Part of his ‘flashy’ image

Bob Koop didn’t keep a low profile as he sold millions of dollars worth of high-end Newport Beach real estate over the last 40 years.

It was his habit to drive prospective clients around in a bright red Rolls-Royce, wearing a diamond-studded gold ring that weighs about as much as a small jogging weight and a wide bracelet that spells “KOOP” out in big block letters with 10 carats of diamond. These were staples of his image both in Newport Beach and in Las Vegas where he was a big-money craps player.

That is, until he lost the ring in the Mimi’s Café parking lot in Costa Mesa.

It just dropped off his finger, which was slimmer than usual because of dehydration caused by an illness, he said.

Koop didn’t want to offer an appraisal of the ring, except to say that it was worth a lot of money, but more important to him was the nostalgic value. He said the jewelry, along with his general flashy style, had won him more than a few clients over the years and had earned him complimentary hotel rooms and perks in Vegas. It’s part of his identity.

“Everyone in Newport knew me because I wore the big diamond ring and the big diamond bracelet and drove a bright red Rolls-Royce. I’m a very colorful dresser and an outgoing party animal and that’s what I’d do. When you show someone a million-dollar house and pick them up in a Rolls-Royce they say this guy must be doing something right,” Koop said.

Prominent Newport Beach real estate broker Bill Cote, who is much more conservative and understated, remembers competing with Koop for business before Koop retired in 1999.

“I don’t know too many people who drove around in red Rolls-Royces. When anyone used to drive down the street in a Rolls-Royce it would jump out at you and say, ‘I have money.’ Well Bob had to go one step further and get a red one. That was his M.O. Everyone tries to get their niche in business and that was his,” Cote said.

Koop wasn’t optimistic about the chances of someone returning the ornate piece.

Dale Head, the owner of Easy Ride Bicycles on the Balboa Peninsula, found the ring as he was leaving Mimi’s with his girlfriend, Debbie Rodgers. After debating what to do with his girlfriend, Head walked back into the café and told one of the employees he had found a ring. He left his phone number but declined to give a description of the jewelry and took it with him.

He then promptly lost his cellphone. So when Koop, realizing he was missing his prized icon, walked back into the restaurant five minutes later, got the number and called Head, nobody picked up.

Head said it was never really a question for him what to do with the ring because he pictured himself losing a valuable piece of jewelry.

“Can you imagine the feeling you’d have if someone returned this to you?” he said of the ring.

Twenty-five or 30 years ago, it might have been more of an ethical dilemma for him, though, he confessed.

Eventually everything was sorted out, phone calls were exchanged and Koop and his wife made the journey from their home in the desert to Newport Beach where they were reunited with the ring.

There was only one more obstacle: Head’s girlfriend’s 83-year-old mother who was charged with holding the ring in the interim had become fond of it.

“I told him, ‘You might have to pry it off my girlfriend’s mother’s finger, but come over and pick it up,’” Head said.

As a token of appreciation for his honesty, Koop brought Head a gift certificate for The Arches restaurant. The two hit it off, Head said, because they have similar personalities and both loved to gamble.

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at alan.blank@latimes.com.