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Reviving the Blackwing: Understanding the Traditional Blackwing Fan

Welcome back. I hope that you’re enjoying this series of posts as we explore our company’s journey to revive the Blackwing. (To catch up if you’re new see Post One and Post Two) As promised today is the day I’ll begin focusing on our growing understanding of the traditional “Blackwing” fan and their concerns and feedback as we’ve been going through our consumer evaluation process of initial Palomino Blackwing production.
Photo Courtesy: The Blackwing Pages

Right from the start it was clear that we had a core challenge to address in reviving the Blackwing: How to please the traditional fans with a product that honors the “original” while also developing a new Palomino Blackwing product that complements and extends our Palomino product range and can become economically successful. Ultimately, we developed and produced the product that has been distributed for these consumer evaluations. This product is in part based on my research on the internet of many, many posts about the Blackwing over the last several years. One interesting post related to designing the ideal pencil was Frankenpencil, originally published by Lisa Laughy on her Ninth Wave Designs blog and archived today in the Pencils.com community site. I also considered economic factors, design trends and perhaps a certain degree of personal preference in creating a product that I believe can ultimately be successful as well as share some consistent design elements with our Palomino product range. So far there has been a strong overall response to the Palomino Blackwing by our testing groups and those requesting preorders. We’ve had scores of e-mails from those ready to buy the product as is now regardless of future changes we may implement, the color of eraser, finish, etc. However, it’s clear from the feedback we are getting on our surveys, blogs and e-mails that many traditional Blackwing fans expect or have a strong preference essentially for almost an exact duplication of the original Blackwing down to the finest of details. Stephen’s Pencil Talk review posted over the weekend, shows the amazing level of detail some Blackwing fans are going to assess this new item. Even down to weighing differences in erasers on a scale and enlarging images of the imprint by 50x or more . I am not sure any wood cased pencil ever has had such a degree of public scrutiny by end consumers before being introduced. Pencil Talk raises the valid comment that our new pencil is not a clone of the original, but a modern interpretation. I think this is a fair representation given my stated intent to “honor the original while extending the Palomino range”.As good as our new item is the most unwavering Blackwing fans seem to consider it near heresy if we do not provide an exact match to the graphite writing and drawing performance of the original as well as the design and look of the finish, eraser color, etc. Thus some even feel this pencil fails to acheive the goal of “honoring the original”. Clearly the smooth writing and drawing graphite performance has always been the most important quality feature, but there are many strong emotional attachments also to the original’s lacquer finish, it’s pink eraser assembly and perhaps more importantly to the phrase “Half the Pressure, Twice the Speed.” One or two even mention the painted band on the ferrule is preferred, though not all versions of the original had this feature. Most traditionalists are very happy that we revived the original classic ferrule and eraser design with the flat, removable eraser and believe we’ve improved on the original in this area.My next post will begin to address the specific feedback on product featuers and performance, starting with Graphite Performance, and moving on in successive topics daily this week. In the meantime we’ve now also set up a new Palomino Blackwing page on Pencils.com to serve as a central point for information on this pencil including updates on product availability.

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Reviving the Blackwing: Why take on this Challenge?

