Leuchtturm Gruppe
| GmbH & Co. KG | |
| ISIN | 🆔 |
| Industry | Stationery |
| Predecessor |
|
| Founded 📆 | May 8, 1917 in Aschersleben, Germany |
| Founder 👔 | Paul Koch, Udo Bein |
| Headquarters 🏙️ | , , |
Area served 🗺️ | Worldwide |
Key people |
|
| Brands | Leuchtturm1917 |
| Owner | Stürken family |
| Members | |
Number of employees | 500 (2019) |
| Divisions | Fairfield, New Jersey, USA |
| 🌐 Website | [Lua error in Module:WikidataIB at line 665: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). ] |
| 📇 Address | |
| 📞 telephone | |
Leuchtturm Gruppe (pronounced [lɔʏç(t)ˌtʊʁm]) — is a German family-run[1] business in the small consumer goods industry based in Geesthacht, Germany. It produces accessories for philately and numismatics (primarily stockbooks and coin albums), notebooks, stationery, and retails food and clothes.[2]
Although Leuchtturm was founded in 1948, their oldest brand KaBe was founded in 1917, thus they use this year for a marketing campaign.
History
During World War I a German lithograph and philatelist Paul Koch with a partner Udo Bein founded in 1917 a small publishing house KaBe (Firma Koch & Bein KG) for manufacturing post stamps and stamp albums under the name Komet.[3] The business wasn't successful. They sold the company to a local Aschersleben dynasty of Volkhardts in 1924.[4] After the end of World War II Volkhardts had to move to Göppingen in 1953 due to the USSR's occupation of Western Germany and start a new stamp-albums business under the name KaBe-Verlag.[5]
Paul Koch again in 1948 established a small publishing house for manufacturing stamp albums Leuchtturm Albenverlag (The Light Tower Album Publishing House) in Hamburg. SF-Album with transparent pockets was a best-selling item.[6] Ever since KaBe and Leuchtturm were using the same original sheet design and 16-ring perforations format, with a linen hinge.[5]
Koch died in 1956 and the company moved to the neighbouring city Geesthacht.[7] In 1959 Hamburg businessman Wolfgang Schön bought a partnership in the publishing house and started exploring export possibilities. For this task he hired Kurt Stürken in 1962. In 1967 Stürken founded the first foreign Leuchtturm office in New York, USA Lighthouse Publications, Inc. and started to sell albums under the name Lightroom. Stürken purchased the partnership from the Koch family in 1972 and ran the business with Schön until the death of the latter in 1996. In 1972 they opened a subsidiary in Montreal, Canada. French philately-albums brand MOC was acquired in 1990, KaBe-Verlag in 1997. KaBe are marketed as premium albums, unlike Leuchtturm albums, and feature double linen hinges, expertly bound albums and the “bi-collect” system.[5]
New partners, Kurt Stürken’s sons Axel and Max, switched to online retail and expanded the company internationally. In 2009 a Hungary subsidiary Leuchtturm Ungarn Bt was founded in Körmend, which has become the current production site for all stamp collecting albums. In 2013 a factory in South China, Paul Koch Guangzhou, Ltd., was acquired, the current production site for coin albums. In 2014 The Semikolon brand was acquired along with a bookbinding factory in Vimperk, Czech Republic.[8] In 2015 the stationery supplies brand Treuleben & Bischof in Sahline, Tunisia, was bought.[5]
Leuchtturm1917
In 1997 and 1998 Kurt Stürken’s sons Axel and Max respectively were appointed managing partners. The brothers saw that philately and numismatics businesses were declining and, under the influence of the Dot-com bubble, switched to online-retail business.[9] In 2002 they opened the online shop Torquato as a subsidiary.[5]
Torquato's best-selling items were Italian expensive notebooks Moleskine and the Stürken brothers decided that they could do better notebooks for a lower price.[10] In October 2004 they hired Philip Döbler and quickly, under Döbler's management, in 2005 released stationery supplies brand Leuchtturm1917 which now composes half of the company's income. Unlike Moleskine, Leuchtturm1917 has numbered pages, a table of contents, attached adhesive labels, and ink-resistant paper.[1] [11] Later a second bookmark that differs slightly in color was added on demand from customers.[8]
Under the pressure of the new competitor, Milan-based Moleskine, the team sold 75 % of the business to an investing company and went IPO in 2013. It took four years for Leuchtturm1917 to earn a stable market share of luxury notebooks.[12]
In 2014 a Brooklyn-based artist Ryder Carroll decided to release a notebook that would be designed exclusively for bullet journaling (BuJo) — Carroll's method of note taking and list making.[13] Leuchtturm1917 was chosen as a manufacturer and produced a limited edition notebook Bullet Journal with a key section, an index section, a future log and monthly and daily sections. The edition was sold out quickly and one year later, with several improvements, a new permanent collection version was released.[14] Now it has not two but three bookmarks and an 8-page guide.[15][16] Leuchtturm1917 marketing manager Richard Bernier says it was about June 2016 when sales went viral.[17]
Brands
- KaBe, Leuchtturm, Lightroom — philately.
