…or what you can find online, if you search hard enough, wait long enough, and save up all your Christmas money for three years during a global pandemic! (Hey, at least it was useful for something…!).

So!

I’ve been after a MB146 in sterling silver (because sure as hell, I am not typing out the full model-name and variant all over again. Once in the title is more than sufficient for my carpal-tunnel syndrome, thank you very much…) for many, many, many years now. Since at least 2017, and definitely, since 2019. Sadly, the instances where I could actually buy the pen were annoyingly few, and far between.

Very, very, very far between.

Every time I saw one for sale at collectors’ fairs, they were either really expensive, or they were snapped up by other collectors, before I could even get a look-in. As usual – “…some guy just bought it, sorry…”, was the most common refrain I received in instances such as this. Oh, the dreaded ‘sumgai’ – the bane of every collector since the dawn of humanity.

Anybody who’s been a longtime reader of this blog will know that I love vintage and antique silverware. I do. I just do. I love how it looks, I love the different shades and finishes, I love how it gleams when it’s cleaned, and how almost anything can be made from silver, if you have enough imagination – like a beautiful sterling silver fountain pen! And since I love fountain pens, I had to find a beautiful marriage of the two, to add to my collection – and this was going to be it!

Sterling silver fountain pens are nothing new. They literally go back over 100 years, to the earliest days of fountain pen design in the 1880s and 1890s. Even before then, luxurious, gleaming, silver dip-pen holders were also available for those who wanted a bit of class while writing their daily correspondence. Fountain pens have always been made of sterling silver, from the oldest Parkers and Watermans (Watermen?) at the turn of the last century, right through to the Parker 75s, the Auroras, Omas and other more modern models of the late 1900s and early 2000s, and they’re still being made today.

Unfortunately, they are rare, which obviously makes them difficult to find. It’s not like every company produces a silver variant of every single model of pen that they produce, so getting your hands on one is not exactly easy – unless you buy the pen from a company that specialises in silverware, like Tiffany. Yes, Tiffany sells silver fountain pens – very, very, very expensive ones – but yes, they do. But even a company like Tiffany doesn’t exactly splash them around, and they are not easy to find secondhand.

The Start of the Hunt

I got interested in wanting to buy a silver Montblanc back in the mid-2010s, when I started seeing them in the collections of friends, and other collectors online in collectors’ groups on Facebook, but raising enough money to afford one was always a struggle. This was because almost every single one which I saw was being sold at retail prices – which, if you’re not aware, is the better part of $3,000+!!…which not only could I not afford, but also, couldn’t justify, even if I had that kind of money. Oy…

They do come at lower price-points, but I was always outbid, or out-bought, by faster (and probably richer) collectors than I, and so it was a fantasy that remained a fantasy for years to come.

However, the challenge in buying a silver Montblanc is not limited solely to the pricing of the item – but also the variant of pen that you want to buy. There’s quite a few of them out there, and this effects not only the price, but also the availability – and it can trip you up if you’re not aware of the details.

Montblanc fountain pens that have sterling silver variants are the 144 pocket-model, and the larger 146 piston-fill model, the little brother of the more famous MB149. Montblanc fountain pens in sterling silver are part of their “Solitaire” line of precious-metal fountain pens, which come in sterling silver, sterling vermeil (sterling silver with gold overlay), and finally, solid 18kt gold. They usually come in two finishes: Barleycorn, and Pinstripe. From what I’ve seen, the Pinstripe variant seems to be more popular (and consequently, more available).

These varieties are available for both sizes of Montblancs available in silver – so you can get a 144 in Barleycorn or Pinstripe, or a 146 in Barleycorn, or Pinstripe, and they’re priced accordingly online. This is why it’s so important to pay attention to the details when you’re chasing after a pen like this – because from a distance, they can look remarkably similar – and why you should always pay attention, ask questions, and ask for photographs when attempting to net one of these for your collection.

Cerchez le Plume!

After saving up over a year’s worth of antiques-flipping money, I attempted to track down a Solitaire 146 Pinstripe at the upcoming pen-collectors’ fair…and to quote Maxwell Smart – “Missed it by THAT much!”

Rats!

And to make things even more painful – this was the second time in a row that I’d missed out on a silver Montblanc at a collectors’ fair! Clearly, the fates were conspiring against me in some sadistic game of Piggy-in-the-Middle.

Every single silver Montblanc that I saw on sites like eBay and Etsy were asking insane amounts of money (by which I mean, full-retail prices), which I could never justify spending. Upwards of $2,500 – $3,500, not including the cost of postage. I’ve never bought a Montblanc at retail prices, and I didn’t intend to start now, so the quest continued.

This involved a lot of clicking, scanning through photos, reading descriptions, and checking details, but after a lot of effort, I finally found one for sale in Japan for what was a very good price for what it was. Still pretty expensive (it’s a Montblanc, it’s always going to be expensive), but also far below what they usually sell for. After shifting a few other pens in my collection to make space (and more money), I finally nabbed the pen and bought it!

For the price advertised, the pen was looking a bit rough. It didn’t have any surface damage that I could see, but it was significantly tarnished (being silver will do that to an item…), and the nib was looking a bit suspicious. However, apart from these slight cosmetic defects, it seemed to be perfectly functional – and it had the right type of nib which I like in my pens – a Fine.

