Replacing a commemorative glass

September 15, 2021 10:29 AM

In the Before Times, I was visiting a friend of mine and tragically, unfortunately, and accidentally broke one of her glasses. I'd like to replace it but . . . snowflakes.

It was a standard 10 oz whisky glass BUT it was given to her as a student athlete award (one of a set, but now she has only one left). It was engraved? etched? in blue with our college logo and some commemorative text. She was devastated and I would like to replace it. However, every place I've found won't do truly custom work--you have to fit their template, choose from their type faces, etc. Does anyone know of a company where I could have a few of these made by just sending them photos of the remaining glass and/or a file with our college logo?

Thank you!

posted by fiery.hogue to Home & Garden (16 answers total)

I did an internet search and found 9 oz whiskey glasses here. It was my first search result using the search term custom whiskey glass upload image
posted by aniola at 10:43 AM on September 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

I might reach out to the athletic department at your university and see if they can do you a solid and hook you up with one. (At the very least, they might be able to help you.)
posted by Countess Sandwich at 10:53 AM on September 15, 2021 [14 favorites]

The athletic department likely has a local trophy shop (or something along those lines) that they frequently use and can recommend.
posted by raccoon409 at 11:06 AM on September 15, 2021 [6 favorites]

Have you done a deep dive on Etsy's offerings? I see a jillion listings for custom whiskey glasses...
posted by BlahLaLa at 11:06 AM on September 15, 2021

Response by poster: Thanks, all! Just want to clarify a few things: I'm trying to match the remaining glass (10 oz), and I've tried the athletic department multiple times. Because this was (cough) 40 years ago, there's no one there that even remembers the days that they gave graduating seniors cocktail glasses, and they haven't done engraved glass in a long time. Will look more closely at Etsy. Thank you!
posted by fiery.hogue at 11:15 AM on September 15, 2021

Hypothetically one can find the same whiskey glass and hire someone to modify it? I'd check if local "medal shops" would provide such services.
posted by kschang at 11:16 AM on September 15, 2021

In the before-times I'd go around to thrift/antique stores in the area and ask if they've seen anything similar.

Maybe even a Craigslist/Facebook "glass wanted" ad in the area might turn up something.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 12:02 PM on September 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

Maybe one of her former teammates still has one or more of those glasses lying around, and has less sentimental attachment to it. If you can get names (maybe from a yearbook,) and already have the school and graduation year, you could locate folks with public profiles on Facebook / LinkedIn and throw out a few “Weird question...” hail-Marys.
posted by D.Billy at 12:07 PM on September 15, 2021 [6 favorites]

As a starting point, if you run a Google search for 10 oz. whiskey glasses, do you see any that seem to be the same shape? If you can find a visual to work from, you can then use that to approach stores that do glass engraving to try and find a match. Even if you cannot match the commemorative text exactly, if you can get a period-appropriate logo engraved onto the glass with her name, the combination of that and the thought/care put into this may make up for it.

(Were it me, I would also have a second glass made as a gag, engraved to say something like "Spare glass, provided by fiery.hogue, as insurance against clumsy houseguests.")
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:37 PM on September 15, 2021 [3 favorites]

sending them photos of the remaining glass and/or a file with our college logo
Do you have those handy? If you contacted the moderators, you could anonymize this question if you wished and post imgur links to your pictures; maybe you'd get, like, a "hey, a Western Illinois "Westerwind" commemorative glass -- longtime university supplier Engraving by Lin keeps excellent records and could make a replacement" kind of answer.
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:43 PM on September 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

Can you take a photo of the existing tumbler and put it in Google Lens? They image match and show marketplace in their results.
posted by zerobyproxy at 12:46 PM on September 15, 2021

I would just remake the damn things myself.

Take a picture of the glass, and get someone clever to flatten the image of the logo. (Alternately, scrape it off the web somewhere.) Convert it to an SVG file.

Now use a Cricut machine (or similar) to cut it out of vinyl several times, or hand-cut it, whatever you can manage.

Buy a few cheap glasses, plus your target pieces. Buy some Armour Etch glass-etching cream.

Go nuts on the test ones, and then do your final piece(s) with confidence.

I taught my youngest kid to do this over the winter, and she aced her first one. You can do it!

(No idea how to color it blue, though.)
posted by wenestvedt at 12:51 PM on September 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

Here is the first search result for custom whiskey glass upload image 10 oz. It looked like there were plenty of options.
posted by aniola at 2:00 PM on September 15, 2021

You could also contact trophy / engraving shops _near_ the college. Some of these businesses go WAAAAAY back, although maybe not that far back / that long into the present. Still, there won't be that many businesses, probably.
posted by amtho at 2:24 PM on September 15, 2021 [4 favorites]

Also, please pardon this idea, but if it was _that_ long ago, there might be some for sale somewhere from people downsizing.
posted by amtho at 10:03 PM on September 15, 2021

You tried the athletic department, but did you try the university’s bookstore? Long ago I worked for a college bookstore and this is definitely the kind of thing that I would have facilitated (the original order of the glasses, not a one-off order), and they may have a lead for you.
posted by rebeccabeagle at 12:52 PM on September 17, 2021 [1 favorite]