Royal Selangor - A Pictorial Tour

Royal Selangor is a Malaysian company that specializes in manufacturing and retailing of pewter craft that is also a popular tourist attraction.

It is more than 120 years old and was founded by Yong Koon, a young pewtersmith who migrated from Shantou, China. The company has since grown to become a worldwide recognized brand for much sought after pewter craft.

Today, Royal Selangor produces finely crafted pewter ware for a wide range of product categories from children's gift to flash drives. From tableware to wine and bar accessories.

In addition, Royal Selangor also produces customized designs and among its more noted customized designs in recent years include the splendid trophies made for the Formula One races in Malaysia, Singapore and China.

Picture of founder Yong Koon on lower right and his original shop on upper left - from Royal Selangor Visitor Center
Image Credit - Roy Yap

This was followed by an acquisition of Comyns, a UK brand known for its exquisite silverware, in 1993.

All of Royal Selangor's products are painstakingly hand crafted at their factory located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The pewter factory employs over 250 highly skilled craftpeople.

The factory also has an award winning and free Visitor Center that attracts over 200,000 visitors a year from around the world.

Royal Selangor has 3 Visitor Centers located at Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Singapore. This lens is on the Kuala Lumpur Visitor Center. The address is:

• Royal Selangor International Sdn Bhd
• 4 Jalan Usahawan 6, Setapak Jaya
• 53300 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• Tel +603 4145 6122
• Fax +603 4022 3000
• Email -
• visitorcentre@royalselangor.com
• Website -
• www.royalselangorvisitorcentre.com

The Visitor Center is open daily from 9:00am - 5:00pm including all public holidays. Admission is free. No appointment is necessary and tours are conducted in English, Malay, Mandarin and Japanese.

Royal Selangor's Kuala Lumpur Visitor Center lobby. World's largest pewter tankard can be seen on the right of photo
Image Credit - Roy Yap

The first thing that you will notice when you arrive at the Kuala Lumpur Visitor Center is the giant pewter tankard located at the front of the Visitor Center lobby. The giant pewter tankard is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest pewter tankard. It was made by Royal Selangor in 1985 to commemorate its centenary. It has a capacity of 2,796 liters.

Don't forget to take a photo with the world's largest pewter tankard.
Image Credit - Roy Yap

Visitors to the Visitor Center can register themselves at the lobby and request for a free guided tour.

The guided tour starts here at the History & Museum section. In the History section are a few photos from Royal Selangor's history including a one of the founder, their original premise in Kuala Lumpur and the historical endorsement by the Sultan of Selangor and the conferment of the "Royal" status to the company.

Tin Animal Money
Image Credit - Wikipedia Commons

Displayed are ancient forms of currency made from tin. Some of the currency look like animals (crocodile, elephant and tortoise) and various parts of it can be broken off to make payment. This form of currency was used in the 15th century in the Malay Peninsula.

Also displayed are the various methods of extracting tin ore from the most manual method of using wooden pans also known as "dulang" to modern methods using a tin dredge which is actually a floating factory on an artificial lake.

Model of a tin dredge, a floating tin mining factory on an artificial lake
Image Credit - Roy Yap

More tin artifacts from the Museum section
Image Credit - Roy Yap

No pewter goes to waste as they are all recycled.
Image Credit - Roy Yap

Twice a day, the factory will collect swarf or fine pewter chips, shavings and filings from the various work stations to be recycled into new pewter products.

Did you know that tin melts at 231.9 deg Celcius or 449.4 deg Fahrenheit?

The giant container here represents a typical collection for a single day and it weighs 1578 kg or 3479 lbs.

Besides learning about recycling of pewter waste, I also learned a new word - swarf.

Dog figurine from the Comyns collection
Image Credit - Roy Yap

In the Comyn Archives section, over 35,000 historical molds, tools, patterns and drawings are stored and displayed.

Did you know that sterling silver contains 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper or another metal?

Among the archive's most treasured items is an elaborate Rococo candelabra by the Georgian silversmith Paul de Lamerie, the most highly regarded of all silversmiths.

The replica of the famous Petronas Twin Towers, the tallest twin towers in the world, stands at over 9 meters or 30 feet tall which makes it about 1/50th of the towers' actual height. It is made from 7,062 pewter tankards and it is another ideal place to take a photo.

The Chamber of Chimes is located on the other half of the floor. It is an interactive display consisting of tubular chimes made from pewter and other materials such as plastic, wood and bamboo hanging from the ceiling. Visitors can ring the different chimes to discover the different sounds and tones that different materials make.

This area can be quite noisy if there are many young children among the visitors who are naturally drawn to this exhibit.

The Wall of Finishes is made up of two curving walls entirely covered with pewter plates with different kind of textures and patterns. Some of the plates are matte. Some are smooth and shiny. Some have interesting patterns made up of lines and dimples.

Walk between the walls and run your hands across the interesting textures.

