One option to cases that I've seen people use are clasped pins on
a cloth-covered board.
This reminds me of a solution I saw at SOFA a few years ago. It is a
bit elaborate for a newbie, perhaps, but I thought it was ingenious.
The gallery display had a pedestal on which were displayed rows of
very high-end rings. There they were, right out in the open, each
standing up like a little soldier. If you picked one up, you found
that each one was attached to a thin steel cable that went through a
hole in the pedestal. At the other end, there was a weight. Not so
heavy that you couldn’t examine the ring, even try it on, but heavy
enough to 1) pull the ring back to perfect position when you were
done, and 2) (as the gallery salesperson explained to me) fall on a
noisy metal “gong” under the pedestal if someone managed to cut the
ring loose. Otherwise, the weight would remain up in the air. I
thought this was really great! I hope to use it some time.
–No�l
