On April 1, 2008 Staedtler posted a brief press release on the 170 year history of made in Germany. Among other things the press release discusses the origin of the Mars brand's blue color and helmet logo.

I am not sure why this appears as a special press release and not just integrated into the website's nicely designed history page as seen here. I guess it could be related to the 170 year anniversary issue.

One of the things Staedlter really focuses on promoting on their history page is Made in Germany and the quality image of German made products. One of the things I find interesting is that country of origin laws in the US and in teh European Union are quite different. The stamp "Germany" or "Italy" as examples simply indicate that the marketer of the pencils is a German or Italian company respectively. Actually the pencil need not be manufactured in that country. For a pencil to say "Made in the USA" or "USA" on it in the US means it has to be "substantially transformed" from it's component parts (slats, graphiteⁱ core, glue, eraser, ferrule) into a different item (i.e. the pencil). Painting an imported raw pencil and finishing it in the US does not qualify as "Made in the USA", while.

This is not to claim that Staedtler is not producing pencils in Germany. Indeed they are and have a very fine facility in Neumarkt produicn thier top quality ranges, but they also have manufacturing facilities around the world and also import pencils from other third party manufactuers on an OEM basis. Some of these pencils may say Germany on them even though they are not produced there.

Look for some new Pencil wiki pages featuring Staedtler pencil items that I will add to the site over next week or so.