Reviews

I have to let you in on a little secret, I love the style of a lot of Montblanc pens and the Montblanc Meisterstuck 146 LeGrand fountain pen is not only the pen that started it all for me, but it is also to this day my absolute favorite modern high-end utilitarian fountain pen. Let me explain why.

I need to start by explaining that rather long and weird category I gave it; modern high-end utilitarian fountain pen. While it sounds like a bunch of words I just strung together for the heck of it, in the Montblanc Meisterstuck 146’s case, it isn’t.

It is modern because you can go to the store and buy a Montblanc Meisterstuck 146 just manufactured and the vast majority of them you see will be from the 1980s on up. They were however first manufactured in the 1940s so it is possible, however unlikely, you could get one that is considered vintage. Most collectors I know of if they go back that far they tend to skip over the early 146s and go straight for the 136, as I did, and what a pen that is……. some other time.

It is high-end because if you know one hundred people, 99 of them will gasp and call you nuts when you tell them you paid just under $500 for a pen made mostly from plastic. The last one will have a stroke. Any fountain pen is a luxury, and any pen over about $200 will make people stop and stare, hit the $500 range and you are indeed high-end for most of us. Not to mention some think the Montblanc Meisterstuck 146 is just about the name Montblanc, again, not true.

I classify the pen as utilitarian because it is not flashy but instead is designed to be an excellent tool to write with, which of course is practically the literal definition of the word utilitarian.

And of course, it is a fountain pen. Put all that together and you have my definition of the Montblanc Meisterstuck 146 LeGrand fountain pen.

What attracted me to the Montblanc Meisterstuck 146 in the first place is its simplicity. The pen is almost all black, a white star on the top of the cap, gold (or silver) clip and cap band, and of course the dual-tone gold and silver nib. There are many variants of the 146 made out of many different materials so I want to be clear, I am talking about the plain, generic, non-descript 146, not any of its special variants.

The design just screamed: “I am the king of writing, you are not worthy”. Yes, that last bit was because it was in a Montblanc store and they seemed a little snooty. The staff in a Montblanc store all wear nicely pressed suits and wear white cotton gloves so as to not actually leave fingerprints on things. Really? It’s a pen! It is meant to be held for Pete’s sake!

In all fairness, once I got past the air of snootiness that wafted out of the door to the Montblanc store I found a lot of them to be really nice people who were just as into the pen scene as I was, just working somewhere that had some really strict rules. Most of them actually carried and used either Montblanc Meisterstuck 146s or similar Montblanc Meisterstuck models. But I digress.

Once I was actually able to get a Montblanc Meisterstuck 146 in my hand and start writing with it, I was in love. The diameter of the section (the area right above the nib where you hold it to write) was perfect and it had a little area where your fingers just melted into the plastic. Speaking of the plastic….er….precious resin I mean (yes, they call the plastic “precious resin”, did I mention snooty?), whatever it is it is very nice as it warms to the touch just right and never seems to get slick. One thing I hate about a lot of modern pens is the metal sections which not only are cold when you first grab them but seem hard and slick. The 146 does not have those issues.

Once you start writing with the Montblanc Meisterstuck 146 you realize this pen was designed for someone who actually writes. This is not a check signing and put it away pen, not a pen to check off your grocery list, this is a pen to sit down and write a letter to someone, or a pen to start writing that novel. Yes, that kind of pen. A pen that makes you want to write. I love that.

Maybe it’s me, but I fill up my Montblanc Meisterstuck 146 LeGrand and I immediately look for things to write. Yes, I could type that list on the computer in half the time, or tap it into my phone so I have it with me all the time, don’t care, write it.

Part of that, of course, is how the Montblanc Meisterstuck 146 strikes you visually, part of it is how it feels in your hand, but what we haven’t talked about is the part about how it actually writes.

I have used both a medium and fine Montblanc Meisterstuck 146 and both have smooth even flowing nibs. I really like my fine but I can tell that the medium is just a tad bit smoother. I have threatened to send off the fine and see if a pro could smooth it even more but in reality that is being super picky. I would never consider it if we were not talking about a pen I love to do a lot of writing with, and even then it is really excessive to talk about smoothing it.

The Montblanc Meisterstuck 146 LeGrand is a piston filler which means you dip the nib into a bottle of ink and using the cap on the back of the pen barrel turns it to activate a piston inside the pen to draw in ink. Turning one direction screws the piston down and expels air which turning it the other direction moves the piston back up away from the nib sucking in ink from the bottle. The chamber inside the pen holds plenty of ink for a day full of serious writing or weeks of occasional writing.

Leaving the pen uncapped on the desk for a few minutes while collecting your thoughts does not tend to dry the pen out too much and it starts back up pretty quickly. The fine tends to dry out faster as you would expect than the medium but even then, it takes a couple of minutes.

