Vintage Montblanc Nib

[arran]

Hi

 

I recently acquired a vintage 149 montblanc pen with a juicy fine nib

18 c.

I filled it with Iroshizuku black take sumi , and the pen is just a wonderfull,writer , no skipping , no start up issues.

However laying down the pen a few minutes reveals a small abundancy of ink around the breathing hole.

Should I be worried about it ?

 

Thanks for advice

[Lyander0012]

Hey, arran!

Nib creep is fairly common among certain inks. I'm not personally familiar with Take-sumi so I can't comment on whether or not that particular ink is prone to it, but this happens fairly often to my wetter writers. It's neither here nor there in terms of how often it happens, but it doesn't imply that there's anything wrong with the pen. The breather hole acts as a place of exchange for ink and air, which allows for consistent writing; it stands to reason that, given certain levels of ink viscosity, ambient temperature, etc., ink might be a little more enthusiastic about exiting, resulting in the occasional ink burp.

 

Congrats on the great pen, by the way!

 

 

Cheers,

 

Kevin

[FoszFay]

That does look like a fair amount of nib creep. Does it continue to spread, or does it get to the pictured amount and stop, and keep writing normally? Or does the flow get wetter or anything else change?

 

Iroshizuku inks are generally quite well behaved, none of mine 'nib creep', but if it doesn't affect the ink flow, I wouldn't worry, you just have to put up with it looking gross (I think it is anyway).

 

Tom.

[arran]

The ink flow is quite stable , but juicy as to expect from a freeflowingink like take sumi

The slit remains dry however

Now filled up with midnight diamine , and no ink seen on the nib.

Probably I will have to for the right ink for this nice writer

[Lyander0012]

Bah, not enough people appreciate the look of an inky nib (I personally really like it ).

 

By the by, does anyone know when Montblanc began manufacturing 149s with tri-tone nibs? This may be a vintage pen, but I was under the assumption that the nib shown in the OP was a fairly recent variation (around the 90s, if I'm not mistaken?).

 

 

Cheers!

Kevin

[playtime]

since the 50s. For foreign markets like France, which required an 18c stamping for it to be sold to the French market.

 

Bah, not enough people appreciate the look of an inky nib (I personally really like it ).

 

By the by, does anyone know when Montblanc began manufacturing 149s with tri-tone nibs? This may be a vintage pen, but I was under the assumption that the nib shown in the OP was a fairly recent variation (around the 90s, if I'm not mistaken?).

 

 

Cheers!

Kevin

[Lyander0012]

since the 50s. For foreign markets like France, which required an 18c stamping for it to be sold to the French market.

 

 

Whoops, my mistake. Thanks for that, playtime! I learned something new today

[arran]

since the 50s. For foreign markets like France, which required an 18c stamping for it to be sold to the French market.

 

Not sure the 18 c were only made for France.There are some thread suggesting they were also made for the German market

This nib is an original Flexible 50's nib which is confirmed by Francis , fountainbel

[arran]

The creep through the breathing hole seems to start again once the ink reserve is diminishing.

Is this normal?

[FoszFay]

The creep through the breathing hole seems to start again once the ink reserve is diminishing.

Is this normal?

Personally, I would go to a Montblanc boutique and get it 'checked out', but if it doesn't affect the writing, and you don't mind the look, continue using it. I don't think it would be cause by anything to bad.

 

By 'diminishing', how much do you mean by?

 

Tom.

[orfew]

Personally, I would go to a Montblanc boutique and get it 'checked out', but if it doesn't affect the writing, and you don't mind the look, continue using it. I don't think it would be cause by anything to bad.

 

By 'diminishing', how much do you mean by?

 

Tom.

I would definitely not take a vintage MB to a boutique for service. I would highly doubt that anyone at the boutique would know anything about a vintage 149. They might instead send it to a service centre. At the service centre they might take the original nib and transplant it onto a new 149 body.

[arran]

Personally, I would go to a Montblanc boutique and get it 'checked out', but if it doesn't affect the writing, and you don't mind the look, continue using it. I don't think it would be cause by anything to bad.

By 'diminishing', how much do you mean by?

Tom.

I just meant by decreasing amount of ink in the barrel.

While writing , the amount of ink or reserve is getting lower

[arran]

I bought the pen from a very respected pen repairer in Belgium.

He suggest to cheque the thread of the barrel and,or tightening up the radial tension of the used cork in the barrel

He mentioned also to change the original feeder by a new vintage ebonite feed

Perhaps I am overreacting a bit , but a little concerned as this pen is one of my best writers now

[jsolares]

I bought the pen from a very respected pen repairer in Belgium.

