, an American firm that recently opened at 357 Eglinton Ave. W., almost directly opposite Oliver Jewellery. During our interview, a young man with a sandwich board advertising Mr. Gold Buyer’s presence marches up and down the street.

“I’m not at all concerned,” Oliver insists about the rival. “I’m just too experienced and too seasoned and too smart and have too much product knowledge.”

Open since January, Mr. Gold Buyer is the newest arrival in a community of roughly half-a-dozen shops along a short stretch of Eglinton Ave. that deal in used gold and jewellery. It’s a community in which Oliver is the uncrowned king by virtue of his experience and reputation.

“It’s very, very hard to compete against me. Not only have I been established so many years, being established gives me product knowledge second-to-none. It gives me customer knowledge. And I’ve spent approximately $30 million on TV advertising. That’s a lot of money — $30 million,” he continues.

Indeed, Oliver is famous for his cheesy commercials in which he takes on the guise of “Cashman” (a paunchy superhero who dispenses money for jewels), the “Loan Arranger” (a cowboy who offers loans) or just his voluble self, urging people to bring him their valuables.

In person, Oliver resembles a concert impresario. He has longish hair combed straight back, glasses, and wears an open-neck pinstripe shirt. Hanging around his neck is a loupe, a small magnification device used to examine diamonds and gold.

Born in South Africa, Oliver moved to Canada with his family at age 13. While attending York University in the late 1960s, he ran an illegal after-hours nightclub in Toronto and worked in a gold and jewellery store at Queen and Victoria Streets. He was set to attend law school when the store owners convinced him to buy their business. Oliver consummated the deal for $13,000, moved the shop to Yorkville in the early 1970s and renamed the business after himself.

All did not go smoothly; Oliver was shot in the foot in 1984 while fending off thieves and declared bankruptcy during an economic downturn in 1991. That same year, he reopened Oliver Jewellery at its current site on Eglinton Ave. His presence eventually led to the establishment of other second-hand gold and jewellery merchants in the area.

Oliver says he picked Eglinton because it’s “central” and easy to access from Yonge St., the Gardiner Expressway and Highway 401. It also happens to bisect the wealthy Forest Hill neighbourhood. Some 42.4 percent of families in Forest Hill north earn $100,000 or more a year, a figure that expands to 62.3 percent in Forest Hill south. These percentages are respectively double and triple the average for the rest of the city.

Such is the market Mr. Gold Buyer is trying to tap into. The store’s name is spelled out in huge, gold-coloured letters on the facade. The interior looks less like a jewellery store and more like the ticket booth at a movie theatre. Customers do business through a pair of glass windows with holes cut in the bottom.

Headquartered in Florida, the company is run by Michael and Maria Caplan. Over the phone, Maria Caplan says her firm operates “a couple other stores” in the state of Georgia and elsewhere. According to Maria Caplan, her husband serves as company spokesman but was too busy to submit to an interview. Email queries sent to both Caplans went unanswered.

A website for Mr. Gold Buyer urges people to “sell us your unwanted gold jewellery for cash” and boasts of having “over 35 years of experience.” The company also offer “Cash Kits,” a mail-order operation that seems to involve sending gold and jewels through the post office for appraisal.

Just down the street, at 427 Eglinton Ave. W., Martin Jewels sells custom-made gold and jewellery and buys second-hand valuables. Proprietor Andrew Lipworth (who also hails from South Africa, home to vast gold and diamond mines) has no problem with Mr. Gold Buyer.

“It’s good competition because it brings people into the area. The only problem is certain stores lie about how much they’re prepared to pay,” he explains.

Lipworth concedes that Oliver’s relentless self-promotion is largely responsible for turning Eglinton Ave. into a hub of gold and jewellery buying. He also believes that Mr. Gold Buyer deliberately set up shop across the street from Oliver Jewellery to capture its clientele. It’s a possibility that leaves the man at the centre of the Eglinton Ave. gold war entirely nonplussed.

“Honestly, I would hate to compete against myself,” notes Oliver.