Cool Visit to Royal Selangor Pewter Centre

The Malaysian Royal Selangor is justifiably popular - as the world's largest pewter tankard, recognised by the Guinness Book of Records and was been famous for their great pewter designs. And being only half an hour from Kuala Lumpur by taxi or only 5 minutes drive from the Wangsa Maju terminal, it gets on the itinerary of most international and domestic tourists visiting this region.
After securing our luggages to Maytower Hotel, we headed directly to Royal Selangor to have a first hand pewter experience. We're being greeted by an in house guide, who took us to the history gallery and to the splendid collections of pewterware.



Royal Selangor had its humble start in 1885 by Yong Koon. In his shop named before as Ngeok Foh (Jade Peace), was a home of crafted objects from pewter. Teapots, candle holders, incense burners, and other items used for prayers in temples are some of their main products at that time.



Then we walked through the production area where pewter products are being made. From casting, filing, polishing, soldering, hammering to engraving.







I even tried a hand to knock on those pewter with my own design. Huh! You must be devoted and artistic to do this kind of job....hehehe. Actually, they're offering an hour - long pewtersmithing workshops for only RM50 with a group size between 5 to 50. They called it as a School of Hard Knocks where you'll be taught the basic skills to design the pewter dish using the traditional tools. The dish will be yours after the course. But you need to inform them beforehand. Hopefully on my next trip here, I could be able to enroll to this course :)


During the tour, we also enjoyed the refreshing complementary cool drink served in a pewter cup. Pewter alloy formerly is a mixture of tin, antimony, copper, bismuth and a little percentage of lead which gives a bluish tint of it. But as of now, lead is no longer used in the alloying mixture aside from the fact that it is poisonous but it also tarnishes fast leaving a dark greyish appearances. Apart from being famous for its durability, pewter has the quality to makes cold drinks even colder and thus even more refreshing. This gives way for the invention of pewter tankard which makes beer and other drinks colder than in any other containers.

Outside to this factory ground was a giant pewter tankard which marks their centennary in 1995. It is 1.987 metres tall, weighs 1,557 kg and has a capacity of 2,796 litres. Certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest tankard.



And the last stop was the pewter showroom, where we marvelled our eyes on beautifully crafted pewter objects on sale.









It was 11:30 am by the time we finished touring around the Royal Selangor Centre, so we decided to have lunch and recuperate a little before proceeding to Batu Caves and Twin Tower.

Further inqueries contact:
Royal Selangor Visitor Centre
4 Jl. Usahawan 6
Setapak Jaya,
53300 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: +603 4145 6122
http://www.royalselangor.com

Opens daily from 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
Admission Fee: Free