Matching headstone lettering when you add a final date

A final date goes onto a stone that has usually been standing for years, sometimes decades. The family has read the first half of that inscription on every visit. If the new numerals come out a little wider, a little lighter or a touch off the line beside them, they will notice, and sandblast lettering can't be taken back.

This checklist is for monument shops and cemetery crews doing that work. It covers what to read off the existing line before you cut a stencil, and where mismatches tend to sneak in. Every historical detail below links to its source at the end.

Start with the letter set, not the style name

"Roman" on a work order narrows things down about as much as "sedan" narrows down a car. Modified Roman alone has several versions in US cemeteries.

The Monument Lettering Center (MLC) makes digital monument fonts, usually based directly on the old physical letter sets. MLC says the SKS ScotchKut Modified Roman was based on a Modified Roman that the Spacerite Company designed in 1925 as metal type. Letters were traced from it and cut by hand into thick sandblast stencil. In 1968 SKS Ltd. began selling plastic letter sets that a press punched straight through the stencil, and according to MLC its ScotchKut Modified Roman has been the most widely used lettering style on headstones since the early 1970s.

That history is handy at the stone. MLC's rule of thumb: Modified Roman on a stone dated roughly 1970 to 1995 is likely the SKS plastic alphabet, and after about 1995 it is quite possibly a digital font based on those plastic sets.

Version matters as much as family. MLC notes that the digital versions of these alphabets in memorial design software often don't match any of the pre-digital plastic or metal sets. "We have Modified Roman in the software" is not the same as "we have the Modified Roman on this stone."

Don't swap in a desktop serif

It is tempting to grab the nearest serif font on the PC. Gillespie Marble & Granite Works explains why that goes badly on stone: very thin hairlines become micro-grooves that don't catch the light, and delicate serif points can break down under the abrasive stream.

A few tells worth checking

MLC's notes on individual alphabets give some quick ways to tell versions apart:

• SKS ScotchKut Modified Roman. The W tapers toward the bottom more narrowly than any other Modified Roman. At large sizes, T, E and F have very thin arms with long serifs.
• Spacerite Vermarco, the Art Deco sans named for the Vermont Marble Company. The inner tail of the Q is round rather than square, the N and U strokes rise a little above cap height and drop a little below the baseline, and the R leg is fairly straight. The later ScotchKut Vermarco has a more curved R leg (source).

Dates are mostly numerals, so these letter tells usually come from the name above the date. Identify the set from the name first, then match the numerals.

Measure height on the stone, and know that size can change the shape

Measure the cap height of the existing date line on the stone itself. If you have the original order or layout, treat it as a lead, not proof. What was cut is what the new line has to match.

Some letter sets don't simply scale. MLC says SKS made its ScotchKut Modified Roman in 11 sizes, from 0.75 inch up to 3.5 inches at quarter inch steps (skipping 3.25), with one main break between 1 inch and 1.25 inches. Below 1.25 inches the letters and serifs were thickened considerably so they would engrave properly at small sizes.

In practice: if the original date was cut at 1 inch from the small-size set and you scale down a large-size master to 1 inch, the height will match and the strokes will come out thinner than the line beside it. Pick the version that fits the size.

Match the spacing between characters, not just the total width

Two lines can be the same overall length and still look different if the gaps between characters aren't the same. Next to an existing line, uneven gaps are easy to spot.

Compare gap by gap. Look at the space between the 1 and the 9 in the existing year, then the same pair or a similar pair in the new one. Adjust the spacing to match before you worry about overall width.

Position: baseline, centering and margins

Check how the existing line was placed. Is it centered under the name, flush with it, or lined up with something else on the stone? On a companion stone, the new date usually needs to sit on the same baseline as its partner on the other side, so the two lines read as a pair.

Take your measurements from a fixed reference on the stone, like an edge or the line above, rather than eyeballing the middle of the polished panel.

Copy the date format exactly

Read the format straight off the stone and copy it:

• Years only, or full dates?
• Month spelled out or abbreviated? With or without a period?
• A comma after the day?
• A dash between the dates, or the word "to"?

The new line should look like it was cut by the same hand on the same day.

Dashes and punctuation belong to the letter set

Many historic monument alphabets used serifed dashes. MLC's digital fonts keep the hyphen as a plain straight dash and put the serifed versions in the en dash and em dash positions for fonts that historically had them. If the dash on the stone has serifs and yours doesn't, it will show.

Some original sets had little or no punctuation at all. MLC says the original Spacerite Vermarco alphabet had none, so every punctuation mark in its digital version was drawn later. If the stone has a period or comma, match what was actually cut there.

Check what survives the software import

If your shop cuts from Gerber or Monu-Cad software, pay attention to how fonts get in. MLC says these programs don't natively support standard TrueType and OpenType files and rely on an import process that breaks the font files and drops alternate characters and other OpenType features.

That matters when the stone uses an alternate glyph. MLC's ScotchKut Modified Roman, for example, includes a second G as an OpenType alternate, because it was the one character that looked noticeably different on the plastic sets above 2.75 inches. Check alternates after import, before you cut.

A pre-cut checklist

• Letter set and version identified from the name and date on the stone
• Cap height measured on the stone, not taken from paperwork
• The size-specific version chosen where the set has one
• Spacing compared character by character
• Baseline and alignment matched to the partner line
• Date format and punctuation copied, including the dash style
• Alternate characters checked after import
• A 1:1 proof held against the stone, or checked on a photo of it, before cutting

Where Monumize fits

We built Monumize for exactly this job. You photograph the stone with a phone, enter its size and pick the date already cut. Monumize measures that line's letter height, spacing and baseline, ranks the closest fonts from its set of open-source monument fonts, and lays the exact cut outline on your photo. You type the new date, nudge it until it sits right, and download the cut files.

The main file is an R12 DXF written for Gerber OMEGA, with true arcs and closed outlines at 1:1 in inches. The lettering is already outlined, so nothing depends on a font import. EPS, PLT, SVG and a 1:1 PDF come in the same download. It's $49 a job, and you only pay when you download.

Font matching gives you the closest match from the fonts Monumize has, so still check the outline against the stone, just like you would any proof. You can try the free sample DXF in your own setup first, or see how it works for dealers.

If you're helping a family understand the process, our guides on adding a second date and identifying headstone fonts are written for them. For the longer story of how monument lettering got here, see a short history of monument lettering.

Sources

• Monument Lettering Center, MLC ScotchKut Modified Roman: 1968 SKS plastic alphabet, 1925 Spacerite origin, 11 sizes and the 1 inch to 1.25 inch break, distinguishing features, alternate G.
• Monument Lettering Center, MLC Spacerite Vermarco: 1937 metal type, Vermont Marble Company name, distinguishing features, no original punctuation.
• Monument Lettering Center, Frequently Asked Questions: digital versions vs physical sets, serifed dashes, Gerber and Monu-Cad font import.
• Gillespie Marble & Granite Works, Why Times New Roman Fails on Stone (August 2026): hairline serifs and sandblasting.