Montegrappa Bespoke: A Rainbow Of Celluloids

[fpupulin]

Visiting the website of Montegrappa, I discovered a page devoted to the bespoke services offered by the brand. Among them, there is the Extra Bespoke, a pen built around the body of an Extra 1930. The service will probably not be within reach of most of us. At least, I for one can not afford it, as the entry level of such a pen is around 5 thousand Euros, up to almost 28 thousand Euros if you would select trims in solid 18k white, yellow or rose gold.

 

But, even in this case, there are good reasons to have a look at the service...

 

Actually, in the Extra Bespoke you could not only select the material and color of the trim, but also the artwork of the body, which can be hand painted or hand etched in silver, and the celluloid of the cap and the blind cap.

 

And here we come to the rainbow. In the web page designed to customize your Extra, you can choice from a palette of 24 celluloids, intended to exactly match the hue of the artwork you would select for your bespoke pen. You can actually see your choice come to life on the pen as you select your preferred celluloid. You may enjoy the fun here:

 

https://atelier.montegrappa.com/en/extrabespoke.html

 

The selection is impressive and I confess that, among several of the colors that made Montegrappa pens famous around the world, there are many celluloids in the company's warehouses that I never saw before.

 

Out of the traditional colors, the only one that I could not find in the palette is the Marbled Green, originally used for the Extra (not 1930) and more recently for the Nazionale.

 

Here is the complete list of the available celluloids:

 

Bamboo Black

Butterfly

Caramel

Charcoal

Cinnamon

Dark Blue

Flaming White (= Black and White)

Glittering Blue

Indian Rainbow

Ivory (= Parchement?)

Lapis

Malachite

Mediterranean Blue

Orange

Pearl Grey

Red

Shiny Circles

Shiny Lines

Tobacco

Turtle Brown

Turquoise

Vertical Zebra

Yellow

Zebra

[mongrelnomad]

Those are absolutely lovely and, considering, not (too) insanely expensive.

 

That said, I expect that in common with all Extras the celluloid is wrapped rather than lathed, and that the piston is a captive converter. The problem with these Montegrappas is that they are Montegrappas.