Notables

The Cooper Family

Something Old, Something New

By Tracy Morin | Photography courtesy of Van Atkins Jewelers

With two locations in North Mississippi, Van Atkins Jewelers stands out with a specialty focus on finding, refining, and selling one-of-a-kind estate jewelry pieces.

It might surprise the dedicated customers of Van Atkins Jewelers, located in New Albany and Oxford, Miss., that jewelry wasn’t always the focus of this specialty retailer. In its pre-WWII beginnings and then later as a small-town department store, it sold items from clothing to cologne in Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi. However, when he was just a college freshman, current owner Chuck Cooper started to change the business trajectory in a big way. “I’d started selling candy in the store at 10 years old, but during my freshman pre-med year at Ole Miss, I added jewelry in 1980,” Cooper recalls. “When I graduated, I was accepted into medical school, but I didn’t go ― I liked retail!” In retrospect, Cooper’s initiation into — and success in — the world of jewelry sales seemed fated. He’d introduced fine jewelry to the store because his girlfriend (later his wife) worked for a jeweler. Cooper bought $1,200 worth of gold chains, wildly popular in the ’80s, to display in-store with a minimal markup. When they sold fast, he took that money and reinvested it in his new passion. “I worked strictly in gold, then started buying a diamond or two from a new contact, a diamond seller in Memphis,” Cooper says. “Jewelry was just what I liked. And, after we had a fire in 2001 at our main store, I thought, ‘This is the time to try selling just jewelry.’” Another happy coincidence helped put Cooper and his store on the map when new friends, a couple from South Florida who were big players in the estate jewelry business, offered to sell their entire stash for a cool $1 million. The collection was worth much more, but Cooper didn’t have that kind of cash on hand. “I looked through sack after sack of their estate rings and pieces,” Cooper remembers. “And they told me, ‘Just pay us a little at a time.’ So, every time we sold something, I’d pay them, and we paid every penny of it. That was an arrangement all based on trust, and that is still our foundation today. If you lose the trust of the people, you lose everything.” Indeed, the Van Atkins stores now enjoy an impeccable reputation for a range of retail offerings and services — particularly as a purveyor of estate bridal pieces, which, Cooper notes, boasts more inventory than anyone in the country, by far. In this arena, his years of experience are priceless, as are a freewheeling team of traveling professionals he knows, who keep an eye out for special pieces while on the road. “We look everywhere, and we’ve seen thousands of pieces come and go,” Cooper says. “If something sells quickly, we know to find something similar to that in the future. I like the unique stuff. We know what we’re looking for — and if you buy right, it’ll be easy to sell.”

Also under its estate jewelry umbrella (inherited with the milliondollar stash that kicked off the business), Van Atkins Jewelers owns a small factory in South Florida with a craftsman who helps make these vintage pieces look brand-new. “We might take brooches and make bracelets, or take out a red stone and replace it with a sapphire or diamond,” Cooper explains. “If we find an 80-year-old ring, that’s got to last another 80 years. So our guy works with the filigree and reworks all of the pieces — using a torch, not a laser. It’s truly an art.”

In addition, Cooper works hard to buy competitively and stock the highest-quality diamonds. Buying sight unseen, he says, can be misleading, as two gems can be “night-andday different” despite both sporting certifications. Even with such a large pool of inventory, the jeweler maintains the best selection possible. And there’s another “secret weapon” in the business — four, in fact, and they’re more face-forward than hidden away. Cooper’s four gemologist sons, Van, Sam, Ray, and Jack, have entered the family business and now work at both store locations to ensure quality products and service for future generations. “I say it’s a mixture of gray hair and youth now at the business,” Cooper says with a laugh. “I have the wisdom of old, but I listen to them, too. If you don’t change with the times, you fall behind.” At the same time, Cooper has seen enough to know that sometimes things happen just as they’re meant to be — and everything usually works out for the best. After all, if it wasn’t for a complete disaster, his business might not have ended up where it is today. “At the time, that fire in 2001 was a catastrophe,” Cooper muses. “But I guess you could say it ended up being a blessing.”

vanatkins.com

Based in Oxford, Miss., Tracy Morin is an award-winning freelance writer and editor with a passion for covering food, beverage, beauty, and boxing.