The 224 fountain pen and the 284 ballpoint were made by Montblanc between 1971 and 1973. They do not belong to the Meisterstück range but to the company's second, cheaper everyday series. The imprint gives the brand, the country of origin and the model number; the hallmark on the nib reads 585 and stands for 14 carat gold. There is no such sequence as 858; it rests on a misreading.
The caps of the fountain pen and the ballpoint are merely gold-plated on this model and therefore cannot carry a precious-metal hallmark; Montblanc never made a precious-metal version here. Collector value remains modest even for unused pieces, because the series is neither part of the Meisterstück family nor genuinely historical and turns up cheaply at flea markets and fairs on a regular basis. As an everyday fountain pen with a matching ballpoint, on the other hand, such a set takes some beating.