Local jewelry business is a family affair

MALA BLOMQUIST | MANAGING EDITOR

Larry Cohen’s father, Jacob, started a jewelry business in Chicago in the early 1950s. When Cohen was 6 years old, his father brought him to work. He sat the boy down on some Yellow Pages so he could reach the workbench and gave him a pair of tweezers, an old watch and a screwdriver and told him to take the watch apart.

“Honestly, in 15 minutes, I knew what I was going to do the rest of my life,” said Cohen.

Today, Cohen is the owner of Elite Jewelry and Loan, home of Elite Fine Jewelers, and is also known as “The Gold Guy,” with three stores that go by that name.

Cohen moved to Arizona 13 years ago, following his three children who all attended Arizona State University. The family are members of Chabad at ASU Smetana Family Shul at the Levenbaum Chabad House in Tempe.

He opened his own fine jewelry store at 18 in Chicago and bought and sold jewelry stores through the years. When Cohen arrived in Arizona, he noticed an abundance of gold-buying stores. With his experience in the jewelry business, he started doing gold-buying parties at different locations and in people’s homes and opened eight gold-buying stores in the Greater Phoenix area.

He said the origin of The Gold Guy stores’ name was beshert. He and his wife, Beth, were at a restaurant when a couple waved them down. “Aren’t you the gold guy?’ they asked. Cohen admitted he was, and they told him they had attended one of his gold-buying parties. When they were leaving, another woman approached him and asked if he was the gold guy.

“We did a party at her house, too,” Cohen said. “The same day, at the same time, two people asked me, “Aren’t you the gold guy?” Those two people gave us the name.

FAMILY AFFAIR, PAGE 3