A master 'forger,' proud of his handiwork

Take the elevator up to the eighth floor of the Boston Diamond and Jewelry Building on Washington Street. Follow the marble hallway to the old shingle hanging over the door that generations of clients have passed through. ''Mathew Smokler," it reads simply. ''Engraver."

With Valentine's Day fast approaching, Smokler will be engraving words of love, designed to summon forth romance. But the 53-year veteran craftsman insists he's prouder of being a master forger than a cupid.

Forgery -- or ''facsimile" as it's known in the trade -- is the dying art of copying a signature directly onto an object. Most in demand when honchos retire: silver trays bearing a corporate logo, in need of engraved board member signatures. ''You wouldn't believe how much easier it is to copy the sloppy scribbler than the careful one," he says.

Indeed, anyone who thinks etching on metal is a dull profession has only to consider Smokler's role as front-row witness to human drama. Whether he's adding a baby's initials to a 240-year-old silver serving spoon, traveling to a church in New Hampshire to work on ritual objects too massive to move, engraving Hebrew on the breastplate of a Torah or a love note etched on the back of cufflinks, each job has a story.

''Sometimes it's easier to have me write 'I love you' than to say it yourself. And this way," he adds with a sly grin, ''it lasts forever."

Indeed. Like the day a Pinkerton guard came into the shop with a cremation urn, the ashes of a departed big shot already inside. His instructions: have it engraved, but never let the urn out of his sight, so he stood and watched as Smokler worked.

Another favorite story dates back a half-century: A soldier preparing to ship off to the Korean War stopped by with his girlfriend wearing an ankle bracelet firmly attached to her person. The tender words Smokler was told to engrave on it -- without freeing it from said ankle: ''If you ---- around, I'll come back and kill you."

Such sentiment continues to this day. A massive handled silver tray on the desk sports two sets of initials and a date in 1963. The customer has given some odd instructions: X-out one set of initials (the outgoing wife's) and engrave another set above it (the incoming wife's). ''You've really got to have a sense of humor," Smokler says.

This tiny, tidy workshop/office/showroom/studio is adorned with but a single small metallic spherical device called a chuck. Key to a hand engraver's success, it holds even the most impossibly shaped objects in place. ''The rest is in the fingers and the eyes," he says, eyes that at 78 appear to be holding out just fine.

Smokler will tell you proudly that engraving has been his only profession. One of 11 children, the native Bostonian learned the craft on the GI Bill at the Bennett Street Industrial School after returning from World War II.

In those pre-computer days, he recalls, Boston was home to dozens of hand engravers. Today, you could count them on one hand.

''We had one pro-ball ring which two other engravers said couldn't be done," recalls Tara Ianachino of the neighboring DeScenza Diamonds, which has been doing business with Smokler for 35 years. ''When we gave it to Mathew, he did it easily. If I know I need something difficult to come out beautifully, I give it to him every time."

And, as computerized engraving grows faster and more efficient, Smokler holds tight to the old-fashioned way. But Brad Keimach in the next studio has even more reason to look up to Smokler. He's his stepson. Having worked for Smokler in the '80s, Keimach has since hung out his own shingle, specializing in state-of-the-art machine and computerized engraving.

''You couldn't pay me to do hand-work, it's a dying art," says the younger man. ''But when Mathew gets through with something, it really is a work of art. When he had open heart surgery a few years back, his customers all said they'd just have to wait till he got back. And they did."