Montblanc's Warranty

[NoType]

17 hours ago, torstar said:

If the pens weren't so darned great I'd have NOTHING to do with MB.  (so there)

 

[Little man on my shoulder:  sell it.... do it...

 

Me:  never!!!!]

 

 

 

@torstar Thank you for this extremely flattering photo of the WE Marcel Proust FP, reigniting my admiration of a model I have not thought about for some time.

[torstar]

7 hours ago, NoType said:

@torstar Thank you for this extremely flattering photo of the WE Marcel Proust FP, reigniting my admiration of a model I have not thought about for some time.

 

a friend in the past would buy the limited editions each year and then sell them off for reasonable amounts of cash when he needed a little liquidity, a good way to get a Proust 20 years ago

 

the Proust is the easily the best of my sizeable but modest collection of pens (including other MB LE's)

 

 

[AndyLogan]

On 6/17/2024 at 10:57 PM, torstar said:

If the pens weren't so darned great I'd have NOTHING to do with MB.  (so there)

 

[Little man on my shoulder:  sell it.... do it...

 

Me:  never!!!!]

 

 

 

 

Just exceptionally BEAUTIFUL.

[DrJohn]

On 5/24/2024 at 11:56 AM, DrJohn said:

I got a pen directly from Montblanc. The nib was extremely scratchy and it skipped. There was something wrong with the pen. So, I returned it to MB. After many contacts, I got this reply from MB. This will be the last MB fountain pen I buy...

 

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Dear Dr. Allocca,

Thank you very much for contacting Montblanc.

After consulting with my escalations department, they will have to deny your return and send the fountain pen back to you. We can not accept fountain pens that have been inked due to our policy. I know that you have explained to me that the nib was scratchy and the ink was skipping. We can assist you with a warranty repair. Warranty repairs will be handled through our repair partners, My Jewelry Repair. They will be able to assist you and they can also assist you with an nib exchange as well. 

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John

Update 6/28/24

 

I got the pen back after My Jewelry Repair replaced the fine nib with a medium nib. It was a tiny bit scratchy. I smoothened it out. But, after all the hassle, I lost my enthusiasm for the pen. I forgot to mention, this expensive pen comes in a cardboard case.

 

John

[Karmachanic]

13 minutes ago, DrJohn said:

I lost my enthusiasm for the pen.

 

Happy to adopt it and give it a loving home.

[torstar]

1 hour ago, Karmachanic said:

 

Happy to adopt it and give it a loving home.

 

bought a (fully documented) beat up 149 on ebay and sent it to HQ for repairs, cost about 1/2 a new one and has been reliable for 20 years now

 

 

[Karmachanic]

2 hours ago, torstar said:

bought a (fully documented) beat up 149 on ebay

 

Reminds me of a 70s Timex commercial; it takes a licking and it keeps on ticking.

[NoType]

@DrJohn Thank you for following up on your service with MyJewelryRepair.  It is good to know that the new M nib is an improvement over the F nib with which the pen was originally purchased.

 

In regard to your comment (“. . .this expensive pen comes in a cardboard case.”), anticipating the centennial of Meisterstück, Montblanc recently changed their packaging (for non-limited editions) to evoke the vintage drawer-type boxes Montblanc had utilised in the early twentieth century, using recycled materials to be more ecologically sensitive.*
 

While the result may not be everyone’s cup of tea, one positive is Montblanc’s environmental consciousness in this instance.

__________
* for more information: https://www.formesdeluxe.com/article/inside-montblanc-s-new-eco-designed-coffret.61027

[kazoolaw]

2 hours ago, NoType said:

@DrJohn Thank you for following up on your service with MyJewelryRepair.  It is good to know that the new M nib is an improvement over the F nib with which the pen was originally purchased.

 

In regard to your comment (“. . .this expensive pen comes in a cardboard case.”), anticipating the centennial of Meisterstück, Montblanc recently changed their packaging (for non-limited editions) to evoke the vintage drawer-type boxes Montblanc had utilised in the early twentieth century, using recycled materials to be more ecologically sensitive.*
 

While the result may not be everyone’s cup of tea, one positive is Montblanc’s environmental consciousness in this instance.

__________
* for more information: https://www.formesdeluxe.com/article/inside-montblanc-s-new-eco-designed-coffret.61027

Note that the text at the page you linked is entirely silent about ecological sensitivity or environmental consciousness.  The test of whether the change was motivated by a concern for the environment or the concern for profit is how much MB reduces the retail price of the pen to reflect the cheaper box.

[NoType]

28 minutes ago, kazoolaw said:

the text at the page you linked is entirely silent about ecological sensitivity or environmental consciousness.

@kazoolaw Yes, that is correct.  However, although the link was not meant to bolster my contention that Montblanc was trying to be more ecologically sensitive or was environmentally conscious with their new packaging, the linked page’s text implies this as it outlines Montblanc’s abandonment of injected plastic and metal hinges and their limited use of ink printing for the box, as well as their adoption of viscose fibre from sustainable wood for the pouch.  
 

