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The right chemistry
In the late 1820s, a
certain Herr Hornemann of Germany was fed up with paying exorbitant
prices for imported art supplies. An art teacher, he decided
to make his own—or rather, to have his son
Carl, who was a chemist, make them.
 A few years later, Carl Hornemann’s Paint and
Ink Factory opened in the center of Hanover; the first
price list in the Pelikan archives is dated April 28th, 1838.
When Carl
retired in 1871, he sold the company to another chemist, Günther
Wagner, who had been his employee for eight years. Pelikan was about
to take wing.
How the bird took flight
Of the many contributions Wagner made to the
company, the most memorable was giving Pelikan its name and it
eponymous logo in 1878. The pelican was Wagner’s family crest, and
it came to symbolize the company’s familial allegiance to its
employees. The mother pelican is protective of her brood.
But there’s more
to the story than that, and in researching this article, we cajoled Juergen
Dittmer, Pelikan’s archivist, to tell us a detail about this
motherly logo that the company has never published before.
The secret
revealed
It turns out that although Wagner’s family crest did indeed contain a
mother pelican, she had only three  chicks.
Pelikan’s original logo featured four. Wagner’s brother is to thank.
He was the one who prepared the logo with the printer, and he
had the printer add an extra chick. At the time, Wagner’s wife was
expecting their fourth child.
Many years later, as the logo was updated, it would feature
two chicks instead of four.
Now there is one.
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Inks, inks everywhere and nary a nib
Fuel-efficient, too: the piston holds more ink
than a cartridge.
The purist’s pen
