A chop (also known as: seal, stamp, in, inkan, hanko) is the traditional way to impart authenticity in China and Japan. Artists use chops to sign their work, government officials use them to sign laws and letters, and just about everyone uses small ones to sign for packages and banking transactions.

The following are my chops. Actually, their prints looks much better in real life... I photographed these off of a piece of rice paper that was blowing in the wind... so they are somewhat distorted.

This is my first chop. It was engraved in the winter of 1996/97 by Dai Tie-sheng at his Oriental Art Gallery in Washington D.C.'s China Town. I don't remember how much it cost, but I do remember that I got an accidental discount on the stone.

I designed the print of this chop from left to right... it is not a sentence, however, but rather a collection of ideas.
It reads: Lion, Wisdom, Happiness, Way (Tao)

Unfortunately, I droped this chop while cleaning it one day. The result is the broken lines on the left corners...

Here we have my second chop. The print has nearly four times the surface area as the chop above. This chop, like my other, has a carving of a lion on the top... well, three lions actually.

I bought this at one of the many chop shops in Beijing, March 2002. Beijing is probably one of the best places to procure a chop as the engraving is of high quality and the price is right if you bargain.

I designed this one to read right to left which is more appropriate since it is old Chinese. The large character is Lion and the slogan to the left reads:
Buddha, Mind, True (or Real), Sword.

This can be interpreted several ways. One way is Enlightenment is Hard Work... though my intended statement was The Enlightened Mind is a True Sword...