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.

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.

Francois was one such designer who joined Coro with his floral brooch designs in 1938. A special introductory advertisement featured his first line for Coro. Francois later marketed his jewelry under his own name, Francois.

Other notable Coro designers included Gene Verecchio, probably most famous for his design of the Quivering Camellia Duette *. His story was featured in the Vintage Fashion Costume Jewelry Club Newsletter in 2001. Several other designers are mentioned in the design patent applications by Coro, notably, Oscar Placco, Robert Geissmann, Massa Raimond. It was, however, not a custom at Coro to mark individual jewelry with a designer's name except in rare instances.

Adolph Katz, as the design director for Coro, was probably the single largest influence in creating the look for which Coro became known and popular with the jewelry buying public.

Selecting designs for Coro was one thing, selling them was another. An able sales director, Royal Marcher, saw to the distribution of Coro mark jewelry. He did it so well that in 1929, Cohn & Rosenberger felt confident to invest in a brand-new factory. They selected Providence, Rhode Island, which since the 18th century had held prominence as one of the main hubs for jewelry manufacturing in the United States.

The new Coro factory was the largest and most state-of-the-art costume jewelry manufacturing plant in the world. At the height of its operation, more than 3,500 employees produced Coro jewelry there.

In 1929, the infamous New York stock market crash reduced many companies to ashes. Not Coro. Boldly, Cohn & Rosenberger instead issued a public stock offering. They repeated it with another public stock offering in 1945, an end-of-war year. Both moves would have appeared to go against anyone's better judgment but these actions resulted in Coro staying in business, even expanding, whereas many other companies did not.

Coro branched out as well. Corocraft was one branch opened in England in 1933. In spite of war and hardships, the success of Coro marched on. By 1952, Coro maintained showrooms in all the top U.S. and Canadian cities. The heyday for Coro production lasted through the mid-1950s.

Coro's mainstay products consisted of cast jewelry although stampings were also used. Coro marketed many so called lines of jewelry. Unique names were invented for the different lines depending on which type store would be selling them. Some stores would sell, or carry one or several lines but not certain others, and vice versa.

The name and/or mark of each line was only important at that time for this reason:

A store that sold, say, Coro-marked jewelry, was not allowed to carry Vendome mark jewelry. Vendome was Coro's better line, more costly. A better store would carry Vendome but would not want Coro [mark] because by the early 1950s it had come to represent a cheaper line.

The later Coro lines, from 1950s and on, with the Coro mark on them, were only sold in general department stores. Better specialty stores such Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor, Dillard's, Bloomingdale's, Gum's, and other fine stores, would carry Vendome, Corocraft, Coro Sterling Craft but not plain Coro. These lines were pricier to appeal to the specialty store customer.

But not necessarily all lines were produced at the Coro plant, some were made by other manufacturing contractors, such as the Hedison Co. in Providence. Some lines were even imported, including lower-priced items with a Coro hangtag which also had the country of origin printed on the reverse.

Some of the names Coro used, courtesy The Enchanted Learning Center:

Coro Jewelry Line Names

Some of the most popular marks seen on Coro jewelry, courtesy Fabulous Facets catalog site:

Coro Trademark Evolution

By the end of the 1950s Coro's well was running dry, however. In 1957,  Richton International Corp. of New York bought the American assests of Coro, Inc., and continued producing jewelry in Providence.

New fashion trends in jewelry, to bloom in the 1960s, included beads. Although Coro jewelry was still well represented in stores and purchased by many women who liked it, the company was heavily invested in stampings, castings, rhinestones and accompanying components, thus not ready for a switch to beads.

Coro imported bead jewelry from other countries to compete but the U.S. casting manufacturing production suffered as a result. By the early 1970s Coro had lost its market dominance to bead fashions and to other competition such as Monet, a company that had the world market cornered on socalled tailored jewelry, i.e. plain gold [look] styles without stones, suitable for every day and business wear. In the 1970s, competition from the Asian countries Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, also cut deeply into Coro market share.

Coro, still by owned by Richton International, tried everything to recoup its market share but finally called it quits in 1979, after 78 years in business. The Canadian branches of Coro, Inc. continued manufacturing operations well into the 1990s. It is not known exactly which year Coro ceased operations in Canada although 1998 has been mentioned by some sources. At one time it was rumoured that Coro, Inc. would continue to produce jewelry in Mexico but this has not been confirmed to this writer. Updated information from informed readers is welcomed.

Coro Ads
A fabulous display of Coro jewelry in many ads through the 20th century is shown here, courtesy Morning Glory's jewelry e-zine Jewelry Talk

Corocraft
BCD Antiques offers its brief version of Corocraft history and lots of Corocraft jewelry eye candy.

Coro Ad 1955
More charming summer styles from Coro, from Liz's ad collection.