With a history spanning almost one and three quarters centuries, The Pelikan Holding, AG, known fondly and respectfully in the United States as The Pelikan Pen Company, is one of the world's oldest and most distinguished manufacturers of fountain pens and other fine writing implements. Indeed, the year in which its founder, chemist Carl Hornemann, first established his own colour and ink factory in Hanover Germany, 1832, is exactly 175 years from the writing of this account.