Yours For Keeps

Written by

Patrick Brendel

Friday, 12 September 2008

Little League trophies, tokens for loved ones, urns for cremated remains. Yours For Keeps will personalize just about anything that can be carried through the door of the Georgetown store. Nowadays, choices of individualized gifts and awards are constricted only by the givers’ creativity and cash flow.

“People have this preconceived notion of what a trophy is. They should come in and see all the things we can do. It’s not just trophies and plaques. It’s a whole lot more than that,” owner Caroline Willingham said.

Willingham entered the trade in 1982, when she and a friend opened a shop called B&C Trophies on Anderson Mill Road in north Austin. Initially an engraving neophyte, Willingham learned the craft by hand, using a metal device called a pantograph to copy each character individually.

But soon computers and automatic engraving machines changed the business by improving speed and accuracy while lessening the tedium of the task. Once a logo or design is scanned into the computer, copying it onto one or several media is as simple as pressing a few buttons.

“Computer engravers were pretty new at that time and very expensive,” she said. “[Nevertheless, it] was only a couple of years later that we got the laser engraver and a computer engraver.”

In 1986, Willingham married Robert, who joined his wife’s shop in 1993 after retiring from IBM. In 1997, she fell in love with a historic home in Georgetown. The couple moved and began commuting to Austin.

Seeing that they could fill a niche in Georgetown, the Willinghams opened Yours For Keeps on Rock Street in 2000. A couple of years later, they sold B&C Trophies to Robert’s grown son. The Austin store is still in operation.

The Willinghams intentionally chose not to include the words “gift” or “trophy” in the name of the store because they wanted to emphasize the variety of services they offer. Yours For Keeps is not simply an engraver, an awards store or a gift shop. It is all of those and more.

“At first we really didn’t want to do trophies. We wanted to just be an engraving shop for gifts and stuff like that,” Caroline said. “But we realized in a small town you really have to do everything.”

Yours For Keeps is the only retailer in Georgetown with a laser engraver — they have two — which they use to personalize items made of plastic, wood or leather. For example, all Williamson County Jail employees have their plastic name badges made inside the laser engravers at Yours For Keeps.

The shop also has a diamond drag engraver that scratches lettering or designs into metal, while a sandblaster is used to carve glass. For other requests, such as printing a company’s logo on ribbons for an awards ceremony, Yours for Keeps coordinates with its suppliers to get the job done. The quality and professional look of engraving belies its price, the owners said.

“Engraving is the least expensive way to personalize things,” Caroline said.

The prices for individualized trophies range from about $4 for a small item to $80 for a high-end award.

What to give?

Three websites for gift ideas:

www.tropar.com – The Airflyte Master Catalog specializes in listings for products meant to recognize corporate achievements.

www.jdsindustries.com – JDS Industries supplies a variety of items, including trophies, cups, gifts, medals, ribbons, plaques, acrylics and glass awards.

www.pdu.com – Plastic Dress-Up Company offers awards for sports accomplishments, corporate recognition and military honors.

The items in the above catalogs can be ordered and personalized through Yours For Keeps.

Yours For Keeps

1915 N. Austin Ave.

Georgetown, TX 78626

1-512-868-5881