Where to buy a custom ceremonial mace for commencement
You do not buy a ceremonial mace. You commission one. There is no retail channel for university maces because no two institutions want the same object: the head carries your seal, your founding date, and your symbols. Most American universities commission theirs from an individual artist or from a small team of a metalsmith and a woodworker, and the commission typically runs one to two academic terms from first conversation to first procession.
Reviewed
Why there is no catalog
A mace is an identity object. The University of Alaska's was commissioned from the artist Ron Senungetuk, then an assistant professor of art at the university, and presented in 1967 for the institution's golden anniversary. Texas A&M's is sterling silver with walnut and oak, designed by an architecture professor who also carved the staff himself. The University of Delaware commissioned a professor of gold and silversmithing, with a formal agreement signed on November 17, 1970.
That pattern repeats across the country. The mace gets made by a person, not a manufacturer, and the person is often chosen because they already have a relationship with the institution.
The practical consequence: your search is not for a product. It is for a maker, or more often a pair of makers, since a mace usually combines two trades.
The three routes to getting one made
| Route | What it looks like | Best when |
|---|---|---|
| Single studio maker | One silversmith, metalsmith, or sculptor executes the whole object, sometimes subcontracting the shaft | You want one point of accountability and a coherent design voice |
| Metalsmith plus woodworker | A turner or furniture maker produces the shaft, a metalsmith produces the head, mounts, and ferrule | Most common. Also the route if you are using wood with meaning to the campus |
| Regalia or ecclesiastical supply house | Catalog base designs with your seal applied | Fastest and cheapest. Reads as generic, and most committees regret it |
Maker Marketplace covers the first two routes. Ceremonial maces sit at the intersection of hand-forged and fabricated metalwork, silversmithing, woodturning, and carving, and those are the trades on the platform.
What a ceremonial mace costs
Maker Marketplace does not hold enough commission history in this category to publish honest ranges, and these are priced per object rather than per category. Rather than guess, here is what drives the number.
- Weight of precious metal. Sterling silver is the largest single line on most maces
- Hand chasing and engraving versus casting. Hand work is hours
- Number of distinct symbols to be modeled
- Stone setting or enamel
- Heritage shaft wood, which adds handling but little material cost
- Whether design is billed separately from fabrication
- Presentation case and stand
Ask two or three makers to quote against the same written specification. A committee that has settled the spec will get comparable numbers back; one that has not will get a wide spread and learn nothing from it.
How long it takes
| Stage | Duration |
|---|---|
| Committee brief and maker selection | 4 to 10 weeks |
| Design development, drawings, and approval | 4 to 8 weeks |
| Fabrication | 10 to 20 weeks |
| Engraving, finishing, and case | 3 to 5 weeks |
| Total | Roughly 6 to 11 months |
If the mace is meant to debut at a specific commencement, an inauguration, or a centennial, work backward from that date and add a month. Committees are the slow part, not makers.
What to decide before you ask for quotes
A maker cannot quote from "we would like a mace." Answer these first.
The object
- Overall length and weight. Do not guess. If you have an existing mace, measure it. If you do not, borrow the specification from a peer institution of similar age and ceremony style, and have your marshal physically test the weight, since one person carries it at the head of a procession for the full length of the walk.
- Who carries it, and can they carry it comfortably. Many institutions assign the mace to a senior or retiring faculty marshal.
- Whether it must break down for storage or travel.
The symbols
- Institutional seal, and in what form: cast in relief, engraved, enameled, or inlaid.
- Founding date, motto, and the language it appears in.
- Any figurative elements, and who has authority to approve them.
- Names or dedications, and whether space is reserved for future additions.
The materials
- Metal: sterling silver, bronze, brass, or gold plate over a base metal.
- Wood: species and, more importantly, provenance. See below.
- Stones or enamel, and whether they are decorative or symbolic.
The governance
- Who signs off, and in what order. Board, president's office, marketing or brand for seal usage, and often archives or the historian.
- Who owns the design and the drawings afterward.
- Whether the maker may photograph and publish the finished work.
Using campus wood
The strongest single move a committee can make is to source the shaft from a tree that came down on campus. An oak from the original quad, a walnut from the president's house, a tree lost in a named storm. It costs little, it makes the object unrepeatable, and it gives the citation in the commencement program something to say.
Two constraints. The wood needs to be milled and dried properly, which takes time you have to build into the schedule. And you want a maker who is comfortable working with a shaft that has some character in it rather than a perfectly uniform blank. Ask this specifically when you select.
Where the tradition comes from
The academic mace descends from a wooden staff carried by royal messengers. By the fourteenth century it had become an elaborate silver object carried by the university beadle in processions and displayed as a symbol of authority, and by the fifteenth century it read as a mark of academic dignity rather than force. Today it is carried by the commencement marshal at the head of the procession, ahead of the president or chancellor and the platform party, at commencements, inaugurations, and other formal academic ceremonies.
The point for a committee: the mace is not decoration. It leads. That is why the weight and the balance matter as much as the ornament.
Adjacent objects to commission at the same time
Committees almost always underestimate this. If you are commissioning a mace, price these at the same time, from the same maker, while the design language is fresh:
- Chain of office and presidential medallion
- Marshal's batons for college or school marshals
- Gavel and sounding block for the board
- Display case for the object between ceremonies, and a fitted travel case
- Stand for the platform during the ceremony
Doing them together is cheaper and produces a coherent set. Doing them five years apart produces a mismatched one.
How to commission a mace on Maker Marketplace
- Start a commission and describe the object, the deadline, the ceremony it debuts at, and your budget range. Include the seal artwork if you have it in vector form.
- You are matched with makers in the relevant trades. For a mace that usually means a metalsmith, and a turner or furniture maker for the shaft.
- You collaborate directly. Drawings, material samples, and progress photographs go through the platform, so there is a record of every approval. For a committee purchase with multiple sign-offs, that record is the point.
Every maker on the platform is vetted, works with their hands, and is based in the United States.
Sources
- University of Alaska, The Academic Ceremonial Mace
- Texas A&M University Registrar, Ceremonial Mace and Academic Regalia History
- University of Delaware, Mace and Chain of Office
- University of Notre Dame, The University Mace
- Michigan State University, University Mace
- Morgan State University, The University Mace
- UNLV News Center, The Back Story: The University Mace
