Kaspar Faber (1730 – 1784) was a German

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

. He was the founder of the well-known stationery company now known as

Faber-Castell Faber-Castell AG is a manufacturer of pens, pencils, other office supplies (e.g., staplers, slide rules, erasers, rulers)Faber-Castell InternationalOffice Products and art supplies,Faber-Castell InternationalProducts for FineArts and FineWriting ...

Life and work

After finishing school, Faber trained as a

carpenter Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, Shipbuilding, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. ...

. In 1758 he moved from the town of Langenzenn to the municipality of

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 Austr ...

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 ...

. His son Anton Wilhelm was born that same year. Two years later he settled permanently in Stein as a carpenter and in 1761 opened a small workshop where he produced

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 ...

s, a typical activity of the carpenter trade at that time. Efforts to turn pencilmaking into a

guild A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...

-approved craft failed due to lack of approval from the Nuremberg ''Rugsamt'', which supervised trades in the city and its environs. Pencils made of pure

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 ...

easily crumbled and broke. Thus in 1771 Faber undertook the first attempts to improve pencils by combining ground graphite with

sulfur Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formula ...

antimony Antimony is a chemical element with the symbol Sb (from la, stibium) and atomic number 51. A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (Sb2S3). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient time ...

, and binding

resin In polymer chemistry and materials science, resin is a solid or highly viscous substance of plant or synthetic origin that is typically convertible into polymers. Resins are usually mixtures of organic compounds. This article focuses on natu ...

s. The technique of gluing pencils into wooden sticks was already well known in Nuremberg at that time, but Faber did not use it. During Faber's lifetime, his pencil production business was still on a small scale. With his small workshop he laid the foundation for a pencil factory which his 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, ...

expanded into the world-famous Faber-Castell brand in the middle of the 19th century. The company is still owned by Faber's descendants, currently in the eighth generation. The ''Kaspar-Faber-Straße'' ("Kaspar Faber Street") in

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...

- Oberneuland was named after him in 2000.

References

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External links

Early history of Faber-Castell
{{DEFAULTSORT:Faber, Kaspar German carpenters German company founders 1730 births 1784 deaths 18th-century German businesspeople