Jewelry boxes have long been used to store our most precious gifts, and are often gifts themselves. They can be as simple as a small cloth case, or incredibly ornate, to the point where they are practically jewelry themselves. Let’s take a look at some of the most common types available today…

Wooden Jewelry Boxes

Once the single most common type, they still make up the majority of the jewelry boxes sold today. It makes sense – wood is nature’s plastic, and it is very easy to implement numerous features using wood, like hidden compartments, drawers, doors and more.

Leather Jewelry Boxes

Leather jewelry boxes are most often used for travel, but increasingly, you can find them in men’s jewelry boxes as well.

Jewelry Gift Boxes

An idea that has been gaining traction in recent years is to make the jewelry box part of a larger gift set – and sometimes the holder or presentation device for a gift of jewelry. I think it adds a little bit of a kick to the gift. Instead of giving her a velvet covered cardboard box from the jewelry store, you actually give her something to keep her jewelry in.

Musical Jewelry Boxes

We have all seen these. In fact, they've been around for so long, that nowadays they have a bit of a old school feel to them. The best ones include not only the traditional music box sound, but also a small ballerina or other character that most of the music. A jewelry box purist might say that all this takes away from jewelry storage space. I suppose that is so, but I still enjoy these when I come across one. And sometimes you can find something really unusual. I used to have one that actually played “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin when you opened it.

Jewelry boxes for girls

Just about every jewelry box manufacturer has a complete section of their line dedicated to jewelry boxes for little girls. The themes and characters featured on these kid’s jewelry boxes are about what you would expect: Arielle from The Little Mermaid, Snow White, and many other fictional characters from Disney and other sources are depicted.

A lot of these have little secret compartments or hidden drawers, not because an eight-year-old girl is going to have valuable jewelry, which she needs to hide, but simply because it makes the whole thing a lot more fun.

The Mele Company is probably the best-known jewelry box manufacturer here in the US. Their reach is both broad and deep, with a line of products that feature something for everyone from the parents, to the kids to the new bride-to-be.

Antique jewelry boxes

In jewelry boxes as in many other product niches, what is old has become new again. Some people are even making a point of searching out older gift items because they are much more likely to be unique and maybe even one of a kind. You may have to spend some money on an older jewelry box to get the hinges, clasp and any music features working again, but if your antique jury box was originally of good quality, it is well worth it.

This has been just a quick look at what is available out there in jewelry boxes today. I hope the information in this article helps you find the right jewelry box for that special person in your life.