Plating Options for Your Pewter Awards
Which Finish Is Best For Me?
When our customers chose one of our pewter recognition awards, or commission custom awards produced out of pewter, they have the choice of what type of plating option to apply to the surface of the pewter sculpture. Each plating alternative provides a unique finish and “look and feel” to the award. Which plating option is best for any given sculpture award depends both on the personal preference of the customer and the desired theme, image and “personality” of the recognition event it is being used for.
In most cases, there are three plating options for our pewter achievement awards.
Eternal Spirit with Silver Plating
Silver-Plated Finish
The second option is a silver-plating finish. This provides each sculpture with a brightness and “gleam” that helps attract the viewer’s attention. The shiny surface of silver-plated sculptures also reflects direct light, providing a unique perspective across each plane and curve of the design. Silver-plated sculpture awards strike a balance between the tranquility of brushed pewter sculptures, and the “pop” provided by gold-plated sculptures. Silver is often thought of as “modern” and “high-tech”. Due to the additional silver material required to plate these awards, and the labor needed to apply this plating, silver-plated pewter sculptures have a higher cost, and price, than brushed pewter awards.
Eternal Spirit with Gold Plating
Gold-Plated Finish
The third plating option for our pewter sculpture awards is gold plating. Gold-plated achievement awards provide a high-end “wow” factor that might be appropriate for a given award purpose or recognition event. Gold, of course, connotes a sense of luxury, prestige and elegance. Like our silver-plated awards, gold-plated awards are bright and shiny, and reflected light on the surfaces of these awards introduces a unique dynamic to their look. Given the cost of gold, this is the most expensive plating option for our pewter awards.
Eternal Spirit in Brushed Pewter
Brushed Pewter (Satin) Finish
The first is a natural, brushed pewter finish (with no additional plating). Often, this is described as a “satin” finish. This is an elegant, quiet, understated finish that helps keep the viewer’s focus on the award design itself. This finish does not require any additional metal material for the plating, nor labor to apply this plating, so it is always the least expensive finish option for our pewter sculpture awards.
Dimpled Bronze Finish with Gold-Plated Accents
Combinations of Platings
Finally, in some cases, different plating finishes can be applied to different parts of a given custom or stock recognition award, helping to delineate or accent certain aspects of that award. For example, the main body of a pewter sculpture award can feature a brushed pewter finish, but specific elements of the award can be highlighted with gold plating.
Which is right, or wrong?
We often tell our customers that there really isn’t a “wrong” or “right” choice with respect to pewter finish options. Even within our own company, we each have our personal favorites. The choice really boils down to the preferences and needs of our customers…although we are always happy to provide our own two cents!