A.W. Faber’s Gold Pen and Pencil Factory

The following are the illustrations from an 1879 article about some New York offices of A.W. Faber, which were located on 718 and 720 Broadway. The date is some 30 years after Lothar Faber sent his youngest brother, Eberhard, to head the New York office (but who would soon leave to start a company of his own, then erect his own factory in 1861). There is nothing here about wood-cased pencils: “It is not the purpose of this article…to describe the manufacture of lead pencils, but to give an idea of the process of making gold pens and gold pen and pencil cases.” But seeing what the premises looked like, both inside and out, is intriguing.

I’m always amazed at the kind of effort that must have been made to illustrate newspapers and magazines prior to common photography. In this case, it seems as if the artist used the same man as the model for the portraits at each corner. Either that, or this is one seriously skilled worker (who can afford some nice clothes to boot).