Engraved Wallets for Men: 6 Ways to Personalize a Leather Wallet - Popov Leather® (2024)

"Personality is everything in art and poetry."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Table of Contents

Wallet Personalization Suggestions You Could Engrave Initials Engrave a Special Date Engrave a Quote about Fortune and Luck Our top 10 Fortune And Luck Quotes Engrave a Quote about Success Our top 10 Success Quotes Engrave a Love Quote for Him Our Top 12 Love Quotes Etch an Inside Joke How about a Nerdy Love Quote? Our Top 11 Nerdy Quotes About Love Types of Engraving on Men's Wallets Tooling Scratch Engraving Letterpress Stamping Heavy Brass Die Stamping Laser Engraving Our Most Popular Engraved Goods

Personalized items show that you’ve thought about your loved one. It’s a keepsake they will keep around and it’s something that will remind them of you.

What you get engraved is up to you, your recipients’ style, and the relationship you share.

Stumped on what to engrave? Let's dive right.

This is the tried and true way to engrave your wallet and keep it personal. Add your son’s initials to his first leather wallet for example.

The initials on the wallet don’t have to be your own. Think of giving the wallet to your Dad with the initials of his grandchildren on it. Or give your wife a card holder with your initials on it.

These are all special touches that show you have someone on mind and you took the extra time to make their gift unique.

Dates hold special significance which may be known only to you and the person receiving the gift.

For a child, a birthday may be the perfect date to place on their wallet, showing how special it was when they came into the world.

For a husband, it may be more appropriate to engrave your wedding day, the day you met, or the day you first brought a child into the world.

Maybe you might have a special place in mind?

• Where you first met your significant other
• Where you had your first date
• Your favorite vacation destination

A lot of our customers will take their favorite location or address, convert it into latitude and longitude coordinates and we'll engrave that for them.

What do you think looks better?

41° 56' 12.804'' N 87° 43' 35.868''

or

The Pizza Hut on 3045 N Pulaski Rd in Chicago.

If you're wondering how you can get latitude and longitude coordinates, it's pretty easy. Just use a website like latlong.net. Or use the iPhone app called What3Words which is even more accurate (and memorable!)

1. Your fortune is not something to find but to unfold. - Eric Butterworth
2. Fortune befriends the bold.-Emily Dickinson
3. A wise man turns chance into good fortune.-Thomas Fuller
4. Chance favors the prepared mind.-Louis Pasteur
5. A good man's fortune may grow out at heels. - William Shakespeare
6. A great mind becomes a great fortune. - Seneca the Younger
7. Luck relies on chance, labor on character. - Richard Cobden
8. Luck is preparation meeting opportunity. - Oprah Winfrey
9. Luck is not chance, it's toil; fortune's expensive smile is earned. - Emily Dickinson
10. Good luck is a residue of preparation. - Jack Youngblood

We see a lot of wallets come through our shop with an inspirational message.

Imagine being inspired every time you pull out your wallet to pay for something. These quotes about success are some of the favorites that we've seen on our leather goods.

1. Believe you can and you're halfway there. - Theodore Roosevelt
2. If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse. - Jim Rohn
3. A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. - Albert Einstein
4. Victory belongs to the most persevering. - Napoleon Bonaparte
5. Success is never so interesting as struggle - Willa Cather
6. Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude. - Zig Ziglar
7. Action is the foundational key to all success. - Pablo Picasso
8. Remember, success is a journey not a destination. Have faith in your ability. You will do just fine. - Bruce Lee
9. Beginners are many; finishers are few. - Stephen Covey
10. Winners never quit and quitters never win. - Vince Lombardi

A lot of people (myself included) just aren't cut out for this kind of stuff. But sentimental, romantic engravings can be cherished by our better halves. If you're giving a wallet as a gift to your loved one, chances are you want it to be unique.

I'm terrible at this kind of stuff, so I had a little help from our customers. Use the list below if you need some inspiration (feel free to use them!)

