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▪ Our Story
More Than 70 years of Learning How to Make a Mark That Lasts.
Monode did not start as a catalog of products. It started as two ideas: A harder-wearing stamp and a way to mark metal without damaging it. Those ideas grew, merged, and kept evolving into the marking company we are today.
Here is how the capability was built.
1940s: An industry outgrows its tools.
World War II drove the largest surge in U.S. industrial production in history, the aircraft industry alone doubling in size every year from 1939 to 1942. Manufacturers suddenly needed to mark millions of new parts a month, a scale the marking methods of the day could not keep up with. That pressure drove real advances in both steel stamping and electrochemical etching, the two techniques that would become Monode's founding crafts.
1943: The problem that created a technology.
Post-war jet engines could not be marked with a steel stamp without risking micro-fractures in the metal. Working out of the electroplating industry, Cleveland's Lectroetch, founded by Allen R. Lindsay, invented and patented electrochemical etching to mark hardened metal without deforming it. That process became the scientific foundation Monode was later built on.
1951: The family trade begins.
Imperial Stamp & Engraving is founded in Chicago by Bill and Al Mackey, built on a simple advantage: a harder, longer-lasting stamp that delivered more clean marks per die. Steel stamping and engraving became the family's founding craft.
1956: Monode is established in Cleveland, Ohio.
Built on the electrochemical-etch process, the company takes its name from the science itself: a cathode plus an anode makes a "monode." The core etching power unit proved so sound that the design has stayed essentially unchanged ever since.
1960s: The first automatic marking line.
Monode introduces its first automatic system, able to operate and synchronize markers, turntables, and conveyors together on an assembly line, bringing fast, reliable, continuous marking to the production floor for the first time.
1976: Etch and stamp come together.
Imperial Stamp & Engraving purchases Monode Marking Products, with William H. Mackey serving as President of the combined company, bringing two complementary marking methods under one roof.
1982: A sudden change in leadership.
William H. Mackey passes away.
1982: The next generation steps in.
Thomas L. Mackey inherits Monode Marking Products.
1985: A second Ohio facility joins the family.
Monode acquires Waldorf Marking Devices, a rubber-stamp maker in New London, Ohio that originally focused on marking light bulbs. That style of marking is now obsolete, but the New London facility remains part of Monode's operation today, supporting stencil-paper production and providing redundant stencil-making capacity.
1987: A new distribution partnership.
Monode becomes the North American distributor of Hanky & Partners pad printers, adding pad printing to its marking capability.
1988: The first pin marker.
Monode manufactures its first-generation pin marking system, the PMS 9500, running on DOS.
Early 1990s: Marking becomes visual.
The PMS2001 dot peen marking system introduces three independent, computer-controlled axes of motion with a visual interface, a step up from the DOS-based PMS 9500. A Windows-based version follows around 1996 to 1997, built first on Windows 95 and then Windows 98.
1990: Steel stamping returns under its own name.
Founded in New London, Ohio, it was relocated to Janesville, Wisconsin, following the acquisition of Imperial, before finally being moved to its current location.
1990s: Imperial comes back into the family.
Monode later reacquires Imperial Stamp & Engraving, the family's original steel-stamp business, from Tom's brother.
Around 2000: One software to control and trace them all.
Rather than run a separate program for every machine, Monode develops TRIAD, unified software to drive its marking systems and tie the mark to traceable data, prompted by multiple commercial industries' needs and Department of Defense needs. TRIAD remains in use by the armed forces today.
2002 to 2003: Laying groundwork for IUID.
Monode is awarded the NCMS/DOD Two-Dimensional Parts Marking Research and Development Project and is contracted for the Direct 2D Critical Parts Marking and Tracking Program with the U.S. Coast Guard. Monode presents at the Two-Dimensional Critical Parts Marking Conference hosted by the Coast Guard in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, uses the Pinnacle Portable Laser to create the first two-dimensional direct laser mark inside a C-130 aircraft on the tarmac, and places the first read-through two-dimensional mark on a Jayhawk helicopter. This work helped lay the foundation for the Department of Defense's Item Unique Identification (IUID) program.
2008: An award for solving in the field.
On a project marking IUID plates for NATO military equipment in Norway, the adhesive originally specified for the job fails to hold up to the operating conditions. Monode partners with an adhesive manufacturer to invent one that does. The fix earns J.T. Mackey the IUID Team Excellence Award, presented by the DoD UID Policy Office at the UID and eBusiness Forum in recognition of contributions to the USMC MCPP-Norway IUID and PLCS Project Team.
2009: Precision machining added.
Monode brings a precision tool-and-die capability in-house, extending its work to close tolerances and enabling the custom tooling and special machines it builds today.
2010s: Traceable-IT brings the software to everyone else.
As unit-level parts tracking becomes critical across automotive, medical, aerospace, and defense, Monode extends the software DNA behind TRIAD into Traceable-IT, a commercial-facing suite that ties together legacy systems, marking machines, vision systems, and databases for complete parts traceability. Monode also becomes a recognized resource on the Department of Defense's UID initiative, helping vendors meet and maintain compliance with permanent, machine-readable part-marking requirements.
2022: The invention comes home.
Monode acquires Lectroetch, the Cleveland company whose 1943 invention of electrochemical etching started the process Monode was built on nearly 80 years earlier, bringing that origin fully under the Monode roof.
Today: A marking company and special-machine builder.
From one Mentor, Ohio plant, Monode designs, builds, and supports six marking technologies plus its traceability software, and engineers the custom machines that put them to work on the production line.
▪ Family and Continuity
Three Generations, One Set of Principles
Monode has been family owned and run for three generations, and the way it operates today still traces directly back to how the founder built the business. Our founder was known for engineering equipment that simply did not quit, with presses built decades ago that are still marking parts on production floors today.
Monode also quickly gained a reputation for a level of responsiveness competitors could not match. In-stock inventory, fast delivery, and answering the phone when no one else did. Those habits, durable engineering, genuine service, and solving problems in-house, are still the standard the company holds itself to.
That continuity matters to the buyers who depend on Monode. When a marking system must be supported for 10, 20, or 30 years, it helps to know the company that built it is still here, still family run, and still answering the phone.
We Stopped Being a Product Catalog
a Long Time Ago
For years, buyers thought of Monode as an etching manufacturer with a catalog to browse. That is still true, and it is not the whole story: today Monode is also a marking company and a special-machine builder.
We are a manufacturer that can:
Identify the right marking method for a part
Engineer the system and tooling to produce it
Tie the mark to traceable data
Stand behind all of it for the life of the equipment
The history is worth telling because of where it leads. 75 years of solving marking problems is now concentrated in one place, ready for the next hard part you need to mark.