In Part One of this Series, I introduced our current process of gathering initial consumer response to our new Palomino Blackwing pencil. While we’re completing our evaluation of responses today I answer the question “Why is CalCedar reviving the Blackwing?”.Photo Courtesy: The Blackwing Pages
Pure and simple. Blackwing is a great and iconic name among serious pencil fans. Revered for its legendary smooth writing performance and classic extendable rectangular eraser it’s become known as the pencil of famous animators, illustrators, musicians and writers as well as those who simply appreciate the best. The Blackwing’s lore has increased since production was discontinued in 1998, creating an “old stock” eBay market bearing prices from $20 to $40 per pencil. This pencil is kept as a collectable or stingily used only for special creative activities. All other high quality graphite pencils seem to be compared to the Blackwing as the standard of perfection.Anyone crazy enough to try to build a new brand name in a rough and tumble globalized commodity business like the pencil industry is always going to want the best advantage possible. Very few pencil producers really professionally and effectively advertise and market pencils anymore. The closest promotion the average consumer is exposed to are circular ads of mass retailers and office superstores offering “loss leader” prices during back to school time to get people in the door. They’ll give away $2 of pencils at or below cost to sell that $10 to 20 calculator and other goods that makes them much higher margins. The cost pressure from the large retailers drives producers towards an obsessive focus on the economics of pencil production. Over the last 20 years, this has resulted in a reduction in the general quality of pencils and outsourcing overseas while cutting marketing support dollars and manpower devoted to thinking creatively about pencils. The benefit to society is a lower cost product on average when it comes to pencils. The cost is a loss of understanding and appreciation by the average pencil user of what a good quality pencil really feels like to use and how it performs. The proof, put a Palomino, a Mitsubishi Hi-Uni, a Tombow Mono or a Blackwing in the hands of the average person and ask them to compare side by side with their normal everyday pencil and watch their response as they write, doodle and explore the fine writing characteristics of these pencils.Since we launched our California Republic range my vision has been to establish our premium quality Palomino brand as fresh, new and fun, with great quality and safety performance. This has been a gradual and experimental process mostly conducted over the internet and in my spare time when not attending to our core slat and firelog businesses. Nevertheless we are building a small, but growing fan base and our recent Pencils.com website redesign is helping to move this ball forward with our “Freedom of Expression” theme as well as expanded features and products. In our view the pencil is perhaps the most common and affordable tool of creative self-expression used around the world. It may not have the reach of the internet, but there is a personal sense of connection to writing, drawing, sketching or doodling with a pencil that for many cannot be matched by typing on a keyboard or drawing with a stylus on a computer screen. For us, Palomino is an important part of enhancing “freedom of expression”, but we know finding your favorite instrument of self-expression is a personal journey and so in time we’ll be featuring even more pencils from other producers who use our slats in our store. This also helps promote quality wood-cased pencils in general and provides a new and creative means to support our slat customers, something CalCedar has been devoted to for over 80 years. Ultimately, however to make Palomino and our California Republic family of products economically successful brands, an added catalyst is needed to move the ball forward.Ever since we introduced the Palomino it has regularly been referred to by many Blackwing fans as a principal contender for successor to the original 602. These fans continually lament the ceasing of production of this pencil and the increasingly high cost of “old stock” on eBay. When I discovered the Blackwing name was available it was a natural choice to want to more closely associate this venerable name with our own brand. The goal: Create a Palomino product line extension that honors the performance and functionality of the original Blackwing 602 while building a new and expanding generation of pencil lovers who appreciate fine quality pencils. Who would not want to pursue this opportunity? It’s both tremendously fun and challenging. If we’re right, execute well, and perhaps a little lucky, then maybe we’ll make some modest financial return and turn a passion into a profitable business venture.

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Reviving the Blackwing: A Labor of Love or Insanity?

Part One: Seeking Consumer Feedback

Over the past two weeks we on the CalCedar & Pencils.com team have been in the midst of a grand experiment. That is soliciting and evaluating the initial consumer responses to our new Palomino Blackwing pencil. This process has generated broad interest and feedback from those who participated as well as others who’ve only seen pictures and read the initial blog reviews of a few in our sampling group. Today I am initiating a series of posts over the next couple weeks about our effort to “Revive the Blackwing”. Given there is a tremendous level of detail involved in a project like this, it’s simply impossible to cover in just one or two posts and do proper justice to the subject. Today I start with a general introduction to our consumer evaluation process and provide a list of the intended posts that will lead up to definitive announcements regarding the sales launch for the Blackwing Palomino and future modifications and improvements we plan to make based on continuing feedback.
Our process involved selection of a couple of control groups to gain feedback on our new product. The first group included known Blackwing fans who have had first-hand experience with the original Blackwing 602, which was first produced and introduced by Eberhardt Faber USA and eventually discontinued in 1998 by the brand’s successor owner, the Sanford division of Newell Rubbermaid. The second group consists of those less familiar with the Blackwing including those who are active pencil users and fans as well as those who may not consider themselves particularly knowledgeable about pencils at all and had never heard of the famous Blackwing 602. Those who participated were asked to complete a questionnaire that we provided comparing the two products along with our Palomino HB on a variety of performance factors. Respondents were also asked to give feedback on other aspects such as relative price and new packaging design concepts for the Palomino line. I want to thank all of those who participated directly in this process. Your extensive and detailed responses are greatly appreciated and under review. I’ll cover this all in detail in my later posts.Some also chose to blog about their review of the new Palomino Blackwing. This opened up tremendous commenting and speculation from traditional Blackwing fans, and many others with various perspectives and their own favorite pencil brand. There was a lively debate of mechanical pencils vs. leadholders, as well as those who expressed the view that this whole community of pencil fans is simply crazy. We thank all those who have and continue to participate in this interesting conversation. Here are some of the main links, sorry if I missed some:Links to some blog reviews of our Palomino Blackwing prototypehttp://blackwingpages.wordpress.com/2010/08/25/blackwing-reborn/http://mleddy.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-blackwing-pencil.htmlhttp://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/27/first-impression-of.htmlI’ve now probably reviewed several hundred comments. At times I thought to myself “no wonder Apple keeps such secrecy before they introduce new products like the iPhone 4. I must be insane! Why didn’t we just introduce the new Blackwing first?” There has been a lot of greatly appreciated support for our effort, but also some detractors too. One commenter even questioned our motivations stating “don’t toy with us Blackwing fans” in response to one reviewers personal assessment that they felt our new product failed to precisely duplicate the original’s writing performance while our existing Palomino HB was closer. I resisted temptation and kept myself from responding to speculative comments or inaccurate assumptions. I had committed myself to an open process and felt it was important not to unduly influence the feedback until our control group had responded. This should lead to the best overall understanding of those who seem to have a passion for pencils and the original Blackwing in particular. It certainly has been fascinating.Learning from this process is ongoing. In this series of posts I’ll be sharing my observations, conclusions to date and making some clarifications related to our efforts to revive the Blackwing brand. Here are the planned post topics.

