Kaspar Faber
German businessman (1730-1784)
Kaspar Faber (1730 – 1784) was a German entrepreneur. He was the founder of the well-known stationery company now known as Faber-Castell.
Life and work
After finishing school, Faber trained as a carpenter. In 1758 he moved from the town of Langenzenn to the municipality of Stein near Nuremberg. His son Anton Wilhelm was born that same year.
Two years later he settled permanently in Stein as a carpenter and in 1761 opened a small workshop where he produced pencils, a typical activity of the carpenter trade at that time. Efforts to turn pencilmaking into a guild-approved craft failed due to lack of approval from the Nuremberg Rugsamt, which supervised trades in the city and its environs.
Pencils made of pure graphite easily crumbled and broke. Thus in 1771 Faber undertook the first attempts to improve pencils by combining ground graphite with sulfur, antimony, and binding resins. The technique of gluing pencils into wooden sticks was already well known in Nuremberg at that time, but Faber did not use it.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Kaspar Faber” as german businessman (1730-1784). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as german businessman (1730-1784). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1735039. VIAF identifies the subject as 80358065. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1730, 1784, 1758 and 1761.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. 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
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Kaspar Faber”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Kaspar Faber primary sources, Kaspar Faber archive and Kaspar research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Kaspar Faber”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Kaspar Faber” 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.