[BOOK] FABER CASTELL SINCE 1761
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It's already 400th post of my blog - congratulation myself!
Sorry if you have anticipated any writing instruments.
Here I brought a very thick book, but you will soon find out that this post deserves to be the 400th post.
This book contains the history of Faber Castell since its foundation in 1761.
The historical owners of Faber family, products, circumstances of the market, global expansion, and things like that.
The book is gigantic, and the bookcover design is what could be best for the Faber Castell book.
The dark green background with golden letters, which is the signature color of Castell 9000 pencils.
It's impossible to cover all the details of the book.
So I'll just post some interesting pages (totally in terms of my personal taste) and make a short comment just as I did for the 250th anniversary book published in 2011.
Graf von Faber Castell pens, A.W. FABER dip pens, lead holders, mechanical pencil, and pocket pencils.
I have some of them although they might not be exactly the same.
(For example, Graf von Faber Castell's pencils can be found in many Perfect Pencil posts, Graf von Faber Castell's Classic series including pernambuco, two dip pens are alike this and this, pencil extenders are here, sliding mechanical pencils are here, and pocket pencils are here and another will be posted soon.)
Some are really impressive - they have a literally stunning design!
The contents of the book.
It is a near 500 pages book, and explains each generation of Faber Castell in a chronological order.
The historic polygrade pencils.
Here are various Polygrade pencils.
Polygrade pencils led the first golden age of A.W. FABER, and successfully contributed to abuccinate its name worldwidely.
Most well-known Polygrade pencils are this type and this type, but there were diverse kinds of less-known pencils as well.
By definition, Polygrade pencils mean pencils with diverse lead grades, so I often treat them as 1800s pencils with lead grade indicated.
This one looks exactly same as this extender, but it is in the gold color!
This one is much better than mine...
As the world's first pencil manufacturing company, A.W. FABER also produced diverse pencil accessories, including extenders and caps.
Some of them can be found on my blog.
A.W. FABER's dip pens.
Dip pens were earlier forms of fountain pens, and they don't have an ink reservoir.
The uppermost one has a lovely huge nib.
The one on the middle is quite close to these.
Their nib and tail could be stored inside the grip so that one can easily carry them.
The last one is adorned with mother of pearl, like this one.
Many dip pens were made in similar, yet in diverse designs.
A.W. FABER made dip pens even in the 19th century.
As time goes on, the pool of dip pens nearly diminished, even though Faber Castell still made a few calligraphy pens with exchangable nibs.
In turn, the supply of fountain pens increased.
Faber Castell's mass production of fountain pens seems to have begun as they started to acquire Osmia in 1935.
One noticeable point is Faber Castell made some fountain pens even before that.
One clear evidence is this safety fountain pen that was believed to be made in 1910s-20s, and the famous Castell fountain pens released in 1936 were also made without any name of Osmia.
Another type of Polygrade pencils.
There were several pencils with model numbers starting from 5000.
Several variations existed as 9000 series did. (I mean, Castell 9000 pencils with its brothers.)
In 1856, Lothar von Faber purchased a Siberian graphite mine to differentiate his pencils from other brand pencils.
This top quality graphite lead led the prime time of A.W. FABER's Polygrade pencils.
A.W. FABER participated in the slate pencil market too.
Slate pencils were used on the slate blackboard, and mostly used in the 19th century.
In terms of its writing principle, it seems to be close to the silverpoint.
This book also contains some catalogs of A.W. FABER in the late 1800s.
You can find these on the Internet, and you might encounter another catalog in 1884.
The catalog in 1884 exhibits tons of products of A.W. FABER, so this one is very impactful.
I still don't know which specific category this kind of pen belongs to.
The book says "Taschenstift," while the 1884 catalog named it in rather strange way (pencil case.)
Anyway, the book says it is a pocket pen with a sliding mechanism.
Both sides can ve slided under the barrel, and you can see their examples in this post.
Castell pencils that achieved today's Faber Castell was first appeared on the market in 1905.
This green pencil led to the second renaissance of A.W. FABER.
Castell is now famous for its symbol of two jousting knights, but this iconic symbol seems to be used later than 1908.
In prior to that, Castell's castle symbol was used, as you can see in this post.
