I was taught to do this. Mainly books and relatively expensive items that are likely to be borrowed, like power tools.
At work one of my responsibilities is logging the Lost & Found and attempting to identify the owners. Nobody writes their names on anything. This is a military facility so occasionally a clothing item will have a name embroidered on it, but books and phone chargers and other such things are never, ever labeled with a name.
Do you write your name, or some other unique identifier, on your stuff? Did you ever?
.
My mom wrote my name on a few things that I used in childhood. I think the elementary school wanted our names written in winter coats. Otherwise a 3rd grader would grab the wrong one.
I’ve never labeled my stuff. Probably because I don’t loan tools or other items to hardly anyone.
Some tools. I’ve been know to loan a hand (or tool) to contractors working on my house. I trust them, but it would be just too dam easy to throw all the tools in the truck, when one might be mine.
Same with hand/mech tools. Well it used to be. My best friend and I worked a lot on cars in the past. We had the same type of tools. Very easy to get them mixed up. I put a single punch mark on each of my wrenches and sockets and stuff.
I play Gaelic hurling, and the only thing I routinely label is my hurling equipment with my initials, because stuff sometimes gets mixed together at practice.
I use to engrave my driver’s license number on power tools and other expensive stuff I own. This saved me once when I had a generator stolen. The pawn shop that had it didn’t like it but then had to give it back to me. The only problem with this is I recently updated my license to an enhanced driver’s license. The driver’s license number that I have had for the past 46 years is no more. I have lots of engraving to do now.
I haven never done this. My father used to label things on our boat with our last name and phone number for items that could be lost or stolen (anchor, life jackets, paddles, etc). Perhaps it acted as a deterrent to theft, but otherwise nothing was ever lost and came back because our name was on it.
My mother would sew name tags on our clothes before we went off to camp.
Only on things that are going to be kept in a communal area - my food that is in the work refrigerator, my laundry supplies in the apartment laundry room, etc.
I’ve had some of this type of stuff disappear, and I’m hoping that the giant [SpoilerVirgin] written on it four times in Sharpie will make potential thieves think twice.
I just don’t lend anything to anyone unless I’m willing to never get it back, and the only places I leave my stuff lying around are my relations’ houses or at work, where my possessions are already recognized as being mine.
No, but when I have a work laptop which is identical to a zillion other work laptops I put a sticker on it in an unobstrusive spot. Usually some variation of this; so far, I’ve only had two teams which included another Navarrese while not in Navarre, making our shield or flag a good identifier :D.
Very rarely. We recently bought some wooden toothbrushes from the internet and we had to write our names on them or nobody in the family could tell whose was whose. When I was in the Army, we stenciled our names on certain things like duffel bags, because they often were shipped separately, and they all looked the same. That’s about it. I’ve made a few abortive attempts at journaling, and I think I probably wrote my name in the front of my journals. I can’t think of anything else. It’s not a bad idea, I just rarely do it.
My vote is for “something else” because I put my “monogram” on basically everything! I do have my initials on other stuff, too.
The only things I can think of offhand where I have my name instead are the Randall Made knives I bought decades ago. And on one of them I had them put the monogram, and they did an excellent job of recreating it!
All that said, it’s been quite some time (months if not years) where I did any of that. New stuff doesn’t need personalization, I suspect.
This thread brought back memories of preparing to go to a week long Boy Scout camp. My mom wrote my name on literally everything I took with me, even my underwear. I found this all incredibly embarrassing. I was like “Come on, Mom, I’m not going to lose my underwear while I’m at camp. And there’s not likely to be a situation where other boys might mix up my underwear with theirs.”
Today I label my stuff very rarely, only if it’s a common item that looks like every other one out there. There is one thing I didn’t write my name on that I wish I had, for that reason. Where I work every new hire gets a coffee mug with the company logo on it on their first day. These are quite useful because the company provides free coffee and tea, but they don’t provide disposable cups along with it, just the reusable one you get on your first day. The problem is that everyone’s mug looks exactly the same. I kept thinking I ought to put some kind of identifying mark on mine, but I just told myself “I can keep track of it” and never did. Then one day someone walked off with my mug while I wasn’t paying attention, presumably because they mixed it up with theirs.
I went rarely. If I am lending you something I may put my name on it or not; that depends on ---- you in the end. I grew up in a family where everything was marked, tagged or branded in some way and I still do “brand” some of my camping/history gear because of how confused some events get. But its something I would rather avoid. To me replacing a mug is less of a hassle than making sure its branded.
Only once. When I bought my last iPod, I had Apple engrave my name and phone number on the back, only because it was free. Nobody borrows my stuff, and I don’t lose things.