[Sca-cooks] pewter

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

As I said before "pewter" just refers to a base metal alloy that can include
tin, antimony, lead, silver, bismuth and other fun stuff. Modern pewter can
be bought in all kinds of variations, each with its own properties.

In period, those fun tokens, badges and such were often cast in pure lead or
else in a tin alloy. You can check it out in the Museum of London book on
Pilgrams badges and tokens...I don't know if every single token contained
lead or not, there seemed to be quite a variety of alloys that they used,
though...

--Anne-Marie

-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of Stefan li Rous
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 9:35 PM
To: SCA-Cooks maillist SCA-Cooks
Subject: [Sca-cooks] pewter

<<< Pewter is an alloy of varying amounts of tin, antimony, and  
copper.  Lead
may or may not be present in the alloy.

Bear >>>

Bear, what is your source for this info?  Knowing your record, I hate  
to say you're wrong, but I think what you are listing here are the  
elements in a modern "lead-free" pewter, rather than a period pewter.

 From my pewter-msg file:
-----
Subject: Cheap Pewter / Instructional pages / Casting Pages / Examples
Date: Mon, 02 Aug 1999 08:54:47 MST
From: rmhowe <magnusm at ncsu.edu>
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu

After Jonathan Blackbow (of Atlantia) suggested getting Pewter from
the Hallmark Metal Co (hallmark.metal at juno.com) 1-888-467-8000
last week I emailed them from their webpage.
http://www.hallmarkmetalscorp.com/
This morning I got an email suggesting I call them.

They don't have a catalog, books on casting, or rtv rubbers that I
had asked about. However they do have the lowest prices on Pewter
I've yet run across. (Being a commodity the metal prices are
subject to change however.)

I spoke with Stephan M. Kaplan and he told me they have two lead
free pewters particularly suitable for our purposes with the first
designed specifically for children at the request of Crayola.
The initials are named for his child.

MPK is a Tin/Copper/Bismuth/Silver alloy melts 5-600 degrees f $4.25 lb.
928 is a Tin/Antimony/Copper alloy / melts 550-650 degrees f $3.75 lb.

The bars are available in 7 lbs, and are notched for three pieces
or can be cut at the factory.
-----

This is in fact the same company that I buy my pewter from which I  
use, mostly for SCA pilgrim badges/site tokens.

At least for my uses, I've found little difference between the two  
alloys, so I've been using the 928 for the last few years.

I can probably find some analysises of period pewter in my archeology  
books, but I'll have to dig them out.

> Not sure on the tin, but you are very correct on pewter having Lead  
> rather
> than tin in it.  Most pewter made today is made from lead free  
> pewter, and
> is therefore safe, but if you don't know the age of the piece, I'd  
> avoid
> using pewter for eating or drinking utensils.  My husband recently  
> made
> some
> site tokens out of pewter, and he made absolutely sure that they  
> were made
> from lead free pewter on the slight off chance that a child might  
> get his
> or her hands on one and put it in their mouth.
>
> Elizabeta

Yes. In all the years and times I've made medallions, I've only used  
leaded instead of lead-free pewter one time. The price difference was  
much less than I expected. At that event, I was selling pewter  
pilgrim medallions, either in lead at 50 cents or lead-free pewter at  
$1. Or maybe it was a quarter and 50 cents. Anyway, I had sold  
several lead-free tokens to a couple with a small child. Before I  
could turn around and move on, the child had his medallion in his mouth.

So, I no longer make any medallions out of lead. Besides, I've  
perfected my craft enough that I can often make medallions which are  
pretty thin or have open voids in the design, like many period  
pilgrim badges do. This makes them lighter around your neck, but also  
makes them cheaper to produce at least in material. My barony frowns  
upon site medallions, even pewter ones, which cost more than 20 cents  
or a quarter so I make them at cost or slightly below and go to pains  
to minimize the pewter needed.

I'm making 250 for the Bryn Gwlad Baronial Hunt the last weekend in  
October. So ya'll come, ya here! :-)

Stefan
(for those in Ansteorra, I also made the site tokens and the  
championship medallions given at the last Ansteorra A&S competition,  
where the entries were chosen for the last Gulf Wars competition.)
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****


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