F.A.Q. - Frequently Asked Questions

Can you engrave my logo? Yes, most times we can with good artwork.

What kind of engraving is typical for my award? This varies by the type of award, but a general rule of thumb is to keep it as concise as possible. Not only will it save you money, but it will look better, too!

For a typical "keeper" award, the engraving is most often in the following format:

Accomplishment and Year
Name of Winner
Optional Additional Info

For example, if you were giving an award for the winner of your fantasy football league, you might have it engraved as follows:

2002 SFFL Champion
Joe Smith
Smithereens

On the other hand, if you do not intend to purchase a new award each year, but instead pass this award around, you may have it engraved as follows:

Something Fantasy Football League
League Champion

That top line in the last example is really pushing the limits of most trophy plates. Beyond 20-25 characters, it may be necessary to engrave the letters smaller to allow them to fit on the plate. So try to keep it around 20-25 characters per line max.

Most trophies have a nominal amount of engraving that would be done at no charge - this is typically 40 characters (where a character is anything engraved - letters, numbers, punctuation, but not spaces). This number is not an accident - most awards look best with about that amount of engraving, split across 2 or 3 lines.

For a "traveling" award which includes a title plate and several detail plates, you have a little more to consider.

For the title plate, typically the name of the league/organization is featured. Some awards even allow for a logo to be featured along with the text. Some do not - be sure that you are aware when you ask for a quote and supply information accordingly. If you include the word "Champions" or "Winners" on the title plate, then you might save some money on the engraving of detail plates, since those terms would not be necessary on those plates. In other words, if you have "SFFL Champions" on your title plate, then you don't need to have "200x Champions" on the detail plates - you can just feature the year; the title plate has explained that the person listed on the detail plate is a champion.

Title plates usually have less information than detail plates - no more than 1 or 2 lines. A typical title plate might contain:

Something Fantasy Football League
League Champions

And then the detail plates might have something like:

2002
Joe Smith
Smithereens

Or, as an alternative, the title plate could contain just the league name:

Something Fantasy Football League

And then the detail plates would have something like:

2002 Champion
Joe Smith
Smithereens

Read the details for the award(s) you are interested in, and be sure that the engraving specifications you list make sense for the award. Don't specify info for a title plate if the award does not have one (and most do not).

You can sometimes get a little wordier on plaques, but on trophies, keep it simple. It will cost less, and will look better.

Do you make a replica of the Lombardi Trophy? The Heisman Trophy? The Stanley Cup? No. We cannot reproduce any award that is copyrighted or trademarked. Costs would be prohibitive to acquire a license to reproduce these awards, if the owner of those awards even allow for that. Our Actual Size Football Trophy is the closest thing we have to the Lombardi Trophy, and our Football Runner Statuette is the closest thing we have to the Heisman award.

Is this all you got? No, what we have featured on our web site are the most popular items we produce. We have the facilities to create many additional styles. If you have something in particular in mind, such as something you've seen in a local trophy shop or somewhere else on the Internet, let us know and we will be happy to let you know if we can produce it.

What is typical turnaround time? During non-peak times, turnaround time is typically 1-2 weeks after we receive payment. If you mail in a check or money order, your overall time from when you place your order until the time you receive it will be longer, but the time from our stand point will likely be in that 1-2 week time frame.

Our peak times are just before and just after the NFL season. During those times, we are typically swamped with orders from commissioners ordering their fantasy football trophies, trying to receive them in time to present them either at their draft or at a Super Bowl party. During those times, turnaround time may stretch just a bit beyond the norm.

If you have a particular date by which you must receive your awards, please be sure to tell us up front. We can usually accommodate your time frame. If there is no way we can make it, we will be honest and tell you. If we can't provide your awards, we want to leave you as much time as possible to make arrangements elsewhere.

Why does the Order Tracking information for my order say that it has shipped at a date in the future? No, we are not psychic! We prepay our UPS shipments, and have the tracking information before UPS actually takes posession of the packages. Where you will most often find this kind of thing is over the weekend, when we will have paid for the shipment and generated a tracking number, but UPS will not take the package until the following Monday - in that situation, the tracking information on our web site will say that it has already shipped, listing the following Monday as the date shipped.

Can you engrave my logo? It depends. Did you read the information regarding submitting artwork on our Order Information page?

The most common reason we reject artwork is that it is not sufficient quality to feature on an award. Most of the graphics most of us work with are optimized for the Internet - and it takes far more resolution to look good when imprinted or engraved than to display on your computer's screen. And we'd rather turn an order away than to produce an award with which we know you would not be pleased.

