Welcome to the Mark-N-Gard, Inc. website. As best as we can determine, the concept for Mark-N-Gard was developed in the early 1980's or perhaps even before. Mark-N-Gard's founder, William A. Bodenstein (brother of current owner) began bouncing around in his head, the idea of etching the VIN or Vehicle Identification Number onto all the glass surfaces of the vehicle as an anti-theft measure. Where he exactly came up with this idea is in question, however it is known that he had become aware of a study done by the Kentucky State Police around this timeframe, where they crudely etched the glass of several thousand vehicles and found a dramatic reduction in thefts of that group of automobiles.

One of his early successes after fully developing the product, was a substantial sale of the product, to Belknap NAPA, one of the oldest auto parts chains in the nation. In our historical files we have a catalog from NAPA date in 1985 and in the catalog we are prominently featured using the recognizable Mark-N-Gard name in stencil font.

One of the earliest challenges facing the founder of this company was developing the technology to actually produce the stencils needed to etch glass. Early stencil cutting was done on a mechanical punch mechanism where each VIN character was "dialed in" one at a time, as a lever was pulled to actually make the stencil cut. The procedure for cutting at least 6 stencils for every car was tedious and time consuming.

Bill's younger brother Bruce (current owner) came into the picture beginning in the 90's when he brought in his computer and programming expertise for it was at this time that new materials were being developed as alternatives to the early mechanical punched cardstock stencils.

Our hallmark since the early 1980’s, is and will always be our determination to provide excellent product value and customer service 24/7. The current owner, Bruce Bodenstein, has always been the innovator in Vehicle ID Security Systems and he continues the tradition of the best and easiest to use VIN Etching systems on the market.

We hope you enjoy our website. Call us at 1-888-288-6382 with your questions and comments. It would be our pleasure to hear from you.