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1.The origins It all began not long ago after a frustrating experience with a brand-new Meisterstück 146 which I bought from the local Montblanc boutique in San Sebastian, in northern Spain. Precisely when I was in the shop finalising my return of that pen with the extremely friendly and helpful MB dealer, a young lady stepped in with what looked like a very small vintage MB pen. She had had it repaired in the MB service in Germany and came to complain because she was not happy with the results. The lady let me try the pen and I was greatly surprised at how well the fine nib wrote. So I made a pic of the pen with my i-Phone, came back home and set out to find out more about MB vintage pens. 2.First purchases After a preliminary research, I spotted a nice MB on e-Bay which looked very much like the one I had seen in the shop that afternoon. It happened to be a small 11 cm long 332 pen from about 1940. I tracked the pen for a few days and finally bid and won the auction. When I finally received the pen at home and inked it up, I was stunned at the way it wrote. Never ever before had I felt such smoothness and nice subtle paper feedback when writting. The fine point was semiflexible, juicy and a real pleasure to write with. Shortly after my first acquisition, a nice opportunity came up to buy a beautiful series II pen from a well-known Spanish vintage pen vendor, Álvaro Romillo, at a superb price. It's a rare and sought-afterTiger's Eye 242 pen from the early 1950s. The pen is rather small as it was thought of as the ladies' version of the 24x series, but again, I was positively surprised by the smoothness of the 14C gold fine nib. You can see the 242 in its black version featured in this 1952-54 Montblanc leaflet as the ladies' pen (für die dame) of the so-called Hanseatic series: I wish I could buy the 246 Tiger's Eye, but I'm afraid is completely beyond my budget, particularly taking into account my next target, which is the Meisterstück series. I have already bought a 136, although it has not arrived to my hands yet. I'll post some pics when I've got it. 3. Next steps Now that I am infected with the virus I can't stop and am already thinking of a 138 and even of a 139. Prices of the 139 have rocketed, and I've seen a couple of them -from well known sellers- offered at prices above USD 5,000. However a few days ago a very nice one was put out for auction on e-Bay with a "buy-it-now" price of USD 2,500. Of course the ads was only there for an hour before a hungry freek got hold of the pen. So I guess the USD 5,000 tag is too high and with a little patience the ONE will come up at a more sensible price. All in all, I think I'll follow a fellow FPNer's advice and will not rush. Let's see first how the 136 that I'm still waiting comes off. Cheers Carlos

Hello FP Masterminds, I recently purchased a Montblanc 242 that is in overall good shape. However a few hours after inking I started to write and noticed my hands were covered in ink. It appears to be leaking from the piston knob. I got a partial refund and now I'm looking into the best way to have the pen repaired. It is quite old so I'm not sure if Montblanc will take it for repairs. I was wondering if there was an easy repair someone inexperienced like me could do or if there was someone in the US who could repair it for a fair price. The pen only ended up costing $100 so obviously I don't want to spend more than that to repair it. Thanks