Editor’s note: Thrilled to share with to you our new highly anticipated column, led by none other than Canadian media industry veteran and award winning journalist, Shane Schick. The former editor-in-chief of Marketing magazine, fashion, technology and features writer, that goes the extra mile for the story. Currently at the helm of his very own, 360 magazine.
Today, Shane Schick is poised to explore only the best of the world’s brands for this new monthly Gent’s Post column, that truly embody being defined as a status symbol. This month, for our second edition of the column, we highlight what makes Montblanc, the brand behind the iconic Meisterstück pen, so iconic. #StatusSymbols
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No one goes in search of the deep cold in early May, even if there’s the promise of a cozy chateau amid the glaciers. Yet that’s the world celebrities walked into at the Paramour Estate in Los Angeles recently, where Montblanc had invited them to toast its most iconic snow-capped fountain pen.
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The guest list – which included Canada’s Simu Liu, Emma Roberts and Maude Apatow – are arguably among the few that could afford Montblanc’s Meisterstück, a writing instrument that turns 100 years old this year. With a short film directed by Wes Anderson premiering as part of the evening, however, it’s clear Montblanc is not content with simply looking back, but is writing a new chapter in its fascinating history.
Who cares about a fountain pen? Plenty of people, clearly
Although I wasn’t able to attend the party, the media coverage pointed out the irony of an event where John Legend reportedly sang “Happy Birthday” to a fountain pen while the audience recorded it with their smartphones. Unlike even the cheapest digital device, the Montblanc Meisterstück is an example of a product that does just one thing really well, which only partly explains its enduring allure.
Think of it this way: you could buy a new laptop, or you could spend between $800 and more than $2,000 on a Meisterstück. At a time when most of us are better at thumb typing than cursive – and where most communication needs to travel across screens rather than a piece of paper – investing in a fountain pen seems almost eccentric, if not archaic.
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Yet the Meisterstück (which is German for “masterpiece”) has the kind of luxury materials and craftmanship you might normally associate with a classic car. The original version, which launched 18 years after the company was founded, features a sleek black resin body, gold-plated trims, and a 14-karat gold nib.
Originally called “Rouge et Noir,” the Meisterstück are numbered by the size of their nibs, though it took the 149 coming out in 1952 for its position as a masterpiece to be truly realized. Experts have suggested the rounded cap gives it the appealing shape of a cigar, while a gold ring separating the piston filler (the mechanism that offers ideal ink capacity) from the barrel evokes fine jewelry.
Pop culture’s favourite fountain pen
Like other status symbols, including Rolex watches, Montblanc’s Meisterstück was cemented in the public’s imagination through recurring appearances in movies and television. It’s the pen Jude Law’s Dickie Greenleaf is handed in 1999’s The Talented Mr. Ripley. The brand’s ‘Great Characters’ campaign in 2009 associated the Meisterstück with everyone from John F. Kennedy and Elvis to Mohammed Ali and Ghandi. And two years ago, Succession’s Logon Roy vented his anger in an episode where he threatened to shove a Montblanc pen down another character’s throat.
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Montblanc Meisterstück Gold-Plated Fountain Pen
Strategic collaborations have also helped the Meisterstück show up in unexpected ways. There was the 2021 partnership with Pirelli, which led to a limited-version of the fountain pen in rubber. A year later saw an anime version of the Meisterstück to recognize the long-running manga Narturo. Even Spike Lee has developed his own take on the Meisterstück.
Signed, sealed, delivered
What really defines the Meisterstück’s appeal, however, may have more to do with what hasn’t changed about it over the past century than its many transformations.
Some of most special occasions in our lives involve physically signing a document. A marriage license, the mortgage on your first home, the contract for the biggest sale you’ve ever made – though digital tools like DocuSign exist, these are still often pen and ink affairs. Holding a Montblanc Meisterstück suggests you’re treating such moments with the writing instrument they truly deserve.
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Handwriting, meanwhile, remains the most intimate way to convey any kind of message – our penmanship is nearly as unique as our fingerprints. As the world struggles to figure out how to balance the creativity that comes through artificial intelligence with that produced by a person, writing anything with a Montblanc represents an act of pure, authentic humanity.
Even if you never take off the cap, a Meisterstück is also a symbol of design at its best. That makes the fountain pen inherently collectable, and something that can be passed down as an heirloom (as mine was by my father-in-law).
With its Origin Collection now on sale, Montblanc will no doubt welcome a new generation of enthusiasts to the Meisterstück. True, we may not really need fountain pens now, let alone in another hundred years, but I believe that Montblanc will survive. It’s the kind of bet I’d happily put in writing.
Coming in 2025: The limited edition, Schreiberling
Designed by Wes Anderson himself.
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