About AGA
David S. Atlas is the President and chief gemologist of this over 100 year old family firm.
The David Atlas family: three generations in the jewelry business.
David Atlas left Shepatovka, Russia at the age of 12, all alone. The time was about 1888. He walked to Paris where a job as an apprentice jewelry craftsman was either pre-arranged or found. He stayed 4 years in Paris, learned to make jewelry and located a similar job in London, as his goal was immigration to the USA.
On the way to London his boat sank in the English Channel. His hand made jewelry manufacturing tools were lost along with all his possessions. He survived and still got to London. All the tools needed to be made over. He eventually became well trained and saved enough to come to Philadelphia. This was another 3 to 4 years.
My belief is that he arrived in about 1896 and by 1898 opened his own jewelry making firm, D. Atlas & Co. This business was located at 700 Sansom St. He must have been successful as he began the process of building a business and also bringing relatives to the States.
He married on a pre-arranged basis and brought his bride to be and her 13 brothers and sisters over in various stages. Some of them were not really brothers and sisters, but they came as "family". He brought some other people over from his hometown that were not related at all. All used new names and they became official members of the family unit. Some worried about “the immigration” until the day they died. They did not want to be deported for using a false name.
In 1911 he built the building still standing at 721 Sansom St. His firm occupied the entire first floor. Sometime before WWI he was contacted by a cousin in Belgium about importing diamonds. Dave Atlas was one of the very first diamond dealers in the USA. We had some old records of the imports showing a two or three dollars for 1 carat sized stones. Money was a little more valuable than it is today. Inflation has taken a large toll.
His trips to Europe were once or twice a year to buy diamonds and bring them home. This was the time of steam ships. He was gone for weeks at a time. Life moved at a slower pace.
1920's: My grandfather, his accountant and his brother behind the counter. In front of the counter are two cousins.
There was lots of money made with diamonds early in the 1900’s. He had a LaSalle car with a chauffeur. His wife never drove or had a license, as she was always taken care of. He had three children who went to Philadelphia Public Schools. They all went to the University of Pennsylvania and graduated with degrees. My dad graduated from the Wharton School. The daughters married well and went on to live traditional American homemaker lives with all the comforts, vacations, cars and expected luxuries. The first daughter, who graduated from Penn before the depression received a new, paid for house as a wedding gift, when she moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This is just an example of the sort of father figure he was to his whole family.
Photo of me in the arms of the founder, the first David Atlas back in 1948. It was his last year and my first.
This had been accomplished by a man who had only a fourth grade education, one who could barely read until late in life and with great practice. He was a very religious man who always observed the holidays, Sabbath and rituals. He brought his parents to the USA in the early 1900’s. They stayed a year but went back to Russia, as the USA was not religious enough for their tastes.
Things were good through the 1920’s but my grandfather had made a critical error. He had signed a guarantee for a loan for the construction of a hotel in Miami Beach when the world was blindsided by the crash of the stock market. The note eventually was called and my grandfather lost his millions completely. He knew he could work with nothing, as he had succeeded before. He began again.
He went through bankruptcy but worked until the middle of WWII to pay every person he owed everything back. He was known all around Philadelphia and New York City as a most honest and ethical person. Everyone that knew him told me I ought to follow in his footsteps. I never met him other than he lived long enough to hold me in his arms for a photo when I was about a year old. I was born in 1947 and he died in 1948. I was named not only for him but also for my other grandfather, David Gottlieb who was also alive at the time and was a practicing dentist in Trinidad, CO. Both were happy to have been around when I was born and had no objection to me being named in their honor.
A plaque on our wall in the office is the 50 year award from the Sansom St. Businessmen's’ Association dated 1948. It is a constant reminder of where we have been and who we are. Every day presents challenges that have been overcome by honesty and ethical action.
A plaque presented to our firm in 1948 for service to the local trade.
My father was a trained businessman and a graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He brought a very orderly mind to the jewelry business. He and my grandfather worked together before and after WWII. They bought and sold second hand jewelry. Since they had little working capital, they bought on a day’s credit, sold immediately and then paid. With a good reputation this was possible, and they made a living, not a great one, but they got by.
During WWII my father met my mother on a blind date while he was in the Air Force stationed in Colorado. My dad suffered from the family genetics of otosclerosis which leads to deafness and was in a hospital out West recovering from some ear surgery. She was one of the early lady’s lawyers and had recently graduated from the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder, CO. They married in 1946 and joined the baby boom with me.
I was the only child and although I had every option open to me, I went into the family business in December 1967. I suffered all the trauma of being the only child of educated parents who both excelled in school. I proved to them that genetics aside, I could still be a trying and difficult student. It pleased them greatly that I also went to U of P, but it pained them much more when I left after two years, during the Vietnam War. I had a low draft number and finally found a slot in the Army reserve. I left school without any hesitation and went to work with my father. I don’t regret my decision as it was the right one for me, but one should not assume that they will be so lucky or such a good fit into a family business.
My father took the early gemology courses offered by the Gemological Institute of America in the early 1950’s and received his Graduate Diploma in 1953 or 1954. In 1959 he joined the staff of Marcus and Co located in Gimbels at 8th & Market and they trained him to be an appraiser. Under his guidance I became an appraiser, a gemologist and an estate jewelry buyer. All the courses he took and many more have been long ago taken and completed. I now teach these to newcomers on a national level and also oversee the education of my office staff who have either passed or are working toward their gemological and appraisal degrees and titles.
My father holding my son in the front office of our current location.
I have two employees I hired more than 25 years ago and several in the teens. Treating employees as if they were family, providing benefits and security is the only way I know how to operate. We hope to continue this method for as many more years as possible. It is wonderful to have a staff that knows what they are doing and has the training to properly assist customers.
It has been a good life and a success. It is not easy to work with a perfectionist parent, as they never let you grow up completely. My dad slowly gave up the reins over an extended period beginning in 1982 and ending at his passing in 1997. He never lost interest and never failed to give his sage advice even if I didn‘t want to hear it. I think I learned about all I was capable of learning with him and use his teachings and philosophy as a tool in daily decision-making. No doubt, some of what my father taught me, he learned from his father.
Things change, but the principles of good business begin with honesty and ethics. I believe I have continued to extend that initial goal which all small businesses quest for. The nature and size of the business has grown and changed over more than 100 years, but it still is a small business. With my two children well fixed in other fields, it will be the end of this as a family business when I hang up my loupe. That may be a few years yet, but by that time I will have tried to make my grandfather and father as proud of me as I am of them. I hope their spirits look in on me from time to time and they still like what they see.
David S. Atlas
Grandson of the Founder, D. Atlas & Co., Inc.