Forget everything you know about corporate rivalries. Apple vs. Microsoft, Ford and General Motors, Coke and Pepsi: They're Johnny-come-latelies.
Two pencil makers here were battling before any of those brands—or the U.S.—even existed.
Their latest duel is over birthdays. Staedtler Mars GmbH this year celebrates its 175th anniversary. Next year, rival Faber-Castell AG fetes its 250th.
Yet Staedtler isn't trumped, because in 2012 it will celebrate the 350th anniversary of its earliest antecedent. City records from 1662 list a pencil craftsman named Friedrich Staedtler, to whom today's company traces its lineage.
I remember Faber-Castell pencils when I was going to high school and doing a lot of drawing. They were always the best of the best but I didn't like how they didn't have an eraser. When I was a kid erasers were mostly junk except for the white plastic click ones that came from Japan. They did make outstanding color pencils though.
I also remember having a Staedtler mechanical pencil at one time or another. They were really nice and technically sound pencils that I used for drawing as well. They remember them having a precise European look to them. They can easily compete with Japanese mechanical pencils I think.
I also went to the Faber-Castell site and they have some seriously upscale mechanical pencils. Too bad most of them are kind of fat for pretty much no reason at all. I guess most people draw with pencils that you have to sharpen. I have been a mechanical pencil guy for years so I would probably fall on the Staedtler side of this war.
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