I have a tin of pencils by A.W Faber castell- Bleistift-fabrik A.G. The inside of the lid has terrific graphics but appears to be in German. The date is about all I can read it is 1761. Paper insert?

Answer 1

Faber-Castell is a German stationery manufacturer. It is one of the largest manufacturers of pencils in the world, producing around 2 billion pencils a year. The company employs around 6,500 people at 16 production sites and 19 distribution sites, including their factory in Brazil, which produces 1.5 billion coloured pencils a year, making it the largest factory of its kind in the world.

The company was founded in Stein, Middle Franconia, Germany, in 1761 by Kaspar Faber, a carpenter, for the production of pencils. Initially the pencils were sold at the market in Nuremberg. In 1851, a pencil standard was introduced by his great-grandson, Lothar von Faber, which to this day is still applicable for the whole of the pencil industry.

In 1871, Lothar Faber was petitioned by the German Reichstag to create a copyright law , which was enacted in May 1875. In 1905 Graf (Count) Alexander Faber-Castell founded the Castell brand of pencils as a particularly high quality pencil, and in 1931/32 took over the Johann Faber Pencil Factory.