pet tags made in USA

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Silver Paw Pet ID Tags: Made in Maine Not China!Buy local, buy USA… it has a familiar ring these days! When buying local means buying higher price, those of us living paycheck to paycheck just don’t go there for obvious reasons.
However, buying local can sometimes mean buying smart, especially when you consider things like customer service, quality of product, and guarantees. Those of us purchasing for these values, have the added feel good bonus of knowing we supported a fellow American, perhaps even a neighbor!

It’s delightful and refreshing to be able to call a business and speak with its owner or an employee who actually makes the product. The chances of your order getting shipped quickly and customized to your specifications is usually greater if the product is produced here in this country.

I receive email offers from Chinese companies every week. They want to produce my pet id tags much more cheaply than I do. US stamping companies that I spoke to when developing my pet tags urged me to get them made in China at a fraction of the cost. A major stainless steel pet id tag competitor of ours, who has a lion’s share of the US market, manufactures their tags in China. The average factory wage in China is under $1.40 per hour at 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.Silver Paw Pet ID Tags: Made in Maine Not China!

Consumers who recognize the benefits of buying products made here in the US are key. Smaller companies, like my pet id tag business, have something to prove, pulling themselves up by the bootstraps, carefully monitoring competition, and striving for excellence in all aspects of their product. Our products float to the top because of you, the consumer. Buying products that last, support US jobs, and respect our health and environment, are sustaining for us all.

So, the next time you are faced with the decision to buy cheaper from China or buy more expensive from the US, stop and think about the pros and cons. Who and what practices do you want to support with your dollar? What are your expectations for the durability of a product? What kind of service and warranty will there be after the sale?

Silver Paw Pet ID Tags: Made in Maine Not China!

Rotary Engraving, Stamping, or Laser Engraving Pet ID Tags: Which Is Best?There are three basic approaches to applying information to pet id tags. If you are reading this, I’m assuming you are looking for the best type of engraving to purchase on your pet tag.

Computerized rotary engravers use a sharp cutter to actually remove metal from the surface of lines. Stamping machines exert tremendous force to press numbers and letters into metal, thereby displacing the lines into the metal. Computerized lasers can mark or engrave metal using a highly focused laser beam. Here at Silver Paw we are most concerned with what will be the most readable, durable, and the longest lasting for you and your pet.

Computerized rotary engravers carve out metal from the surface. Stainless steel tags are highly durable but a tough metal to engrave this way. Often times the engraving is not very deep because the cutter doesn’t have enough power to cut through the metal. It wreaks havok on carbide cutters. Cutters must constantly be sent to the machine shop for re-sharpening because the stainless steel wears them down so quickly. You will find softer metal tags can be easily engraved this way but the engraving wears away quickly along with the tag metal surface itself. This method is also harder to read as it requires you to move the tag around to actually see the embedded engraving.

Stamping pet id tags makes for a nice deep indentation of information on the tag but it is not always the most attractive. It is impossible to get a lot of information placed in a small space, such as a pet tag, in a crisp and readable manner because the displaced metal has to have somewhere to go. It will last, but if your dog is really active, the tag will not last. Stamping is done on thin, soft metal (brass, copper, nickel, pewter, aluminum, sterling silver). These metals are too soft to withstand the abuse a tag takes. Stamping personalized information on thick stainless steel uses expensive dies, cannot be done without an enormous amount of pressure (tons), and is therefore impractical.

Laser engraving pet id tags has become very popular and it is what we use here at Silver Paw Tags. Lasers engrave metal using a highly focused laser beam. At one time CO2 lasers were not a good option for engraving metal because they weren’t powerful enough to produce deep lines. With the advent of fiber pulsed lasers that scenario has changed. A powerful, costly, fiber laser is the only type of laser which can get deep into stainless steel. The laser actually vaporizes the metal and leaves a deep carbon blackened line which makes the marking very crisp and easy to read. Laser engraving is very sharp and clean. The extent of detail it can achieve is amazing.

Rotary Engraving, Stamping, or Laser Engraving Pet ID Tags: Which Is Best?

Silver Paw Tags Sticker Shock“Now, $30 for just a tag can be a bit hard to swallow, but they are 100% worth it,” wrote one of our customers several years ago. “The amount I was spending on each supposedly “durable” id tag at the pet store was easily munched and mangled, so I figured why not get a GOOD tag?”.

The dilemma of whether to trust the quality of a $30 tag versus a $15 tag is a legitimate one. Do you always get what you pay for? Customer reviews can be very helpful but so can learning about what goes into the making of that product.

Silver Paw Tags are the gold standard of the hanging pet tag market for several reasons.

-they are made of the finest stainless steel alloy available

-they are very thick with heavy loops

-they have deep, black engraving

-the fronts have jewelry-like designs embedded into the steel

-they can be engraved over again if phone #s or addresses change

-they are backed by a lifetime guarantee with kind customer service

Purchasing an id tag for the life of your dog and then being able to use that tag as a remembrance of your beloved pal on a key chain, necklace, or bracelet is what Silver Paw tags are designed to do. The metal is so impervious to scratches, dings, tarnishing, or corrosion, that you will want to wear it.

Does this quality come at a price? Of course. The extreme labor involved in creating molds, casting, hand finishing, and fiber laser engraving each tag right here in the USA is extremely costly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL749nUsgQQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9svX8GbHYTM  Skilled labor in this country is compensated in a different way than in China and rightly so. Any product made in this country that is labor intensive and handmade by skilled artisans is going to cost more. Silver Paw believes that keeping production in the USA benefits our workforce and encourages quality.

In the pursuit of “deals”, good “old fashioned” quality has fallen by the wayside in so much or our society that we have come to expect products to fall apart. We have understandably become naturally suspicious of the word “quality”. . .

If you google stainless steel jewelry for people, you’ll find nothing much available for under $30 and that “quality” $29.95 jewelry is made in China. US manufacturers can’t compete with Chinese labor and we all want “deals”. What does that say about an extremely rugged and well finished pet id tag, several times the weight of a piece of chinese made jewelry, that has several lines of custom engraving, won’t fall apart, and is made in Maine?

Sticker shock over Silver Paw id tags can be remedied if one thinks about buying a lasting piece of not only “beautiful” but “highly functional” quality jewelry. Jewelry that can also save the life of your dog for the life of your dog! Our dogs are so devoted and have given us so much pleasure and love as beloved members of our family. Of all the crazy things pet owners purchase over the life of their dog, how can one resist the expense of a good quality pet id tag such as Silver Paw’s?

Brownfield Jeweler Goes To The DogsBrownfield jeweler, Karen Twombly, isn’t giving up. With 19 years of business under her belt and gold and silver prices through the roof, Twombly, is reinventing herself. “ I’ve had plenty of time, sitting at shows, to ponder the fate of jewelry in a less than thriving economy.” Spurred on by her trusty canine companions, Ruby and Jet, her new business, Silver Paw Pet Tags, will debut Twombly’s stainless steel ID Tags at Fryeburg Fair this year.

Proud of her made in Maine product, Twombly’s tags address a niche market need. “There really aren’t many Pet ID Tag companies making really durable, attractively designed id tags. They’re mostly just plain, boring blanks of metal, stamped out in China, too soft to hold up to the abrasion they receive.” Read more