  • Why revive the Blackwing?
  • Understanding the Blackwing Fan
  • Graphite Performance
  • Lacquer Finish & Imprint
  • Eraser Function
  • Half the Pressure, Twice the Speed
  • Branding: Palomino Blackwing vs. California Republic Blackwing
  • Overall Performance & Design
  • Addressing Design Reality: Clarifying speculations and assumptions
  • So what’s this thing going to cost me anyway?
  • Let the orders begin!

We’ll be opening up these posts on the Pencils.com’s What’s New blog to commenting as well as on our Facebook fan page and my Timberlines blog here. We look forward to your continued participation and feedback in this process. Hopefully by the end of this series you can all help me determine if this endeavor is a labor of love or insanity. Or perhaps it’s a bit of both.

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Maintaining Tradition and Values in the Face of Change

In prior posts I’ve focused on many developments affecting the Pencil industry and how companies have reacted in their business operations and strategies to these external influences. I’ve covered trends such as globalization and growth of imports; consolidation within both manufacturing and distribution channels and the resulting rationalization of brand ranges and manufacturing facilities. I’ve also commented on anti-dumping duties and other trade, environmental and product safety issues. Most of these posts have focused on larger industry players and their adaptation and leadership embracing change to remake their companies (i.e. generally the acquirers and market share leaders) with both positive and negative impacts on quality, customer perceptions, market share, and other typical measures of business and industry success.

This time I provide an alternate view, an example of a family owned and operated business in our industry that stands out for its gritty devotion to a set of traditional values, processes and standards. Historically such family owned and operated companies were the norm in our business. While many companies throughout the world pencil industry remain privately held and controlled by their founding families, quite a few have become actively involved in shaping and driving many of these industry trends. This includes our own business California Cedar Products Company which despite our continued devotion to sourcing US grown Incense-cedar as the raw material for our #1 product line, CalCedar® slats, we relocated slat production to our new Tianjin, China facility in 2001 closing our US based slat and sawmill operations soon thereafter.

General Pencil Company, was originally founded by Edward Weissenborn as the Pencil Exchange in Jersey City, NJ in 1889. The company is devoted to providing sustainably produced products under their General’s® brand range for artists of all ages, skills and abilities; amateur and professional alike. While General has added a range of complementary art supplies to build out the product range through the years its stable of wood cased pencils produced from Genuine Incense-cedar remain as a central foundation of the product quality and performance. The company continues to this day as a fully integrated pencil factory in its original Jersey City location producing its own graphite and other special formulation cores in house.
Proudly made in the USA is a vital principle for General’s® brand pencils. General refuses to import cores and leads or increasing proportions of raw, semi-finished or even finished pencils as opposed to all other US based pencil manufacturers who have long since adopted such practices.

While the CalCedar® slats they use are produced by us in our China operation the wood itself is 100% grown in the USA. General is essentially the only remaining US pencil manufacturer exclusively devoted to a Made in USA and predominant USA component supply strategy. Given the recent relocation of Newell Rubbermaid Lewisburg, TN operations to Mexicali, Mexico, (yet another victim to global manufacturing rationalization) General is now one of 3 remaining US based pencil factories producing for the art and writing pencil market which have vertically integrated processes from wood milling department forward to finish product. The others all import some varying degree of pencils and cores as a relevant part of their supply chain strategy.

Another core value at General Pencil Company is the Weissenborn family’s commitment to consistently producing a high quality product from then best quality sustainable materials. General’s® products are well known by both professional and other devoted artists as being produced to exacting standards to provide reliable performance whatever the application. General’s dedication to traditional internal standards of fine craftsmanship and manufacturing processes assures this result time and again. In addition to its exclusive use of Genuine Incense-cedar slats, General also uses recycled packaging materials in the majority of their products. Additionally General is devoted to producing consumer friendly and safe products which are tested and certified under both the PMA Seal and under the Art & Creative Materials Institute (ACMI) Program.