Of course, it works well with Montblanc ink, and also with virtually every other ink I have tried. Do keep in mind that I only use good, name brand ink in my pens such as from a well-known pen manufacturer, Noodlers, or Aurora. My favorite ink in my Montblanc Meisterstuck 146, of course, is Montblanc’s old iron gall Blue Black which is no longer made. For something very close try Diamine Ink Registrars Bottled Ink 100ml – Blue/Black which is also an iron gall based ink.

Is the Montblanc Meisterstuck 146 worth almost $500? To me, absolutely. To you? Maybe and maybe not. It depends on what you want from a pen. I have several variants of the 146 in different materials and some special editions such as the Ramses II so I am probably not the person to ask about it being worth the money.

In fact, I liked it so much I bought the matching Montblanc Meisterstuck ballpoint pen and Montblanc Meisterstuck rollerball (LeGrand of course).

In the end, if you want a really nice pen for writing that can not only last your lifetime but also be passed down generations, or need a really special gift for that special writer in your life, there are few gifts as special as the Montblanc Meisterstuck 146 LeGrand fountain pen.

The Namiki Pilot Vanishing Point Fountain Pen is a retractable nib fountain pen sometimes referred to just as a VP. This means that you click the button on the top of the pen just like a lot of cheap ballpoints, and it extends and retracts the nib of the pen, much like the ballpoints extend and retract the ballpoint portion of the pen.

When the pilot vanishing point is retracted, the opening where the nib went in is covered by a little door, preventing debris from falling in the opening and settling on the nib. This also helps keep the nib from drying out since there is no cap to speak of.

When you first pick up the pilot vanishing point you notice it is a fairly heavy and substantial pen for its size. While I honestly have not done extremely long writing sessions with the VP (say over a couple of pages), I have not noticed any hand cramps or fatigue.

This is particularly interesting considering the fact that you can not hold the pilot vanishing point like you do other pens, the pocket clip goes between your fingers towards the page instead of back on the rear of the pen as you write. This does take a few seconds to acclimate to but once you have written a few sentences it really is not that big of a deal. In fact, once you have been using one for a while you really do not even notice it.

This rather unusual way of holding the pen could be troublesome for people who hold their pen in an unconventional way such as wrapping a finger all the way around the section. If you use what most people think is a non-standard pen grip I would suggest you try one of these before you buy it.

I would say that the pilot vanishing point is a little thicker in the middle than it has to be although this might help with the ergonomics of holding it. It seems they could make the pen a little more streamlined, and I would be interested to try that out.

These pens come in extra fine through broad with the most common of course being fine and medium. I find that there is more of a gap between the fine and medium than with many other pens I own. This means that at least for me the fine is a tad to fine and hence a little scratchy while the medium is a little wide for what I consider a note-taking pen.

All of this is being pretty picky as the pilot vanishing point writes very well. One of the extremely redeeming features of the pen is that they do not dry out nearly as bad as some other pens I have used. Retracted it can sit on my desk unused for weeks and then start right up which is a really big bonus for a pen primary aimed at taking notes. It also takes a while to dry out when the nib is extended which comes in handy when you are sitting there listening to a lecture of thinking of the next item to put on the list.

The pilot vanishing point is a cartridge converter pen so it can use fairly large Pilot ink cartridges or be filled from a bottle using a very nice plug-in converter. Personally I prefer the converter as I get to choose from a much wider array of inks that way. I have used the cartridges and they work as well as any and seem to last a tad longer than most. The Pilot ink in the cartridges seems to be of fairly high quality if a little boring.

A great thing about the pilot vanishing points is that they come in a wide array of colors, and I mean wide. They have white, black, blue, yellow, red, and on and on. You will even find special editions such as the mustard which was my first VP and my latest VP which is nicknamed the Storm Trooper, yes, it is white with black trim. There are even a few with radien finishes.

So how does the pilot vanishing point pen actually write? At first, I thought the VP was more gimmick than a real pen. Wild colors, a retractable nib, how good could it actually be? The answer is, pretty dang good. I should have known that simply because it is a Pilot fountain pen after all, live and learn.

While I do think the fine is a little finer than it should be, and the medium is a little wider than it should be, they are both excellent writers. The extra-fine is just too much of a needle for me and just seems to scratch ink into the surface of the paper, but I have never liked extra-fine nibs so it is probably mostly me.

I would love to try the broad sometime but I have never actually seen one in the wild and a nib that wide just makes no sense for a pen aimed at note-takers.

So what is this vanishing point pen really good at? Carrying in a shirt or jacket pocket or leaving somewhere that you tend to scribble notes a lot (next to a phone at work comes to mind). It is a little pricey as a pen to gift to someone as a first fountain pen although it would fit that role very well. I can certainly see this breaking the mold of what the typical person thinks a fountain pen is.

Overall I really like my pilot vanishing points, or I would not have bought the second one. They are not pens I use all the time, and they are not pens I grab when I want to “enjoy the art and relaxation of writing”, they are more utilitarian than that. These are the pens I load and take with me when I know I will be taking notes and I need something fast, easy, and reliable.

