Faber-Castell AG is a German privately-held multinational manufacturer of

pen PEN may refer to: * (National Ecological Party), former name of the Brazilian political party Patriota (PATRI) * PEN International, a worldwide association of writers ** English PEN, the founding centre of PEN International ** PEN America, located ...

pencil A pencil () is a writing or drawing implement with a solid pigment core in a protective casing that reduces the risk of core breakage and keeps it from marking the user's hand. Pencils create marks by physical abrasion, leaving a trail of ...

s, other

office supplies Office supplies are consumables and equipment regularly used in offices by businesses and other organizations, required to sustain office operations. For example, office supplies may be used by individuals engaged in written communications, rec ...

(e.g., staplers,

slide rule A slide rule is a hand-operated mechanical calculator consisting of slidable rulers for conducting mathematical operations such as multiplication, division, exponents, roots, logarithms, and trigonometry. It is one of the simplest analog ...

eraser An eraser (also known as a rubber in some Commonwealth countries, including South Africa from which the material first used got its name) is an article of stationery that is used for removing marks from paper or skin (e.g. parchment or vellu ...

ruler A ruler, sometimes called a rule, scale, line gauge, or metre/meter stick, is an instrument used to make length measurements, whereby a length is read from a series of markings called "rules" along an edge of the device. Usually, the instr ...

s)Faber-Castell International
Office Products
and art supplies,Faber-Castell International
Products for FineArts and FineWriting
as well as high-end writing instruments and luxury leather goods. Headquartered in Stein, Germany, it operates 14 factories and 20 sales units throughout the globe. The Faber-Castell Group employs a staff of approximately 6,500 and does business in more than 120 countries. The House of Faber-Castell is the family which founded and continues to exercise leadership within the corporation. Faber-Castell manufactures about 2 billion pencils in more than 120 different colors every year.

History

Founding, Family Ownership, and Early Expansion (1761-1896)

Faber-Castell was founded in 1761 in Stein,

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, by cabinet maker

Kaspar Faber Kaspar Faber (1730 – 1784) was a German entrepreneur. He was the founder of the well-known stationery company now known as Faber-Castell. Life and work After finishing school, Faber trained as a carpenter. In 1758 he moved from the town ...

(1730–1784) as the A.W. Faber Company. It has remained in the Faber family for eight generations. The company expanded under Kaspar Faber's great-grandson, Johann Lothar Freiherr von Faber (1817–1896), and his wife Ottilie."History"
. Faber-Castell International. Retrieved February 18, 2019. Lothar opened branches in New York (1849), London (1851), Paris (1855), and expanded into Vienna (1872) and St. Petersburg (1874). The company also began offering products other than pencils, opening a factory in Geroldsgrün,

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

, where slide rules were produced, a slate factory in Geroldsgrün, and producing ink and paint in Noisy-le-Sec, near Paris.

Securing Global Recognition

To combat counterfeit A.W. Faber products, Lothar petitioned the Reichstag to put in place trademark protections in Germany. As a result, the Act on Trade Mark Protection came into effect in 1875, and protections were expanded in the 1894 Act on the Protection of Trade Marks. Lothar's first trademark was registered in 1894, with the registration number DE 43. Outside of Germany, the trademark was also registered in the United States (where it was one of the earliest ever registered), Russia, England, Spain, France, and Italy during Lothar's time as the head of the company.

The Rise of "Castell" Pencils and the Jousting Knights Motif (1898-1908)

In 1898, Lothar's granddaughter and heiress, Ottilie "Tilly" von Faber, married Count Alexander zu

Castell-Rüdenhausen Castell-Rüdenhausen was a County in the region of Franconia in northern Bavaria of the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by a branch of the Counts of Castell. It was created as a partition of Castell and in 1806, it was mediatised to Bavaria. On 7 Ma ...

, and the couple became progenitors of the Faber-Castell family. Seven years later, the company began producing a new line of pencils, called "Castell"; over the next few years, this line developed recognizable branding, featuring the green color of the pencils (chosen to match the color of Alexander's military regiment), a logo depicting a castle, and the motif of two

jousting Jousting is a medieval and renaissance martial game or hastilude between two combatants either on horse or on foot. The joust became an iconic characteristic of the knight in Romantic medievalism. The term is derived from Old French , ultim ...

knights, which was used on packaging and in advertising. This motif originated with a painting, commissioned by Alexander, of two knights jousting with pencils, and would eventually become the inspiration behind the company's current logo. 1908 saw the release of the Polychromos

coloured pencils A colored pencil (American English), coloured pencil (Commonwealth English), colour pencil (Indian English), map pencil, pencil crayon, or coloured/colouring lead (Canadian English, Newfoundland English) is a type of pencil constructed of a na ...