Certainly many industry participants also produce safe, high quality products with an emphasis on sustainability. Many businesses also have multi-generational family ownership. In my view what is of exceptional note is that General Pencil Company, the Weissenborn family and employees of the company truly live up to these values while continuing to exclusively produce in their original Jersey City factory for over 120 years now. General is a company dedicated to supporting the local workforce (many are also multigenerational employees) in a culture indicative of traditional family values that extend also to the customer service experience. General faces the same competitive pressures all of us face in this industry, but they continue to hold firm and thrive as a result. Speaking from personal experience from a multi-generational family business manager who guided our own company through a challenging manufacturing and market rationalization to off-shore production this commitment and dedication deserves great respect.

As two companies and two families, General Pencil and California Cedar and our respective owners have had a long and positive relationship. I am proud to be associated with this relationship and especially pleased to announce the addition of General’s® products to our Pencils.com Store to further build on this partnership. Indeed with this latest collaboration another generation of both families has worked together on a cooperative industry project. These are represented by Kirstin (5th generation descendant of founder Edward Weissenborn) and my son Philip (a 4th Generation Berolzheimer now helping out at California Cedar Products and 7th generation relative to our family involvement in the pencil industry when consideration of Eagle Pencil Company ). These two focused on setting up the products on the Pencils.com store as well as posting product information pages and developing initial promotional materials for the launch. Thanks for their efforts and here’s a toast to a new generation of promise for the supply of high quality sustainable products from tradition driven family owned pencil industry businesses.
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Frankfurt Paperworld 2009: Pencil Report Part 1

Frankfurt Paperworld 2009 is a few days behind me, though I still have quite a follow-up list from my meetings with customers and suppliers. Thus posting my Paperworld Pencil Report for you enthusiasts out there has taken a back seat. I do see there were a few other “reporters” out there covering new pencil related items they found. Some of these items I’ll comment on in the context of my post which will be more focused on common themes and trends for the show this year as relates to pencils and the pencil industry. Of course pencils are just a very small part of Paperworld which covers so many product categories and some themes I cover are applicable to these products as well.

The first theme seems to be the ever increasing barrage of marketing and promotion of “Green” products and processes to produce not just pencils, but many writing, art and stationery items exhibited this year. The fascinating thing to me about this is how many different types of green positions, often conflicting in message, that are being espoused for various products. Some efforts I simply consider “green washing” while others offer legitimate improvements in environmental impacts related tor raw materials used or production processes employed.

Wooden products have long been positioned as green for the renewable resource characteristic of the raw material. The addition of various and competing forest and Chain-of-custody certification schemes such as FSC and PEFC are more and more frequently used in our industry, primarily for paper products, pencils and more traditional building materials, though less often seen at this point for other home, office and school products produced from wood. While these schemes are much well known and supported by consumers in Europe there is increasing awareness here in the US. More and more often pencil manufacturers are moving towards implementing some form of third party certified wood pencil for a broader portion of their product range. This is especially in the light of new regulatory actions such as the 2008 amendment to the US Lacey Act which seeks to extend protection of endangered plants to include all manner of wooden products imported to the US. Similar legislative actions are under review in Europe and will be an increasing challenge not just to the pencil industry, but the global wood products industry as a whole. I expect to write more on this legislative topic and its projected impact on the industry in a future Timberlines post.

The most notable new certified wooden pencil at Paperworld this year is the new STABILO Green Range (image above). This range from Schwan-STABILO features the 100% FSC certification label and initially covers about 4-5 different pencil products with the intent to add new FSC certified pencil items over time. For more information see the STABILO Green Pencil Library Wiki page at our Pencils.com site. Of course Faber-Castell has long touted their leadership in FSC certification of the majority of their pencils and other European brands such as Caran d’Ache have had FSC certified products for some time, as well as our own California Republic ForestChoice brand which was the first FSC certified pencil offered to the market. As the leading supplier of FSC certified Incense-cedar and FSC Basswood to the pencil industry our company is experiencing increased demand for our FSC certified pencil slats.

Plastics and recycled products are also increasingly positioned as green. Our industry is clearly experiencing a re-emergence of the extruded plastic pencil. It was even interesting to see some standard PVC type plastic products from Asia being positioned as green simply for the fact they are “woodless”. However, most of the traditional plastic pencils are actually a composite of wood flour and plastics so technically they are not woodless. The Remarkeable Pencil has different versions produced from recycled cd cases, plastic cups and a variety of other materials. Bic’s Conte Evolution has been the market leader in plastic extruded pencils ever since Newell discontinued production at the former Empire EPCON facility in Shelbyville, TN some years back. However as BIC long since stopped exhibiting at Paperworld I am not certain what specific environmental claims they make regarding the Evolution these days. Chinese and other developing country companies have increased investment in plastic pencils production as well, though in these cases it’s most often to address economic concerns as wood costs for pencils have been increasing over past several years.

