Montblanc, founded in Hamburg in 1908 as the Simplo Filler Pen Co. (its prehistory in a Berlin workshop goes back to 1906), was present in the mass market well into the 1980s: alongside the expensive Meisterstück pens, plainly appointed school and everyday fountain pens came off the line. When the company reoriented itself towards the luxury segment, management laid down the rule that there should be no Montblanc fountain pen costing less than 150 Deutsche Mark. The inexpensive series were discontinued, and the range narrowed to high-priced writing instruments, later joined by watches, leather goods and accessories.
For collectors this has two consequences. First, the plain, affordable Montblanc models almost all date from before that turning point; they are vintage items today, mostly with a piston or cartridge filling system and with nibs of gold or steel, and some of them change hands on the collectors' market for considerably more than their original shop price would suggest. Second, the strategy explains why there are virtually no cheap new pens from the brand after the 1980s: a supposedly as-new Montblanc offered strikingly cheaply is therefore almost always a fake.