Could I have bought a nicer-looking silver Montblanc? Yes. But for the same price? Hell no! As I have said in previous posts of this type – collecting vintage items and antiques is all a matter of compromise. How much are you willing to put up with, overlook, or sacrifice, in order to find the item that you want? I decided that a bit of surface tarnishing, and nib-wonkiness, was nothing, and that I’d be happy to buy the pen in this condition. After all – there was nothing mechanically or really, cosmetically wrong with the pen, that I couldn’t fix. It just needed a damn good polishing – which you would have to do anyway, if you buy a silver pen, and a bit of nib-tweaking (which is VERY common with vintage pens) so in the long-run, it really made no difference. Besides, after all that work (which isn’t all that much, really), you’d get a new-looking pen for at least half the price of an actual brand-new pen. It’s a win-win!

Analyising the Pen

So – the pen arrived just a few days before Christmas, which must be one of those Christmas miracles I keep hearing so much about, because the postal tracking on this parcel had dropped off the face of the earth two weeks ago, leaving me all but guessing. But, it arrived, nonetheless, and was excellently packaged.

Once I got the pen out, I was able to see just how heavy the tarnishing was, but fortunately, not so heavy that I couldn’t just rub it off using my silver-cloth. The results were stunning!

I was a bit worried about the tarnish, largely because tarnish usually hides defects and damage in silverware that you never notice until after it’s been cleaned – stuff like cracks, scratches and dents. But once this was cleaned, it was absolutely flawless! Muah!

The next area to check apart from the body, was the piston-filling mechanism – smooth as melted butter! Just like new! Nothing to see here, so I left it alone.

In examining the pen, I found clues to its age. The clip-ring at the top of the cap had a serial-number stamped into it, this was an anti-counterfeiting measure introduced by Montblanc in 1991 (and which continues today) to deter fraudulent manufacture. However, next to this, were the letters “W. GERMANY”, meaning that the pen was manufactured before the German Reunification in 1991. Deduction: The pen was made in the late 1890s or very early 1990s, and sold as a West-German pen, by a German company in a reunified Germany, around 1992, after the serial-numbers were introduced. So a pen like this would date pretty firmly to between 1990-1992. One last thing I found engraved on the cap was the single word “METAL”, indicating that this was indeed the matching silver cap for the silver pen barrel below.

Anyway, after exploring the pen to try and find out more about it, came the careful (and lengthy) examination of the nib. While it was, as advertised, indeed a Fine, it was a fine with significant issues attached – which I expected, for a pen which was this heavily discounted, but finding the cause for these issues was an adventure in and of itself!

Tweaking the Nib

I found the nib on this fountain pen to be intolerably scratchy, noisy, and very unpleasant to write with. Out came the loupe, a bottle of ink, and a notepad, and what followed was several hours of nib-tweaking and adjustment. Leveling the tines, rocking the nib, and finally, spreading the point to increase the inkflow.

Tweaking and adjusting a fountain pen nib is a real exercise in patience. Nothing about this can be done in a hurry, and it can take hours to get right. You’re working in tolerances of fractions of millimeters, here, so absolutely microscopic adjustments have to be made, before the nib will write smoothly, or at least, less coarsely. However, despite all my best efforts, I was only able to make superficial improvements in the writing quality.

I was NOT happy. A pen from Montblanc, that cost this much, should write FLAWLESSLY. I don’t care how old it is! Montblanc provides, and I expect, and demand, perfection, goddamn it!

Time for drastic action!

I drained the pen of ink, and wrapped a tissue around the nib and feed. Then, I started twisting.

Montblanc and Pelikan fountain pens have feeds and nibs which screw into their sections. In theory, you need the correct piston-wrenches and section-wrenches to remove these components, but enough evenly-applied pressure is usually sufficient. After a firm twist, I felt a ‘pop!’, and the feed began to unscrew.

Once I’d gotten the nib out, I cleaned everything away – all the grit and dust and ink…and had a closer look.

Now I realised what the problem was: The nib wasn’t lined up with the feed! There was a tiny gap between the nib and feed, which meant that the tines at the nib-point would be uneven once the nib and feed were screwed into the pen. It’s so small that you’d never notice it (and would never SEE it, because it’s hidden by the SECTION!). Only by physically pulling out the feed, could I spot this defect. I gave the nib a slight twist to realign it against the feed, and then screwed the whole thing back into the pen and filled it with ink again.

Result: Absolute Perfection! The pen now wrote like it was built yesterday! Well worth every penny that I spent to buy it.

“Cool Pen!…Where Can I Get One!?”

Thanks! And uh…good luck!

Precious metal fountain pens in gold and silver are very hard to find, and very expensive. As I mentioned before, average price for one of Montblanc’s sterling silver models is upwards of $2,500 – $3,500+ (not including postage), depending on the seller, condition, and what’s included as part of the lot.

My pen was even harder to find, because it’s a vintage model. The Le Grand Solitaire Pinstripe in sterling silver (which is what this is), isn’t manufactured anymore. You can only get them vintage, or New-old-Stock, which only drives the price up even higher! If you are trying to find a sterling silver or precious-metal Montblanc of any kind, (or any type of fountain pen made of these materials) then start saving – they hardly ever go on sale for under $1,000, unless they’re the small, 144-sized pocket-pens. The chances of finding a 146-sized pen in sterling silver, vermeil, or solid gold, for under $1,000 is never going to happen.

To find them, search collectors’ communities on Facebook, ask friends or other collectors who might have one they want to sell (unlikely), trawl eBay or pen-selling websites, and visit pen-fairs and collectors’ shows. That’s about the only way you’ll ever get your hands on one, short of buying one brand-new from Montblanc.