The major announcement on the extruded pencil front is the new Staedtler WOPEX pencil which they gave top billing and emphasis as their new product at Paperworld. This pencil has already been reported on at Lexikaliker blog in German. I was able to meet the Director of R&D at Staedtler who presented this product introduction to me. First, the name is a form of anagram for the words Wood, Pencil & Extrusion. I did find it somewhat interesting that a leading German writing instrument company used an English anagram to name its new product, but I guess this simply reflects the current state of the use of English more globally. The key features of this pencil are that a full 70% of the raw material used is wood flour. So Staedtler is pushing the recycling of wood and minimization of recycled plastic with respect to environmental positioning. Also the pencil is definitely more rigid than other plastic pencils I have seen and they indicate they will produce it in three grades H, HB & B. It did write better than my experience with most other plastic pencils. Finally the rubberized surface has more ergonomic properties similar to their Ergosoft range. As I understand it they do not intend this to be a cheaper substitute for wood pencils, but a value added product preaching it’s performance and green benefits.

That’s it for this Part 1 report as it got way longer than planned, as usual. Tune in for Frankfurt Paperworld 2009: Pencil Report – Part 2 where I’ll focus on the industry impacts and reactions to the current World Economic and Recessionary environment.

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The New Pencils.com

After several months of work I am pleased to announce we have completed our redesign project and have now re-launched our “Incense Cedar Institute – Pencil Pages” website under the new name Pencils.com. This has been a project some time in gestation even since I first initiated my Timberlines blog a few years back and happily is now up and running as a Beta site which we will continue to work on improving and developing over time.

The new Pencils.com site builds upon the past purpose of the site as an educational resource regarding pencils, Incense-cedar, renewable resources and forestry management but adds to it a broad range of new features designed to help celebrate and share the role of the pencil in our world. If you are a pencil enthusiast, artist, writer, teacher, parent or student the new site has something for you. I hope you will check it out and join what I think will become an active and growing community. In particular we have initiated a Palomino Riders group page which allows you to share and post artwork created with your Palomino pencils or to form other groups and discussion forums on a wide variety of topics related to education, art, writing and even pencil collecting.

In addition to expanded educational content and a host of social networking and related tools on the Pencils.com site one of the key new features will be our Pencils.com Store. This store will supplement our existing Pencil World Creativity Store @ eBay and ForestChoice.com and offers a much more flexible on line shopping tool with quantity discounting, pencil points discounts that you earn through participation in the Pencils.com community as well as other features. We’ve already added an expanded range of new California Republic items not on eBay as well as new items from another pencil manufacturer with more to follow. Over time we’ll be expanding the product range available on the Pencils.com Store, supporting and promoting products produced by our slat customers that supplement and complement our own product range.

A number of readers continue to request more of my in depth posts on industry issues and there have been plenty of issues to write about, although I’ve just been too busy with other business matters in the last year or so and more recently in developing the Pencils.com site for this launch. Looking forward I plan to return to providing somewhat more frequent posts about issues related to Pencil Industry here on Timberlines which will also have a feed to a dedicated Timberlines page at the Pencils.com site. However, posts more focused on news related to our California Republic Stationers product developments and the Pencils.com store offerings will be moved to my WoodChuck blog on the Pencils.com home page. Thus the Pencils.com site will be updating much more frequently than Timberlines going forward.

For more information you can visit Pencils.com or for more historical background of the Incense Cedar Institute and website transition to Pencils.com you can read the CalCedar press release here.
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Palomino & California Republic Notes

Hello all you fellow Palomino Riders out there. I’m long past due in providing an update on developments with the Palominos and other brand ranges in our California Republic lines.

First, over the past few months we ran a test with some larger bulk pack formats with banded dozens in 36 and 72 count packs. We’ve had very positive reaction to this packing format. We ran through most of the stock on hand from this test and have just a couple remaining packs available on Pencil World Creativity Store both here and here. You may want to pick these up while they last.

Partially as a result of these tests we have reached a decision to make the banded dozen format more widely available for our internet distribution channel. In addition the banded dozens will be extended from the Palomino brand to also include all items in Golden Bear and Prospector ranges and even a few new Spangle items we plan to introduce by year end. We are a still a while off before these formats are formally introduced on a standard stocking basis, but do expect to have these up by year end. So keep your eyes peeled for this new option going live and I’ll provide more details when teh new stock arrives and we are ready to go live.

In the meantime if you’ve found you do have an appetite for bulk pack pencils we do have ready supply of our popular ForestChoice FSC certified pencils in 1 gross (144 ct) bulk packs. These are available both here at PWCS @ eBay or at our ForestChoice website.

