Identification on your Fencing Gear

"Identification" on your fencing gear refers to two different things — making your equipment look distinctive to minimize the chance that it will be mistaken by someone else as his own, and making it possible to determine with deliberate inspection who owns your equipment. These two objectives may or may not be able to be achieved by one instance of "identification".

Keep Your Gear from Being Taken Accidentally

Sooner or later, someone will accidentally pick up a piece of your fencing equipment thinking it is his. This is a good reason to personalize your equipment somehow so people are unlikely to mistake it for their own. It might not get your equipment back into your own hands any faster, but it increases the chance it will be where you left it. Examples:

• Weapons —
  • an unusual color of grip or pad (e.g., a bright green pad)
  • a wrap of contrasting colorful tape around part of the grip (e.g., a band of yellow tape around the major protrusion of a blue Visconti grip)
  • unusually colored decoration on the visible portion of the back side of the guard (e.g., pink vinyl tape showing on the guard beyond the pad)
• Gloves — embroidery or other distinctive markings visible on the outside
• Body cords — large colorful tags or bands (but no tags on the end which comes out your wrist, where it would annoy you!)
• Masks (yes, some people grab the wrong mask to put on!) —
  • uniquely colored or patterned lining inside the bib
  • colorful tape on the tongue and/or on the inside of the trim where the the mesh ends
  • a color of mesh nobody else has
  • a unique pattern painted on your mesh

Recovering Your Lost Gear

There is a good chance that some day you will leave behind something of yours after fencing. And, there is a chance that even if you do personalize your equipment, someone will fail to notice your unique fluorescent pink grip until he gets the weapon home. For cases like this, it is very good if you also have ownership information on your equipment. Examples:

• Weapons — Put your name on the inside of the guard, protected by the pad. (Note that indelible marker, when used directly on smooth metal, will wear off with the rubbing of the pad, so it helps to place clear tape over the marking. Marker on a piece of tape, like masking tape which at least is somewhat porous, will resist rubbing off more than marker on bare smooth metal.)
• Clothing — use a laundry marker to write your name. Well, maybe it isn't worth it with socks. However, shoes have been abandoned by accident!
• Body cords — write your name with indelible marker on a tag or band, or on some light-colored part of the body cord, and consider putting clear tape over the name. Do not use just your initials because the person who finds it may not know you.
• Masks —
  • write your name with indelible marker on the tongue or on tape firmly applied to the tongue
  • write your name with laundry marker on the bib near the ear