1. I know that my feelings for you are real because I spend more time thinking of you than myself. - Anonymous
2. If I know what love is, it is because of you. - Hermann Hesse
3. I need you like a heart needs a beat. - Anonymous
4. I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you. - Ben Folds, The Luckiest
5. You make me feel so proud of being in love with you. - Anonymous
6. True love is knowing a person's faults, and loving them even more for them. - Anonymous
7. I want to be with you till my last page. - A.R. Asher
8. You’re my spark in the dark. - Anonymous
9. I still fall in love with you every day! - Anonymous
10. I want to grow old with you an be able to say that I have lived an amazing life with you. - Anonymous
11. I never wanted to be your whole life — just your favorite part. - Anonymous
12. Forget the butterflies; I feel the whole zoo when I am with you. - Anonymous

The benefit of an inside joke is that it only means something to you and the person the joke is with.

If there's a certain phrase the two of you use together that only you understand, that may be the perfect engraving for their wallet.

For example, for a while my phone was auto-correcting the words "earlier" to "walrus." Because of this, engraving a wallet with the world “walrus” would be meaningful to me though the meaning would be unclear for an outside observer.

I'm a closet geek. I have tomes of Dungeons & Dragons sitting on my bookshelf next to volumes of graphic novels (do me a favor and go read everything by Chris Ware).

A geeky reference to something they love shows not only that you care about them, but also that you know and care about things that are important to them.

If you have a wife who is obsessed with the Harry Potter series, the word "Always" would make a simple engraving say a lot. It would show not only that you understand her love of Harry Potter, but also that you will love her with the same strength, dedication, and longevity that Severus Snape loved Lily Potter with.

On the other hand, your Star Wars-loving son may instead appreciate the words "I Know" engraved on his wallet, a reference to Hans Solo's reply the first time Princess Leia said "I love you."

1. Always. – Severus Snape (Harry Potter)
2. I will never leave you. That’s a promise. – Ripley (Aliens)
3. I’m in lesbians with you. – Scott Pilgrim (Scott Pilgrim Vs The World)
4. Face it, Tiger, you just hit the jackpot. – Mary Jane Watson (Spiderman)
5. The only math you need is: You + Me = Forever – Homer Simpson
6. Happiness is anyone, and anything, at all, that’s loved by you. – Charlie Brown
7. We came, we saw, we kicked its ass. – Dr. Peter Venkman (Ghostbusters)
8. I'm going to pull time apart for you. – Amy Pond (Dr. Who)
9. I'm your density. I mean, your destiny. – George McFly (Back to the Future)
10. My precious... - Gollum
11. Yes, I love technology. But not as much as you, you see. - Kip Dynamite (Napoleon Dynamite)

Apart from figuring out what to put on your wallet, there are different types of engraving that can be added to a leather wallet. We’ve experimented with a lot of different techniques before finally settling on two methods that work the best: Heavy brass stamping and Laser Engraving.

Check out the differences and be your own judge.

This is the type of engraving popular with DIY folks. Grab a craft knife and slowly carve a specific engraving. The effects are permanent, but there will be some fading depending on how the leather heals itself. Looks terrible and unprofessional (unless you’re a very steady hand).

Scratches are great for patina, but not so much for personalization.

We used to offer stamped initials. We used an old letterpress alphabet and pressed them into leather. Each letter would be hand-selected, taped together and carefully placed underneath an arbor press.

This was good for a couple years, but wildly inconsistent. Great for an amateur hobbyist, but we found that letters would easily get crooked and the engraving actually faded over time.

Not great for a lasting memento.

Companies who have worked with us in the past love the brass stamp look. This is an option for large orders that require a consistent branded look.

The stamps that we use for this process are specially fabricated out of brass and are cost and time prohibitive for one-off orders.

Not ideal if you need a gift quickly!

When it comes right down to giving a personalized leather gift, you have a lot of options. Here are some items that we make right here in our workshop that would be perfect for gifts.

Each item can be engraved by us and lasts a lifetime.

When that birthday card comes around and I'm the last person in the workshop or house to sign it, I often turn to Google for an idea of what to write.

Feel free to use any of these ideas on your own items whether it's a ring, watch, or even a leather wallet.

Do you have a good idea for customizing or personalizing a gift? Leave a suggestion below for others 👇