While still at Paris he had endeavoured in every way by letters to his father to conduce towards the elevation of the manufactory and the improvement of the quality of the articles manufactured, but it was when he began to put his hands to the work himself that he first aimed at any material success.
These improved manufactures and especially his new so called Polygrade Pencils, which have met with the greatest renown especially among artists, were all marked with the name of the firm and, as they by reason of their increased price, the unavoidable consequence of improved quality, met with but little countenance among the Nürnberg merchants, the manufacturer travelled with them himself through Germany, Russia, Austria, Belgium, Holland, France, England, Italy and Switzerland and opened up business connexions with all the chief cities of Europe, which, with the continued improvements in his manufactures, soon found him a satisfactory custom and an ever increasing demand, important enough to raise itself above the narrow sphere of local interests.
In the interior of the manufactory two great improvements were undertaken, as nearly every year called for some new addition. In these new erections care was taken to construct them as roomy and light as possible, thus taking into consideration the health of the workmen and the fact that work is much better performed in sunny spacious rooms, than in gloomy dark vaults in which the air cannot be renewed, and that the pleasure and zest with which it is performed redounds to the benefit of the manufactory itself.
The countless departments of business, in which pencils are used, by degrees rendered an extensive and systematic classification necessary from the long easel-pencil to the smallest pocketbook-pencil.
The manufacture had, in consequence of its extensive foreign connexions, already become considerably improved and extended and the varying tastes, even the varying customs of the nations which used them, had to be taken into consideration. The manufacturer never ceased to study all wants, to subject his manufactures constantly to new trials, to avail himself of fresh experiences in order to surpass with his products all similar articles if possible.
The renown of his manufactures has penetrated to all parts of the world and it is not merely their widely extended use, that attests their excellence, but more especially the voice of those men, who make the greatest demands upon the manufactory. There are few Architects and Engineers who use any other article but Faber’s pencils, and the whole profession of artists has long since proclaimed A. W. Faber’s pencil to be the very best for drawing purposes. Such men as Cornelius, Kaulbach, Bendemann, Lessing, Horace Vernet have expressed themselves to this effect.
In accordance with this verdict is the result of the competition in the several industrial Exhibitions, both at home and abroad, in which Faber’s pencils gained the victory all over all other manufactures of the same nature.
With the year 1849 a new era in the activity of the manufactory commenced. Ever since that year the products of the manufactory had met with recognition and custom in America and with the continued increase of the population it was to be assumed that the sale of the same would also constantly increase in importance, especially as the manufacture of leadpencils had not as yet taken firm root there and it therefore became a question of obtaining a generally acknowledged product of European manufacture, the excellence of which had been proved by the experience of years and its honest manufacture.
This induced the proprietor of the manufactory to establish a house at New-York and entrust the management of the same to his youngest brother Eberhard Faber, who had just completed his study for the law at the universities of Berlin and Erlangen and was at that time engaged in acquiring the necessary mercantile knowledge in the establishment at Stein.
The trade with America thereby acquired a firm footing, the communication spite of the great distance became more regular and the connexion of the manufactory with the new world more close. As England, France, Russia, Italy and the East had long since been open to Faber’s manufactures, the idea of creating an universal trade appeared to be realised.