Eberhard Faber Van Dyke

The first Van Dyke drawing pencils were non-Microtomic. Microtomic was Eberhard Faber’s marketing term used to describe their graphite refining process introduced in the 1930s. When the Microtomic process was adopted, the term began appearing on the reverse imprint of the Van Dyke. By the 1940s, the Van Dyke box began featuring Microtomic in much larger type than the Van Dyke name. In 1953, the Van Dyke was redesigned and although the Van Dyke name still made a token appearance on the pencil imprint, they were now known as Microtomic Drawing Pencils. By the late 1950s all vestiges of the Van Dyke name were dropped.