What is Hawaiian heirloom jewelry?

Hawaiian heirloom jewelry is solid gold jewelry, most often a bangle, that is hand-engraved with scrollwork or Hawaiian flowers and carries a name or phrase across the front, traditionally in black enamel letters. The style grew out of the Victorian gold-and-black-enamel jewelry worn by Hawaiian royalty in the 1860s and is closely tied to Queen Liliʻuokalani. Families in Hawaiʻi give these pieces at births, graduations, weddings and other milestones, and keep them for life, which is where the word “heirloom” comes from.

Where the style comes from

In the mid-1800s, gold jewelry with black enamel was already fashionable in England. After Prince Albert died in 1861, Queen Victoria wore it in mourning, and the look spread through the British Empire and to the courts that followed British fashion, including the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Liliʻuokalani, years before she became queen in 1891, wore a gold bracelet in this style in the early 1860s. Its textured surface carried the Hawaiian phrase “Hoomanao Mau”, lasting remembrance, in black enamel letters. Historians treat it as a forerunner of the bracelets women in Hawaiʻi wear today. Written with modern Hawaiian spelling, the words are Hoʻomanaʻo mau.

You will often read that the tradition began in 1887, when Liliʻuokalani travelled to London for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee and was given a bracelet there. Sources that look closely at the dates note that she already owned and wore the style at least twenty years before that trip, so the Jubilee story is better read as part of the tradition’s later fame than as its starting point.

How it became a family tradition

Liliʻuokalani gave engraved gold bracelets as gifts. In January 1893 she presented one inscribed “Aloha Oe”, farewell to thee, the title of her best-known song, to Zoe Atkinson, the headmistress of a girls’ school in Honolulu. Accounts say young women who saw it asked for bracelets of their own.

From there the bracelets became part of family life in Hawaiʻi. A baby may receive a small bangle with their name. A graduate receives one from parents or grandparents. Couples exchange them at weddings. Many people wear several on one wrist, each marking a different moment and a different giver. The value is in that story as much as in the gold.

What the pieces look like

The vocabulary is small and consistent, which is part of what makes the jewelry recognisable:

• A name or phrase across the front, in an Old English or script letter. Hawaiian names and words are common, but any name works.
• Scrollwork, the flowing, curling engraving borrowed from Victorian design. It is the oldest element of the style.
• Island plants and animals cut into the surface: plumeria, maile, honu (the green sea turtle), naupaka and hibiscus. Our guide to Hawaiian jewelry symbols and meanings explains each one.
• A domed or flat band in solid gold, usually 6 to 12 mm wide for bracelets and narrower for rings.

Hawaiian words on heirloom jewelry should carry the ʻokina (the glottal stop mark ʻ) and kahakō (the line over long vowels, as in ā). Historic pieces were often engraved without them, which is why the early bracelet reads “Hoomanao” rather than Hoʻomanaʻo. Our engraving words guide shows both.

How it is made

A traditional heirloom piece is made by hand from solid gold. The steps are much the same at any bench:

1. Forming. Gold is rolled to the right thickness and width, then bent around a steel mandrel and soldered closed for a bangle or ring. The profile is filed and shaped, domed or flat.
2. Sizing. The piece is brought to the exact size ordered. For bangles that is the inside circumference; for rings, the inside diameter.
3. Laying out. The name and the motif are drawn onto the surface so the letters sit centred and the pattern meets itself cleanly where it wraps around.
4. Engraving. The engraver cuts the design with gravers, small hardened-steel chisels pushed through the metal by hand under magnification. On traditional pieces the background around the letters is cut away so the letters stand up, and those raised letters are sometimes filled with black enamel.
5. Finishing. The piece is polished, the inside edge is rounded so it sits comfortably, and it is checked against the order before it ships.

Because each piece is cut by hand, no two are identical. Spacing and the exact line of a scroll will differ slightly from any photograph.

How we make ours

Every piece we sell is made to order in solid 14k gold, in yellow, white or rose. Our Heirloom Scroll Bracelet is shaped to your wrist size at the bench, with a name across the front and room inside for a date or a private line. The same engraving carries over to our rings and pendants.

Before we cut anything, we send you a proof showing your size, metal, motif and engraving text exactly as entered, so you can check every letter. You can read how that works in how our proof approval works.