Castell 9000 4H
Brand:
A.W. Faber
Made in:
USA
🇺🇸 The Newark Factory: Domestic Wartime Production (1941–1947)
Long before the war, a highly autonomous American branch—the A.W. Faber-Castell Pencil Co.—was established in Newark, New Jersey. When World War II broke out, trade between the German parent company and the United States was completely severed.
Cut off from the legendary Bavarian graphite leads, the Newark factory took matters into its own hands to meet the massive wartime demands of American draftsmen, engineers, and the military.
- The Solution: Newark manufactured the Castell 9000 and 9007 lines entirely from scratch on U.S. soil.
- The Material: They utilized domestic wood and developed their own proprietary "Security Bonded" graphite formulas.
- The Stamp: These highly collectible, completely domestic runs were proudly stamped "USA."
In traditional European catalogs, the Castell 9000 is strictly a plain-end drawing pencil, while the 9007 designation is reserved for the model featuring an attached eraser. However, lucky collectors occasionally unearth a rare hybrid: A USA-made Castell 9000 with a factory-attached ferrule and eraser.
Rather than a factory error or an aftermarket modification, this rare variant is a legitimate historical product born of mid-century American market demands:
- American Consumer Preference: Unlike European draftsmen, American schoolboards, corporations, and engineers overwhelmingly preferred pencils with built-in erasers. To fulfill lucrative corporate and government contracts that specifically requested the premium "9000" branding but required an eraser, the Newark plant created custom hybrid runs.
- The Newark Rubber Advantage: The Newark facility wasn't just a pencil assembly plant—it was also home to Faber-Castell’s massive, dedicated rubber and eraser manufacturing division. With an abundance of high-quality eraser components right on the factory floor, adapting the 9000 with a factory-crimped ferrule was an efficient, seamless adaptation for the domestic market.
About A.W. Faber
The company was originally established in 1761 when a carpenter by the name of Kaspar Faber (1730-1784) opened a small pencil factory in Stein, Germany. The business was called “A.W. Faber” after his son, Anton Wilhelm Faber (1758-1819), who grew the company into a flourishing pencil manufacturer.
In 1900, an heiress to the Faber fortune (granddaughter of Lothar Faber) married a count of Castell and the newly united A.W. Faber-Castell soon began producing a high-quality line of “Castell” drawing and copying pencils. The company has its headquarters in Stein to this day, now operating under the name Faber-Castell with 8,000 employees worldwide.
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