Montblanc Vintage 1908–1929 Dealer brands, sub-brands and pens for other makers, 1910–1929

From 1910 into the 1920s the Simplo Filler Pen Co. and Montblanc made many fountain pens under other names: for specialist dealers, under sub-brands of their own and for other pen makers. Before 1914 more than half of the turnover came from such commissioned work for specialist dealers and large customers.

Why under another name

Until the mid-1930s specialist dealers decided what their customers got to see. Many sold under a brand name of their own and sourced the goods for it from changing makers; a manufacturer that did not carry out an order as requested lost it to a competitor. That is why the Hamburg Simplo Filler Pen Co., the maker of the Montblanc brand, also stamped many fountain pens with the dealer’s name instead of its own. The smallest orders are said to have been a dozen pens.

The Excelsior Füllhalterwerke

To keep their origin hidden, these pens were sold through a separate sales company, the Excelsior Füllhalterwerke. According to the text of volume I and of the Diary it was founded in 1913, and it existed until 1922. The Diary describes it as a trading firm for sub-brands and additional articles such as doorbell buttons, managed by W. Dziambor. To the outside world, Simplo thus made only its own brands, Montblanc and Rouge et Noir.

Many of these trade names were given up after the First World War. There is no record of the orders, because the company archive burned in the Second World War and small batches for individual dealers were hardly documented.

Sub-brands and dealer brands

“Collectible Stars” I distinguishes sub-brands that Montblanc ran itself from dealer brands. The sub-brands were Diplomat, Reflex, “Rotkäppchen”, Rouge et Noir, Simplo Gold and The Simplo Pen. Dealer brands, by contrast, were ordinary, sometimes modified Montblanc pens that carried the dealer’s name instead of “MONTBLANC”.

The book names the following dealer brands: Aladin, Alca, Clou, Cyclop, Eminent, Gedania, Golding, “Der Goldberg”, “Der Goldkopf”, Helm, Hergo, Jemen, “Der Kimmelstiel”, Kadewe Royal, Klawun, Liberty, Majestic, Mameluk, Quail (“Domino Safety”), Pilot, “Schwarzer Bär”, Tatra, Thu-Wu, TOT Montblanc, Trigon Extra, Ursus and Westminster. The Diary gives a similar but not identical list of Excelsior’s trade names, including Omnibus and “Royal (KADEWE)”, and counts Diplomat, Reflex, Monte Rosa and Simplo Gold among them.

Is it a Montblanc?

A dealer’s name alone does not prove that a pen comes from Montblanc, because dealers changed suppliers and Astoria’s pens looked very much like Montblanc. According to a forum post of 7 September 2008, for instance, there are “Kimmelstiel” pens with a patent note of 1903 that were made by the maker Moore.

Often, therefore, only the inside of a pen shows whether it comes from Hamburg — the feed, the spindle and the thread of the mechanism (forum post of 19 August 2004). According to a forum post of 19 August 2004 the Waterman-like pens of Diplomat, Tatra and Stöffhaas sometimes have a double spindle, whereas Montblanc otherwise mostly used a single one.

A forum post of 4 April 2007 gives a rule of thumb for pens without any reference to Montblanc: they are usually not Montblanc pens either. At the beginning of the 20th century there were more than two dozen brands of such safety pens in Germany alone.

Kimmelstiel, Quail and Tatra

Among the most important customers before the First World War was the stationer M. Kimmelstiel & Co. with shops in Hamburg, Cologne and Berlin. It sold its pens as “Der Kimmelstiel” and advertised a great deal, especially with advertising stamps (1909–1915), which are collected today; after the war the firm no longer existed. Volume I lists a 4 lg with a white cap top (1911–1919) and a 2 lg with a star (1920–1922). The book does not say how these late years fit with the end of the firm.

Quail was a house brand of M. Erlebach Nachf. in Frankfurt, according to its own advertising an import house for fountain pens founded in 1870, with addresses in New York and Boston as well. Erlebach sold the ranges Domino, Ideal, Patriot and Middle Joint and obtained them from various makers; Montblanc supplied the Domino range until the early 1920s.

The table of volume I gives Quail 1, 1 lg, 2 and 4 (1910–1915) and a 6 with a flat top without a star (1913–1922). The collectiblestars.com database lists the pens as “Quail Domino”, also in 2 lg and 4 lg.

Tatra is named after the highest mountains of the former Czechoslovakia. According to volume I an importer had the pens made by Montblanc for this market, and their nibs often carry “TATRA” and the Montblanc star with the size. The box (1912) and advertising (1913) shown in the book are inscribed in Hungarian and name the paper goods factory Rigler József Ede in Budapest. The book’s table lists sizes 0 to 4 from 1913 to 1922.

