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Slim Fountain Pens With Piston Filler?

tommym

By tommym
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tommym Rare

tommym

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Hi All,

I have a Montblanc 145 and a 146. I find the 145 much more comfortable to write with. However, I don't really care for the ink converter feature of the 145, nor do I care for ink cartridges. Is there any manufacturer that offers a slim fountain pen like the 145, with the piston filler feature of the 146? I would like a larger ink reservoir (in a slim pen) to extend my writing time between re-fills / cleaning.

TIA,

Tommy

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PabloAU Extremely Rare

PabloAU

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Pelikan M200/M400 or TWSBI Classic may fit your needs. Slightly more girthy than these would be the Pelikan M600 or Omas Ogiva, which would be worth investigating also.

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JLS1 Collectors Item

JLS1

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Look at the Platinum 3776 Century. Should be about the right size.

 

This is a C/C pen, no?

 

Pelikan M200/M400 or TWSBI Classic may fit your needs. Slightly more girthy than these would be the Pelikan M600 or Omas Ogiva, which would be worth investigating also.

 

 

+1 for the above. If you want to stay in the MB 'family' and don't mind vintage pens, you could consider a 342 or 252, which is (IMHO anyway) quite slender and had some of the best MB nibs. Another option might be a 32/22/12, which was slightly later and (I think) a bit larger but are real workhorses.

 

HTH!

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zaddick Donor Pen

zaddick

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JLS1 - yes, the 3776 is indeed a cartridge pen. I had a mental problem earlier today. :)

If you want less blah, blah, blah and more pictures, follow me on Instagram!

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kazoolaw Collectors Item

kazoolaw

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If you want to stay in the MB 'family' and don't mind vintage pens, you could consider a 342 or 252, which is (IMHO anyway) quite slender and had some of the best MB nibs. Another option might be a 32/22/12, which was slightly later and (I think) a bit larger but are real workhorses.!

You could look at a 254 or 344 which are similar to a Parker 51 in size.

 

There is also the 14/24/34 family.

 

I think you can go back to a vintage 144 with a piston fill, and cousins 644/744.

 

gary

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tommym Rare

tommym

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Thanks for all of the input!

 

Seems I have more options than I thought I would have. Nice to know that there is the vintage MB option too.

 

Regards,

 

Tommy

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jar Ancient Artifact

jar

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The Montblancs of the late 50s to late 60s and late 60s to mid 70s were generally slim pens. Most came as either piston or cartridge pens. In this picture you can see two MBs next to two Parkers of the same general era. The ones that were cartridge/converter carried a "p" suffix and so somewhat confusing to English speakers.

 

http://www.fototime.com/AB9077AC7F2AE8F/xlarge.jpg

From left to right:Parker 75, Montblanc 121, Parker 61 and a Montblanc 74.

http://www.fototime.com/21D01EC2FCA65F9/xlarge.jpg

The top 3 are the early two digit series; 74, 12, 21. The bottom three are the later three digit series; 121, 221, 220.

The naming format was X(2 or 4) with the 4 being slightly longer and the X generally being 7,8,1 for the top of the line models, 2 for mid range and 3 for entry and student pens.

 

The bottom 3 are the later three digit series pens and were all the same length. Again, the first number signified the price point, 1 being the highest, 2 mid range and 3 being the entry or student models.

 

 

 

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Dr. Eriko Rare

Dr. Eriko

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The MB 144 and 145 could be used as eyedropper. Very large amount of ink.

Please excuse my poor english, but it is not my mothern language and maybe it is wrong my grammar. Any Suggestions are welcome.

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hari317 Museum Piece

hari317

Posted
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Hi All,

 

I have a Montblanc 145 and a 146. I find the 145 much more comfortable to write with. However, I don't really care for the ink converter feature of the 145, nor do I care for ink cartridges. Is there any manufacturer that offers a slim fountain pen like the 145, with the piston filler feature of the 146? I would like a larger ink reservoir (in a slim pen) to extend my writing time between re-fills / cleaning.

 

TIA,

 

Tommy

 

 

 

 

Tommy in the given size of the 145, a piston filler will hold only half as much ink as the 145 loaded with two small international cartridges (one inserted and other inverted and stored as spare).

 

Cartridge pens make more efficient use of the space available to hold ink.

In case you wish to write to me, pls use ONLY email by clicking here. I do not check PMs. Thank you.

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tommym Rare

tommym

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Tommy in the given size of the 145, a piston filler will hold only half as much ink as the 145 loaded with two small international cartridges (one inserted and other inverted and stored as spare).

 

Cartridge pens make more efficient use of the space available to hold ink.

 

Like I stated on my original post, I don't really care for cartridges. I had to toss a bad batch of MB cartridges a while back due to the plastic casings deteriorating / cracking / leaking. Yeah, they were old cartridges that we were saving for a rainy day, but still I didn’t expect that to happen. Those were for Mom’s MB 147 Traveler. In any case are the MB cartridges one size fits all? Will the MB cartridges for the 146 Traveler fit the 145 too?

 

Thanks,

 

Tommy

 

 

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JLS1 Collectors Item

JLS1

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Like I stated on my original post, I don't really care for cartridges. I had to toss a bad batch of MB cartridges a while back due to the plastic casings deteriorating / cracking / leaking. Yeah, they were old cartridges that we were saving for a rainy day, but still I didn’t expect that to happen. Those were for Mom’s MB 147 Traveler. In any case are the MB cartridges one size fits all? Will the MB cartridges for the 146 Traveler fit the 145 too?

 

Thanks,

 

Tommy

 

 

 

They should - the 147 Traveller accepts small international std. cartridges, which the 145 should accept too. The 147 (and probably 145, although I can't be sure) will NOT accept a regular sized international std. cartridge, which are significantly longer than the small cartridges you had to toss.

 

BTW, the 147 (and your 145, should you choose) will accept non-MB cartridges, so you can experiment with other manufacturers' inks in these pens. Just remember to clean the pens out if you change ink colors/manufacturers.

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tommym Rare

tommym

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UPDATE…..

I found out that a good friend of mine has been using a cartridge refill fountain pen out in the field for the past 30+ years. His two cents is that he had one bad batch of cartridges in 30+ years of using these types of pens; took them back to the store a had them replaced, and never had another issue with the pen. That being said I decided give the cartridge refills another chance. So I sent my Montblanc 145 to Mike Masuyama to have the nib reduce from a M nib to a XF nib. I’m really happy with the results as the newly ground XF nib has allowed me to write about twice as many sheets of notes as compared to the original M nib. And that is with the converter still installed in the pen! The new XF nib has a little more scratch to it, but not as much as I expected it to have, so better yet. No dry starts, no skips, etc..

Just wanted to thank everyone for their most valuable input!

Tommy

 

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