01The longevity of Edding markers is tested
02Packing Faber-Castell’s signature pencils
03All of Montblanc’s nibs are made with 18-carat gold
Who puts the lead in your pencil? Probably a German firm with a history of making fine writing instruments. And it’s a past these players want to highlight as they do battle with those pesky digital gadgets. Meet the stars of the stationery cupboard.
01
02
03
04
05
06
In 1960, school friends Carl-Wilhelm Edding and Volker Detlef Ledermann started their business with 500 Deutsche Mark and a typewriter in a garage in Hamburg. The Edding No.1 was born: a pen with permanent ink imported from Japan. “It was a real innovation at the time,” says Jörg Thomas Schimkus, managing director of Edding production. “Pens with permanent ink didn’t exist in the German market before.” By 2011, Edding had cornered approximately 80 per cent of the German marker market.
The company has devised a range of markers, from an X-ray and skin marker for the medical field to a carpentry marker for professionals and hobby craftsmen. “We are in steady exchange with other industries and our customers – if they signal a need we design a corresponding product for the market,” says Olaf Seidel, research director of Edding production.
Since 1992, Edding’s manufacturing talents have been pooled together in Bautzen, a small town 52km east of Dresden. Here, 59 machines are used for every stage of production, right through to the boxed product ready for dispatch. “We produce up to 150 pens a minute,” Schimkus explains on a walk through the factory. He also lets us in on a secret: specialist staff hired to run the equipment. A team of in-house experts are responsible for the construction of the unique machinery and tools that give the lids and handles their distinctive shape. “This allows us to develop innovative technologies that set us apart.”
Edding’s future won’t be restricted to markers. The company ventured into new territories last year with the launch of printer cartridges, as well as a series of spray cans that will appear in German shops this spring.
01
02
03
04
05
06
In a small glass room at Montblanc’s Hamburg headquarters, three women hunch over sheets of blank white paper, rows of fountain pens lining the table in front of them. They work quickly, picking up a pen and tracing invisible loops on the paper, moving at different angles and speeds. In this way, each Montblanc Meisterstück pen is tested with invisible ink to make sure that it glides smoothly and silently across the page.
Not much has changed here since a Hamburg banker and a Berlin engineer founded the company, then called Simplo Filler Pen Co, in the northern German port city in 1906 (the two had discovered the fountain pen on a trip to the US), although the company switched from using steel to only 18-carat gold in its nibs a couple of decades ago. The 200 individual steps that go into making the classic Meisterstück (which translates as “masterpiece”) were put in place in 1924. Much of this process is done by hand, including putting a point on the nib and cutting out the slit through which the ink flows. “The innovation today comes from improving the nuances,” says Frank Derlien, manager of nib manufacture.
In 2011, Montblanc introduced a bespoke nib service, whereby customers send in a sample of their handwriting for computer analysis. For €1,200, artisans craft a nib to fit the customer’s unique scrawl. The company also spends years coming up with designs for limited-edition pens, which are often based on luminaries such as Charlie Chaplin and Frida Kahlo. The artisan atelier’s latest creation is a single piece inspired by Albert Einstein. The pen glitters with jewels, its skeleton-net design intended to represent the space-time curve. Like the sound of it? You’ll need €125,000 to make it yours.
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
An art nouveau castle in the southern town of Stein with marble-clad hallways and lacquered floors is the centre of one of Germany’s oldest stationery empires. “History has always been a strong part of the company,” says Count Anton Wolfgang von Faber-Castell from the satinwood-panelled room where his grandmother, Baroness Ottilie, once conducted her correspondence.
The count is the eighth generation of his family to run Faber-Castell. In the 1980s he spent a week in the company’s archive, which inspired him to resurrect ideas from his ancestors. “Things that were done by the fourth generation were absolutely state of the art,” he says.
He’s even dredged up old family rivalries: in the 1990s, Faber-Castell sued Staedler for claiming to be the world’s oldest pencil maker. Though Friedrich Staedler started making pencils in Nuremberg in 1662, guild rules prevented the family from setting up a company until 1835. Meanwhile, Kaspar Faber skirted the rules to set up shop just outside of Nuremberg in Stein in 1761. Faber-Castell won the injunction.
Faber-Castell relaunched its brand in the 1990s, resurrecting the jousting knights image as its logo and adding the company’s founding date. The firm also introduced its Graf von Faber-Castell luxury line, starting with the €195 “perfect pencil”. Though management initially balked at the idea of the pricey implement, the count got his way. It has fans in high places: in 2009, José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, sent one to Barack Obama. Industrial designer Heinrich Stukenkemper says that the aim is to create a product line that evokes a different era. “It’s about taking history and putting it into today,” he says.
The count is also looking to the future, diversifying away from regular pencils by breaking into the cosmetic pencil business and focusing efforts in areas such as art and crafts. Now pencils form 30 per cent of the company’s sales.
He’s also succeeded in innovating the humble pencil to combat the mass-produced glut coming out of China. Faber-Castell designers and engineers spent three years trying to put his idea for a grip pencil into practice. In 2001 the company introduced the grip 2001, a silver triangular-shaped pencil with 156 non-slip black grip dots. Made in a factory just down the road from the castle, it takes 10 days to produce. “There is always something to be optimised if you focus on these details,” says the count. “Many small steps create a big step.”
Issue 62
A centre of perfume making for centuries, the town of Grasse in the South of France is holding on to its reputation as fragrance capital of the world by developing new technology alongside time-honoured traditions.
Issue 13
With roads gridlocked, delivering goods in the world’s cities is a growing problem. One engineer believes the answer lies in underground Victorian-style pneumatic pipes and he has some powerful backers.
Issue 5
If you can’t secure a job as an urban planner by day you can always become an ornamental fish hobbyist by night and engineer a perfect underwater world. At the heart of the €10bn international trade in ornamental fish is…
Issue 12
Once a nondescript office area with little in the way of shops or restaurants, Marunouchi in Tokyo is undergoing the latest stages of a 20-year transformation into a vibrant retail and financial centre. The next phase will…
Issue 51
The mining boom in Western Australia has seen both the natural and economic landscapes transformed. New services fly thousands of workers in and out each week. So Monocle went to dig a little deeper.
Issue 42
Hambantota is about to hit the big time thanks to Chinese money and dynastic might. But not everyone is set to benefit.
Issue 37
Relations with Russia are improving, it escaped the economic crisis and young entrepreneurs are returning with new ideas and cash. Monocle reports on how Poland, despite the odds, became the European nation to watch.
Issue 21
The car industry is in global disarray. So can the makers of affordable, greener scooters overtake the punch-drunk auto makers? At Honda’s HQ they are planning a two-wheeled revolution.
Issue 63
After the demise of its cod-fishing industry, Fogo Island looked to be in trouble. The tide is turning on its fortunes today thanks to a lifeline of cultural projects, a new hotel and jobs.
Issue 44
Specialist scents, made by small artisanal producers, are beginning to make a big splash with retailers and consumers alike, as Monocle discovers on a visit to a Milan trade fair for the niche market.
Issue 42
With a rapidly shifting media landscape and declines in newspaper sales, it might seem logical to expect paper mills to be struggling. Not so in the case of northern England’s James Cropper, whose unique colours and spec…
0:00:00 0:01:00
