Faber-Castell AG is a manufacturer of

pens A pen is a common writing instrument that applies ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Early pens such as reed pens, quill pens, dip pens and ruling pens held a small amount of ink on a nib or in a small void or cavity w ...

pencils 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 ...

, other

office supplies Office supplies are consumables and equipment regularly used in offices by businesses and other organizations, by individuals engaged in written communications, recordkeeping or bookkeeping, janitorial and cleaning, and for storage of supplies o ...

(e.g.,

stapler A stapler is a mechanical device that joins pages of paper or similar material by driving a thin metal staple through the sheets and folding the ends. Staplers are widely used in government, business, offices, work places, homes and schools. ...

slide rule The slide rule is a mechanical analog computer which is used primarily for multiplication and division, and for functions such as exponents, roots, logarithms, and trigonometry. It is not typically designed for addition or subtraction, which ...

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

ruler A ruler, sometimes called a rule, line gauge, or scale, is a device used in geometry and technical drawing, as well as the engineering and construction industries, to measure distances or draw straight lines. Variants Rulers have long ...

s)Faber-Castell International
Office Products
and

art supplies Arts media is the material and tools used by an artist, composer or designer to create a work of art, for example, "pen and ink" where the pen is the tool and the ink is the material. Here is a list of types of art and the media used within thos ...

,Faber-Castell International
Products for FineArts and FineWriting
as well as high-end writing instruments and luxury leather goods. Headquartered in

Stein Stein is a German, Yiddish and Norwegian word meaning "stone" and "pip" or "kernel". It stems from the same Germanic root as the English word stone. It may refer to: Places In Austria * Stein, a neighbourhood of Krems an der Donau, Lower Aust ...

, Germany, it operates 14 factories and 20 sales units throughout the globe. The Faber-Castell Group employs a staff of approximately 8,000 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

Faber-Castell was founded in 1761 at Stein near

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

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 of ...

(1730–84) as the A.W. Faber Company, and has remained in the Faber family for eight generations. It opened branches in New York (1849), London (1851), Paris (1855), and expanded to Vienna (1872) and St. Petersburg (1874). It opened a factory in

Geroldsgrün Geroldsgrün is a municipality in the Hof district of Bavaria, Germany. Geography Boroughs * Dürrenwaid * Dürrenwaiderhammer * Langenbachtal * Langenau * Langenbach * Lotharheil * Mühlleiten * Geroldsgrün * Geroldsreuth * Großenreuth ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

, where slide rules were produced. It expanded internationally and launched new products under Kaspar Faber's ambitious great-grandson,

Johann Lothar Freiherr von Faber Johann Lothar Freiherr von Faber (born 12 June 1817 in Unterspitzgarten near Stein, Bavaria – 26 July 1896 in Stein) was a German industrialist. He inherited the pencil company Faber-Castell Faber-Castell AG is a manufacturer of pens, pencils ...

(1817–96)."History"
Faber-Castell International. Retrieved February 18, 2019. In 1900, after the marriage of Lothar's granddaughter and heiress with a count of Castell, the A.W. Faber enterprise took the name of ''Faber-Castell'' and a new

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wordma ...

, combining the Faber motto, ''Since 1761'', with the "

jousting Jousting is a martial game or hastilude between two horse riders wielding lances with blunted tips, often as part of a tournament (medieval), tournament. The primary aim was to replicate a clash of heavy cavalry, with each participant trying t ...

knights" of the Castells'

coat-of-arms A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its w ...

. A.W. Faber is the oldest brand-name pencil continuously sold in the US, having begun sales in 1870. 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 8,000 and does business in more than 120 countries.

Products

Beginning in the 1850s Faber started to use

graphite Graphite () is a crystalline form of the element carbon. It consists of stacked layers of graphene. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable form of carbon under standard conditions. Synthetic and natural graphite are consumed on large ...

from Siberia and

cedar Cedar may refer to: Trees and plants *''Cedrus'', common English name cedar, an Old-World genus of coniferous trees in the plant family Pinaceae *Cedar (plant), a list of trees and plants known as cedar Places United States * Cedar, Arizona * ...

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

pen A pen is a common writing instrument that applies ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Early pens such as reed pens, quill pens, dip pens and ruling pens held a small amount of ink on a nib or in a small void or cavity wh ...

s. The pens, used by comic and manga artists such as

Adam Hughes Adam Hughes (born May 5, 1967) is an American comics artist and illustrator best known to American comic book readers for his renderings of pinup-style female characters, and his cover work on titles such as ''Wonder Woman'' and ''Catwoman''. H ...

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

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

; May 15, 2006, Accessed September 8, 2010 contain an India ink that is both acid-free and

archival An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...

, 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

History

Products

Manufacturing

See also

References

External links