Engraved gifts make ideal personalised gifts

Engraving, which is now often used to make personal, personalised gifts, is the process of carving a design on to a hard, normally flat surface by cutting grooves into it, resulting in a decorated object. Engraving can be done using a range of materials such as glass, gold, silver and marble, or may involve the use of a intaglio printing plate, which is made from copper or other metals and is used to print images onto paper, also called engravings.
Historically, offering items as engraved gifts has been popular for many thousands of years. The first evidence of human engraving came in the form of hatched banding on ostrich eggshells which were used as water containers in South Africa around 60,000 BC.
Since then, engraved gifts have been offered to others for a variety of reasons and in many forms such as cups and simple rings. In Ancient Greece and Rome, engraved gifts were very popular, and would be commissioned by the wealthy to be kept on display in the home.
Engraving technology has increased now so that engraved gifts are available to many people the world over, and is now often used to create Personalised gifts, such as birthday, anniversary or wedding gifts, as personal messages, often with some sentiment attached to them, can be etched onto the item to give it some special significance to the recipient.
Engraved gifts can be offered as wedding gifts to the bride and groom, the best man or the bridesmaids as a token of thanks for their part in the wedding. Engraved gifts marking anniversaries or birthdays are popular such as cigar cases or engraved hip flasks.
Personalised gifts such as crystal champagne flutes are a popular choice for wedding gifts and landmark birthdays, and engraved rings are often used by the bride and groom for the wedding ceremony itself. Engraved gifts such as cufflinks and jewellery are also popular items, as are plaques and trophies to commemorate important occaisions.
A variety of materials can be used for engraving, including glassware, crystal, precious and semi precious gems, marble, slate and precious and non-precious metals. As well as being used for personalised gifts such as birthday, anniversary or wedding gifts, engraving has also been traditionally used to decorate monuments, statues and memorial stonework such as grave stones.
Engraved gifts make ideal personalised gifts, as meaningful or personal messages can be inscribed on them for the recipient. For this reason, they are often given as anniversary or wedding gifts, or to celebrate a landmark birthday or as gifts for godchildren. The engraving is fairly cheap to produce and with new developments in engraving technology, more detailed engravings can be made than ever before, meaning that many printing companies still use a form of engraving for its original purpose; that is, to print images onto paper.