a "fence", as a business, not a person

[George Thompson]

The word "fence" in the sense of a person who buys stolen goods is pretty old, though it's notable that the first 3 citations in HDAS (fence, noun, 1a) are from slang dictionaries, 1698/99 to Francis Grose.

The word "fence" in the sense of a place where stolen goods are bought is much less old.  HDAS (1b) has a citation from the mid-1820s, but one taken from Partridge's Dictionary of the Underworld, then 1846.

I have had in my notes for some years now the following free-range "fence", from a newspaper of 1834:
        Con.--Meet me to night at the "Pigeon House" next to the new "fence," and I'll go and show you.
        The Sun, June 20, 1834, p. 2, col. 2  [This is from a dialogue between a Convict and an undercover cop.]
I probably have posted this here, at some time.

The following is an antedating to HDAS's earliest free-range "fence", and though it isn't an antedating to my own notes, it offers a very nice definition:
        Another "Fence" broken up. -- By the name of "fence," among police officers, is understood a depository for stolen goods, kept by some cunning and experienced negotiator and dealer with professed thieves.  Of these infamous receptacles, there are at least, it is computed, two hundred in this city, more than two thirds of which are in the five points, and its neighborhood, and the majority of the remainder in streets immediately contiguous to the North and East rivers.
        New York Transcript, March 31, 1836, p. 2, col. 4

OED has 8b. A receiving house for stolen goods, from 1847.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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