I hope you enjoyed my review of the Namiki Pilot Vanishing Point Fountain Pen!

The Cross Townsend Platinum fountain pen was the first nice, new, fountain pen I purchased. I started off collecting old pens that I found at antique and junk stores such as the Esterbrook J. While I enjoyed the hunt for these pens I also wanted something nice and new, so I went to the closest Paradise Pens store (which is sadly out of business) and looked around.

I wanted something nice, something blingy, and something that wouldn’t break the bank. There were plenty of really expensive pens that were amazing but I wanted something I didn’t have to sell my car to get. Looking through the cases I saw the Cross Townsend Platinum pens including the fountain, Cross ballpoint pen, and Cross rollerball pen and they looked really nice. It was nice seeing the whole Cross pen set sitting in one place. This was great because Cross pen prices were in line with what I wanted to spend.

The old Cross pens my parents and grandparents had were skinny little things, and I did not want that. The Cross Townsend Platinum was considerably thicker, and heavier than they Cross pens I grew up with. The weight didn’t bother me too much since I removed the cap to write anyway, and that massively reduced the weight.

The Cross Townsend Platinum is just the platinum-plated version of their standard Townsend line and as such as quite a following it seems. They are cartridge/converter pens meaning they can use the standard Cross ink cartridges as well as coming with a converter that allows you to use standard bottled ink. You just unscrew the section (the area of the pen that you hold with your fingers right above the nib) from the barrel and insert the converter or cartridge, then off you go.

I have used an awful lot of fountain pens since I bought this Cross Townsend Platinum, so how does it stack up? Pretty darn well actually.

Writing unposted is pretty good. The barrel is long enough that it fits comfortably in your hand without the cap. The platinum plating gives it enough heft that you really don’t need the cap posted for balance. Funny enough this isn’t specific to the Cross Townsend Platinum, other Townsend series fountain pens have very heavy caps as well.

Posted it is a little top-heavy however the cap fits down on the barrel far enough that it really isn’t noticeable unless you are looking for it or you are writing more than a page or so. I can do quite a bit of writing before the weight becomes a factor. Although I love writing posted, probably just because I like the look or it is what I am used to, this is one pen I do not tend to use posted.

I purchased a fine point and it writes pretty fine. For an inexpensive (the Cross Townsend Platinum and the entire Cross Townsend line are very inexpensive for what they are) pen it writes remarkably well. Ink flows smoothly as the nib glides across the page with very little effort. I have a hard time finding any faults with the filling system or the wonderful dual-toned (gold on platinum) nib.

One thing I was not expecting to find in a modern inexpensive pen was the amount of give in the nib. No, it is not flex or semi-flex, or even semi-semi-flex, but it is not a nail either like so many other modern fountain pens. They have given the Cross Townsend Platinum a nib that has a little cushion in it, just enough to make it a pleasure to write with.

As for the filling system, the Cross converter is wonderful. I have used it for a wide array of inks like my favorite Noodler’s ink and it seems fine. The Cross cartridges are a little of a different story, however. Honestly, they are not bad, I have just had a hard time getting them started and writing reliably unless you clean the heck out of the pen before you use one. That really does not detract from the pen as far as I am concerned because I tend to use the converter on all my cartridge/converter pens.

One thing I really like about the Cross Townsend Platinum pen is the fact that it has a plastic section as you can see in the image above. I don’t have a problem with metal pens but metal sections tend to be too cold, impersonal, and slippery for me. That is probably why over the years I have amassed quite a collection of pens, and can not think of a single one with a metal section (although I probably do have one or two somewhere).

This section is not only a nice, warm, plastic, but it is also black which offsets the platinum of the pen, and dual-toned nib very well. Whoever designed the Cross Townsend Platinum series at Cross seems to not only have an eye for good looking pens, but also actually writes with them.

The clip on the cap is also substantial, not some little flimsy thing you are scared to snap off. This also prevents the pen from rolling off your desk very well unless you are in an earthquake. You know how some clips will stop the pen from starting to roll, but if they get started on a good incline they just hop right over the clip? This isn’t one of those, you will have to get enough of an incline to make the pen slide or so much angle that nothing will stay put.

Many years later I still love this pen. No, I do not use it as much as I probably should simply because I am more likely to reach for a Dani Trio Urushi, Montblanc EA Poe, or Pilot Vanishing Point than this one. That isn’t because there is anything wrong with the Cross Townsend Platinum, it is just I have more exciting pens now.

I am very happy I bought the pen and think it, or the Cross Townsend Platinum ballpoint would make an excellent graduation, wedding, or retirement gift. At only a tad over $200 for the fountain pen and about $40 less for the ballpoint, it is affordable enough to give the set.

I hope you enjoyed my review of the Cross Townsend Platinum Fountain Pen!