He suggest to cheque the thread of the barrel and,or tightening up the radial tension of the used cork in the barrel

He mentioned also to change the original feeder by a new vintage ebonite feed

Perhaps I am overreacting a bit , but a little concerned as this pen is one of my best writers now

 

does it do that with any other ink you have? if it only does it with that one i wouldn't worry at all.

[Tritonus]

Arran,

When you filled up your pen, did you fill it completely full or did you expel a few drops out (say 6 drops of ink)? I think you are meant to dip the pen into the ink bottle, turn the piston until it fills up then expel about 6 - 8 drops of ink before inverting the pen up and tightening up the piston mechanism once more (to suck the ink out of the feed back into the barrel). That is what comes with the instructions on MB inks for MB pens. Hopefully this might solve the problem - it did for mine but mine is not a vintage 149 like yours.

[Keyless Works]

The same thing happens to me with a vintage OMAS Extra Lucens I have...I don't get quite as much ink as with your nib but its a similar pooling near the breather hole. As far as I can tell it does nothing to the performance and has not caused any messes for me.

 

It might be worth asking a good nibmeister to see what they think. I am sure most have seen this sort of thing before.

Edited October 2, 2014 by Keyless Works

[FoszFay]

I would definitely not take a vintage MB to a boutique for service. I would highly doubt that anyone at the boutique would know anything about a vintage 149. They might instead send it to a service centre. At the service centre they might take the original nib and transplant it onto a new 149 body.

Well that doesn't sound appealing, but the body may be the problem... Maybe just send it to a 'nibmeister' and have them look over it, it doesn't look like a major problem, if any.

 

I just meant by decreasing amount of ink in the barrel.

While writing , the amount of ink or reserve is getting lower

So just after writing a sentence, paragraph, page?

 

I bought the pen from a very respected pen repairer in Belgium.

He suggest to check the thread of the barrel and/or tightening up the radial tension of the used cork in the barrel

He mentioned also to change the original feeder by a new vintage ebonite feed

Perhaps I am overreacting a bit , but a little concerned as this pen is one of my best writers now

Those two don't look like they go together...If he is recommending that you change parts of a pen, that he sold restored/repaired then it seems to me that he already knew that it had this "problem" and just 'got rid of it'. Was the price too good to be true? If is was substantially cheaper than other used 149's I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case.

 

Tom.

[jar]

Normal. Worry not, jess enjoy.

[arran]

Arran,

When you filled up your pen, did you fill it completely full or did you expel a few drops out (say 6 drops of ink)? I think you are meant to dip the pen into the ink bottle, turn the piston until it fills up then expel about 6 - 8 drops of ink before inverting the pen up and tightening up the piston mechanism once more (to suck the ink out of the feed back into the barrel). That is what comes with the instructions on MB inks for MB pens. Hopefully this might solve the problem - it did for mine but mine is not a vintage 149 like yours.

I just fill up the piston by screwing up and then wipe of the ink from the feed.

[arran]

I had an appointment yesterday with fountainbel to look after this pen

I bought the pen with an original F nib , but on the back of the pen is indicated B.So in time , nib must have been changed.

This not such of an issue , we all buy pens at retailers and let have the nib exchanged for several reasons.

Looking at the feed of this very pen , the original 1950's feed was present met quite a broad ink channel.

francis told me that in the old days , inkchannels of ebonite feeds were finetuned in function of the nib used on it.

So it seemed that this feed was still the one from the original broad that had been on it.

As Francis has a stock of various ebonite feeds , we decided to install a split ebonite feed , although manufactured a bit later in the MB era , which has a more narrow ink channel.

More over , the top of the ebonite feed was slightly curved up towards the nib, in order to have a better touch between feed and nib

This is usefull ,while flexing this 18 C nib, the inkflow is secured.

I have been using this pen now after a day writing pleasure , and till now , no extra ink is shown up from the breathing hole.

I will follow this pen up now and keep you updated with the behaviour of the pen

It seems now , by the way that the pen is not such a wet writer and prviously , which is normal I think.

normally I like juicy F writers , and now the inkflow is just as it should be.

What astonishes me too is that the line width is F and is fine as it should be.

The extra fine in a modern heritage 1912 is double as thick as this F 50's nib!!!

These days I am pushed towards the Japanese to find real F nibs with more or less juicy behaviour.

Within the Western nib producers , these are hard to find.

Happy user with 50 's Montblanc now!!

Very happy as well to have fountainbel in my region