The Meisterstück 149 came onto the market in 1952. Claims that the model has been in the range unchanged for 85 years are wrong; they come from a 2009 piece in the company's own online magazine and probably rest on transposed digits — 58 years was meant. The word “unchanged” applies only to the basic shape, too: the nib, feed, rings, cap lettering and materials have all been altered several times over the decades, which is precisely what makes dating individual examples possible at all.
Similar inconsistencies surround the company anniversaries. Montblanc celebrated its centenary in 2006, taking 1906 as the year of foundation. At the same time there is an eightieth-anniversary rollerball dated 1988, which would count from 1908. Both counts have a reason: 1906 marks the beginning of the prehistory in a Berlin workshop, 1908 the start of production in Hamburg, then as the Simplo Filler Pen Co.; the company only bore the name Montblanc-Simplo from 1934. For decades the company celebrated 1908 as its birthday, whereas the editions of 2006 count from 1906. Advertising statements about anniversaries and model ages should therefore be used only with caution when placing a collector's piece; catalogue documents and the features of the pen itself are more reliable.