Eduard Slavoljub Penkala

Croatia can be justly proud of Eduard Slavoljub Penkala, the extraordinary inventor and innovator. He was a man with great energy and enthusiasm, whose aim was to make practical devices simpler, more useful and of a higher quality. In this book we pay tribute to him and to the legacy he left behind.

Penkala was born on 20 April 1871 in Liptovsky St Mikulas (today in the Slovak Republic), to a Polish father and a Dutch mother. As a young boy he already showed great interest in solving technical problems and was always repairing something at home in his own small workshop. His parents urged him to become a doctor, and he enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine in Vienna. But he felt he had made the wrong choice, and eventually moved to Dresden where he studied chemistry and met his future wife, Emilija, a music student.

The year following his graduation the young couple were married, and in 1900 they moved to Zagreb. Penkala found the city stimulating, and he soon became a high ranking official in the Austro-Hungarian Ministry of Finance. He was later appointed Royal Technical Controller. To mark his loyalty to his new homeland he took on the Croatian name Slavoljub.

In spite of his responsible job and growing family, Penkala spent many hours working on a variety of inventions, and on 24 January 1906 he registered the patent for an automatic pencil, a truly revolutionary innovation among writing instruments. Soon afterwards he met Edmund Moster, one of nine children of a much respected tradesman and steam mill owner. The Moster family's wealth had been earned by diligence and shrewdness, and Edmund and his brother Mavro immediately recognised the huge potential of Penkala's invention. In August 1906, Penkala and the Mosters set up a company for the purpose of manufacturing the automatic pencil, with the Mosters as principal financiers. Production began seven months later.

The automatic pencil was an instant success in domestic and foreign markets. "Penkalomania" spread around the world, helped in no small way by a clever advertising logo depicting a friendly man with a pointed nose and big ear with an automatic pencil tucked behind it. The company diversified into other writing instruments and accessories patented by Penkala. As the business grew, a second factory was set up in Berlin..

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