When you order engraving at the time of your purchase, you eliminate the worry of 3rd party engravers damaging your expensive purchase.
Gold Plate & Silverplate items can be engraved before plating, preventing flaking that can sometimes occur with poor quality engraving.
Factory engraving is usually less expensive than 3rd party engraving. It's not uncommon for engravers to charge three to ten times the cost of factory engraving. Our religious goods manufacturers make their money on the product itself; engraving is generally offered mostly as a courtesy to the customer so is much less than an engraving shop would charge.
Engraving Considerations
For Sacred Vessels such as communion ware, chalices, ciboria, etc. and other items that are regularly handled, we suggest engraving in a location that will not be touched as much.
Candlesticks and other items that are not handled may be engraved anywhere space permits, but the base is usally the best choice.
Consider if you want the engraving to be seen by everyone, or if you prefer the engraving to be placed on the underneath side of the item, where it can serve as a historical record, but not be obvious.
What to Engrave? What should it say
Think Who, What/Why, When and Who. You can obviously shorten the engraving if needed, to fit smaller spaces, but be sure to keep the basics, especially the date and the person who donated. The reason for this is two-fold. One, 50 years from now, it is a great help to be able to date the church appointments to establish value, both financial and sentimental. Also, when a new pastor comes in and decides he wants to change out the appointments, he will have information that shows him this piece is important, and may decide to refinish it, rather than relegate it to the closet.
Generally, most churches will engrave the pieces as follows:
In Honor of Rev. Bob Davis (Who)
On the 25th Anniversary of his Appointment as Pastor (What)
March 23rd, 1985 (When)
By the Senior Adult Sunday School Class (Who)
Please note that engraving adds about two weeks to the turn around time on most orders and that engraved items are non-returnable except for defect.
