The history of the Kohn & Co jewelry company began in 1898, founded by Henry Kohn (1839 – 1917) in partnership with his sons Oscar and Edmund Kohn. Oscar W. Kohn (1874 – 1943) entered the wholesale jewelry business with his father in 1892 in Hartford, Connecticut.

In 1898, he and his brother Edmund P. Kohn organized Kohn & Co. at 13 Maiden Lane, New York, manufacturing and wholesaling diamond jewelry. Five years later Kohn & Co moved to Orchard and Camp Sts., Newark, New Jersey and started to manufacture gold jewelry.

Henry Kohn was president of Kohn & Co at Camp and Orchard Sts., Newark, N. J. Meanwhile, his sons Oscar W. and Edmund P. Kohn were in charge of the factory and the wholesale department.

Born in Bohemia, Austria, Oct. 29, 1839, Henry Kohn came to the USA in 1865, and started a small jewelry business in Hartford. Three years later he moved his business to Rockville, Connecticut. In 1875, Kohn came back to Hartford and opened a retail and wholesale store at the corner of Main and Kinsley Streets. The business grew so large that his firm owned and occupied the entire building at 865 Main St.

It was in 1892 that Henry Kohn’s oldest sons, Albert and Oscar joined his firm, and Kohn changed the firm’s name to Henry Kohn & Sons. In 1898 the firm started a wholesale diamond business at 13 Maiden Lane, New York. The business proved a huge success and in 1904 a manufacturing jewelry factory was started at Camp and Orchard Sts., Newark, N. J., under the name of Kohn & Co.

Kohn & Co Jewelry Company History

Traveling agents and salesmen of the firm were Robert B. Steele, Walter R. Shute, H. H. Holbert, E. A. Guenther, C. H. Davidson, Harry B. Rogers, and Fred M. Van Houten. Also, Edward M. Childs, representing Kohn & Co, made extensive many-month tours to Mauretania, Spain, France, Austria, Germany and Russia.

After his father’s death in 1917, Oscar became president of Kohn & Co. In 1921, Albert M. Kohn, the eldest of the late Henry Kohn’s four sons, bought out the interests of his brothers, and ran the company until 1936.

Albert M. Kohn continued to work in the jewelry store founded by his father in Hartford, Conn., in 1878. The four Kohn brothers, Albert, Oscar, Edmund, and George, worked with him. In 1945, Sage-Allen & Co. purchased the jewelry business of Henry Kohn & Sons.

He was one of the few jewelers in New York City who was trained at the bench. The third generation included Caroline Martin Kohn, Albert Kohn’s daughter.