Montblanc Vintage 1908–1929 Early safety pens: from the white cap top to the star (1908–1920)

When closed, a safety pen is as tight as a bottle and can therefore be carried in any position; Montblanc made it from 1908 to 1939. This page describes the early pens up to 1920: the Diplomat, the first pens bearing the name Montblanc with a white cap top, the pens with the star and the “Simplo Patrone” of the war years.

How a safety pen works

The firm advertised this tightness early on: an advertisement of 1911 said “in jeder Lage tragbar” (portable in any position), another “As tightly sealed as a bottle”. To fill the pen, you hold it upright, unscrew the cap and put the ink into the barrel with a pipette. To write, you turn the knob at the end of the barrel; a spiral lifts the nib out of the barrel and seals it from the inside.

Afterwards the nib is turned back, again with the pen held upright, and the cap is screwed on. The nib then rests in the ink and writes immediately the next time the pen is opened. A silver pin in the centre of the cap engages with the feed and prevents the nib from being turned out and damaged while the cap is on.

The Diplomat (1908–1910)

Alongside the Rouge et Noir, the tables of “Collectible Stars” I begin with the Diplomat pens of 1908–1910: safety pens in sizes 2, 4 and 6, 15.5 to 16.3 cm long at Ø 1.0 to 1.2 cm. The first catalogue, of about 1909, already offered the “Diplomat” safety pen in a short and a long form and showed it in cross-section. It had a ribbed screw cap with a peg that was used to screw the nib out, and the imprint “DIPLOMAT SIMPLO FILLER PEN Cº” on the barrel.

The simple Diplomat safety pens resembled those of Waterman. Montblanc supplied them to certain dealers until the mid-1920s, but the name could not be registered because other makers used it too. The later Diplomat pens are described on the page dealer brands and sub-brands 1910–1929.

The name Montblanc and the white cap top (1910–1914)

In 1910 the name Montblanc was added; according to the chronology in the Diary it was registered on 19 May. It was given to a safety pen with a white cap top that the firm made alongside the Rouge et Noir; according to the memoirs in the Diary it was very long at first and entirely white at the top. Some well-off customers found the red cap top too conspicuous, so the new pens were given a more discreet white one.

The name is said to have been suggested during a game of cards by Carl Schalk, a cousin of Johannes Voß and a successful cigar merchant. Like the mountain, so the story goes, the pen was black at the bottom, white at the top and the greatest of its kind. The illustrated book also gives other versions of the story.

The tables of volume I list these pens from 1910 to 1914 in sizes 0, 1, 2, 4, 6, 7 and 8, sizes 2 to 7 also long, all black with a white cap top; in addition there are a no. 7 long and a cylindrical no. 2 with a black cap top.

The smallest size is called no. 0 in the table and in the Diary, but no. 00 in the caption of volume I. Its dimensions (8.0 cm, Ø 0.7 cm) come close to those of the 00 of the 1920s (8.5 cm, Ø 0.7 cm) — which designation is correct has not been resolved.

How to recognise the pens with a white cap top

• a ring at the end of the cap
• a nib stamped “SIMPLO PEN CO” with the size
• “MONT BLANC” on the cap with a triangular mountain between the words
• “SIMPLO ORIGINAL MONTBLANC” on the barrel, according to the collectiblestars.com database

A white cap top could not be registered as a trademark. According to a post on Penexchange (thread “unbekannter Safety-pen, Montblanc: RicLei”) other firms had white caps too, which is why Montblanc moved to the star; the same post says that the grooves on the cap top still ran horizontally at the time of the white cap and that vertical ones came later. Such a pen in red and black can be seen on the page No. 1 red ripple with white cap top.

The star (from 1914)

In 1913, at the instigation of W. Dziambor, who had been in charge of sales and advertising since 1910, the firm registered the star as a trademark — on 14 January, according to the chronology in the Diary. The star only reached the cap in 1914, because the technicians needed a long time to find a workable solution with their machines. Volume I gives several stories about the origin of the emblem:

• the white glacier tongues of Mont Blanc
• the imprint left in a heavy leather armchair
• the star-shaped mark left in the sand of the beach at Timmendorf when getting up
• the Hamburg district of Sternschanze, where the factory stood

For 1914–1920 volume I lists safety pens with a horizontally grooved cap top and turning knob in sizes 2 long, 4, 6 and 7, each also long, and 8, with the 4 long also as a demonstrator. The Diary describes the cap as having a serrated top edge, that is, the star cap top. In Italy these pens were sold as “ROUGE ET NOIR” with a red star; such a pen is shown on the page Rouge et Noir no. 6.

Nibs

For these years volume I gives three nib imprints:

• nibs from the firm’s own production marked “SIMPLO” with the size in a circle (1913–1919)
• alongside them “WARRANTED” with the size in a diamond (1913–1918)
• from 1919 “SIMPLO TRADE MARK” with the size in the star logo

According to the Diary, however, the firm only had really usable nibs of its own after 1919.

The war years and the “Simplo Patrone”

During the war, business collapsed. Small parts for shell fuses made up 90 per cent of the factory’s work, and hard rubber could no longer be obtained from America. Red pens were therefore made from rubber remnants of the New-York-Hamburg rubber goods factory; the illustrated book names bright red ones and, later, red and black marbled ones.

The most important product of the war years was the “Simplo Patrone”, a pen in the shape of a rifle cartridge, 17.0 cm long at Ø 1.15 cm. Its cap top was striped black, white and red in the national colours of the time; it was made by joining plates of black, white and red material, forming them into tubes and turning them to a cone. The Patrone was filled with water and ink powder or ink tablets, and it fitted into a small field post parcel.

Volume I lists the Patrone from 1915 to 1918 as a safety pen and pictures it as no. 2. Whether it was a safety pen or an eyedropper filler has not been resolved.

Dating

After 1920 Montblanc continued the safety pen in sizes 00 to 12, from 1924 also octagonal — described on the page safety pens of the 1920s. These features help to date the early pens:

• the red cap top of the Rouge et Noir (until 1916)
• the white cap top without a star (1910–1914)
• the star with a horizontally grooved top (from 1914)
• the imprint “ROTKÄPPCHEN” (1915–1916)
• the nib imprints

A single part does not date the pen as a whole, however: according to a post on Penexchange (thread “Der Ursprung des Rouge et Noir”), dealers and owners often screwed together whatever was to hand. Photos of early safety pens are on the pages No. 1 red ripple with white cap top and Rouge et Noir no. 6 with a red star; the Rouge et Noir as a safety pen is described on the page Rouge et Noir and Simplo Pen.