I thought I’d show a bit of a curiosity pencil today. When I first spoke to the Faber archives about this pencil, they really didn’t have much to say about it as it wasn’t a catalogued release.  So they very kindly went straight to the source and asked Countess Mary for some more information about it.

To quote the Faber website:

‘On December 12th, 1987, the wedding of Count Anton Wolfgang von Faber Castell and Mary Elizabeth Hogan was celebrated. The church ceremony took place in the church in Stein. Afterwards, the bridal couple drove to the new castle in a carriage, cheered by the crowds’.

I borrowed the above snip from the Faber site for context, hopefully they don’t mind too much.  If you follow the link above you can see them in the context of the main Faber timeline.

As well as asking Countess Mary, the Faber archives very kindly sent me copies of the wedding invite and the dinner menu front cover:

The pencils were presented to the guests at the wedding dinner, and according to Faber there were only c.300 produced.

I find this example quite amazing because the pre-sharpened pencil has absolutely no damage to the tip.  Someone managed to take this home from the wedding dinner and hold it in perfect condition for nearly 40 years.

The pencil model is 1357.  I checked some of the older catalogues and that number wasn’t being used. There may be a reference to it within the 1960s catalogue; if I can find it, I’ll add a scan to this post. Size wise, it’s a biggie.  I’ve added a standard hex and standard round bodied pencil to each picture for scale.

An interesting find and even better when paired with the scans from the Faber archives.  Not sure I’ll ever come across another, so I’m happy to have this in the collection.