Rotary Engraved Font Help

[matt heinzel]

We had a customer come in that wants us to make a few plates for perpetual plaque. I asked her why she didn't just go back to the company that made the plaque (the only other place in town) and she said "I hate them!".
Anyway it was rotary engraved and we don't do that so I'm really not sure what the font is. Anyone know the font or a similar one that I could engrave?

[Jeff Belany]

You probably will never match it exactly. Usually not hard to come real close and that's what I tell customers who bring this kind of thing in. Most don't care as long as it is close. And, if you're doing this on a laser, the laser metals don't usually match the brass that the rotary guys use. At least that has been my experience.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

[Mike Null]

I can't find a match but i think I'd go with Charter and advise the customer that the numbers aren't going to quite match. You'll probably have to squeeze it as well. If you have just a few names and dates I'll be happy to do them in a rotary font and convert them to curves so you can engrave them. That won't solve your problem for next year.

You might consider offering to redo all the plates for a small fee. Once you show her how good the lasered ones look by comparison she might go for it.

[Ross Moshinsky]

First, this is purely an opinion, but if you're a retail engraving/trophy/awards shop, you should have a rotary engraver. Even if it's an inexpensive Roland machine. Why? Doing little brass plates and things of that nature. The industry is laser dominate but it's just plain smart to have an inexpensive rotary machine.

Now that that's out of the way. That looks like a 2L Roman font to me. Matching it exactly? Forget about it. You're going to spend 20+ minutes matching things up so that it still isn't right? "We'll try out best to get it close but we do not match things exactly." The vast majority of the time, customers don't care. That plate is only 2 years old and and already looks in poor shape. People generally don't care about these plaques. If they fall into that minority that really want everything to match up, then tell them you can re-do the whole plaque for them and you'll give them a good price.

[Tony Lenkic]

I'm pretty sure it is 3 line century font.

[matt heinzel]

Thanks everyone for your help. In the end she just wants us to buy a new plaque and do the whole thing in Times! More money for us I guess.
In general we don't deal with too many walk in customers like this, we are more of an online company so that is why we have not got in the the rotary business. We generally just sell what we put on the site and requests like this are pretty rare.

[Kevin Gregerson]

Paying a little extra to redo them all on the laser is almost nothing in regards to cost of time and frustration.

[Kev Williams]

it's either 2-line or 3-line Century, although I've never heard of a 3-line version.

I've attached a zip file of this font in True Type, with it you can laser etch. You'll need to add thickness to it, and maybe adjust some kerning since it's a 'beta' font..

Nhcentur.zip

[Tony Lenkic]

Kev,

Lamro has it in 3 line version.