Staedtler

Germany’s first pencil maker turned global stationery brand. Staedtler’s history goes back to the 1660s, where Friedrich Staedtler, a craftsman working in Nuremberg was producing the graphite core and wooden casting of pencils, which was an unprecedented practice at the time. His work at the time challenged the local guild rules that required tasks to be done by separate trades, but his persistence and hard work paved the way for Germany’s first pencil manufacturer.

The formal company was founded by Johann Sebastian Staedtler, Friedrich’s great great grandson, in 1835. He set up a pencil factory in Nuremberg and developed an improved red chalk pencil and invented the wood cased coloured pencil based with oils and chalk. By the mid 19th century, Staedtler was producing millions of pencils annually and began exporting internationally. Throughout the 20th century, Staedtler expanded internationally and established subsidiaries in the United States by 1922 and Japan by 1926. Today the brand has a huge stationery range including mechanical pencils and leads, erasers and sharpeners, fine liners and markers, as well as coloured pencils and art materials.