Engraved corporate gifts
Engraved corporate gifts often confuse experienced buyers - and if truth be told,
promotional gift sales people as well - who ask for engraving when they mean etching; and they are not alone
in not quite knowing the difference.
Hand engraving of a personalized business gift has almost no place in personalized corporate gifts becaus it really
slow, laborious as well as being very expensive.
And further, it is no match for laser engraved corporate gifts. Laser engraving can accomplish complex and
intricate designs speedily, accurately and comparatively inexpensively on most custom promotional products.
However, it is a fact, that many corporate logo gifts which appear to be engraved are not engraved at all and
sometimes even the most experienced eye can be initially misled. Some business gifts of glass and crystal which are
sold as engraved are actually personalized by using a stencil and sandblasting the design into the glass or
crystal. Nothing inherently wrong in this providing the customer is aware that they are paying for
sandblasting and not laser engraving or chemical etching.
The sandblasting method used on many engraved corporate gifts is suitable for most glass and crystal and is
often used in personalized paperweights with either a logo and strap line or sometimes a personal name as
well.
The engraved images can be filled with various colors to produce a most pleasing effect. However, you should be
aware that this method is only suitable for spot colors and is not possible to reproduce a full color image like
this. Should full color personalization, such as a coat-of-arms or club crest, be required on glass or
crystal a transfer print is probably the only economic answer although sometimes hand painting is possible if
the quantity is fairly small – say fewer than 25 or so.
Other promotional give aways and recognition products that benefit from laser engraving are identity badges,
name badges, conference badges, promotional coasters, advertising coasters, award plaques, glass paperweights,
crystal paperweights and desk name plates.
Steel, brass and aluminum promotional coasters are especially attractive when laser engraved allowing the base
metal to show through the top coating and creating a quite unique effect. Similarly, identity badges, name badges,
conference badges are quite spectacular when having a colored background with the base metal color left
unfilled.
That most popular of all promotional gifts, advertising pens, are elevated to another level when used as
engraved corporate gifts but, of course, this is only justified when the pen gifts are of the appropriate
quality to substantiate their use as up-market engraved corporate gifts.
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