Pens with elaborate maki-e lacquer work built on a Meisterstück 149 turn up on the collectors' market from time to time and are often impressive pieces of craftsmanship. As a rule they are not factory models: a production pen is decorated after the fact by a lacquer artist or a specialist workshop and then sold as a one-off. The same is done with models from other makers, Pelikan fountain pens among them, which are offered in comparable form.
For classification this means that such pieces belong to no official Montblanc edition, carry no edition number from the firm and cannot be traced in the manufacturer's catalogues or price lists. Their value rests on the quality of the lacquer work and the name of the artist who carried it out, not on any limitation by Montblanc. Anyone buying such a piece should ask for evidence of where the decoration came from and check the pen beneath it separately for originality, since the layer of lacquer conceals many of the features one would otherwise go by.