, which continue to be made and widely used today.

World War I

As a German company, several of the Faber-Castell's foreign subsidiaries and branches in Allied countries were confiscated during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. Among them, the Faber-Castell properties in New York and Paris were eventually sold off. Nevertheless, the company survived and saw further growth following the war with the construction of new, expanded manufacturing facilities and new company acquisitions. The company's name was also officially changed following Alexander's death in 1928, becoming A.W. Faber "Castell" Bleistiftfabrik (Pencil Company).

The Great Depression and World War II

As the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

cast its long shadow over the global economy in the early 1930s, Alexander's son, Roland von Faber-Castell, inherited the leadership of the company. Facing economic hardship, Roland sought strategic partnerships to weather the storm. In 1932, a collaboration with Johann Faber, a rival pencil company founded by Lothar Faber's brother, was established. The two shared resources in an effort to operate more efficiently and bring down their costs. In the following years, Roland gradually bought up shares of Johann Faber until it was fully acquired (along with its Brazilian subsidiary) in 1942. This strategic move brought the popular Goldfaber colored pencil line under the Faber-Castell umbrella. During this period, further expansion came through the acquisition of the renowned

fountain pen A fountain pen is a writing instrument that uses a metal nib (pen), nib to apply Fountain pen ink, water-based ink, or special pigment ink—suitable for fountain pens—to paper. It is distinguished from earlier dip pens by using an internal r ...

maker, Osmia. In 1939, the Third Reich seized the Stein Castle near Nuremberg, previously owned by Count Roland von Faber-Castell, a seventh-generation head of the Faber-Castell pencil manufacturing company. The Nazis removed Count Faber-Castell from his leadership position and reportedly used the castle's bell tower for Allied bombing raid interception. Count Roland von Faber-Castell was drafted into the German military, which resulted in a shift in leadership for the Faber-Castell company. At this time, the first non-family CEO was appointed by the Nazi party. Amidst managerial changes, Count Roland's wife, Nina, converted the company into a

sole proprietorship A sole proprietorship, also known as a sole tradership, individual entrepreneurship or proprietorship, is a type of enterprise owned and run by only one person and in which there is no legal distinction between the owner and the business entity. ...

, effectively regaining control. By 1942, the company had been renamed A. W. Faber-Castell. In the years following

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the company expanded internationally into Ireland, Austria, Brazil, Peru, Australia, and Argentina, as well as re-acquiring several subsidiaries which had been lost in wartime. It also began offering new products, such as a

mechanical pencil A mechanical pencil or clutch pencil is a pencil with a replaceable and mechanically extendable solid pigment core called a "lead" . The pencil lead, lead, often made of graphite, is not bonded to the outer casing, and the user can mechanically e ...

ballpoint pen A ballpoint pen, also known as a biro (British English), ball pen (Hong Kong, Indian, Indonesian, Pakistani, and Philippine English), or dot pen ( Nepali English and South Asian English), is a pen that dispenses ink (usually in paste form) ...

s, plastic slide rules (instead of wood), and an

India ink India ink (British English: Indian ink; also Chinese ink) is a simple black or coloured ink once widely used for writing and printing and now more commonly used for drawing and outlining, especially when inking comic books and comic strips. In ...

drawing pen. The Faber-Castell logo was changed in 1950 to an oval design, incorporating the Faber-Castell family crest and the green color which the company had been using since 1905. Today, the company operates 10 factories and 22 sales units, with six in Europe, four in Asia, three in North America, five in South America, and one each in Australia and New Zealand. The Faber-Castell Group employs a staff of approximately 6,500 and does business in more than 120 countries.

Products

Beginning in the 1850s Faber started to use

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from Siberia and cedar wood from Florida to produce its pencils. Faber-Castell is well known for its brand of PITT Artist

s. The pens, used by

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and

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artists such as

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"Adam Hughes – Anatomy of a sketch, Pt3 – The Tools"

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; May 15, 2006, Accessed September 8, 2010 contain an

that is both acid-free and

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, and come in a variety of colors. The following chart contains all the Faber-Castell product lines. From about 1880 to 1975 Faber-Castell was also one of the world's major manufacturers of

s, the best known of which was the 2/83N.

Manufacturing

There are about 16 manufacturing plants (in 10 countries) which mainly manufacture writing instruments.

References

External links

*
Graf von Faber-Castell – Luxury writing instruments

Faber-Castell slide rule collection

Faber-Castell: The future of the pencil

BBC visits Nuremberg in Germany to look at Staedtler and Faber-Castell's productive pencil rivalry. Audio, 28 minutes.
* {{Authority control Watercolor brands Companies based in Bavaria Companies established in 1761 Fountain pen and ink manufacturers German brands Office supply companies of Germany Pencil brands Writing implement manufacturers