If you’ve ever wanted to know more about engraving, here’s some information to pique your interest. Engraving is the practice of cutting grooves into metals including gold, silver, brass, steel or glass, and is used to personalize everything from jewelry, trophies, bronze plaques and memorial plaques to knives, firearms and pet tags.

Metal engraving dates back to the 5th century B.C. and was particularly prevalent in ancient Greece in the 3rd and 4th centuries B.C. Urns were embellished with mythological scenes and there was further use for engraving with the development of the alphabet. Engraving reached its peak in the 15th century A.D. as it was used to decorate armor and shields to announce a person’s alliance.

Engraving was traditionally done by hand using a steel-tipped cutting tool called a burin (from the French word meaning "cold chisel"). A burin is typically held at a 30 degree angle to the surface, with the index and middle finger guiding the shaft. (The 16th century Flemish engraver Hendrik Goltzius’s malformed hand was perfectly suited to guiding a burin!) Each engraver has his or her own style and may use round gravers to make round cuts or V-point gravers to make angled cuts.

Today, engraving is still done by hand or by using newer techniques like laser engraving. Through the use of computer-controlled intense beams of light, laser technology allows clean and precise engravings to be made at very fast speeds.