Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur
The Royal Selangor Visitor Centre in Setapak, Kuala Lumpur, is the working factory, museum and workshop complex of Royal Selangor, the world's largest pewter manufacturer, founded in 1885 by Yong Koon, a young pewtersmith who sailed from Shantou, China, and began casting Chinese ceremonial altarware from a Cross Street shophouse. His third son Peng Kai kept the trade alive and moved the factory to Setapak in 1962, trading for decades as Selangor Pewter until Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah of Selangor granted it a royal warrant in 1979, leading to the 1992 rename as Royal Selangor. Its headline attraction, cast for the 1985 centenary, is a Guinness World Record pewter tankard 1.987 metres tall and weighing 1,557 kg. The Sultan formally opened the Visitor Centre in 2004, and in 2025, now guided by a fourth generation of the Yong family, the company marked its 140th anniversary with the Spirit of Artistry campaign and a Timeless Journey exhibition staged at the centre.
Ngeok Foh ("Jade Peace")
1885, Yong Koon's original Cross Street shophouse and touchmark
Malayan Pewter Works
from 1930, Pudu Road
Selangor Pewter
1960s to 1991, Setapak
Royal Selangor
1992 to present
1885
Yong Koon, a young pewtersmith from Shantou, China, arrives in Kuala Lumpur and opens a shophouse on Cross Street (now Jalan Tun Tan Siew Sin), casting Chinese ceremonial altarware stamped with a touchmark meaning "Jade Peace Pure Tin."
1930
Yong Koon splits from his brothers and re-establishes the business with his wife and four sons as Malayan Pewter Works on Pudu Road, adding tankards, ashtrays and tea services for a growing British colonial clientele.
1950
By this point Peng Kai, Yong Koon's third son, is the only one of the four brothers still working in the pewter trade and keeps the family business running through the difficult postwar years.
1962
Peng Kai moves the factory to a 370 square metre plant in Setapak, on the northern edge of Kuala Lumpur, the site that remains company headquarters today; the business trades as Selangor Pewter.
1968
Poh Kon, the youngest of Peng Kai's four children, becomes managing director and drives the company's push into export markets.
1979
Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah of Selangor, amused that Australian retailers in Perth recognised the name "Selangor Pewter" but not the state of Selangor itself, confers a royal warrant on the company, requiring pieces bought for his household to bear the words "By royal appointment to his Royal Highness, The Sultan of Selangor."
1985
To mark its centenary, the company casts a pewter tankard 1.987 metres tall, weighing 1,557 kg with a 2,796 litre capacity, entered in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest pewter tankard; it still stands on display at Setapak.
1992
The company is formally renamed Royal Selangor, in recognition of the 1979 royal warrant and its expanded range of gifts and homeware beyond pewter alone.
1993
Royal Selangor acquires Comyns, an English silversmith founded in 1645, together with an archive of roughly 35,000 silversmithing tools and pattern books, bringing sterling silver craft into the group alongside pewter.
2004
The Sultan of Selangor formally opens the Royal Selangor Visitor Centre at the Setapak factory, combining a working foundry, a pewter museum and public workshops, including a Petronas Twin Towers replica built from pewter tankards.
2025
Royal Selangor, now led day to day by a fourth generation of the Yong family including managing director Datuk Yong Yoon Li, marks its 140th anniversary with the year-long Spirit of Artistry campaign and stages the Timeless Journey exhibition, made with local graffiti artists, at the Visitor Centre.
The Giant Tankard
Cast in 1985 for Royal Selangor's centenary, the tankard is 1.987 metres tall, weighs 1,557 kg and holds 2,796 litres, a specification entered in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest pewter tankard and still displayed at the Setapak site where it was made.
Petronas Twin Towers replica
Designed by the centre's in-house exhibit team, the model reproduces the Twin Towers using more than 7,000 individual pewter tankards, a piece built specifically for the Visitor Centre rather than sold as a retail product.
Comyns Archive
Housed at the centre since Royal Selangor's 1993 acquisition of the English silversmith Comyns, founded in London in 1645, the archive holds about 35,000 silversmithing tools and pattern books, some centuries old, that the group still draws on for its sterling silver line.
School of Hard Knocks workshop
Visitors hammer and shape their own pewter dish using the same hand-hammering technique pewtersmiths have used at the Setapak factory since production moved there in 1962, taught by working craftsmen rather than as a purely decorative demonstration.
Wall of Hands
An interior design feature, created by the centre's design team for the 2004 opening, casting the handprints of long-serving Royal Selangor employees in pewter, a tribute to the factory workforce rather than the founding family.
Live Craftsmanship Showcase
A working section of the foundry floor visible to visitors, where casting and hand-finishing are demonstrated by factory craftsmen, some with more than two decades of experience in the trade.
Royal Selangor was founded in 1885 by Yong Koon, a young pewtersmith who had arrived in Kuala Lumpur from Shantou, China, and began casting Chinese ceremonial altarware from a shophouse on Cross Street, now Jalan Tun Tan Siew Sin. That workshop grew into what is today the world's largest pewter manufacturer.
In the late 1970s, Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah of Selangor found that retailers in Perth, Australia recognised the name Selangor Pewter but not the state of Selangor itself, and on his return in 1979 granted the firm a royal warrant. The company adopted the name Royal Selangor in 1992 in recognition of that warrant.
The business traded under several names before 1992: Malayan Pewter Works from 1930 on Pudu Road, then Selangor Pewter after the factory moved to Setapak in 1962. It became Royal Selangor only in 1992, more than a century after Yong Koon founded it.
The Visitor Centre was formally opened in 2004 by the Sultan of Selangor at Royal Selangor's Setapak factory, the same site the company moved its production to in 1962. It was built to let the public watch pewter being cast and finished on the working factory floor.
It is a pewter tankard cast in 1985 to mark Royal Selangor's centenary, standing 1.987 metres tall, weighing 1,557 kg and holding 2,796 litres. The Guinness Book of Records recognises it as the world's largest pewter tankard.
Royal Selangor remains a family business, now overseen by the third and fourth generations of the Yong family descended from founder Yong Koon. Fourth-generation managing director Datuk Yong Yoon Li led the company's 140th anniversary celebrations in 2025.
It is the collection of tools and pattern books Royal Selangor inherited when it acquired the English silversmith Comyns, founded in London in 1645, in 1993. The archive holds roughly 35,000 items and supports the sterling silverware the group still produces under the Comyns name.
Sources
