Pens and Light Pressings

C Brandauer & Co Ltd has been a precision pressings company for 148 years and over that time its product mix and markets has changed significantly.

The pen nibs that everyone knows about, in their beautiful boxes, met their match with the introduction of the fountain pen and in particular, the biro.  However, as I go through the Company papers there is very little information about the change from a pen nib manufacturer, selling its own products throughout the world, to one of producing precision pressings for others, also exported globally.

However, reading the Report of the Directors, for the year ending 31 March 1960, is extremely interesting and part of it is as follows:

"The pen side showed a satisfactory increase in trading which resulted in a small additional factory being opened at Atherstone, due to the difficulty of obtaining the necessary labour in Birmingham, which came into production early in January 1960.  The benefits of which we are now beginning to feel.

The light pressings department showed a high increase in order intake and as a result of an intensified sales campaign the number of new accounts increased satisfactorily.  The policy of servicing the electronics industry with precision pressings from precious and semi-precious metals continues and the reputation of your Company in this industry is being constantly enhanced.  Research into the possibility of developing proprietory lines and new production techniques is being actively persued."

I believe that it was in the mid-1960s that the last pen nibs were produced at C Brandauer & Co Ltd, though one was made under licence for many years by another pen manufacturer - the 518 pen.  Regarding the light pressings work, Brandauer went from strength to strength in that field and today is regarded as a world-class precision pressings company working with new ideas, production techniques, customers from around the world and exporting as far afield as the USA and China.