Actually, both Montblanc’s ecological and historical aims specifically in regard to the revamped packaging were explicitly related to me by several boutique managers on different occasions.  In my previous post, the link’s embedment was intended to help provide some detailed information about the new packaging materials for those who might be interested, while maintaining some brevity in the body of the post.
 

My apologies for not having been clear.  And unfortunately I do not have textual evidence to confirm the boutique managers’ claims.  (One of the many characteristics I admire about your posts, @kazoolaw, is the unfailing inclusion of evidentiary material supporting the points being made.  I have fallen down here in this regard.)

[kazoolaw]

You give me too much credit:  even if the new packaging was wrapped in green I remain cynical enough to think it’s a money saving effort, and that the money saved will stay in MB’s wallet.  
Which is what one does to maintain profits.

[NoType]

2 hours ago, kazoolaw said:

You give me too much credit:  even if the new packaging was wrapped in green I remain cynical enough to think it’s a money saving effort, and that the money saved will stay in MB’s wallet.  
Which is what one does to maintain profits.

@kazoolaw When it comes to large corporations with subsidiaries, and especially publicly traded companies, profit maintenance always seems to play an outsize role in decision-making processes, so your scepticism is understandable and possibly warranted.  Since we lack hard data on packaging costs of old vs new Montblanc designs, it is difficult to determine if cutting costs and increasing profits were the main motivations for the new packaging, or how great a role they played in the adoption of the new packaging design.  However, simple-appearing designs using recycled materials can seem deceptively cost-effective, when the opposite is actually the case, so although your supposition seems reasonable, I venture to posit that it is possible that Montblanc’s new packaging is not entirely a money saving effort.  

 

In short, although Montblanc may not strictly deserve it — one only has to look at its revamped third-party strategy for service in the US and higher charges for service to see examples of money saving efforts — I am willing to give the maison the benefit of the doubt in this instance, at least until more cost data (ever) becomes available.  Your point, though, is well taken, and is a reminder that supporting evidence is necessary if a claim is to be taken seriously.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Scratchy sounds beaten up in the mail, instead of bought at a B&M.

With your thumbnail at the breather hole, press the up tine down under the down tine for 2 seconds three times. That should do it for scratchy...

Flow I don't know..............

If Mb's not fixing it....perhaps you should Fund Me a Lawyer.

 

The display case is not a case that is bomb proof.  Only Goulet (sp) sends items properly packed in today's violent smash it up mail.

Many hundreds have complained about misaligned nibs of all modern brands, bought by mail...none have complained about that when bought in a shop.

 

Too bad you are not in the EU where that fix my pen for free when sort of new, is still legal.

 

 

 

[torstar]

If you can't afford to take some disappointments and setbacks, stay in the Big pen buying market... 

 

For MB I have purchased 10 or so BP/FP and even a pencil.

 

The Proust is the best of my 3 LE purchases, the large BP is in the rotation and the rebuilt 149 is cherished.

 

The rest aren't that great a write in the first place or are off just enough to not be first string players.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[NoType]

On 6/15/2024 at 7:27 PM, NoType said:

Now if someone could only explain why Montblanc boutiques refer internally to MyJewelryRepair not as “MJR,”  as one would expect, but rather as “M and G” (“M & G” in correspondence).  (I actually asked a Montblanc boutique manager when they said “M and G” in response to a service question I had posed, and after I confirmed that they were indeed referring to MyJewelryRepair and asked them why they didn’t call it “MJR,” they simply shrugged and said that they had no idea.  Admittedly not an important question, but one that arose out of simple curiosity.)

If I may be so bold as to answer my own question, I stumbled across this short article

https://www.nationaljeweler.com/articles/10026-my-jewelry-repair-is-now-montblanc-certified

which mentions that MyJewelryRepair (MJR) is the online branch of M&G Jewelers (M&G).  According to the article, M&G dates back to sometime in the 1990’s, while its subsidiary MJR began in 2016.

[Seney724]

9 hours ago, NoType said:

If I may be so bold as to answer my own question, I stumbled across this short article

https://www.nationaljeweler.com/articles/10026-my-jewelry-repair-is-now-montblanc-certified

which mentions that MyJewelryRepair (MJR) is the online branch of M&G Jewelers (M&G).  According to the article, M&G dates back to sometime in the 1990’s, while its subsidiary MJR began in 2016.

Very interesting @NoType  Thanks so much for closing this loop for us.

I still cannot believe Montblanc did this........Maybe they thought it was more environmental friendly?

 

 

 

[NoType]

11 hours ago, Seney724 said:

Very interesting @NoType  Thanks so much for closing this loop for us.

 

@Seney724 My pleasure.  The mystery numbers among those minor questions, the answers to which are strangely satisfying out of all proportion to the queries’ importance.  

11 hours ago, Seney724 said:

I still cannot believe Montblanc did this........Maybe they thought it was more environmental friendly?

@Seney724Ha!  Touché. 

[Centurion]

Yes, great info @NoType!!

[NoType]

3 hours ago, Centurion said:

Yes, great info @NoType!!

@Centurion Thank you; I am happy to have answered this small question that a few of us pondered.