Business & Finance: Pencils

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Eagle. The mouth-twisting name of a pencil firm started in 1856 was Berolzheimer, Illfelder & Reckendorfer. Later it became Eagle Pencil Co. It makes fountain pens, has the largest timber reserves of any U. S. pencil company, boasts of having invented the inserted eraser and indelible pencil. It is run by the three great-grandsons of Founder Daniel Berolzheimer. President Edwin, redheaded, mustached, a collector of armor, lately said: "I'm the most active but I am not so active either."

Faber. In 1761 Fabers began making pencils in Bavaria. In 1849 they sent Eberhard Faber to the U. S. to conduct the business. In 1861 he quarreled and started Eberhard Faber Pencil Co. His son & namesake represents the fifth generation of pencil-making Fabers and is famed in the industry although he is vice president of the company while his brother, Lothar, is president. He is chiefly active in the sales department now,, Lothar in manufacturing.

Faber invented the nickel-plating of pencil tips, pencil point protectors, rubber tips. In its line are the Mongol colored pencils ("Paint with Pencils"), weatherproof pencils, eyebrow pencils. Newspapermen like its Black Knight, a blunt pencil not likely to break in a crisis. Faber claims to be the largest maker of erasers and recently offered rubber bands in pastel shades. It is thought to make 25% of popular-priced pencils. Its line comprises 250 varieties not including various degrees of hardness which sometimes run as high as 18 to a pencil.

For some time price-cutting has unsettled the industry, intensified the great competition bound to exist when four producers dominate so involved a market. Last week Eberhard Faber made a formal statement of what its future sales policy will be. It will make no direct sales to consumers; no sales to distributors whose prices are unfair to other distributors; no sales to small dealers (properly the wholesaler's field); an attempt to sell pencils only to people who violate no other person's field in reselling them. While price-fixing is illegal, such attempts to maintain a fair price are not, and what will come of a united pencil front may prove to be a good example for other manufacturers.