Also comming soon we will be adding an eraser tipped option in our Palomino Blue HB, as well as a few varieties of Spangle jumbo size school learning pencils in both round and triangular shapes.Finally, I am making the commitment once again to more frequent posts on Timberlines so look forward to a series of new articles and weekly features covering a variety of topics. I know I got started last Spring and then didn’t keep up. This time.

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Berolzheimerianum: 100 Year Anniversary Celebration


Back in March I wrote a post titled “Lieber Philip: A Letter Lasts 100 Years” that discussed the final letter my Great-Great Grandfather Heinrich wrote from his home in Nürnburg, Germany to his son Philip, my Great-Grandfather in New York before he passed away about one month later. I introduced a bit of family history in the pencil industry to my own son Philip through this letter.

As it turns out there is another recent 100 Year Anniversary related to Heinrich Berolzheimer’s accomplishments. My wife, son and I have just returned from a week in Germany where we participated in activities celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the construction of the Berolzheimerianum in Fürth, the city of Heinrich’s birth and original founding of the pencil company, Berolzheimer und Illfelder. Donated by Heinrich with assistance of his son’s Emil and Philip (then running the Eagle Pencil Company in New York) the Berolzheimerianum was established according to the foundation document as a “home for popular education in the town of Fürth”. Tis document stated that it should “serve the whole population of town of Fürth, regardless of social class, religion or political opinions”. The building included an extensive library with over 10,000 volumes (later growing to over 20,000 volumes) as well as an auditorium with 800 seats for performances and various cultural events and included a number of works of art both interior and exterior art.

Unfortunately Heinrich passed away a month prior to the completion and inauguration of the building. The photos in this post show the Berolzheimerianum both at it’s completion in 1906 and as it looks today. The painting of Heinrich was commissioned when he was named as an Honorary Citizen of Fürth for his patronage towards the city. Other famous Honorary Citizens include Ludwig Erhard who served as the second Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1963 to 1966 and Henry Kissinger, who I was told recalls studying as a child in the Berolzheimerianum.

The Berolzheimerianum has an interesting history. A few of the highlights include:

– Attendance at the building inauguration by Prince Ludwig III of Bavaria (later the last king of Bavaria)
– Functioned as a military hospital during the 1st World War through 1919
– The building was renamed by the National Socialists during the period of the Third Reich erasing for a time the recognition of the Jewish Philanthropist Heinrich Berolzheimer
– Following post war repairs in 1945, the Berolzheimerianum name was restored and the building continued to function for it’s original purpose of supporting education and the arts
– In 1998 following extensive renovations the Berolzheimerianum was reopened as ComÖedie Fürth, one of the leading comedy clubs in Germany including a restaurant and bar.

As a part of the 100 Year Celebration my wife, son and I were honored to be the guests of the City of Fürth along with other of Heinrich’s descendants (3rd and 4th cousins) whom we met for the first time. In conjunction with the anniversary celebration a four month exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Franconia, entitled “Benefactor Berolzheimer: A Family Tradition of Philanthropy and Patronage”. While our families converted to Christianity several generations back, we very much enjoyed learning more about our Jewish heritage in Germany during this visit. The entire staff of the museum did a very nice job with the exhibit and with additional activities scheduled over a three day period. In addition to the Berolzheimerianum, Heinrich also made important financial and artwork contribution to a library in Nürnburg, known as the Luitpoldhaus, as well as to the Nürnberger Künstlerhaus art institute and supported the Natural History Museum in that city as well. For his contributions to Nürnburg where he lived the final years of his life he was also named and honorary citizen there as well. This I understand makes him one of only two people who have been named honorary citizen to both of these cities. This tradition of supporting education and the arts in our home communities has been continued by Heinrich’s descendants to this day, first by Emil and Philip and down to current times.

I am slowly adding to my Flickr site here a a new set of historical, current day and other photos associated with the Berolzheimerianum and the 100 year Anniversary Ceremonies. Some of these are captioned to tell more of the story of the building.

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L&C Hardmuth – Koh-I-Noor: A Diamond in the Rough

The pencils shown here are all quite old pencils from L&C Hardmuth. Each represent different brand names and were produced in two different factories of this old group which had it’s beginnings in Vienna, Austria and later relocated to the Bohemia Works factory at Ceske Budejovice in the Czech Republic. Ceske Budejovice’s German name is Budweis, of beer fame, which has an interesting brand ownership rights history. This also is a situation not uncommon in the pencil industry over the years. In fact L&C Hardmuth’s own history resulted in divided ownership rights by region of their most famous brand. The Koh-I-Noor brand was first introduced in 1889, named for the famous diamond as a representation of the superior quality of this new product.

