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overall best customizer?


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s***, why the hell is that ? Are noone else allowed to make the correct font ?

Angelo will be able to provide the most accurate answer to this but Custom Crafted is a small lettering house who uses a specific font lettering style for the Bruins. It's just that no one can recreate the color or exact font of the name and numbers. Literally, if it's a bruins jersey done by anyone but custom crafted it won't look right.

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thanks for the answer :) ............. and i assume these Custom Crafted does not sell letters and numbers to other jersey customizers so they can make the right job ?

.

How many teams in the NHL has a unique custom place, where they make stuff that is not duplicated anywhere else ?

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I know there is a list of customizers on here somewhere but I'm not sure if they detail which customizer is completely unique and cannot be duplicated by other lettering houses.

Off the top of my head, I know Custom Crafted, Cutting Edge Sports, and Monkey Sports are pretty unique and can't be duplicated by Stahls or any other general customizer.

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Alright, here's the long-and-short of things. But to preface, I'll show a line-up of Bruins jerseys customized by the team source (Custom Crafted Enterprises), spanning from 1990 to the Present Day (shameless plug to the jerseys I've had at some point). You'll notice something about them if you look closely.

Raymond Bourque

LZb380Es.jpg 3P71ioss.jpg RzivGx9s.jpg IkSBHQes.jpg srYubZ9s.jpg ywKJ6Jks.jpg

Patrice Bergeron

LjVvFf7s.jpgwn2apVas.jpg Ugtok2hs.jpg 6iZKU3cs.jpg

They all look eerily similar, even as the number and letter fonts span 20+ years.

For further comparison, compare these to the following eBay searches

Patrice Bergeron Jersey

Ray Bourque Bruins Jersey

The difference between these shirts, and those you see elsewhere, has three major components: The font, the consistency across time, and the implementation of that font.

1.) The font: The font provided by the NHL to licensed lettering suppliers is different from that provided to the Boston Bruins. At present, the font worn by the Bruins is wider, and has less square, more triangular serifs than the "official" NHL font. The number font is also different, in that the numbers are fatter, and the angles are less severe on the Bruins' shirts than in the NHL set. Keep this in mind as you go over the next point

2.) The lack of major change over time. Look at the Bourque Black shirt from the 90s, and put it side-by-side with the Bergeron Edge Third. Look at the numbers, and see how the above point applies. The numbers are slightly skinnier from the 90s, but the angles and spacing is essentially the same. Similarly, look at the letters - the sizing and proportions are close, despite the difference in serifs across the two. The openings in the Bs, Os, and Rs should tip you off, as should the spacing between the feet in the Es. As you compare across years and across styles, you see that the font does not change much at all.

3.) The implementaion: This one is the big clincher - even if hobbyists/competing lettering houses can match their fonts, Custom Crafted is still a professional team supplier - and they've got the equipment to back it up. From the mid 90's onward, they have used screen-printing and dye sublimation on nearly all the Bruins shirts. On the Starter/Reebok 6100 white and pooh shirts, the white and yellow borders inside the black is screen-printed and stitched over to give the appearance of three layers of twill, when there is only one. On the Reebok black jersey and all the Edge jerseys, they use dye sublimation to add all the coloring onto a single layer of white twill, and then they stitch over the "layers" with their respective color of thread, again to give the appearance of multiple layers while only using one.

So to sum up, the differences in font-set and execution of the font make it pretty difficult for competitors and hobbyists to match the original. Hobbyists have no problem matching up the font to pictures they find on the internet (because they have the time to work on it), but good f-ing luck finding a machine to do professional screen-printing or dye sublimation. As for the competitors who have the equipment but not the font, it probably isn't worth the time to go into their vector files and tweak 9 different sets of fonts to meet the stringent specifications that an over-zealous hobbyist pushes on them. This is the reason I have no sympathy for people who use a non-team source and moan that their shirt came out wrong. It's one thing if you don't have access to the supplier (either distance-wise or not knowing who). It's another to be able to, and to still go elsewhere. It may cost more, but that's a price to pay if accuracy to the original comes before all else.

Edit: Also, I trust you all to respect the images and only use them for educational purposes. No copyrights or anything, but do the right thing.

Edited by AngeloS76
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Very well stated, Angelo.

I dont think any Stahls kits are 100% accurate and each team customizer cannot be replicated. Nobody can get the Isles fonts right except for Cutting Edge and Stitches (for their respective years).

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My Edge 1.0 Senators jersey just came in today. I live in the Chicagoland area, and I want to get it customized into a Alfredsson. Who do you recommend I go through? Is Triple Threat the best option?

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How about "river city sports", anyone know how good they are when it comes to Bruins customizing ?

River city is awful for customization. The use smaller numbers that usually go on a premier jersey on authentics. Wrong air knit as well.

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My Edge 1.0 Senators jersey just came in today. I live in the Chicagoland area, and I want to get it customized into a Alfredsson. Who do you recommend I go through? Is Triple Threat the best option?

Tough call on that. If you're in Canada, you could try calling the Senators team store and harassing a manager to tell you where they send the shirts for lettering (oftentimes it's the team source). We here on the board have had a tough time trying to extract that information from the Senators and their team store. If you're in the US, it probably isn't worth the over-the-border shipping costs, and EPS would be the closest to do the Sens. They won't do it 100%, but it will be close. Up to you on how hardcore you want to get in the hunt of perfection.

Edit, I just realized you said you're in Chicago area. Disregard my "If in Canada" quip.

Edited by AngeloS76
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Tough call on that. If you're in Canada, you could try calling the Senators team store and harassing a manager to tell you where they send the shirts for lettering (oftentimes it's the team source). We here on the board have had a tough time trying to extract that information from the Senators and their team store. If you're in the US, it probably isn't worth the over-the-border shipping costs, and EPS would be the closest to do the Sens. They won't do it 100%, but it will be close. Up to you on how hardcore you want to get in the hunt of perfection.

Edit, I just realized you said you're in Chicago area. Disregard my "If in Canada" quip.

Thanks! Now, I have a ProPlayer replica home 97-07 Sens jersey coming in tomorrow that I wanted to customize into a Hossa. Should I still use EPS for that? Or I saw in your link that the Sens used Cutting Edge Sports for that time frame, so should I use them?

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Does anyone have any experience with Stahl's? I ask because I have access to an account with them through my job and would love to get myself some NHL kits for a great price, if they're good. I have already ordered and received a Detroit WC kit and it looks encouraging but I am by no means an expert in this area of the hobby.

Edited by twi
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