What can you engrave?

Text, dates, handwriting, signatures, artwork and line art, symbols and coordinates, crests and logos. Almost anything you can draw or write can be engraved on the caseback of a Hampden watch, and there are three limits worth knowing before you plan around it: we engrave Hampden watches only, we engrave artwork that's yours to use, and we don't engrave in color.

What we work with

• Text and dates. Names, initials, a message, a quote, a wedding or birth date, a set of coordinates.
• Handwriting and signatures. Taken from a photo of the original writing, so the hand stays recognizable. Can I engrave a handwritten note or signature explains how to photograph a sample.
• Artwork and line art. Drawings, illustrations, motifs, family seals, a design worked up from a photograph rather than reproduced as one.
• Symbols, crests and logos. Emblems, insignia, organizational and company marks, subject to the rule below.

You don't have to arrive with print-ready files. Send what you have and a designer prepares it. How do I send you my engraving idea covers where to send it and what happens next.

How much can be engraved

There's no character limit, and that's by design. Every caseback is laid out individually, so how much fits depends on the size of the text against the other elements sitting alongside it rather than on a count we could publish in advance. A line of names beside a crest behaves differently from the same line on its own, and there are creative ways to fit a great deal of text once a designer is working with the whole surface: type can be scaled, weighted, and arranged around artwork so that more goes on than any fixed rule would allow.

Working that out is part of the design, not something you need to solve before you write in. Send us the whole passage, the full drawing, or the complete list of names, and the design team will tell you what works with your specific text and where it might need to give, rather than turning you away at a character count. You'll see exactly how it sits on your proof before anything is cut.

Color

We don't offer color engraving. This comes up often, usually from someone wanting a logo in its own colors or an accent picked out in blue or gold, and the answer is the same in every case: the design is cut into the metal of the caseback and reads in line, depth and contrast rather than in color. A colored logo is worked up as artwork that holds together in metal, and the design team will show you how yours translates when they send your proof.

Artwork that belongs to someone else

We engrave your own artwork. Anything belonging to someone else, a company logo, a military or regimental crest, a club or association emblem, needs documented authorization from whoever owns it before we can engrave it. That applies whether the mark is being used as it stands or adapted, and it applies to designs from an earlier group order too. If you're commissioning watches carrying your own organization's mark, can I engrave my business logo covers how those orders run.

What we don't do

We engrave Hampden watches only. We can't engrave a watch you already own from another brand, and that holds for every maker. If you came here wanting an engraving on a watch you already have, the route we can offer is a Hampden watch with that same design on the back, and the design team will work from whatever you send.

We don't produce one-off custom dials. A fully custom dial made outside the workshop is possible, but dials are manufactured to a supplier minimum order quantity, so a single dial isn't something we can put through. Caseback engraving has no such minimum, which is why it's where nearly all personalization happens.

Updated on: 21/08/2026