Johann Faber
From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia
Historical figure.
Johann Faber (1819–1901), one of three Faber brothers at A.W. Faber (Stein), founded his own pencil company in Nuremberg in 1878 (production from 1879). His brother Eberhard established a major U.S. pencil factory in 1861 (often—though not universally—credited as the first in America). Amid Depression-era pressures, Johann Faber entered a cooperation with A.W. Faber in 1932 and was fully absorbed in 1942.
In the Sherlock Holmes stories
- Sherlock Holmes found a tiny pencil shaving with "NN" followed by bare wood. Since many pencils then were stamped "Johann Faber" in one line, seeing NN at the end told him the brand is almost surely Johann Faber. Because the NN is the last part of "Johann," Sherlock Holmes also infered how much of the stamped name would still be on a short pencil stub — helping him estimate the suspect's pencil was only about an inch and a half long (3STU 154).
