Centropen is a company making classic as well as innovative school, office and hobby supplies and it’s also an exclusive producer of the popular blowing pens. Vast majority of their products are made in the Czech Republic, specifically in Dačice in South Bohemia. The beginnings of the production date back to 1940 when two companies in Dačice merged and started to collaborate on making fountain pens and technical pencils. The two companies went their separate ways at the end of the war and one of them then established the Omega company which continued making fountain pens. In 1948, the company was nationalised and Omega became a part of the Centropen company. Later, Centropen even got under the administration of the Koh-I-noor company. At the beginning of 1989, Centropen became independent and it became a joint-stock company 3 years later. After 2000, the company started to focus on innovations based on paediatric recommendations, meaning mostly on production of writing utensils with an ergonomic grip, i.e. a triangular shape of the gripping part.