Are you interested in having the Pewterers Guild create a token for your branch or event? The most important thing that you should know is that we do this for fun, not for profit. We do this for events, branches, and offices. If you're looking for an individual token, you should join the guild and make one, or come to one of the meetings and see if anyone is interested in doing a trade.
Things that you should know before contacting us:
- We are not a business, we do this for fun, not for profit
- We like at least 3 months lead time before the event (more is better)
- We charge for only the cost of the materials
- The Artisan keeps the mold
- Tokens are not to be sold without our permission
- We keep any leftover tokens from the event
- Our deadline is one week before the event
When you contact us please have the following info:
- Date of the event
- The Branch that is sponsoring the event or token (who we will bill too)
- What this token is being made for (event, award, or office favor)
- Any design thoughts or is your interested in historical accuracy (if not, the theme of the event if any)
- How many people you expect (or tokens you might need)
- If you have a budget that you want to keep under
After you contact us we bring it up to other guild members to see if there are other people interested in doing it. If more than one member is interested and they both have different ideas, you can choose between the two, or if you have something specific in mind, you can suggest it and we'll see if there are any takers. Our ability and desire to create a site token varies from season to season. Once we've made a mold, it remains the property of the artist unless other arrangements are made. The Guild reserves the right to re-create the piece for our own displays, but we'll be discreet about not distributing them randomly (we respect award tokens, etc.)
We price by weight, tokens are currently $12 a pound. There's also a flat fee which covers stone and shop expenses ($5.00). Usually the total average is about $30 per event, depending on the heft of the token and the number of pieces produced. The larger the event, the less complex the mould, and the larger the lead time necessary. Our typical casting run is for less than 150 tokens.
Our due date is usually the weekend before the event (if the event starts on a Friday, we'll have it done on the Sunday previous). If this doesn't meet your expectations, consider other sources for your site token needs. If you're going to give thanks, give thanks to the artist AND the guild. It's a team effort, and creating the mold is only part of the work, casting takes more labor than mould creation. Changes of intention must receive buy-in from the artist (i.e. if we create 150 site tokens for you, and then you decide that you'd rather not to give them out as site tokens but instead sell them as a fund raiser, the artist can choose to keep the tokens [at no charge to you] for someone who wants to give them out as site tokens).
For an event, billing is done typically after the event, so that any extra tokens are credited back to the guild. If the tokens are for a branch or office, billing is done at delivery. The bill will be sent directly to an official SCA group or office (again, the guild doesn't do personal token commissions).