CUSTOM JEWELRY

THE ALASKAN GOLD CONNECTION
Digging for Gold

By Laurel Dudley Henderson | Photography by Spenser Heaps

CARL COX HAS BEEN MAKING CUSTOM JEWELRY FOR 50 YEARS. With thick hands, a rugged build and friendly blue eyes, he creates one-of-a-kind pieces. “It makes what I do not a job,” he says. 

An Early Passion for Art

Cox grew up in Ashland, Oregon, and was drawn to working with his hands early in life. With money perpetually in short supply (his dad died when he was two), Cox knew that if he wanted something, he had to make it himself. 

He recalls the first piece of jewelry he made when he was twelve. He took a quarter, pounded the edges until they flared out, drilled a hole through the center and wore it as a ring. 

In high school, Cox took as many art classes as he could. Whenever possible, he scheduled art class and study hall back-to-back so he could spend more time in the art room, usually painting or making sculptures. 

An influential art teacher connected Cox to his first job after graduation. A local jeweler was looking for help and Cox signed on as an apprentice. “It was such a learning curve,” he remembers. A coworker, John Gately, trained Cox and quickly recognized his potential. Less than a year later, when Cox was 18, he and Gately quit and started the first of two jewelry shops. “It was tough starting up,” Cox says, but the gratification of making and selling unique pieces emboldened his willingness to struggle. 

Mentors Along the Way

Cox credits two significant influences in his life — Gately, who years later lured Cox to Alaska, and another jewelry shop owner in Las Vegas, where Cox worked for eighteen years. John Fish, owner of the Vegas shop, had been an algebra teacher and didn’t know much about making jewelry. But what he instilled in Cox was a resounding confidence. No matter how intricate the work, Fish never said, “Can you do this?” Instead, he asked, “How long will this take?”  

“That really stretched me,” Cox says.

The $40,000 Emerald 

One piece still stands out as the most challenging undertaking of his career. It was the mid-‘80s, and the Vegas shop owner presented Cox with an eye-popping 8-carat emerald worth $40,000. A customer wanted the stone encircled by diamonds and mounted as a ring. 

“Are you kidding?!” Cox remembers saying, because emeralds are fragile and susceptible to cracking. Cox spent two weeks designing and constructing the ring. Setting the emerald, the final step, was like fitting glass into metal. He toiled for hours. “It made me feel sick,” he says. Today, he could set the same stone in about 10 minutes.

Early on, when each piece took many hours — in part because of Cox’s meticulous nature and because he was still learning — the final payout was barely enough to survive. “Hang in there,” he remembers the Vegas shop owner telling him. The encouraging nudge worked. One day, speed and skill collided. “Within a few months,” Cox recalls, “I was taking home more than anybody else in the store.”

Making customers cry 

If the decades conferred Cox with mastery, they haven’t detracted from the youthful passion that initially guided him into the profession. “Every piece I do means something to me,” he says.  

In 2020, Cox opened his store in Ogden and named it Alaskan Gold Connection, a nod to the 20 years he spent in Fairbanks, Alaska. “If it weren’t for grandkids, I’d still be there,” he says. But since moving back here in 2015, he says he’s made some of the best friends of his life — many of whom are customers.          

For Cox, creating relationships that endure is as important as the work itself. He’s quick to tell anyone who wants a ring with stones such as opals or tanzanite that it’s a bad idea — those stones are too fragile. One accidental tap and the stone will break. “You’re going to be heartbroken because you just spent a bunch of money on a very beautiful piece of jewelry that only lasted a week.”

Customers often enter the store asking for custom wedding bands, earrings or necklaces. A man in Alaska once asked Cox for a pendant shaped like a foot, into which the man put the cremated remains of his amputated foot. 

Another time, a woman from Salt Lake City, having heard about Cox’s expert craftsmanship with gold nuggets, brought him earrings, two wedding rings, and multiple gold nuggets, which Cox combined into a single pendant.

No matter the request or the style, Cox takes pride in his work. “I look at it as making a family heirloom that will be passed down,” he says. 

The hardest part for many people looking for custom jewelry is deciding what they want. It’s why he takes time to get to know his customers, noticing their clothing style, the jewelry they already wear, and the pieces in his display case that catch their attention. 

“Jewelry is such a personal thing,” he says. “I want someone to pick up their piece of jewelry and just be speechless. Or cry. That takes some digging.”