It was founded in 1931 as the "Wolff Pen Manufacturing Company" (上海华孚金笔厂; Shànghǎi huáfú jīnbǐ chǎng), and was renamed in 1966 to the current name.

Hero is commonly referred to as "Huáfú" which is the Hanyu Pinyin transliteration of the firm's abbreviated original Chinese name.

By the 1990s, the company's Hero brand fountain pens had earned a reputation in China as the best in the country.

[3] Some of its brands of fountain pens include Hero, Wing Sung, Lucky, Huafu, Xinming, Guanleming, Xinhua, and Gentleman.

These pens used an aerometric ink filling system, though modern variants of the Hero 100 use a standard international cartridge-converter.