Should you choose pewter for your custom award, as opposed to bronze, you have a few design options when it comes to plating your final award. Each plating option provides a unique finish and “look and feel” to the award. Which plating option is best for any given pewter award design depends both on the personal preference of the designer/presenter and the desired theme, image, and “personality” of the event it is being used for. There are typically three plating options you can choose from for your award.
Natural
The first plating option 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 details itself. It’s not especially “showy,” but still creates a lovely final product. This finish does not require any additional metal material for the plating, nor any labor to apply this plating, so it is always the least expensive finish option for pewter awards, so works well for organizations that are looking to save on their custom award design.
Silver-Plating Finish
The second option is a silver-platied finish. This provides each sculpture with a brightness and “gleam” that helps attract attention, even once the award is living on shelf or desk somewhere. The shiny surface of silver-plated sculptures also reflects direct light, providing a unique perspective across each plane and curve of the design, making for especially striking finishes on awards like the “Freedom” recognition award. Silver-plated pewter awards strike a balance between the tranquility of brushed pewter sculptures, and the “pop” provided by gold-plated sculptures.
Silver is also often thought of as “modern” and “high-tech”, so if that is something you are hoping your design reflects a silver-plating finish is your best bet. 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 end cost than natural brushed pewter awards.
Gold Plating
The third plating option for pewter awards is gold plating. Gold-plated awards provide a high-end “wow” factor that might be appropriate for a public award purpose or recognition event. Gold, of course, connotes a sense of luxury, prestige and elegance. For instance, the Golden Globe awards are not made of solid gold, but feature a gold plating to make them appear more expensive. Like silver-plated awards, gold-plated awards are very 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 pewter awards.
Depending on your design, different plating finishes can be applied to different parts of the award, helping accent certain aspects of that award. For instance, the World Billfishing Championship, the Angler World Championship trophy had elements that were plated in silver, while for the Team World Championship the metal elements were gold plated.