Tag Archive for: Brands and Pencil History

Moleskine & Palomino

I’ve been travelling overseas to Frankfurt Paperworld show and now to our pencil factory in Thailand. Too tied up to get down to the detail in writing Part 3 on making a Pencil Revolutionary out of an Environmentalist. There’s also some interesting new pencil items I plan to write about from the Paperworld show. All this will need to wait till I get back home though.

In the meantime I thought I’d treat you to a few of the increasing associations between Moleskine and Palomino I’ve been finding on blogs, Flickr and the like. Thanks to A.E. Baxter for this first Palomino-Moleskine “glam” shot.

Nita’s talent is visible on her InkTracks blog where she drew this Moleskine using her Palomino Pencils. We’re glad she digressed from her wonderful color efforts to work in graphite for a few sketches last month. We’d love to see more.

I found this next link just today from The Fountainhead on the Flickr Moleskinerie pool. I don’t actually know yet if any of our California Republic color pencils were used in this drawing, but I couldn’t resist pointing this out. The pages include an interesting write up on the brief one month history of the republic and the mistaken design of the original flag of the California Republic which was supposed to be a pear, not a bear. Fortunately, we’ve outlasted our first month unlike our namesake. However the spirit of Captain Bartlett and those original California revolutionaries remains an inspiration for us here at California Republic Stationers. You may have already noticed that we’ve also encorporated this spirit into our Golden Bear brand which we think works out much better than the Golden Pear would have. Not sure the “Pear revolution” would have lasted even a week back in 1846.

Oh yeah, I’ve commented recently on the Pencil Revolution, but will mention this here also. Upon return from my current travels in about a week we will be listing on Pencil World Creativity Store our newest item the Palomino graphite HB with eraser which many of you have been asking about. Here’s a sneak peak.

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Mongolized

Photo: courtesy of our friends at Sanford Faber Venezuela.

With the buzz of pencil talk going about the blogosphere recently I have seen several comments on the Mongol brand. These reflect preferences for it’s functionality and the inability to find this brand here in the US. The Mongol is of course a very famous brand established by Eberhard Faber Company. The Mongol brand is no longer produced for the US market as a result of a series of acquisitions and product rationalizations of the Eberhard Faber USA assets. These assets eventually ended up as part of a 1994 acquisition by Sanford, maker of the Sharpie marker and a division of Newell Rubbermaid.

However, the Mongol continues to be produced today for the Latin America market by Sanford Faber Venezuela, LLC. which is the successor company to Eberhard Faber de Venezuela that Sanford also acquired in 1997. The history of the Eberhard Faber brands and Mongol brands in Venezuela is quite extensive. In this market and elsewhere in South America Eberhard Faber was represented by the Pardo family of Caracas from 1896 until 1960. At that time Eberhard Faber and the Pardos formed a joint venture to begin pencil manufacturing in the local market to replace importing the pencils. This joint venture produced the Mongol brand as well as other products, but was terminated in 1987 when the Pardos acquired the all of the shares and the brand ownership rights for a large portion of South America. The Pardo family continued to operate the business and produce until the 1997 integration into Sanford.

The history of Sanford’s entry into the pencil business itself is an interesting study of how the process of acquisition and integration of companies leads to winners and losers in terms of what brands survive. Over an 8 year period starting with Newell’s 1992 entry into writing instruments with the Sanford acquisition through their 2000 acquisition of Gillette’s Writing Instrument Division (Papermate, Parker & Waterman brands) Newell purchased seven different pencil factories in 4 different countries formerly owned by the following companies:
– 1994 Faber-Castell USA (which had previously purchased Eberhard Faber USA – The EF name replaced Faber-Castell on the American brand and other products as A.W. Faber-Castell the German partner in the US operation retained the world wide writes to the Faber-Castell name following Newell’s acquisition)- 1995 Empire-Berol Corporation – these two companies had previously merged as a result of a buy out by Empire- 1997 Eberhard Faber de Venezuela-c. 1998 – Via it’s purchase of Rotring, Newell also acquired the Cosmolab cosmetic pencil operation. This was operated independently of the Sanford business and sold after about 5 years.

This all excludes Newell’s acquisitions of other writing instruments companies that did not produce and market pencils. As a result Sanford had numerous pencil & writing instrument manufacturing operations in four countries, a multitude of brands, product space overlaps by different brands and operational redundancies. Their self-penned “Newellization” process of assimilating and integrating companies, products and brands was put to work from the very start. The three US pencil plants excluding Cosmolab were consolidated and numerous brands just outright disappeared from the market.As a result of “Newellization” here in the US the Eberhard Faber, Berol and Empire names have disappeared from US produced pencils; first replaced by Sanford and more recently by Papermate. The Mongol itself was phased out in favor of the Mirado brand which better fit the Newell/Sanford key distribution channels in the mass market while Mongol had been stronger in the commercial market. The Berol and Mongol names have survived in various Latin America markets due to the strength of those brands there, though Eberhard Faber name is now gone also from the Venezuelan produced Mongols. Here the Faber name still survives as a part of the Venezuelan subsidiary’s corporate identity, but rumor has it that all Sanford’s foreign sales and manufacturing operations will soon take on the “Sanford Brands” moniker followed by the country name.The photo here demonstrates what I call the “Mongolization” of the corporate master brand in the Latin America market. Here the strong Mongol product brand has outlasted the transition from Eberhard Faber to Sanford and now to Papermate. Long live the Mongol. Think globally, act locally.Note: Doug Martin’s Pencil pages have a page dedicated to the provenance of Berol, Eagle and Empire pencil brands up until the point of Empire-Berol’s acquisition by the Sanford division of Newell in 1995. A look through this shows many of the brands which have not survived the years long process of acquisition, brand and product line rationalization, including my sentimental favorite Eagle.

