We traveled to the largest city in the south, České Budějovice, to visit the Koh-I-Noor headquarters.

It takes over two hours each way to reach the city from Prague via bus or train. We woke up early to take the 7 AM highway bus.

We made it to České Budějovice! This is the plaza in the city’s Old Town.

České Budějovice, also known as Budweis, is the birthplace of the popular Czech beer Budweiser Budvar. (This is the origin of the name of America’s Budweiser beer.)

The city is filled with charm with these colorful buildings that come in colors like pink, sky blue, and yellow.

Oh, look at that sign!

We made it! It’s Koh-I-Noor! Their office looks like some kind of home you’d find in a children’s book.

There are busts of the first and second presidents of Czechoslovakia in front of building.

“Dobrý den!” (Hello!) The Vice Director of exports, Leona (on the left), and the Marketing Specialist, Ondřej Mergl (right), met us at the door with smiles on their faces.

The reception lobby has a huge pencil statue, a collection of Koh-I-Noor’s pencils with the famous lineup of 20 types of lead, and a timeline of the company’s history. It’s really cool!

We were hoping to see the factory, but we were there right as it was under construction. So we stopped by the reception room instead.

The export director Jana let us see their showcase in the reception room. The drawers were filled with beautiful displays of their products.

This is the Toison d’Or, a set of pastel crayons that comes in 120 colors.

Magic is their set of marbled colored pencils that have 3 colors mixed in a single pencil’s lead. It looks like a box of jewels.

Leona and Ondřej told us all about the Koh-I-Noor’s history and present-day story. The company was founded by Austrian architect and inventor Josef Hardtmuth.

This is Josef Hardtmuth. He started out making heating elements for pottery, but realized the commercial potential of art supplies and pencils, and began studying production of pencil lead.

His factory was the first in Vienna. He first built a pencil factory in 1790, and after years of trial and error started full-fledged pencil manufacturing in 1802.

In 1848, he moved his factory here from Vienna. The materials and workforce were both cheaper here, and he was able to transport goods more smoothly via the Vltava River.

The company’s third-generation leader and Josef’s grandson, Franz Hardtmuth, came up with groundbreaking ideas for pencil manufacturing. He’s the one that invented the variety of pencil lead hardness, and at the time they came up with 19 varieties.

This catalog contains Koh-I-Noor’s selection of pencils with lead ranging from 8B to 10H. Nowadays, we have names like HB, 2B, and so on. B means black, H means hard, and between them is F, which means firm.

But the origin of these names is F for Franz, H for Hardtmuth, and B for Budweis, which is another name for this city of České Budějovice.

The photograph hanging from this wall is a picture of Koh-I-Noor from the late 19th century. The buildings are in the same location and look the same as they did then. Even the chimney is in the same spot.

They showed us the very oldest pencil boxes they’ve got on hand. The boxes date back to 1860-1870.

This Czech-language catalog is from the early 20th century. What a wonderful design!

This is a German-language catalog.

In the 1900 World Fair in Paris, Koh-I-Noor won an award that brought them to international fame. At the start of the 20th century, the scale of the company’s factories took off. The company battled with Germany to gain the title of the world’s greatest pencil factory, and it was around this time that the company established branch offices in other countries.

But shortly thereafter, World War II broke out. The factories were spared during World War I, but during the second World War, Czech became a socialist nation, and Koh-I-Noor was nationalized.

Socialism in the country ended in 1989, and Koh-I-Noor was finally returned as a private company. The trade relations between the countries where the branch offices had been built had since deteriorated, so it was difficult for the market to recover.

The company has since overcome these obstacles, and now distributes to 84 countries. Japan in particular has a fondness for the Magic colored pencils and the hedgehog colored-pencil holder.

Koh-I-Noor deeply invests itself into strict safety and inspection standards to create high quality writing tools. They also participate in tree replanting efforts and research the development of plastic pencils.

As a company with over 200 years of history, Koh-I-Noor also treasures its long-held traditions. We could see the importance of the traditions to the company as our hosts spent two hours with us talking about the company’s history as we looked through various materials together.

Currently, the company’s headquarters has a pencil factory, a pencil lead factory, an eraser factory, a wood products factory, and a packaging printing factory. Elsewhere in the Czech republic is the company’s mechanical pencil factory, while their Magic colored-pencil factory is in Bulgaria.

Koh-I-Noor has over 90 shops in the Czech Republic, as well as shops in Slovakia. And now that our tour is over, it’s time to head back to Prague.

This time we took the train back to the city. To our luck, there was an express train ready to go. It would only take us a little over two hours to get to Prague this time.

And with that, we bid farewell to České Budějovice. We’re so thankful for the wonderful hospitality of everyone at Koh-I-Noor!

The End
Materials provided by Koh-I-Noor