Caran d'Ache (company)

Caran d'Ache is a Swiss manufacturing company of art materials and writing instruments. The company, established in 1915, produces a wide range of products including colored pencils, graphite pencils, pastels, fountain pens, ballpoint pens, mechanical pencils, markers, gouache paints, and ink cartridges.

Caran d'Ache
FormerlyFabrique Genevoise de Crayons (1915–24)
TypePrivate
IndustryArt materials
Writing instruments
Founded1915 (1915) [1]
FounderArnold Schweitzer [1]
Headquarters
Geneva
,
Switzerland
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Carole Hubscher [2]
ProductsColored pencils, graphite pencils, pastels, fountain pens, ballpoint pens, mechanical pencils, markers, gouache paints, ink cartridges
SubsidiariesCaran d'Ache Canada [3]
Websitecarandache.com

History

The company was established as "Fabrique Genevoise de Crayons" in Geneva in 1915 when Arnold Schweitzer purchased the Ecridor Pencil Factory.[2] When Arnold Schweitzer took over the company in 1924, he renamed it after Caran d'Ache, the nickname of the French satiric political cartoonist Emmanuel Poiré (who in turn took his name from карандаш (karandash), the Russian word for pencil).[4]

In 1974 the company moved its production center to Thonex, a municipality of the Canton of Geneva. The company is known to include precious diamonds in the pens, and for that, in 1999, the Modernista Diamonds pen was included in the Guinness Book of Records as "the most expensive pen in the world".[3]

Products

Some of Caran d'Ache products developed over the years include:[2][5]

  • Technograph, the classic pencil introduced in the 1920s. It has been its most longstanding product to date
  • Fixpencil, a mechanical pencil invented by Carl Schmid in 1929.
  • Prismalo, the first watercolor pencil in the world, launched in 1931.
  • Neocolor (1952), a wax oil pencil, changed in 1972 to make it water-soluble
  • Ecridor (1953), originally intended to a be an alternative to the Fixpencil, then added a ballpoint pen to its line to redefine it as a luxury product
  • 849 ballpoint pen of 1969, successor of the Ecridor
  • Madison, the first fountain pen made by the firm
  • 6901 Luminance (2010), a new range of colored pencils

References
  1. "Caran d'Ache history from official website". Carandache.ch. Archived from the original on 2011-10-29. Retrieved 2011-11-01.
  2. Meet the brand on Cult Pens
  3. Band story - Caran d'Ache, 22 Oct 2019
  4. "CARAN d'ACHE > La Maison > La Maison > Histoire". Carandache.ch. Archived from the original on 2011-10-29. Retrieved 2011-11-01.
  5. Caran d'Ache celebrates 100 years on Craft Business, 2015
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