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Explore the World of Pencil Collecting


Given my family history in the in the pencil industry it’s not too surprising I tend to have a wide selection of pencils stashed in desks, drawers, closets and cabinets around my house, my office and even the car. A few years back when redecorating my home office I spent some time actually going through pencils that had accumulated over the years. Some even dated to my childhood that found their from that of my parents when an old desk and group of boxes were delivered as part of their own cleanout process.

Among the clutter there were indeed a few gems from a collecting standpoint. Since that time I have become increasingly interested though not always too active in broadening and expanding my collection. This collection includes not just pencils themselves but old advertising materials I feel have some of historical or design interest. A few my own personal pencil favorites relate to our family heritage within the industry dating back to the 19th century with the Berolzheimer und Ilfelder and the early 20th century from the Eagle Pencil Company. The Eagle Diagraph pencils shown here have a very interesting knurled effect in that they were rolled in a steel die which imprinted the surface to provide this interesting texture in order to improve grip. The compass is one of my favorites due to the detailed design in the metal work. For more views of various Eagle brand pencils visit the Pencil Images Gallery at Doug Martin’s Pencil Pages. His site is the most extensive online respurce dedicated to collectors.

Pencils are of course considered collectables by children and adults alike. People specialize within their collections in all sorts of forms such as advertising pencils, old brands and their transitions and developments throughout the years, coloring pencils, carpenter pencils, cosmetic pencils, etc. In Japan, a few years back a few producers even developed a series of “game” pencils decorated with popular cartoon characters with each side of the hexagonal pencil representing a different outcome when the pencil was rolled. Children battle it out on pencil rolls for the fate of their game character pencils.

So what gems might you have stashed away in a drawer somewhere?

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We’re a Proud Bunch: Who’s Got the Biggest Pencil?


Those of us in the pencil industry are all quite proud of the origins and traditions of our companies. Many of us like to tell our historical tale of product innovation and organizational development. A number of us even claim to have produced the world’s “___est” pencil. Pick your adjective.

But where does one go for a good insight into the overall industry history?Henry Petroski’s “The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance” is considered to be the most definitive history of the development of our industry. Many insiders however view a few facts pertaining to their own company history as not fully accurate. Some may even contest some of Petroski’s statements regarding which company first achieved various technical developments.To be sure there is plenty of interesting history in our industry.

Given the age of many of the companies even some of the factories may be considered museums or museum like. So here are a few historical references for your perusal.

Perhaps the most elaborate company historical presentation in our industry, the Cumberland Pencil Museum established by The Cumberland Pencil Company sits next door to their manufacturing facility located in Keswick, Cumbria, England. Here the Cumberland Graphite story is told beginning with the discovery and development of the famous Borrowdale graphite mines. Of course one of the museums key features is their “Worlds Longest Pencil” unveiled in 2001 at 25 feet 11-1/2 inches.

Many companies in the industry have a tale of growth characterized by merger and acquisition of other pencil manufacturers as well as of other writing instruments and art supply businesses in order to expand the product range. One of the leading examples of such development is Dixon Ticonderoga Company which a few years back published its history entitled “The Best of It’s Kind”. During a visit to their Versailles, MO facility some years back I saw their project to produce another world’s “___est” pencil, a giant Ticonderoga. We even supplied Dixon with super-sized Incense-cedar timbers for this effort, though I don’t have the final pencil dimensions available.

Among US pencil manufacturers just two company’s with production history pre-dating 1920 still trace current ownership to descendants of company founders. The Musgrave Pencil Company history typifies the early development and concentration of pencil manufacturers in middle Tennessee. Here much of the US industry located in order to attain supplies of Eastern Red Cedar which was the preferred pencil wood early in the 20th century. A number of US factories were originally established by immigrants from the German pencil industry culuster around Nuremburg. General Pencil Company reflects the last remaining US pencil producer with current ownership still related to the original German founder. To my knowledge neither of these companies has ever attempted to produce a Worlds “___est” pencil, though they both know how to make very good pencils.

Faber-Castell has a significant history in the pencil industry and has several entries in the competition for the Worlds “___est” pencil. A Grip 2001 measuring 12 meters is displayed at the company’s headquarters in Stein, Germany. Not to be outdone Faber-Castell’s Malaysian subsidiary has the Guinness Book of World Records certification achieved in Novemer 2002 for the World’s “Longest” Pencil at 19.75 meters.

Schwan Stabilo Group’s 150 Years of History represents perhaps one of the more interesting web based company history presentations for its multidimensional timeline covering History, People, Writing Products and Cosmetic Products. And of course, you guessed it, Schwan claims to have produced the Worlds “Tallest” Pencil coming in at 30 meters for the 1906 Bavarian State Exhibition (shown above). How this one got overlooked by all the recent pretenders is a mystery, though it’s uncertain if this monster was truly capable of writing with a graphite core as the others all have. So perhaps this record needs to have an asterisk attached.

Finally, we have our own historical archives and historical display at California Cedar Products Company which provides much detail on our pencil slat history. While we do claim to be the worlds leading pencil slat manufacturer and we do make a few pencils, we have never attempted to produce our own World’s “___est” pencil. I’m guessing a little more research may be in order before ever attempting such a feat.

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