The short history of pencil manufacturing

Whether made of wood, metal or plastic nowadays, pencils are basically the same as what they were 150 years ago. Pencil manufacturing is one of the few industries where the first factories, such as Faber-Castell in Germany or Koh-I-Noor, which was founded in Vienna but has long been based in the Czech Republic, remain operational to this day. There is even an electronics brand involved in this industry, not many would associate with pencil manufacturing.

Today, using a pencil seems like the most natural thing. Children draw their first scribbles, stick figures, animals with colour pencils, and later, when they start school, children write their first letters with graphite pencils. Handwriting is confirmed by studies to impact areas earlier believed unaffected, which should compel even the most fanatic computer supporters to agree that learning cursive writing is an absolute must or what is more, as we earlier described it: handwriting is a form of art that will be with us forever.

But these skills need to be learned, which is easy for some while others struggle. The best instruments for this in the learning phase are pencils. Young learners make many mistakes but luckily, graphite is easily erased and widely available so it should not come as a surprise that it continues to be the instrument of choice for learning to write, something even tablets and other smart devices have been unable to change. It is cheap, you can take it with you wherever you go, it does not need charging, only some sharpening from time to time.

Once their handwriting skills are mastered, children change to pens from pencils. At first, they use colour, inexpensive, single-use pens and then many of them, in secondary school or at their final exams at the latest, enter the world of premium pens as an elegant pen made from durable materials indicates that its user is a prominent person. This is how you progress from the first pencil-written letters to the world of high-end fountain pens such as Etelburg pens. Note-taking by hand is not only a brain exercise but it also affects how effective our studying is - but this is a different story.

But how long ago was the first pencil created? And how did it become dominant in learning to write? These questions will be briefly answered below.

The way to the first pencil

Two main events preceded the creation of the graphite pencil. The word cerussa itself comes from Latin and it means white lead, referring to leadpoint stylus, the ancestor of pencils. Later, this was replaced by the tinpoint stylus, which, as it is a soft material that easily bends, was encased in a wooden casing.

The Hungarian word ‘irón’ is made of the two words: writing and tin.

Graphite itself was used for decorating pottery as early as the fourth century BC. Later, during the 16th century, the locals in the hamlet of Seathwaite in Borrowdale parish in Cumbria, England were noticed to use graphite for marking sheep.

During the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603), this Borrowdale graphite was used as a refractory material to line molds for cannonballs, resulting in rounder, smoother balls that could be fired farther, contributing to the successes of the English navy. This particular deposit of graphite was extremely pure and soft, and could easily be cut into sticks. Because of its military importance, this unique mine and its production were strictly controlled by the Crown.

From the first graphite pencils to 3B

The first pencil was created by Kaspar Faber who started producing them in the municipality of Stein, Bavaria in 1761. He was a simple German carpenter who experimented with pencil production to reach the form of pencil that is basically used to this day. Today, Stein is still a small municipality with a population of 15000 bit it is very close to Nuremberg, which was a very important market town at the time.

The Faber-Castell family - image source: Faber-Castell

It is by no accident that the name of the founder sounds familiar, as the Faber-Castell brand still exists. Kaspar worked together with his wife, Maria and son, Anton Wilhelm and bought land near Stein, turning their small workshop into a modern factory in the course of a few years. He perhaps did not even envisage that this will help not only his son earn a living as the business has been managed by the family, now the ninth generation for over 250 years now.

Stein in Germany - image source: Faber-Castell

But let’s go back to the late 18th century when a French scientist, Nicolas Conté improved the process of pencil making and Joseph Hardtmuth, a royal architect and builder from Vienna, who founded the still existing famous pencil factory, Koh-I-Noor in 1790, started making pencils of various hardness. At this point, it is important to understand how the pencil lead is made. First, graphite is cut into pieces by ensuring its crystalline structure remains intact. Then, purified fine clay and water are added and after drying it is dipped into a wax compound and oil.

Franz Hardtmuth, a relative of the factory founder, discovered that the hardness of the pencil’s tip depends on the quantity of the added clay. Basically, this means that the hardness grading (from the hardest H to the softest B) was his invention. The factory was moved to České Budějovice in Bohemia in the year of the revolution, 1848, where it is still located. (Today, they have other production locations as well in Městec Králové, Broumov and Milevsko in the Czech Republic.)

From the hardness grading mentioned above, the letter ‘H’ refers to the family’s name, Hardtmuth, the letter ‘B’ refers to České Budějovice and the letter ‘F’ refers to Franz.

Franz Hardtmuth is not only famous for the hardness grading as he was the first to propose that the pencil’s body, the wood is painted yellow instead of black.

Faber-Castell pencil, one of the first "B"s - image source: Faber-Castell

This was the end of the first major phase of pencil production. Our next post will discuss colour pencils and share more information about mechanical pencils and 2mm leads, which are seen by many including Etelburg as the future of pencil production.