Hawaiian Titanium Rings is a different kind of collection for us — not one artist's signed work, but a maker built around a single metal: titanium, worked into wedding bands and everyday rings with wood, stone, and shell set into the surface instead of stamped on top. Eighty-nine pieces are live right now, $109 to $1,895, median $345, and every one of them is a ring — no earrings or pendants in this line, just bands.

Titanium, koa, and what goes into these bands

Titanium is the reason this collection exists at all: it's a fraction of the weight of gold at the same size, it doesn't react against skin the way some metals do — the listings call it 100% hypoallergenic — and it holds an inlay better than a softer metal would. Koa wood shows up across most of the 89 pieces, which makes it the collection's signature material; the wood comes from Hawaiian koa, a federally protected tree, so what goes into these rings is sourced from fallen trees on Big Island ranches, not logged. Past koa, the inlays get specific fast: Blue Lapis on 18 pieces, Sleeping Beauty Turquoise mined near Globe, Arizona, on the turquoise designs, an ebony sourced from Laos on the darker bands, walnut offered in Bastogne, Claro, and English varieties, black carbon fiber woven and set into the metal, and both natural Australian opal — including stone from the Lightning Ridge field — and lab-grown opal, which the listings are careful to note is real opal grown under controlled conditions rather than a synthetic imitation. A separate design line, Big Kahuna, sets a black or white pearl into the band alongside a wood inlay rather than stone; nine pieces in the collection carry that name. Nearly every ring in the collection — 88 of the 89 — can also take a diamond set into the inlay, so a plain wood or stone band and its diamond version are usually two variants of the same design rather than two different rings.

What to get right before you order

You can't try a ring like this on before it ships, so the sizing has to be right the first time. Every band is offered from size 3.25 up to size 20, in widths from 2mm to 10mm — wide enough to run from a narrow stacking band to a full wedding-band width — and each is made to that size on order, which is why shipping runs one to two weeks rather than shipping same-day from a shelf. Standard shipping on these runs $15; add a diamond and it's $25. If you're between sizes or unsure which width reads right for your hand, call us before you order — we'd rather get the size right once than have you sending a ring back.

— Steve Schlag, founder, Dolphin Galleries