About KUM
KUM was founded in 1919 in Erlangen, Germany, by Fritz Mußgueller and Adam Kleber as a workshop producing plastic and metal ware, which is where the name comes from: Kunststoff (plastic) and Metall (metal). The company launched its now-iconic globe-shaped sharpener in 1928 and has stayed in continuous, family ownership ever since, passing from Fritz Mußgueller to his son-in-law Dr. Werner Lüttgens and today to Dr. Fritz Lüttgens. Sharpeners remain the core of the business, alongside rulers, protractors, erasers, and brushes sold in roughly 70 countries.
KUM's sharpeners are built around carbon-steel blades cut with a curved, dynamic-torsion action rather than flat inox blades, and the company favors magnesium bodies over cast alloys for its metal models. Manufacturing is certified to DIN EN ISO 9001, and the sharpeners comply with REACH and EN 71-3 toy-safety limits on phthalates and heavy metals, with wood components meeting DIN 53160 and carrying FSC certification. The brand's two-step long-point mechanism, which shaves the wood casing and hones the exposed core in separate stages, was notable enough that Blackwing, the pencil brand under Palomino/California Cedar, sells its own branded version of KUM's design rather than building a competing one.
Brand website: kum.net
What KUM makes
KUM's range runs wider than the products we review. The lines we know best from our own testing are marked with a star:
Long-point & two-step sharpeners
wood-then-core sharpening — featured on DeskRated
Handheld pencil sharpeners
single & multi-hole — featured on DeskRated
Rulers & protractors
drafting and school
Erasers
school & studio
Brushes
art & studio use
Lead pointers
for clutch pencils & lead holders
Why we recognized KUM
The DeskRated Top Brand recognition isn't paid for and can't be applied for. We award it to the brands whose products consistently stand out in our hands-on category reviews. KUM earned it on the strength of the products below, evaluated the same way every product on this site is: bought, used at a real desk, and judged on merit.
KUM products we rated highly
KUM AS2M Long Point Pencil Sharpener
One of our top picks for long points and colored pencils. Its two-step design separates the two jobs a single-hole sharpener tries to do at once: the first hole shaves back the wood casing, the second hole hones only the exposed core, so a fragile pigment core is never asked to survive the wood cut. In our testing that gentler second stage let colored-pencil sets go through without a single lost tip, where a general-purpose sharpener typically snaps several across the same set. It ships with two spare high-carbon steel blades stored in the housing, so it is a serviceable tool rather than a disposable one, and it includes lead pointers sized for 2mm and 3.2mm leads for clutch pencils and lead holders. It holds a 4.5-star rating across nearly 2,950 verified reviews.
Read the 7 Best Pencil Sharpeners of 2026 guide →What earned KUM the recognition
- A two-step long-point mechanism, shaving the wood casing in one hole and honing only the exposed core in the second, that kept colored-pencil cores from snapping across a full set in our testing.
- Two spare high-carbon steel blades built into the housing, so the sharpener is designed to be re-bladed rather than replaced.
- Built-in lead pointers sized for 2mm and 3.2mm leads, covering clutch pencils and lead holders that most general sharpeners on the market skip entirely.
- Manufacturing certified to DIN EN ISO 9001 with REACH and EN 71-3 compliance, and FSC-certified wood components meeting DIN 53160.
- A design pedigree strong enough that Blackwing, the pencil brand under Palomino/California Cedar, sells its own branded version of KUM's two-step sharpener rather than a competing design.
- Family-owned and sharpener-focused since 1919, with the same globe-sharpener design it introduced in 1928 still in production today.