This is an unusual post about color pencils

This is a really common (and legitimate) practice, and Kird Barken looks like a textbook example of it. Here's how the pipeline typically works:

Lately I have been using a brand of pencils, Kird Barken, that I purchased from Amazon. I really like them. The colors are bright they don't crumble and they sharpen well. So I did a deep dive ....read below so you can share my surprise about the origination of these types of pencils: (essentially these types of pencils are manufactured and China and are sold under several brand names)

The basic model

Chinese stationery factories manufacture pencils at scale, then sell the same physical product to dozens of different companies who each slap their own name and packaging on it. Most mid-to-large Chinese pencil factories have handled private-label work for European and American brands for 10–20 years, and custom barrel printing, Pantone color matching, bespoke packaging, and retail-ready labeling are standard capabilities, not premium add-ons.

Where it happens

China dominates global pencil manufacturing, with specialized industrial clusters offering distinct advantages — key regions include Zhejiang Province (Ningbo, Hangzhou, Quzhou), Guangdong (Shenzhen), Shandong, Jiangxi, and Anhui, which benefit from mature supply chains for raw materials like graphite, cedar wood, and lacquers. Zhejiang's cluster excels in high-volume production and export logistics, while Guangdong focuses on innovative designs and premium finishes.

A concrete example of scale: Ningbo Syloon built its own 40,000-square-meter production base in 2006 with 8 integrated workshops handling pencils, markers, crayons, printing, and packaging under one roof, with annual sales exceeding $100 million and a ranking among the top 10 stationery exporters globally. Syloon offers full-cycle OEM on colored pencils — custom color palettes, barrel printing, hot-stamp foiling, tin and gift-box packaging, and bundled art sets combining pencils with markers, crayons, and highlighters.

How a brand like "Kird Barken" gets made

1. Pick a factory/catalog — A seller (often a small US LLC or even a single person) works with a wholesaler like H&B, Syloon, or similar. Companies like H&B explicitly market lines of colored pencils as "ideal for OEM, ODM, dealers, and wholesalers," offering ready-made SKUs (72-color sets, 24-color tins, watercolor pencils, skin-tone sets, etc.) that can be relabeled.

2. Slap on packaging/branding — The seller picks a name (often generated to sound vaguely European/premium — "Kird Barken" has that quality), designs a logo, writes brand copy, and the factory prints it on the box/pencils.

3. List on Amazon — The same underlying pencil often appears under many different "brand" names simultaneously. That's why in the search results, Kird Barken listings show up side-by-side with near-identical competitors like H&B, KALOUR, and PANDAFLY — same product category, same marketing tropes ("soft-core, oil-based," "vibrant color," "adult coloring books"), different labels.

4. Low MOQs make it accessible — Manufacturers with larger facilities can accommodate lower minimum order quantities, and established suppliers often provide samples, though they may charge for shipping or materials. This is what allows small Amazon sellers (not big companies) to launch their own "brand" without owning a factory at all.

A notable historical pattern

H&B itself started as an OEM vendor for international art brands before launching its own retail label in 2016 — illustrating the common trajectory: factory → OEM supplier → eventual house brand, once they have enough capital and market insight from years of manufacturing for others.

Why this matters for buyers

Since many of these Amazon "brands" (Kird Barken, KALOUR, H&B, PANDAFLY, etc.) may be sourced from the same or similar factories, quality can be genuinely similar across brands regardless of the marketing language — the differentiation is almost entirely in packaging, price point, and bundle contents (sharpeners, tutorials, gel pens) rather than in the actual pencil core formulation. The "founder story" language ("rooted in a respect for materials and craft...") is a marketing template, not necessarily evidence of unique manufacturing.

I really do like these pencils and I think they are great for working in coloring books. I have a set of 80 and and since it has been a while since I purchased them I don't really call what I paid, probably around $30.