Our story ✦ Since 1949

Seventy-seven years on Milwaukee Avenue.

Presidents have come and gone, downtown has changed around us, and through all of it this corner shop has kept doing one thing: putting names on the moments that matter.

The shop

A landmark, in caring new hands.

Awards & Engraving opened its doors on Milwaukee Avenue in 1949, and it has anchored Libertyville’s historic downtown ever since. Generations of Lake County families have walked through the same door for the same reason — a season of little-league trophies, a retirement plaque, a memorial engraved with care.

In 2025, Daniel & Bailey Mattson took the reins as family owners. They kept the craft, the machines and the corner exactly where they belong — and brought a new generation’s energy to a shop that’s never needed a reinvention, just good hands.

Our niche expertise extends well beyond engraving. From trophies and memorial plaques to monogrammed gloves and one-off keepsakes, we handcraft tailored solutions for your unique vision.

See what we make →

The Awards & Engraving storefront with its green-and-white awning on Milwaukee Avenue in downtown Libertyville

1949Established

77+Years downtown

2025New ownership

LocalSchools & business

Then & now

From 1949 to today.

1949

The shop opens downtown

Awards & Engraving sets up on Milwaukee Avenue in the heart of Libertyville — and never leaves. The green-and-white awning becomes part of the streetscape.

Through the decades

The town’s trophy shop

Season after season of school awards, league trophies and family keepsakes. Vernon Hills High School has trusted us with its athletic awards for more than twenty years; Libertyville Little League, for over fifteen.

2015–2018

Corporate partners sign on

Aldridge brings its custom awards to the shop in 2015, and Heritage Woods of Gurnee launches its employee recognition program with us in 2018 — partnerships that continue today.

2025

Daniel & Bailey take the reins

The Mattsons become the shop’s family owners — same corner, same machines, same standards. The next seventy-seven years start here.

How we work

Custom. Tailored. Handcrafted.

Three words on the awning, and the standard every piece has to meet before it leaves the bench.

Custom

Nothing here is off the shelf. Every piece starts with your occasion, your wording and your budget — then we build to it. If you can describe it, we can usually make it.

Tailored

You approve a proof of the exact layout before anything is cut, and we fit the job to your deadline — including banquet nights and retirement parties that can’t slip.

Handcrafted

Engraved in-house on Milwaukee Avenue — not sent out, not outsourced. The person who quotes your piece is the person who makes it right.

Trusted since 1949

Trusted by teams across the country.

Recognition and employee-award programs for Fortune 500s, hospital systems, pro sports and the U.S. armed forces — built with the same care as a single keepsake for a Lake County family.