While Hardmuth’s primary manufacturing operations remained in Ceske Budejovice, the company expanded in a multinational push between the two world wars opening Koh-I-Noor Pencil Company in New Jersey in 1919, had a joint venture factory with Johann Faber in Romania and in 1931 established a facility in Krakow, Poland as part of new trust combination with Johann Faber and A.W. Faber-Castell. (Petroski) At some point in time a new factory in Hirm, Austria was built as well.

Following World War II the company was broken up and the Czech, Romanian and Polish operations were nationalized while the Austrian company remained under private ownership. The US based Koh-I-Noor operations (of Rapidiograph fame) ended up as part of a separate group that was later owned by Rotring in Germany and was eventually acquired by Newell Rubbermaid in the 1990s. Eventually the Austrian company fell on hard times and went through bankruptcy and found new owners. This company was reorganized and operates today as Bleistfabrik Hirm-Cretacolor.

Meanwhile the nationalized group of companies consolidated over time into the large operations in Ceske Budejovice building a leading brand position in Eastern Europe and former Soviet block countries while having more limited trade with the west. This company was renamed Koh-I-Noor Hardmuth as it was privatized in 1992 and purchased two years later and has since operated as part of the Gamma Group. This company retains the Koh-I-Noor name today and has since further invested in pencil manufacturing operations in both Russia and China. The company has also recently opened separate marketing and distribution companies in both Poland and Slovenia, though there is no pencil manufacturing at these locations. It retains strong brand recognition in Eastern European market, has a reputation for fine quality and has strengthened its international distribution since it’s privatization.

As far as I’ve been able to determine these three pencil sets date from the period of time L&C Hardmuth was internationalizing the business through the 1930s. Of these three items only the Scalia pencils include any reference to the Koh-I-Noor name. None have the Koh-I-Noor name imprinted on the pencils themselves. All three seem to be different brands of copying pencils. Copying pencils have a hard lead that is designed to leave a dark and more permanent mark similar to an ink pen.

The beautiful set of Scala copying pencils are among the favorite in my entire collection. Note the wonderful lacquer job on these pencils that seems to simulate a length of bamboo. This box includes an information sheet on the care and use of these copying pencils in 12 languages demonstrating the multinational sales focus of the company. An excerpt of key technical information reads as follows:

All copying and couloured copying ink pencils should be protected against atmosoheric humidity as well as against excessive dryness and heat. … for they are liable to absorb moisture from the atmosphere, which softens the lead and, if dried rapidly, it becomes brittle.
On account of their composition, the resistance of copying leads against breaking is entirely different than that of Blacklead Pencils, which are hardened by baking.
The structure necesitates care being taken when sharpening. The blade … must be sharp and too great pressure should not be exerted.
Coloured Copying Ink Pencils particularly should not be sharpened to a very fine point. … To prevent piercing oneself …, it is recommended that the points be fitted with a protector.

The second two sets of pencils indicating they were produced in Poland include the yellow “Eureka” and black “Mephisto” pencils. They both reference a grade described as srednie or 73B srednie, which I’ve been unable to translate. What’s also interesting is that these two boxes seems to reference different company names. The first is L&C Hardmuth-Lechistan S.A. and the second L.i C. Hardmuth S.A. Krakow. A Wikepedia search for Lechistan indicates that it is the name for Poland used in some Central Asian and Middle Eastern countries that derives from the Polish word Lechia which is an alternate historical name for Poland. Thus it is probable the “Eureka” pencils were produced specifically for these other market regions and again are an interesting historical reference for the multinational period of expansion of the L&C Hardmuth in the 1930s.

A final note of interest is that I have only been able to find reference to one current Koh-I-Noor product retaining the Mephisto name and the Eureka and Scala names seem to have disappeared entirely from any current selections. This is a likely result of the declining demand for copying pencils and another example of how changes in product tastes and market conditions have lead to the decline in various pencil brands. The lone Koh-I-Noor Mephisto item is now a 5.6mm thick lead plastic mechanical clutch pencil.

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Lieber Philip: A letter lasts 100 years

Lieber Philip –

Recently Luigi has been sifting through and organizing, archival family and company correspondence. (for the uninformed Luigi is a retired employee and protégé of my grandfather Charles). Just a week ago he came up with this gem of a letter from my great-great grandfather Heinrich Berolzheimer to his son, my great grandfather and your great-great grandfather Philip.

The letter was written March 7, 1906 and is 100 years old today and begins Lieber Philip just as I’ve started my letter to you. In addition to the handwritten letter in German using a fountain pen there is a receipt from a factory in Nuremburg, Germany for some item Heinrich seems to have purchased on behalf of Eagle Pencil Company in New York. It also included a handwritten note by Philip on an Eagle Pencil Company envelope indicating that this was among the last letters he received from his father before his death. I have added an Eagle Diagraph pencil from my collection as a finishing touch for the photo.

