A still more cunning fraud was perpetrated at Nürnberg. A deaf and dumb lithographer by name Georg Wolfgang Faber was put forward, whose name was to be made use of. The similarity of the surname and wrapper exactly copied from those of Faber’s manufactory were sufficient to make the public believe that they really had the genuine article from Faber’s manufactory before them. On the intervention of the authorities, whom Lothar Faber put in motion, the reputed manufacturer was subjected to an examination, which proved him to be altogether incapable of producing such a thing as a serviceable article and shewed that he had only lent his name to other speculators, whereupon the Royal Government of middle Franconia withdrew the licence for pencil making from the said G. W. Faber.
Proceedings were likewise taken against a Pencilmanufacturer at Fulda, who had manufactured and circulated upwards of seven thousand dozen leadpencils with the false stamp “A. W. Faber”. The Criminal Court of the Electorate of Hesse in a decision dated 2nd September 1856, condemned the defendant, on account of fraud, to a pecuniary fine of 50 Thalers and further to four weeks imprisonment, a decision, which the supreme Court of Appeal at Cassel absolutely confirmed. Similar events took place in other countries with like results.
As the proprietor of the factory has hitherto proceeded against many persons at home and abroad who had attempted to manufacture and sell pencils in imitation of those of his firm he will further use all his efforts to suppress every deception foisted upon the public.
In the meanwhile the manufactory assiduously endeavoured to attain to perfection in its products. As the stock of blacklead began to disappear in the mines of Cumberland, it succeeded, by its perfected manipulation of the material, in producing so many grades of hardness and supplying such an extensive variety of pencil, that no demand could present itself without meeting with satisfaction among the great choice of manufactures.
In the opinion of connoisseurs the finest sorts even surpass the best Cumberland leadpencils in their lasting and uniform degrees of hardness, their greater firmness and durability as also in the increased purity of the lead. In addition to this they possess such an amount of softness and delicacy, as to be able to stand comparison in this and every particular with the Cumberland pencils. Besides this, and in addition to several other improvements relating to their external appearance, the most useful and ornamental shapes for pencils of the finer descriptions were devised and introduced, and still more recently the socalled “Artist’s pencils” were added to the list of novelties and immediately met with the most universal recognition, which soon stimulated other manufacturers to attempt imitations.
In the midst of these exertions the news was suddenly received, that that, which the English had so long sought for and which the perfected system of manufacture still stood much in need of in order to yield more than was previously possible, had been found. A new blacklead mine had been discovered. Johann Peter Alibert, merchant of the first class at Tabasthus in Siberia, had undertaken an exploring expedition in the mountainous eastern portion of Siberia, partly to search for gold. He examined the sand of the rivers Oka, Belloi, Kitoi and Irkutsk, and in one of the mountain ravines in the vicinity of Irkutsk lighted accidentally upon specimens of pure blacklead. Alibert immediately recognised the value and importance of the material and instituted strict investigations until in the year 1847 after much labor and exertion he arrived at the conviction that, in a branch of the mountain range of Saian among the heights of the Batougol mountains four hundred versts westward of the town of Irkutsk, close to the frontier of China, a primitive deposit of blacklead must exist. He addressed himself at once to the task of opening a mine in order to bring the costly material to the surface.
At first the blacklead met with proved to be no better than the refuse Cumberland blacklead, and upwards of three hundred tons of this quality had to be removed before a deposit of the best and purest blacklead was finally opened up. Pieces were soon obtained weighing as much as eighty pounds. The Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg, before which body Alibert laid his samples of blacklead for analysis, declared the same to consist of the same elements and possess the same properties and consequently to be of precisely the same nature as the Cumberland blacklead. Alibert now proceeded to England where he visited the declining blacklead mines of Cumberland and convinced himself by personal observation of the exhaustion and decay of the same. He thereupon submitted his samples of blacklead to some of the most extensive English leadpencil manufactories for examination, who unanimously confirmed the verdict of the Academy at St. Petersburg, pronouncing the quality of the Siberian blacklead to be excellent and in no way inferior to the Cumberland lead.
It had cost Alibert eight years of unremitting labour and a capital of one million Francs when he beheld his enterprise crowned with this certainly unexpected success.
He now turned his attention to rendering the newly discovered material available for the manufacture of pencils. Having convinced himself that Faber’s manufactory was the most extensive in existence and that it circulated the largest amount of fine goods in the world, he applied to the same with a proposition for an agreement, by virtue of which his blacklead was to be taken solely and exclusively by that establishment for the manufacture of pencils.
The firm on the other hand, having thoroughly convinced themselves that the newly discovered blacklead was quite equal to the genuine and best Cumberland blacklead in quality, willingly entertained this proposition of Alibert’s, so that in the year 1856 a contract was entered into between the manufactory and Alibert and sanctioned by the Russian Government, according to which all the blacklead, which comes from the Siberian mines is to be delivered to A. W. Faber’s manufactory, and to no other establishment for the purposes of pencil manufacture, now and for all time.