Merchant Plate Embossing

Merchant plate embossing is the stamping from the bottom, or raising from the
bottom, of the plate, alphanumeric characters that are left to right readable.

Cardware provides fast, expert merchant plate embossing up to a maximum
of 5 lines with up to 23 characters each line.  Standard format in line order is
L1-Merchant MC/V ID (MID) number, L2-Merchant dba name, L3-City State,
L4-Open (typically AmEx or Disc merchant ID number), L5-Open (typically AmEx
or Disc merchant ID number). Zip codes are not used for merchant plate embossing.

Lines 4 and 5 can be used for store return policy, (i.e. no refunds or due bills only)
up to 2 lines of 23 characters.  Merchant plate embossing uses periods as the
only punctuation.  The font style is American reading.

The four two most common plate sizes are 1025-1: 5 line, 23 character,
1009-1: 3 line, 23 character, 1-003-1: 3 line, 15 character, 1005-1: 5 line,
18 character.  Most imprinters manufactured in the last 10 years accept
all four plates.   Prior to that, some plates were imprinter-specific. 
Imprinters with a dater in-line with the ID plate can only accept
the 1003-1 and 1005-1.

There is no ANSI standard for the imprinter plate or imprinter. However there
are ANSI standards for the bankcard form set, and for data imprinted on the form,
thus setting the standards for the imprinter plate and imprinter.

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