Here is a bit of background history on your great-great-great Grandfather Heinrich, which even you are probably not very familiar with. Heinrich established Eagle Pencil Company in New York after emigrating from Fuerth near Nuremburg, where his father Daniel Berolzheimer had first entered the pencil industry in 1856 in partnership with Leopold Illfelder under the name of Berolzheimer und Illfelder. This 1856 date is commonly considered the founding date of Eagle Pencil Company though the Berolzheimer-Illfelder partnership did not end until approximately 1861 and Eagle was not actually established in New York in 1856. Here’s a link for some information I found on the history of Eagle Pencil Company. There are a few notable errors here with respect to generational relationships of different Berolzheimers to Heinrich but perhaps you’ll learn something new of interest about the pencils side of the family business background here.

After a number of years in New York Heinrich turned the business over to his sons Philip and Emil and returned to Germany for his retirement where he was involved in a number of philanthropic pursuits. This included the construction of a new library for the city of Fuerth in a building which was and is still named the Berolzheimerianum in his honor. This building has in the recent 10 years found new life as a refurbished dinner theater and comedy club. I have not seen a show there myself, but did visit the building ten year ago in 1996 and met the comedy group leaders as they were completing construction and about to open. I was even interviewed on the local television and newspaper during the visit.

Thanks to your aunt Tanja’s help we have been able to decipher the main content of the letter itself. Of particular note are indications that Heinrich had recently received a letter from Philip’s wife Clara with a note from your own great-Grandfather Charles (not quite 4 years old at the time) and that despite his health he was able to sit outside thanks to unseasonably warm weather for that time of year. The letter also includes a summation of a few financial figures in German Marks. One figure is the amount of 222.20 Deutch Marks from the included receipt from Nurnberger Mettal und Lackierwaarenfabrik, apparently a supplier of metal and lacquer materials to the pencil industry.

Given the 100 year anniversary of this letter today I thought it might be interesting to share with you what I see as a few of the interesting changes and developments in 100 years time that are reflected in the letter. The first is the change in language and handwriting itself. In interpreting the letter Tanja indicated there has been significant change in the meaning of particular words which she refers to as “old German”. Also, the style of handwriting includes a number of letters which appear to be one letter if using current writing style, but were actually read as different letters at that time. This could even change the meaning of some of the words and sentences if interpreted improperly.

The age and somewhat faded nature of the ink complicated Tanja’s task and made at least one sentence totally unclear and she was unable to translate due to a variety of potential meanings of the few legible words. One wonders if this letter had been written with a graphite pencil rather than ink would it be more smudged or would it have stood the test of time. Given the clear legibility of the graphite pencil note by Philip on the back of the letter that indicates the date he answered the letter I could make an argument for pencil over ink. How about this? “Ride the Palomino, the mark that will last over 100 years.“

I was curious what the current value of the receipt for 222.2 Marks would be in US dollars today. With the help of this site I was able to estimate it was worth approximately US$53 in 1906 using the pre-WWI rate of exchange. Using this second site it appears this amount in 1906 would be roughly equivalent to US$1085 today. Just think if you would begin setting aside just $53 per year today for the rest of your life what it might mean for your great-great grandchild in 100 years time.

Unfortunately, the description tied to this amount simply has the title “Brother Bing” so it’s unclear what this receipt is specifically for. I had hoped to estimate what the cost of some parts or equipment would be today. By the way I have no knowledge of any relative named Bing, just in case you were wondering. Of further interest to me is the timeframe involved in trans-Atlantic mail communications 100 years ago. The letter dated March 7, 1906 was received in New York and Philip’s handwritten note indicated he answered back with his own letter on March 20th. So a maximum of 13 days time for delivery. An eternity compared to the near instantaneous responses we expect today using e-mail for business to our factories in China and Thailand and that you and I use for personal communication. I can’t remember the last real hand written letter I sent or received via mail. I’m guessing your wondering when you ever received a written letter of any sort from me. I guess this electronic version will have to suffice.

A final note of interest is the signoff which reads “Your Loving Grandfather”, using the word “Opa”, though we know the relationship was father writing to son. Perhaps the translation and meaning of the word could have simply changed in 100 years time. Whether this is it or this implies some form of senility in Heinrich’s waning years or was simply used as a term of endearment is unclear. I’m sure by now you are wondering about my own state of mind writing an open letter to you my teenage son in a post for the world to see on my blog. In any case the use of this language seems warm and heartfelt though sadly not typical these days of what I would expect to receive in a note or e-mail from my father Philip or I expect what you would anticipate receiving from me. Since I’m feeling nostalgic and perhaps in time you’ll reread this and feel this way too I suppose you’ll eventually forgive me if I follow the example of our forefather Heinrich.

Lour loving father,
Charles

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