General Pencil Company, Inc.

Manufactures fine art and craft products, including General’s® Cedar Pointe® Graphite Pencils, General’s® Semi-Hex Pencil, Create Your Own Flipbooks!, How to Draw Nature, Wildlife & Endangered Species Kit, #30 General’s® Learn to Draw Now!™ Kit, “The Masters”® Brush Cleaner, and “The Masters”® Soap. Its offering covers drawing tools, instructional kits, and brush care products, with items used for drawing, animation, and art making. The company also offers products under the General’s® and “The Masters”® names, serving artists, educators, and others who use pencils and related materials in creative work.

Its history dates to 1860, when Edward Weissenborn helped found the first pencil factory in the United States in Hudson County, New Jersey. In 1889, Edward and his son, Oscar A., began what is now the business in Jersey City, New Jersey. The company states that its goal is to create consistent, quality products in a sustainable manner for artists of all levels. It also supports art education and conservation through purchases of select products, including Monarch Butterfly and pollinator education and conservation as well as arts education, and it has worked with Hudson County Community College art students on charcoal and graphite mural art at its factory.