And speaking of Estee Lauder, as I was just yesterday....here are 22 of their elegant compacts for a classy get-together one day soon.

The occasion is related to honoring or promoting a photographer as you see from the message engraved on the back side. Not sure which.

Each had the completion of the message and the name of the recipient on the mirror.

My customer had the shallow well intended for the translucent face powder and puff replaced with a small mirror.

A series of random dots covered some stamping around the rim the customer preferred be obscured. I left room to sign each and every one.

The total job took just under 6 hours. I used a dull #3 round carbide for the lettering on the back. A dull #1 was used for my signature. A sharp #8 was used to stipple the rim.

One other part of the assignment was to cover the word dream that was pre-etched on the back by the manufacturer. Look closely and you can see a part of some letters. It was impossible to totally cover that word. Too bad. The Lauder folks forgot to consider the fact some of their spiffy new design would be engraved, making the word an unnecessary element to deal with. Betting that most in this crowd may never notice.

BOTTOM LINE: Compacts are a part of the Ken Brown Certification process and vitally important to know how to do for just such assignments as this... and when they come to your engraving table in the department stores where you're doing special engraving events for handsome day rates.

These are all bound for another Texas city, sure to thrill each recipient to have a new primping trinket for her purse.

-Ken