MB Meisterstuck: Design Imitated by Other Brands?..

[georges zaslavsky]

Berkeleyshanghai are all these Montblancs yours? Did you inherit them or did you buy them?

[meanwhile]

The Meisterstuck (Masterpiece) design came into being in 1924.

 

Wrong, I'm afraid. That *is* the date of the invention of the piston filler, but that was invented by a Hungarian, who then did a deal with Pelikan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_pen).

 

The 149 dates to the late 40's. (http://www.rickconner.net/penspotters/montblanc.149.html) It's the result of combining a piston filler with styling copied from the Sheaffer Balance. There really isn't enough originality in the design for anyone to say that another pen can be a copy.

 

In fact

It has remained Montblanc's most famous design ever since. I've seen it copied on countless pens, so yes, I would say that the design has been copied (similiarly) by other pen-companies.

 

You can only copy something that was original in the first place. (Plus, given the shape of the human hand, how many ways are there for pens to look? A tube with round ends is supposed to be distinctive?) Sailor 1911's, etc, *do* look like MB 146/149's, but this is just a case of their both following the same standard pattern - I've seen what were claimed to be pre-war Japanese pens that had Balance derived styling before WW2. And the Pel were certainly selling all black torpedo shaped pens - with piston fillers - at this time.

 

What seems to have happened is that the moment they could do so without being sued, MB rushed out an oversize copy of the Pelikan 100/100N (torpedo shaped, piston filling, available in all black) with the addition of some jewellery rings. Pause to google search.. in fact, they didn't even do that:

 

http://www.pencollectors.com/pennant/winte...nnoverians.html

 

..in 1930, when Montblanc introduced their first piston-filler, they used Pelikan's design. Montblanc did this without paying any royalties for it, and they were taken to court by Pelikan for patent infringement and lost.

 

 

 

 

 

[meanwhile]

...And with a little more searching, I found the Wahl Eversharp Equipoise of the early 30's - Wahl's response to the Balance, and when in black looking exactly as you'd imagine a lever fill 146/149 would...