A Visit to the Royal Premiums – Royal Selangor Pewter

The tourism team paid a visit to the Royal Selangor Pewter Visitor Centre, which was a rewarding experience for the Tourism team. The entrance is free and the centre gives complimentary guided tours in various languages. The pewter-making facility consists of three main sections – the gallery, the factory and the retail shop.

The tour begins at The Gallery where we learnt about the company's pioneering past since its founding in 1885.

Eugene, the tour guide explaining the history of Royal Selangor Pewter

The various displays at the gallery are Malaysia olden-day tin money, old pewtersmitting tools, and first generation designs of antique pewter made in the late 1800’s to the 1960s.

The Gallery also offers educational exhibits for a better understanding of the technological aspects of pewter.

A simple chart that shows pewter’s chemical composition.

Also, the tour guide threw us some interesting trivia – that the Royal Selangor factory produces 1578 kg residues daily, which will be re-melted to make new products.

Followed by the Factory tour, on up-close and personal view, we were shown different pewter production processes - Casting, Polishing, Hammering, Moulding and Engraving.

A worker making a customised champagne holder

There are rows and rows of workstations where employees work on products, in fact, Royal Selangor is the world’s largest pewter factory!

The factory demonstrates a very impressive of tidiness and cleanliness.

Also, we were given the chance to render design on a pewter tankard.
Clement and Chui Ying tried to hammer a design on a tankard

The factory tour does offer a workshop called “School of Hard Knocks” whereby visitors will be taught the basic art of pewter-making and keeps their master piece at the end. The workshop requires prior booking, costs RM50 per person and it is open to groups of 5-50 people.

Finally, at the end of the tour, we were lead to the Retail Store featuring pewter items as well as jewelry by Selberan which belong to the Royal Selangor company. Though we can buy souvenirs from the Retail Store, pewter products is not that cheap!

Accessories collection by Royal Selangor Pewter
The Melon Pot revamped from the first generation design
Limited edition Lord of the Rings chess set

The factory visits indeed an eye-opener for the tourism team!