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Engelhard

US catalytic converter company bought in 2006 by BASF

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ1342078
Source-derived summary

Engelhard Corporation was an American Fortune 500 company headquartered in Iselin, New Jersey, United States. It is credited with developing the first production catalytic converter. In 2006, the German chemical manufacturer BASF bought Engelhard for US$5 billion.

Early history

The company was started by Charles W. Engelhard Sr. in 1902 when he purchased the Charles F. Croselmire Company in Newark, New Jersey with the proceeds from his wife's dowry.

His wife Emilie Maria was the daughter of German brandy distiller Friedrich Canthal de He subsequently founded the American Platinum Works in 1903 and acquired several other companies. In 1904, he purchased Baker & Co., a platinum smelting and refining business located in Newark and in 1905, he established Hanovia Chemical and Manufacturing Company also in Newark. Engelhard became the world's largest refiner and fabricator of platinum, gold and silver, a producer of silver and silver alloys in mill forms, operator of the world's largest precious metals smelter. They also developed liquid gold for decorative applications.

Merger and spinoff of Phibro

In 1958, Engelhard's son Charles Jr.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Engelhard” as uS catalytic converter company bought in 2006 by BASF. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2006, 1902, 1903, 1904—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1902. The account is most persuasive where Engelhard, catalytic and converter can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as uS catalytic converter company bought in 2006 by BASF. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1342078. VIAF identifies the subject as 123206241. The Library of Congress control number is n84124859. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2006, 1902, 1903 and 1904.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Engelhard”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Engelhard primary sources, Engelhard archive and Engelhard research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Engelhard”?
  2. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Engelhard” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.