The chemical composition of modern pewter - tin, antimony and copper
Image Credit - Roy Yap

Did you also know that in 1991, a pewter medallion made by Royal Selangor was brought along by the space shuttle Discovery into space and thus became the first Malaysian-made object to go into space?

Did you know that the Academy Award is a 3.85 kg gold-plated pewter statuette?

These and many more trivia and fun facts can be found in the Science of Pewter section.

Pewter frames are very popular pewter products and in the Hall of Frames, there are more than 200 pewter photo frames on display. The frames come in all kinds of styles and sizes.

This is a good place to take a photo.

Just as you leave the exhibition hall and head over to the demonstration section, there is a wall that is filled with pewter hand prints. The hand prints on this wall are of all Royal Selangor employees who have served with the company for at least 5 years.

The names of the employees whose hand print they belong to are also embossed on the hand print. What a great way to honor your loyal employees.

Before you move on to the pewter manufacturing demonstration area, do stop by for free cool refreshment served in small pewter cups.

The next part of the tour allows the visitors to take a closer look at the elaborate process of crafting pewter. Each pewter piece is crafted by a skilled craft person by hand. All the processes require a lot of skill and labor. The processes that are covered in this part of the tour are casting, filing, polishing and hammering.

Molten pewter is poured into molds to form a pewter handle.
Image Credit - Roy Yap

A steel blade is used to file the surface of a rotating perter piece to produce a smooth and shiny surface.
Image Credit - Roy Yap

Different polishing methods are used to bring out the details of the engraving on the pewter piece.
Image Credit - Roy Yap

A hammering process is used to add textures to the surface of the pewter piece.
Image Credit - Roy Yap

Casting Process

First of all, molten pewter is made by melting tin, antimony and copper at 250 degrees Celcius or 482 degrees Fahrenheit.

The molten pewter is kept in a heated container and is scooped using a ladle and poured into the mold.

Once the pewter has cooled down and solidifies, the mold is opened up and the formed handle is removed.

The remove excess pewter from the edges of the handle, the excess part is dipped into the molten pewter container and is melted off.

This process looks deceptively easy but a lot of skill is required to pour the pewter in correctly to make sure that the casting cools down evenly and properly.

Done wrongly and you end up with a part that has many dimples on the surface or is too brittle to work with.

Filing Process

The casted pewter part's surface is dull and rough due to oxidation and excess pewter material caused by flashing.

The pewter piece is mounted on a rotating jig and a steel blade is used to skim over the surface of the pewter piece while it is rotating at high speed.

This removes the oxidized layer to reveal a smooth and shiny surface underneath.

Polishing Process

The next step in the process is the polishing process.

Different methods of polishing are employed depending on the design of the motifs on the pewter piece.

For rough edges, tools such as blades and hacksaws are used and for finer details, a piece of fine sandpaper is used.

Hammering Process

The hammering process is yet another process that looks deceptively simple.

The artisan uses a steel hammer to hammer on the soft pewter surface to create a dimpled look.

Each dimple requires two precise knocks with a consistent strength.

Each standard sized dimpled tankard has about 700 dimples which means a total of 1,400 precise and consistent knocks to produce a single tankard.

As you make your way from the second floor to the first floor, you walk along a ramp that gives a great overview of the Royal Selangor factory floor.

If you happen to visit the Visitor Center on a working day, you will be able to see the factory workers hard at work at their individual work stations producing great works of art.

Royal Selangor has a hands on workshop known as the School of Hard Knocks where participants will learn how to create their own pewter dish using traditional tools like hammers, mallets and wooden molds. These are same tools employed by pewtersmiths more than a hundred years ago.

The classes are conducted by an experienced instructor and it covers all main processes in pewter crafting including forming, scraping, polishing and even packing.

Participants get to keep the finished dish as a souvenir plus a certificate will be presented to all participants as well. Each session will take about 30 mins. There is a small fee of RM60 or about US$19 per participant.

Those interested in taking part in the workshop are encourage to register themselves or even make a pre-booking ahead of time.

Replica of 2010 Petronas F1 Malaysian Grand Prix 2010 trophy.
Image Credit - Roy Yap

Besides ogling at the thousands of products on sale that include among many others, picture frames, ornament pieces, tea leaf containers, tea sets and traditional tankards, there are a few interesting pewter pieces on display including the F1 trophies made for the races in Malaysia, Singapore and China.

Being the geek that I am, the pieces that most fascinated me were the pieces from the Lord of the Rings collection and the piece de resistance being the Lord of the Rings pewter chess set.

If you are interested in buying something, the sales staff are very friendly and approachable.

Closeup of the Lord of the Rings chess pieces - the good side.
Image Credit - Roy Yap

Goblets from the Lord of the Rings collection.
Image Credit - Roy Yap

Richly detailed pewter figurine.
Image Credit - Roy Yap