There’s a question vintage fountain pen collectors sometimes ask. Well, in fact almost any collector sooner or later gets interested in it.

What’s that question, then?

It’s simple, but confuses collectors and Mont Blanc dealers equally.

Who makes Montblanc nibs? The nib is something Montblanc is proud of, but does Montblanc make them itself or outsources? If yes, then to whom?

Different places on the web give contradictory information about Montblanc nibs, that they are produced in-house or by Peter Bock.

Even though you are not a Montblanc pen collector, if you are somewhat interested in fine pens it’s almost impossible to not come across a myriad of Montblanc leaflets, catalogs and ephemeras.

It’s really strange to me that there is no mention of the fact that they produce internally their own nibs in any of those. When introducing the nibs, they would rather use ambiguous and vague statements like “made by the best European artisan tradition”, “each nib is carefully cut by masters” etc.

In my personal opinion an internally produced nib is something to cry loud these times (like Aurora does) when most of the production is concentrated in few companies. From here comes a conclusion that Montblanc nibs are outsourced.

But wait… the truth lies deeper.

Montblanc indeed makes their own pen nibs. I was fortunate to tour Montblanc’s Hamburg factory in 2000, and was most impressed with the overall manufacturing process, but especially with the process of making nibs. Only girls are employed in that area, supposedly because they have a better “touch” and “feel” when it comes to grinding nibs by hand. Each nib is hand ground and then goes thru a testing process to ensure the iridium tip writes right. Montblanc pen company even employs Asian women to test the nibs going to the Asian market, because their writing style/method is different from ours living in Western countries.

It would seem that Mont Blanc is missing out on a very good marketing opportunity by not advertising that they make their own nibs. But most importantly, it’s relieving to know that they do take pride in their nibs, which explains why most people collecting fountain pens like them.

The Montblanc representative I spoke to also proved that Montblanc manufacture and test their own nibs. In my experience, brands that manufacture and test their own nibs have
superior quality control. So the true conclusion would be that Montblanc manufacture both fountain pens and nibs in-house.