Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth a.s. is a Czech

manufacturing company Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a ...

stationery Stationery refers to writing materials, including cut paper, envelopes, continuous form paper, and other office supplies. Stationery usually specifies materials to be written on by hand (e.g., letter paper) or by equipment such as computer p ...

products, based in

České Budějovice České Budějovice (; ) is a city in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 97,000 inhabitants. The city is located in the valley of the Vltava River, at its confluence with the Malše. České Budějovice is the largest ...

. Established in 1790, it is one of the oldest stationery companies in the world. With four factories in its country of origin (

, Městec Králové, Broumov, and

Milevsko Milevsko (; ) is a town in Písek District in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 8,000 inhabitants. Administrative division Milevsko consists of six municipal parts (in brackets population according to the 2021 census): ...

) and one in Bulgaria, the company manufactures and sells a wide range of

writing implement A writing implement or writing instrument is an object used to produce writing. Writing consists of different figures, lines, and or forms. Most of these items can be also used for other functions such as painting, drawing and technical drawing, ...

art materials Media, or mediums, are the core types of material (or related other tools) used by an artist, composer, designer, etc. to create a work of art. For example, a visual artist may broadly use the media of painting or sculpting, which themselves hav ...

, and office products, exporting them to more than 90 countries worldwide.

History

The company was founded in 1790 by Joseph Hardtmuth (1758–1816) of

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. In 1802, the company patented the first

pencil lead 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 (mechanical), abrasi ...

made from a combination of

kaolin Kaolinite ( ; also called kaolin) is a clay mineral, with the chemical composition Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4. It is a layered silicate mineral, with one tetrahedral sheet of silica () linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedral sheet of alumina (). ...

and

graphite Graphite () is a Crystallinity, crystalline allotrope (form) of the element carbon. It consists of many stacked Layered materials, layers of graphene, typically in excess of hundreds of layers. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable ...

. In 1848, Joseph's sons, Karl and Ludwig, took over the family business, and the production was relocated to the

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

n city of Budweis (

, within the current Czech Republic). The products were given awards in many world exhibitions, including in 1855 in New York City, 1856, 1900 and 1925 in Paris, 1862 in London, 1882 in Vienna and 1905 in Milan. At the 1889 World Fair in Paris, the Hardtmuths displayed their pencils rebranded as "Koh-I-Noor Hardtmuth". Each pencil was encased in a yellow cedar-wood barrel. The inspiration for the name was the Koh-i-Noor diamond (Persian for "Mountain of Light"), part of the

Crown Jewels Crown jewels are the objects of metalwork and jewellery in the regalia of a current or former monarchy. They are often used for the coronation of a monarch and a few other ceremonial occasions. A monarch may often be shown wearing them in portra ...

of the United Kingdom, and the largest diamond in the world at the time. After the Second World War, Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth was nationalized. It became privately held in 1992. Since 2007, it has been a member of the Czech parent company KOH-I-NOOR Holding a.s. Since 2000 the owner of the company is , who is its chairman. The previous owner was

Petr Kellner Petr Kellner (20 May 1964 – 27 March 2021) was a Czech billionaire entrepreneur, the founder and majority shareholder (98.93%) of the PPF Group. At the time of his death, he had an estimated net worth of $17.5 billion, making him the wealthi ...

. The company has production facilities in more than 80 countries. It is also a contract manufacturer of small injection-moulded plastic products. Koh-i-Noor was a partner in making Jiří Barta's 2009 animated feature '' Toys In the Attic'', and its pencils appear frequently throughout the film.

Products

Koh-i-Noor's range of products include:Products
on Koh-i-Noor website, 25 Nov 2019 Koh-i-noor 1

References

External links

* {{Portal bar, Companies Manufacturing companies of Czechoslovakia Manufacturing companies of the Czech Republic Czech brands Office supply companies Pen manufacturers Pencil brands Fountain pen and ink manufacturers Purveyors to the Imperial and Royal Court 1790 establishments in the Holy Roman Empire Artists' acrylic paint brands Oil paint brands Watercolor brands Art materials brands České Budějovice Manufacturing companies established in 1970