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A true life story behind experience with Montblanc Meisterstuck 149 fountain pen

I bought my Montblanc Meisterstuck 149 some 10 years ago. To be sure, the reason behind the purchase had been mere passion, easy understandable. Being assured (mistakenly) that I was an up-coming top-manager in the construction company I used to work for, a Mont Blanc looked to me to be a symbol of my business status. After all, you weren’t quite accepted into the domain of “manager-dom” without a Montblanc allegedly by chance sticking out of your breast pocket. So I and took my Mont Blanc fountain pen home, pretending to believe that my transition into the world of ‘top managers’ was definitely complete.
The Mont Blanc Meisterstuck 149 fountain pen is one of the best-known and most famous writing instruments of our time. First produced in 1924 and hand-crafted in the best European tradition, its 18 K hand-ground gold nib with platinum inlay, three gold-plated rings, gold-plated clip and deep black precious resin barrel make this luxurious writing instrument the flagship Mont Blanc pen, and recognized worldwide as a legend among fountain pens.

To cut a long story short, at that point in time, I saw the Mont Blanc not as a fine writing instrument itself, but more as a sign of honour, a status symbol reflecting my belonging to those with the power and money.

Now that I no longer need symbols of honor of any kind, I have changed my opinion about that particular Mont Blanc pen. It no longer carries the mystique it once had, a mystique cast upon it by a super effective marketing department. Its value to me now simply consists of its performance as a writing instrument giving me pleasure to use it on a daily basis.

First of all, aesthetically, the Montblanc Meisterstuck 149 is a strikingly beautiful writing instrument. To say that it is an icon to bow and pray would be unfair taking into consideration the efforts the designers put into it. It’s a classic torpedo-shaped fountain pen, and as many people do suppose, it practically defines what a fine fountain pens should look like. It is not uncommon for someone who owns an equally stellar pen from another maker to declare either “That looks just like a Mont Blanc!” or “That doesn’t resemble a Mont Blanc pen at all!” Either way, it is absolutely clear that most people compare other pens against the Meisterstuck line.

Look and feel

And even within the stable of Mont Blanc fountain pens, the Meisterstuck 149 is epitome of products branded Montblanc. Mentioning a Mont Blanc pen, the first image that pops into most people’s minds will be the Meisterstruck one: Not the Boheme, not the Skywalker, but the Meisterstuck.

Montblanc’s push-up marketing strategy states that the body of the pen is made from something referred to as ‘precious resin’. However, what this means exactly, is outside my comprehension. Personally, I have used this to accentuate that it is made from a material that doesn’t lose its lustrous look and shine even after years of intense use. I have had my 149 for about 10 years and it still looks as I bought it the other day. Over the years, it has not lost its shine even in the slightest. Pretty amazing, really, isn’t it?

The Montblanc Meisterstuck 149 is a real big, well-sized pen. At the risk of sounding gender sexist, the 149 is a man-sized pen. Capped, it measures 15 centimeters, while posted it reaches 16.5 centimeters in length. The barrel diameter of this pen stands at a whopping 1.4 centimeters. This, of course, is pretty big enough. So, unless you have too thick meaty fingers, this pen should be big enough for almost anyone. But if you have smallish hands (like I do), the 149 pen may prove to be a handful. But if you believe that bigger is better, the MB 149 model is right up your choice.

Technical Details and Nib Characteristics

The nib that originally came with my 149 was a medium. It was a two-tone, 18K gold affair that just blows you away upon the very first word you write. The feel of the nib is not at all rigid. However, it is not, strictly speaking, a flex nib either. The nib is reminiscent of nibs found in high-end Pelikan fountain pens: a small amount of flex can be discerned and enjoyed when writing with this pen.

But ever since I came to conclusion that I used the 149 for nothing but mostly signing documents, I had it changed to a broad nib. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Mont Blanc didn’t charge me a penny me for this! It goes without saying that the nib wrote smoothly and faultlessly, producing beautiful bold, wet lines that transforms my signatures into something more visually palatable than what they would be in other cases.

The Meisterstuck 149 by Mont Blanc uses piston-type filling system. This ensures clean and simple in filling - just twist the end of the barrel. Regular readers will know that this is my favourite filling system. What else should I add?

The Bottom-line

When talking about the 149, I can’t help but feel like a student from Oxford did when she was talking about Jesus Christ (or was it some other religion?) This was what she had to say:

“That’s AMAZING!”

That about closes up my positive experience with the Montblanc 149 pen. At the very beginning, for some unknown reason, the clip of my 149 pen got all tarnished and corroded. OK, Mont Blanc replaced it. But it took almost three weeks. Then, all sorts of other problems started to show. The biggest one was the 149’s too generous ink flow. Though I like bold, wet lines, the inflow I had from the 149 pen got to the point of being beyond my comprehension and writing needs. The fountain pen laid down such wet lines that the writing would bleed onto the adjacent sheet of paper. And this wasn’t entirely the paper’s fault. No matter what paper I wrote on (90 gram paper wasn’t used, though), the problem wouldn’t disappear. At the end, after several years, I came across Pelikan 4001 inks. This alleviated the trouble and I was a happy writer for long enough.

But then, the precious fountain thing began to produce other sorts of inflow problems, like suddenly going dry even though I had used it only a few hours ago. This can be rather embarrassing at meetings with clients. Everyone is eying your beautiful 149 Meisterstruck fountain pen. You finally whip it out to write something only to find out the thing would refuse to write, period. Nothing is more ridiculous than having a very expensive pen that refuses to write. But I’ll believe that this is not quite as ridiculous as owning a Jaguar that won’t move.

Any other horrors? Well, there are two more, really. Sometimes, when it decides to write, I am often faced with a starting problem: no inkflow for the first few strokes, as it often happens with ballpoint pens in winter or just cold weather . Call me obsessive compulsive if you must, but I find this problem really confusing. Perhaps I wouldn’t mind so much if it were a disposable thing. But this thing is a Mont Blanc pen!

The final straw came when it started leaking. So I have retired the 149 for now - at least, until I can find someone at the Montblanc boutique who will believe that I am a Mont Blanc owner and help me in getting my Montblanc Meisterstruck 149 model serviced.
Some people told me that I might have gotten a superb fake pen, but that is controversial with the fact that I got clip replaced by Mont Blanc.

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