It is especially difficult to engrave images with many colors or shades. That is why we have invested in equipment which will allow us to imprint images onto trophy plates. But even with imprinting, the better the quality of the image used, the better the quality of the plate produced.

Read over that information on our Order Information page, and email us if you have any questions. Believe us, if you cannot produce an image to meet those specifications, you would not want an award featuring that image.

One additional note on this topic ... Please do not ask us to engrave or imprint a logo that is copyrighted or licensed - for example, the NFL logo. It is illegal to reproduce such images. Be sure that you own the rights to any image you ask us to reproduce.

Can you send me a catalog? Yes. We carry a printed catalog. Although, we are constantly adding new products and new techniques - so our catalog is not fully representative of we we offer. We go far beyond the boundaries os our catalog in our cretivity to provide a unique award that will best suit your needs.

I don't like PayPal - can't you just take my credit card number? Yes. If you would like us to process your credit card directly we can do so. We have found PayPal to be very secure and reliable. Their service is excellent - we used PayPal ourselves to make payments long before we started accepting PayPal payments ourselves. We have never had an issue, neither as a buyer or a seller. Their service is secure - wouldn't you rather turn your sensitive credit card information over to an organization that specializes in this, rather than a company trying to do that on their own?

GOOD NEWS! PayPal is now allowing us to accept credit card payments, even if the payer is NOT a PayPal member! So, if you are not signed up with PayPal, no need to go through that hassle - just follow the instructions at the bottom of your invoice (click on the "PayPal Click Here to Pay" button).

Can you ship to an APO address? A PO box? International? We do not ship International because the customs hassle is not worth it for the number of requests we receive. We ship all trophies exclusively through UPS, so a street address is required. For both of these reasons, as much as we'd like to, we cannot ship to APO addresses. If you need to place an order and cannot provide a street address within the US, you will have to give us such an address of someone who can receive the order for you and make arrangements with them to deliver your order.

Can you give me a quote now and let me tell you our engraving information after the winner's name is known? We cannot provide a quote unless ALL specifications are known. We can give you a good-faith estimate, but please don't ask us to commit to a quote until we have all the information pertaining to the award(s) needed.

I ordered a traveling trophy from you last year. Can you engrave a plate for this year's champion in the exact same style in which the previous plates were engraved? You bet! We keep all engraving files from previous orders, so it would be no problem to engrave another plate in the same font size/style as we did on your previous order. If you are ordering just additional plates for awards you ordered from us previously, we typically ship them via uninsured US Mail to save on shipping costs. Let us know if you would prefer them to be shipped via UPS (the cost would be significantly higher).

Your shipping prices are higher than I expected. How come? We're shipping awards here, not books or CD's. We can't just throw them in a box, hand them to the mailman, and expect them to be received in mint condition. We have costs that must be covered to package each item so that they will not be damaged with normal handling by UPS. We have found shipping via US Mail to be unsatisfactory for our awards, so we only ship them via UPS. The majority of the charge in our shipping price is the UPS part, but that is not the only cost - we have to cover the cost of boxes, packing material, and labor to package your order. That last item is something that most people don't think about, but I really don't think you want your order to be packaged by someone who is doing it for free! So, there are costs to package and send your award that you may not have been considering. Some places hide those costs in the price of their products - we don't. We charge a fair price for the product, and a fair price for the shipping.

I sent you a quote request, but you never replied? Spam is getting to be a major problem. Not only because of the aggravation of having to wade through it in your inbox to see what you really want to read, but because of all of the attempts to filter out all of the Viagra and bodily enhancement emails. No filter is perfect, and if you did not hear back from us, chances are that our message got caught in a spam filter. If you run your own spam filter, be sure to check the messages that it blocked to see if ours is in there - you may need to tweak it to allow ours to come through. If your ISP is blocking our email, there's not much we can do. The best advice we can give you if that is the case is to complain to your ISP, and to set up an email account elsewhere (hotmail, msn, etc.). WE DO NOT SPAM, AND DESPISE THOSE THAT DO. So, the only reason our email could be blocked is because of an overzealous spam filter.

Another reason you may not have received our reply is if you entered your email address incorrectly in our Quote Request form. We cannot reply if we do not have your correct email address!

What if a trophy is damaged in shipping? American Trophy's liability ceases upon carrier's receipt of shipment in good order. UPS is responsible for any damage that occurs during shipping, not American Trophy. That is why every award we ship is insured. You should count and inspect each package BEFORE signing. If you receive damaged product from UPS, make the driver note the damage. This will help expedite your claim. All claims for lost or damaged products must be filed with UPS by the customer. We will assist in any way possible in making your claim. But we cannot ship a replacement award without a claim being processed by UPS.

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