Earlier this year, we noted an interesting article on the current state of the pencil industry.
From Time Magazine’s archives, here is an overview published in 1932.
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About Faber-Castell:
“Yet, a disappointment is the company’s relatively low sales in North America – which is responsible for about 7 per cent of revenues.”
I think they’d have higher sales (1) if they could get more retailers to sell FC, and (2) if they sold more effectively through their Web site.
I found, for a very limited time, the Grip 2001 pencils with eraser at Crane (the stationers) in Chicago, but no more (Crane also had, for a limited time, the Grip 2001 pens). I ordered some stuff off the FC Web site, but only a few products are “buy now,” and it’s through shopatron, which seems to be a distribution network. Dick Blick carries the Grip 2001 pencils on their Web site, but not in the downtown Chicago store (I can’t speak as to their other stores).
It’s just hard to get FC stuff in the U.S.
Strangely, looking at a couple of Aaron Brothers shops (after finding out that "Art & Framing" means they actually sell art supplies) resulted in some Grip 2001 pencils in the usual 2B/HB/2H set and some Goldfabers, and the usual arrays of Pitt artist pens. (The Michael’s next door has nothing of the sort.)
There was also an OfficeMax that carried the same, though this particular store was probably less frequented (there were some old Sanford Col-Erase (not Prismacolor) pencils, 12 dozen red (circa 1997?); and some old Prang bundles with US-made Ticonderoga Tri-Write pencils).
On the other hand, in spite of this, I’d otherwise still have absolutely no idea where to find FC products, especially if it’s not something you’re actively looking for. (These two places would not come to mind.)
“If you ask the average Joe in North America about the company, it’s a name they’ve never heard of.”
Interestingly, it was probably within "only" the last 10-20 years or so that the products mentioned in the 1932 article began to significantly diverge from what they used to be (even to the point of the state of the industry as described in The Pencil no longer being accurate). Would people have known of FC a decade or two ago?
Is anyone selling the elctro pencil # 240. I would be interested since I will use them in my hobby of woodcarving. Not to carve but to write on the wood.
Thank you