The most famous member of Castell pencil family must be indisputably Castell 9000 pencil.
Notwithstanding this, there were diverse members in Castell series.
There also appear some pencil caps, and there were Castell pencils with erasers too.
Most of them can't be found today, and only several pencils survived. Alas!
As far as I know, A.W. FABER didn't made any anniversary pens until 1911.
In 1861, albeit Lothar von Faber established a local church and provided some welfare for its 100th birthday, no pens were exclusively made.
A.W. FABER published a patent on the first leadholder in 1861 as well, but it wasn't to celebrate its birthday.
Instead in 1911, A.W. FABER launched several anniversary pens for its 150th anniversary.
The above photo was 150th anniversary pencil with its own tin case, and Castell pencils also commemorated its anniversary in its own way.
Since then, Faber Castell started to its birthdays in various ways.
Anniversary pens are almost summarized in this post, so you can always refer to this if you are interested.
One comment on the photo: among three boxes, the uppermost one is not original.
You can notice this from the balance symbol.
That symbol had been used since 1914.
Still, all three boxes are adorable.
Castell fountain pen released in 1936.
Propelling pencils were also made with the same concepts, and the sets of fountain pen and propelling pencil were sold too.
One strange thing is, many literature says this fountain pen was first showed in the market in 1936, but A.W. FABER's 175th anniversary book published in 1936 tells Castell fountain pens were first made in 1935.
It's very impressive A.W. FABER made such diverse mechanical pencils!
Catalog from 1932, then it was even earlier than A.W. FABER began to work with Osmia.
I've seen none of them yet, and I wonder whether they also had fountain pen counterparts.
Here are some more!
It says Graf von Faber Castell got some motivations from them.
Clearly, modern propelling pencils of Graf von Faber Castell have similarities.
Rejuvenating old designs with modern interpretations!
Some Faber Castell pens in 1951.
It was the right year Faber Castell fully acquired Osmia.
The first ones are the so-called "Gentleman" fountain pen and mechanical pencil.
This model was released in 1949, and there also existed plain versions with no marbling patterns.
The next one is 88x fountain pen with green stripe patterns.
All 882-884 fountain pens were available in green stripe versions, while other plain color versions also existed.
For your information, the prices were DM 15, 17.5, and 20 for 882, 883, and 884 respectively.
Why the prices were heavily different?
A catalog in 1950s chose the words lady format, normal format, and gentleman format for each of them, those meanings are not comprehensible to me however.
The last one seems to be Progress rolled gold model in ballpoint pen version.
Progress lines were one of the main products of Osmia, and it kept its identity even after Osmia was acquired by Faber Castell.
Not particularly in honor of this, but Faber Castell released a special limited version of Progress 66 rolled gold models.
In sum, Faber Castell showed off diverse fountain pen lines with model numbers from 2-digit to 4-digit, along with some mechanical pencil and ballpoint pen counterparts.
In the meantime, they also presented some unique products nothing to do with Osmia.
Here I collected some vintage fountain pens of Faber Castell.
Faber Castell took another revolutionary step in the world of mechanical pencil.
Being the first introducer of modern leadholder, Faber Castell again took the first place in the realm of full auto mechanical pencil.
Starting from DS75, Faber Castell expanded its territory through TK-matic and Alpha-matic.
As we have seen above, A.W. FABER have made leadholders and propelling pencils since 1800s.
Not much as the pencil, but it's pretty certain Faber Castell have maintained its strong ground in the mechanical pencil market since then.
Faber Castell still provides diverse line-ups from the high-end mechanical pencils via Graf von Faber Castell to the cheaper models like Poly-matics.
Brginning as the local pencil company that mimicked British pencils, making itself luxurious by pretending, Faber Castell became the undoubtedly world's best and longest pencil company.
In the meanwhile, Faber Castell expanded its imperium to other writing insgruments - dip pens, fountain pens, propelling pencils, mechanical pencils, color pencils, rollerballs, ballpoint pens, etc.
The power of time is amazing and longevity is the most powerful asset.
To survive on the market for more than 260 years, Faber Castell has accomplished numerous innovations.
The future of Faber Castell will always be hotly-anticipated.
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