- Komet — numismatics.
- Torquato AG — souvenirs (since 2000).
- Semikolon — binders (since 2015).
- Treuleben & Bischof — stationery (since 2015).
- Food Brothers — kitchen utensils (since 2016).
- Bethge — stationery.
- Legendär — stationery.
- TeBe — calendars.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Leuchtturm1917: About Us". leuchtturm1917.com. Retrieved 30 March 2019.
- ↑ Florian Langenscheidt, Bernd Venohr (Hrsg.): Lexikon der deutschen Weltmarktführer. Die Königsklasse deutscher Unternehmen in Wort und Bild. Deutsche Standards Editionen, Köln 2010, ISBN 978-3-86936-221-2 Search this book on
..
- ↑ Adressbuch des deutschen Buchhandels 1948 auf books.google.de
- ↑ Paul Goes (Hrsg.): Der Kreis Göppingen, 1973 auf books.google.de
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 "Webauftritt der Unternehmensgruppe". leuchtturmgruppe.com. Retrieved 30 March 2019.
- ↑ "Leuchtturm Gruppe: About Us". leuchtturm.com. Archived from the original on 29 March 2019. Retrieved 30 March 2019.
- ↑ Norbert Dreessen (5 June 2015). "Geesthachter Verlag bringt Ordnung in jede Sammlung". Lübecker Nachrichten. Retrieved 5 April 2019.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Maria Matina (19 September 2014). "Übernahme: Leuchtturm kauft Semikolon". Werbeartikel Nachrichten. Retrieved 5 April 2019.
- ↑ Maria Matina. "Meet the Designer: Interview with Leuchtturm1917 Team". milligram.com. Retrieved 5 April 2019.
- ↑ "Family Firms: Leuchtturm Sees the Light". handelsblatt.com. Retrieved 30 March 2019.
- ↑ "LEUCHTTURM1917 – Details make all the difference". leuchtturm1917.de. Retrieved 30 March 2019.
- ↑ "Family Firms: Leuchtturm Sees the Light". handelsblatt.com. Retrieved 30 March 2019.
- ↑ Denise Florez (9 March 2016). "Why is everyone crazy for #bujo? What you need to know about 'bullet journaling'". latimes.com. Retrieved 5 April 2019.
- ↑ Ryder Carroll. "The BuJo Backstory". bulletjournal.com. Archived from the original on 11 April 2019. Retrieved 5 April 2019.
- ↑ "The Official Bullet Journal Notebook". bulletjournal.com. Archived from the original on 3 April 2019. Retrieved 5 April 2019.
- ↑ "Interview: Cay Group Launches the Leuchtturm1917 Brand in Singapore this July". Singapore Gifts & Premiums Fair (SGPFair). 24 July 2017. Retrieved 5 April 2019.
- ↑ Alison Birrane (23 January 2017). "Family Firms: Leuchtturm Sees the Light". BBC. Retrieved 5 April 2019.
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