Capitalist Tool

By Caroline Tell

It's the pen that signed Diana and Prince Charles into marriage in 1987, and the one that in 1990 united West and East Germany on the dotted line. President John F. Kennedy offered his to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in 1963 so he could sign the city of Cologne's Golden Book. In the past century the Montblanc fountain pen has been on hand--and in hand--at the world's most historic moments. Created in 1906 by three residents of Hamburg, Germany, who were tired of messy inkwells, Montblanc launched its Rouge et Noir fountain pen in 1908. Two years later the trio introduced the Montblanc fountain pen, named for the snow-covered summit of western Europe's highest mountain. And in 1913 the company adopted a tiny six-pointed white star, also symbolic of the snow-covered peak, as its trademark. Since its launch, the Montblanc pen has revolutionized the industry, elevating beautifully crafted writing instruments to designer status in the ever growing luxury stratosphere. The most expensive model, the limited-edition Meisterstueck Solitaire Royal, is decorated with 4,810 pave diamonds (the metric height of Mont Blanc). A version of that pen entered the 1994 Guinness Book of Records as the most expensive fountain pen in the world. For more modest fans like Ernest Hemingway, however, the standard Montblanc model served the purpose well enough.