Personalisation Through Engraving (Handwriting, Initials, Dates)
Modern laser engraving ties a piece of jewellery precisely to one particular person - through initials, dates of death, photographed handwriting or fingerprint ridges - and is today the most common personalisation technique in memorial jewellery.
Written by Dr. Helene Vasall
In modern memorial jewellery, engraving is the most frequent, the most everyday and at the same time the most versatile personalisation technique. Unlike ash jewellery, the memorial diamond or fingerprint jewellery, it presupposes no material logic of its own - it is a process that can be applied to almost any piece worked in precious metal. With the spread of powerful laser micro-engraving equipment from around 2010, the technique has reached the mid price segment and today accounts for the great majority of personalised keepsakes.
Occasions
Engraving as personalisation is used in a wide variety of constellations:
- After a death - the date of death and initials on a ring, a pendant or a brooch. The most frequent constellation; often as an inner engraving in a ring, so that the inscription stays inconspicuous.
- Handwriting transfer - a postcard, a letter or a diary entry written by the person who has died provides the source. A single word, a signature or a short line is transferred into the piece.
- Keepsakes made during a lifetime - a child's initials on a pendant, a wedding date on a ring, a short personal inscription. The gesture relates not to grief but to remembrance.
- Family pieces - several siblings receive pendants bearing the same initials of the person who has died, each with the date of death or an individual line of text.
- Pet and infant-loss jewellery - initials or names are integrated into the piece; in cases of infant loss, often combined with a tiny footprint motif.
Variants of personalisation
Modern laser engraving supports several forms of personalisation, used singly or in combination:
Initials and dates
The classic. The initials of the person remembered - usually two or three letters - and a date (of death, of birth, of a wedding). Position: the inside of a ring, the reverse of a pendant, the reverse of a brooch. The typeface is usually a plain serif or an italic display face; on more classical pieces, capitals or a script hand.
Mottoes and lines of text
Longer inscriptions - a verse of scripture, a song lyric, a line from a letter. Position: usually on the inside of a broader ring or on the reverse of a pendant. Standard lengths run from 5 to 30 characters; longer inscriptions require a larger surface.
Handwriting transfer
The most personal form. The source - a single word, a sentence or a signature, photographed from a letter, a postcard or a diary - is scanned, optimised for line weight in the workshop's software (typically 0.2 to 0.4 mm) and engraved into the metal as a one-to-one transfer. The individual hand is preserved in full: pressure, sweep, small irregularities.
Popular sources:
- a final letter
- a signature beneath a photograph
- a diary entry
- a postcard sent on holiday
- a note from an address book or diary
The workshop usually asks for several possible sources, so as to be able to choose the best in quality.
Halftone photographic engraving
A special form. A black-and-white or colour photograph is converted into a greyscale halftone pattern and engraved into the metal. The result resembles a fine engraved print. Technically demanding, and therefore more expensive and less common.
Fingerprint ridges
A variant entirely of its own, with its own tool chain - see Fingerprint Jewellery. Technically it is laser engraving; categorically it is a personalisation route in its own right.
Material and surfaces
The principal carrier materials:
- Gold, 14 / 18 carat - the classic. Soft enough for deep engraving, stable in its lustre
- Sterling silver - takes laser engraving well, but can tarnish in the recesses of an inscription
- Platinum - very hard; laser engraving is standard, hand-cut burin work laborious
- Stainless steel - robust, engraves well, ideal for everyday pieces
- Gemstone inlays - to a limited extent onyx, rock crystal and carnelian can also be engraved
The depth of the engraving can be set, as wished, between 0.05 mm (very fine, barely visible) and 0.3 mm (deep, easily read). For inner engravings in rings, 0.1 to 0.15 mm is standard.
Technical aspects
Laser engraving works with a focused beam that vaporises material at precisely defined points. Advantages over hand-cut burin work:
- Precision - line weights from 0.02 mm are reproducible
- Speed - a complete inscription takes seconds to a few minutes
- Repeatability - family pieces with an identical inscription can be produced as a series
- Complexity - halftone photographic engraving, handwriting and fingerprint ridges are practically impossible to produce by hand
Disadvantages: laser engraving lacks the lively line of hand-cut burin work. Premium pieces are therefore still occasionally cut by hand; in standard memorial jewellery, laser engraving is the usual choice.
Commissioning
Anyone commissioning a piece with engraving clarifies in advance:
- Content - initials, date, a line of text, handwriting, a photograph? For handwriting: prepare the source material (a high-resolution scan or photograph)
- Position - inside or outside? Visible or hidden?
- Typeface - for typographic inscriptions: serif, script, capitals, display face?
- Depth - standard (0.1 mm) or deep (0.2–0.3 mm)?
- Combination with other personalisations - a fingerprint on the outside, a date within?
Production time for engraving alone runs to one to three weeks. Where engraving is combined with a fingerprint or a hollow setting for ashes, the respective production times are added together.
