My new Montegrappa!

[m j b]

Since I can't afford to buy any more watches, I've gotten another fountain pen. Montegrappa is the oldest Italian brand, founded in 1912, and they seem to make a wide variety of pens well into the thousands of dollars, with a lot of special editions. For my first foray into the brand, I picked a moderately priced model with excellent reviews. One reason, apparently, is that for this model, the Zero, comes with a Jowo nib, which I found to be excellent. More on that later.

Apologies for the pictures, they were taken with my phone at work. The pen is actually solid black, all of those sparkles are dust.

Great pictures and a good review here. One of things that Dries (the reviewer) noted is that many of the styling elements of the Zero are closely related to fine Swiss watches. The finish is a combination of brushed and polished stainless steel, with fine chamfering and even a sapphire crystal covering the logo at the end of the cap. It's a very masculine pen and not nearly as bulky and cumbersome as it may appear in the pics. The clip with that little roller on it works wonderfully.

I got mine with a medium nib, and with the possible exception of a Pelican that has a custom tuned nib, it is absolutely the smoothest writer I have ever used. Even on low quality paper, it just glides. It's a very wet nib, but it doesn't bleed or flood, just writes clear and smooth. It's loaded with Pilot Iroshuzuku ink, which I find to be a very smooth ink as well, so the combination is just sublime.

The pen retails for mid-$400 (US) and I found it in Madrid Spain on a website called Iguanasell (find them here) after a coupon, for around $340. That included shipping and customs fees. No VAT for us non-UE folks. I continue to be amazed with FedEx, when it works... I ordered the pen on a weekend, they shipped it Monday and it arrived here in the states at 10:30 AM Wednesday.

[Brew]

That's a smart looking pen with a real neat nib. Congrats!

[alllexandru]

Nice one! Congrats !

[jar]

Montegrappa makes some seriously nice fountain pens.