Further dealer brands

Volume I records further dealer brands only from individual pens — almost all of them safety pens, often with a Montblanc nib:

• Goldkopf: 2 lg and 4, 1912–1920
• Majestic: 1 lg, from the same years
• Alca: 1, red ripple, from the same years
• Royal: 2 lg, 1911–1919
• Hergo: 4 with a green cap top, 1912–1919, and 6 with a green star, 1920–1924
• Jemen: 1 with an octagonal cap and white cap top and 6, 1912–1914, plus 2 and 4, 1922–1928
• Keikobad: 4, 1914–1928
• Helm: 4, an eyedropper filler, 1910–1912

Behind Hergo was the Cologne dealer Hermann Gompertz. The Diary lists Royal with the addition “KADEWE”; the name list of volume I has it as “Kadewe Royal”. Advertising of about 1912/13 in the Diary promotes the “Goldkopf” and the “Kimmelstiel” with a gold top, the “Goldberg” with a white top, Simplo Gold with a gold top and the Royal.

Keikobad is missing from the name list of volume I. The Diary calls the Keikobad and Diplomat pens of 1920–1929, offered as safety pens, the forerunners of the Reflex.

Thu-Wu

Volume I names Thu-Wu among the dealer brands, but its table lists it as a Montblanc sub-brand (size 6, 1919–1922). According to the Diary the brand had a catalogue of its own with safety pens and propelling pencils under the address Germann & Co. in Simplo’s building.

Until 1922 it was sold almost exclusively abroad, for instance through G. Pontremoli & C. in Milan. Volume I shows the heading of a Thu-Wu catalogue dated 1911.

Diplomat

Diplomat was the sub-brand under which Montblanc sold simple safety pens in the manner of the Waterman before the First World War. Until the mid-1920s they went to selected dealers; after that, pens were repeatedly made to order under this name until about 1940. Montblanc could not protect the name because other makers had already registered or used it.

The first catalogue of the Simplo Filler Pen Co., of about 1909, already offered Diplomat safety pens in a short and a long form in sizes 2, 4 and 6; these early pens are described on the page early safety pens. For 1912–1928 volume I lists Diplomat 1, 2 and 2 lg in black and 4 in red ripple, all with Montblanc nibs, plus an eyedropper filler 4 for 1910–1914. The Diary dates the barrel imprint “DIPLOMAT” until 1925 and the imprint “STÖFFHAAS” until 1928.

Stöffhaas

Together with the Hamburg stationer Stöffhaas, the Simplo Füllfeder-Gesellschaft — Montblanc-Simplo only from 1934 — opened the first Montblanc specialist shop in 1919, first in Steindamm, then in Grosser Burstah, and one in Berlin in 1922. There were shops in Hamburg, Berlin, Leipzig, Breslau and Cologne, and Stöffhaas had a large part of its writing instruments made by Montblanc until the end of the 1930s.

Volume I lists Stöffhaas safety pens 0, 1, 2, 4 and 6 with a flat top (1919–1928), from 1929 sizes A, B and C and a twist pencil 5 (1923–1933). The pens of the 1930s are described on the page dealer brands and sub-brands of the 1930s.

For other makers and without a brand imprint

According to volume I, pen makers such as A. W. Faber, Penkala, Dimmler and J. S. Staedtler had their first safety pens made by Montblanc, probably to test the market before starting production of their own. According to the Diary customers such as Faber also bought pens without an imprint and put their own name on them. In detail, volume I lists:

• for A. W. Faber in 1912–1920 the safety pens 685, 678 and 688 — one is marked “A.W.FABER “BALANCE” No 688” and has a green cap top — and a 4
• for Mars Staedtler in 1913–1922 sizes 1, 2 lg, 3 and 4, among them an octagonal red ripple 4 and one in Tula silver
• without any brand imprint in 1920–1928 safety pens 12 and 12 lg, a 5 with a “night & day” gold-filled overlay and lever fillers 1 and 2, each with a Montblanc nib
• without a brand imprint in 1920–1926 gold-filled push-button fillers 4 — one with an Egyptian pattern, with birds according to the collectiblestars.com database, and one with the imprint “Partner”

Nibs and special orders

The nib is a distinguishing mark of many dealer-brand and sub-brand pens. Volume I records a nib of the firm’s own marked “WARRANTED” with the size in a diamond (1913–1918) and, for the sub-brands, a nib marked “WARRANTED” with a diamond (1920–1936). The Diary shows “WARRANTED” with the size in the diamond on Diplomat and Stöffhaas pens, or a Montblanc nib with the size in the star fitted on request. Montblanc gold nibs for France were 18 ct.

Large customers also ordered versions of their own, such as the bookkeeping firm RUF with an enamelled company logo on the cap top and special nibs of its own; volume I shows an illustration of 1930. In addition, dealers in the 1920s and 1930s had ordinary Montblanc pens imprinted with their name, mostly on the cap — one example is the 322 k with “STÖFFHAAS”.