The Field of Pencil Technology
and happiness as the first step to hell
Count Anton had a point to prove.
He climbed to the highest tower in his ancestral castle, opened the window and threw out 144 pencils.
Not one pencil broke. Not. One. Single. Pencil.
Count Anton Wolfgang Lothar Andreas von Faber-Castell wanted to prove the strength of the pencils created by his family’s company.
Point made, Anton!
You know that feeling when you’ve made something but you’re not quite satisfied? You know when you can see the flaws so you want the next thing you make to be better? It’s the brilliant and annoying thing about creativity. And it’s what keeps you making.
I think the Faber family might have that feeling in their bones.
Kasper Faber was a carpenter who made pencils in Stein, Germany. This was an ordinary thing for a carpenter to do in the mid 1700’s. Pencils were made of wood with a graphite core that crumbled and broke. So Kasper experimented with adding resins to improve the core strength.
Kasper’s son, Anton Wilhelm Faber improved his father’s pencil workshop, expanding and growing it.
Anton’s son Georg Leonhard Faber kept the pencil company going and had three sons of his own:
✏️ Lothar Faber (keep an eye on this guy, he’s a big deal)
✏️ Johann Faber (works alongside his older brother before leaving and setting up his own pencil company. Middle child - I can relate!)
✏️ Eberhard Faber (Americans, this is your guy - he ran the Brooklyn branch and his name is still on US pencils to this day).
Lothar wanted to improve Faber pencils and make them the best in the world. He designed packaging to make his pencils appear as special as jewellery. And he created the hexagonal pencil.
I’d much rather have pencils than jewellery, how about you?
Lothar expanded the pencil business setting up offices in New York, London, Paris, Vienna and St Petersburg. Faber became the world’s dominant pencil maker and this success led to King Maximilian II of Bavaria making Lothar a Count in 1861.
“Count” is the closest English translation of the German word Graf (feminine: Gräfin). To my English ear that sounds beautifully close to the word ‘graphite.’
The company is next inherited by Lothar’s grand-daughter Freiin Ottilie von Faber. She marries Alexander Graf zu Castell-Rüdenhausen. Lothar has decreed that the name Faber must be retained in the case of a woman inheriting the company and so the newly weds become:
Graf und Gräfin von Faber-Castell.
You know, that name from your pencils.
Their son Roland von Faber-Castell inherits the company and successfully merges Faber-Castell pencils with the Johann Faber company (remember the middle child who went off to make his own pencils by himself). Roland is succeeded by our Count Anton, where I started this story.
In the 1960s Count Anton improved pencils by developing an elastic bonding process between the graphite and wooden casing which meant the lead wouldn’t break even if the pencil was dropped from the highest tower of your ancestral castle.
Still not quite satisfied, in the 1990s Count Anton improved on pencils by creating a triangular pencil with raised rubber dots that made it easier to grip and less fiddly for small children developing their fine motor skills.
In a 2013 interview with the New York Times Count Anton had this to say:
If you lean back and say, ‘with my products I can be happy,’ then it’s the first step to hell.
That’s a great point for all creatives of any discipline. Instead of feeling unhappy with part of my work, I’ll try to see dissatisfaction as a force to propel me forward.
The alternative is to decide my work is brilliant, stop trying to improve and have the whole thing go to hell.
Today, Faber-Castell is run by Anton’s four children, the ninth generation of the Faber family to work on improving the humble pencil.
All my posts are remaining free and open for the foreseeable future! If you fancy getting me a cuppa tea that would be amazing! Totally up to you, we’ll still be friends!
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faber-Castell_family
https://www.faber-castell.eu/corporate/history/familiy
https://blog.pencils.com/faber-castell-new-york-times/
https://www.youtube.com/user/fabercastellgroup
So THAT’S what you were doing with your pencil drawings!
I still have a tin of 80 Faber Castell pencils I received as a Christmas gift when I was a teenager. It was a Big Present! I loved them.
They’ve been through the wars with me and are still going strong, although I’ve never tried dropping them from our ancestral tower. Now we live in a bungalow I might never get the chance.
Great story!
I designed a game with my friends where we would have to choose ONE art supply company whose product we would get for free in endless supply until we die (and we can't buy any other brand). I always choose Faber-Castell.