Mars Polycolor 6886 No. 21

About J.S. Staedtler

Long before Johann Sebastian Staedtler founded his pencil making factory within Nuremberg’s old city walls back in 1835, the STAEDTLER family had been hand-making this well-loved writing instrument for generations already. In fact, the roots can be traced back to 1662, the year in which first references to Friedrich Staedtler as a pencil-making craftsman were made in the city annals.

In the early 1900s Staedtler introduced its Mars line of pencils with packaging bearing an image of the head of Mars — the Ancient Roman god of war. (This no doubt inspired American Pencil Co. to adopt the name and image of the Roman goddess Venus not long after.)

Today, Staedtler employees more than 2,000 people worldwide and is the largest European manufacturer of wood-cased pencils.