Care
Laser-engraved pieces are close to maintenance-free. Recommendations:
- Cleaning with a soft cloth and water; with silver, occasionally with a dedicated silver cloth
- Storage in a dry, dark jewellery box; where the piece is worn frequently, separate storage is not essential
- When silver tarnishes: the recesses of the inscription may darken - usually a welcome effect (increased contrast) and part of the piece
- Repairs to inscriptions should be carried out exclusively by the original workshop; later laser engraving rarely matches the original line
Personalisation through engraving today
Personalisation through engraving is today the lowest common denominator of memorial jewellery - no piece made in a good workshop does without it. Even high-value memorial diamonds, ash jewellery and fingerprint pendants usually carry a small engraved inscription in addition (a date, initials, a brief dedication).
The gesture is old: binding a piece of jewellery to one particular person by means of an inscription has been standard since the Roman wedding ring. What has changed is the precision and the range of inscriptions now possible - and with them the ability to laser into every piece a link to a person as individual as could twenty years ago only be achieved by premium hand-cut work.
Questions about this entry
- What can be engraved today?
Practically anything that can be translated into a high-contrast line drawing. Initials and dates are standard. Sentences and mottoes in any typeface are possible. Photographed handwriting is scanned and transferred one-to-one into metal. Photographs can be rendered as a greyscale halftone engraving. Fingerprints are a special form in their own right - see Fingerprint Jewellery.
- How is handwriting transferred?
The source (a letter, postcard or diary entry) is scanned at high resolution. In the workshop's software the writing is separated from the background, optimised for line weight (typical specification: 0.2 to 0.4 mm) and scaled to the piece of jewellery. The laser then engraves the writing in gold, silver or platinum. The transfer preserves the person's individual hand - pressure, sweep, small irregularities.
- Is laser engraving permanent?
Very durable. The lines are recessed into the metal and effectively do not wear, as long as the material itself is not heavily abraded. Inner engravings in rings may show slight signs of wear after 30 to 50 years of intensive wear, but the writing remains legible. Outer engravings on pendants and brooches are practically ageless.
- What does personalisation cost?
Standard engravings (initials, a date, a short line) are included in the purchase price of many memorial pieces, or cost an additional €20 to €80. More elaborate personalisations (handwriting transfer, halftone photographic engraving, multi-part inscriptions) run to €80 to €250. Hand-cut burin work on premium pieces is considerably more expensive (€200 to €500).
Further reading
- Modern Laser Engraving - Materials and Methods - John Powell (2019)
- Handbuch der Schmuckkunst - Erhard Brepohl (2008)
- Engraving and Inscription on Mourning Jewellery - Sarah Nehama (2012)
Related entries
- Core conceptsMemorial Jewellery
Memorial jewellery is jewellery that deliberately binds itself to one particular person - through an inscription, a photograph, hair, ashes or, the defining medium today, a digitally captured fingerprint.
- Modern memorial jewelleryFingerprint Jewellery
Fingerprint jewellery carries the individual ridge pattern of a specific person - as a fine laser engraving, in relief or set beneath a cabochon - and so turns a biometric feature into a deeply personal memorial motif.
- Modern memorial jewelleryAsh Jewellery
Ash jewellery is a modern memorial piece in which a small quantity of cremation ashes is permanently enclosed - usually in a hollow setting with a rock-crystal window, or embedded in synthetic resin.
- Modern memorial jewelleryMemorial Diamond
The memorial diamond is a synthetically grown diamond cultivated from the carbon of cremation ashes or a lock of the deceased person's hair - the most technically demanding and most durable keepsake of the present day.
- Modern memorial jewelleryHair Pendant (Modern Memorial Jewellery)
The modern hair pendant carries a lock of the person remembered in a tightly sealed hollow setting at the throat - the direct technical continuation of the Victorian hairwork tradition, today made with modern workshop techniques and usually combined with a laser engraving or inscription on the outer face.
- Techniques & craftEngraving and Inscriptions
Engraving is the oldest personalisation technique in memorial jewellery - from the Baroque memento mori ring to modern laser micro-engraving, which today inscribes initials, dates of death and even photographed handwriting into metal.
- Core conceptsMourning Jewellery
Mourning jewellery is body adornment that signals a death, binds the memory of a deceased person, or does both at once - since the 17th century a jewellery type in its own right, with a material language of its own.
- Jewellery formsMourning Ring (Memorial Ring)
A mourning ring - also called a memorial ring - is a finger ring that carries the memory of a deceased person, usually in the form of an inscription, an image, a lock of hair or a fingerprint.
- Jewellery formsFingerprint Pendant
A fingerprint pendant carries the line pattern of a fingerprint, milled or laser-engraved into gold, silver or platinum - today the defining form of modern remembrance jewellery and the technical successor format to the Victorian mourning locket.