A close cousin of the jewelry box is the trinket box. As Victorians filled their homes with curiosities, souvenirs, gadgets, and other knick-knacks, they embraced these gorgeous containers, which often featured miniature figures of kids, flowers, or animals on the lids. Characters based on children's illustrations by Kate Greenaway were particularly popular motifs for these boxes.

In the early 1900s, metal jewelry caskets flourished. Mass-produced in Europe, they were sold to U.S. customers through mail-order catalogs such as Sears & Roebuck, Marshall Fields, and Montgomery Ward. Cast of antimonial lead, the boxes would be electroplated in copper and finished in silver or gold with names like French Bronze, Roman Gold, Pompeian Gold, French Gray, and Parisian Silver. Later, these metal boxes were also enameled with ivory. Inside, these boxes would be lined with velvet, satin, faille, or silk.

The emergence of the naturalistic Art Nouveau movement led to flowing organic motifs, such as sinewy flowers, fluttering birds, and the magnificent tresses of beautiful women. Keeping with Victorian tradition, the type of flowers on the jewelry box could represent a coded romantic message: four-leaf clovers meant good luck, daisies meant innocence, and roses were for love. Since most of these metal boxes, made from the turn of the century to the 1920s, have been destroyed or fallen apart, they are highly sought by collectors today.

Americans of that era were not content to just buy these European jewelry boxes; they created their own, often depicting scenes from American history, like plantation life prior to the Civil War. Special trinket boxes were also made to commemorate major events, like the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. At the time, these were simply cheap souvenirs, but now they are coveted.

Early American jewelry-box manufacturers include Jenning Brothers, Benedict Manufacturing Company, NB Rogers, Kronheimer and Oldebusch, Brainerd and Wilson, and the Art Metal Works. Many of their jewelry boxes are unmarked, as catalog companies such as Sears & Roebuck didn't want any names other than their own on the products they sold. Fashions dictated they incorporate motifs with ancient Roman, Greek, and Egyptian imagery. Brainerd and Wilson put patents on their Art Nouveau designs, while Weidlich Brothers patented their Colonial patterns.

Established in New York City in 1912, Mele installed sophisticated displays for jewelry-store windows on Fifth Avenue, and that eventually led the company to produce high-quality jewelry cases. While metal was rationed during World War II, Mele had the honor of designing the boxes that held the Purple Heart medals awarded during the war.

After the war, Mele renewed its success by inventing a jewelry box with a tray that popped up automatically when you lifted the cover. According to a 1948 "Life" magazine, Macy's listed this box as one of its top-10 best-selling Christmas gifts.

The musical jewelry box evolved out of mechanical music maker invented in 1502 and the cylinder-driven music box of 1796, an advance credited to Swiss watchmaker Antoine Favre. By 1865, another Swiss watchmaker, Charles Reuge, was making pocket watches with musical movements and smaller music boxes that men carried in their coats. These tiny music makers were all the rage in the late 1800s, used in perfume bottles, necklaces, and children's toys. Eventually, Reuge made musical jewelry boxes, too.

Thanks to the Great Depression and World War II, American manufacturers all but quit producing jewelry boxes. As the war came to a close, many U.S. soldiers returned home with music boxes from Switzerland as gifts, reviving interest in these quaint little musical-cylinder devices.

Around that time, Mele began to import that musical movement from Switzerland, and in the mid-1950s, the company introduced its iconic ballerina jewelry box for children, which opened to reveal a ballet dancer pirouetting to a tinkling tune. Over the years, musical jewelry boxes have expanded their themes to include angels, carousels, or Christmas-themed characters.

During the '50s, Mele also introduced new non-musical jewelry box lines that were popular with adults, including the black Japanese-style lacquer and "furniture miniature" jewelry boxes. In the '60s, Mele began to acquire other jewelry box makers including E&A Gunther Co. in Canada and European manufacturer Lionite Ltd. In recent decades, Mele has adapted to the taste for long-lasting leather jewelry boxes.

Of course, fine jewelry companies like Cartier and high-end watchmakers like Patek Philippe, Ulysse Nardin, and Blancpain provided specially designed boxes for their wares. Perhaps the most coveted of these is the robin's egg blue box that contained a glimmering piece of Tiffany & Co. jewelry. Founded by Charles Lewis Tiffany in 1837, the New York retailer quickly became known as the epitome of luxury and style, as did its signature jewelry boxes.

So coveted was Tiffany jewelry, that it is became an essential part of the fairy-tale romance. The cliché goes something like, "Every girl dreams of receiving a little blue box from her beloved." "Every girl" apparently includes Holly Golightly, the fictional socialite played by Audrey Hepburn in 1961's "Breakfast at Tiffany's." In fact, the company has a trademark on "Tiffany Blue," a private custom color created by Pantone, PMS number 1837.

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