Jan Felkl

Jan Felkl (20 May 1817 – 7 October 1887) was a Czech globe maker and industrialist. He came from Banín, but settled in Prague where he got to know cartographer and globe maker Václav Merklas. Merklas soon after gifted his tools to Felkl, who set up his own workshop in the Old Town of Prague in the early 1850s.

Felkl's company grew rapidly and was eventually to become the most important and internationally most well-known globe manufacturing firm of Austria-Hungary. In 1870 the factory for the manufacturing of Felkl's globes relocated from Prague to the nearby town of Roztoky. By 1873 it produced 15,000 globes annually and, by 1877, in 17 languages. After Jan Felkl's death, the company continued to produce globes until 1952, when it closed due to setbacks suffered from market loss after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, legal conflicts, World War II, the installation of the Communist regime, and not least stiffening competition. Provided by Wikipedia