Collection: Adolph Katz

Coro was begun in 1901 by Emanuel Cohn and Carl Rosenberger who opened a small accessories store on Broadway in New York City. Not until 1943, did the company name Coro, a contraction of the first two letters of each partner's last name, change to Coro, Inc.

But Cohn and Rosenberger were not designers of jewelry. They may have had their own ideas of what they envisioned and how they wanted to sell their jewelry but they did not individually or together design any of it; they found professional jewelry designers for this work. Cohn & Rosenberger was first a sales organization, later to acquire its own manufacturing facilities.

The Designers: 

Adolph Katz, a name well known to Coro collectors because of the many design and mechanism patents he filed, and certainly well known to all who did business with Coro, was, however, not a jewelry designer.

In several reference works, Adoph Katz has been listed as a Coro designer but Liz has it on good authority that he did not do any design work. It was assumed by the writers of these books that he was the designer because he signed his name on the patent applications. However, from 1924 on, he was the man in charge of selecting the designs Coro would manufacture, commission to be manufactured, and sell.

Adolph Katz choose the designs from a large pool of designers, many of whom went on to become known by their own names in their own or other companies. Other designs were picked from portfolio drawings sold by unknown artists.