Montblanc Vintage 1930–1939 Dealer brands and sub-brands of the 1930s

In the 1920s and 1930s Montblanc also supplied fountain pens that carried a dealer’s brand or a sub-brand instead of its own name. According to the plates of “Collectible Stars” I, Stöffhaas, Diplomat, Trigon, Westminster, Fiedler and Klawun reach into the 1930s; in addition there are dealer names imprinted on ordinary Montblanc pens.

Why Montblanc supplied pens under other names

Until the mid-1930s specialist dealers largely decided what their customers got to see, and many had brand names of their own under which they sold goods from various makers. To conceal their origin, such pens were sold through the Excelsior Füllhalterwerke. The company existed until 1922 and was founded in 1913 according to the text of “Collectible Stars” I.

Volume I distinguishes Montblanc’s sub-brands from the dealers’ brands:

• sub-brands: Diplomat, Reflex, Rotkäppchen, Rouge et Noir, Simplo Gold and The Simplo Pen
• dealer brands, for example Kimmelstiel, Tatra, Kadewe Royal, Klawun, Trigon Extra and Westminster

Not every pen of a dealer brand was made by Montblanc, since dealers also changed suppliers, and Astoria made pens that look very much like Montblanc. Most of these brands belong to the time before 1930.

Stöffhaas

Stöffhaas was the Hamburg stationery shop of the Stöffhaas brothers, family-owned since 1906 according to the illustrated book “Meisterstücke for the art of writing”. In 1919 the brothers opened the first Montblanc specialty shop together with the Simplo Füllfeder-Gesellschaft (Montblanc-Simplo only from 1934), first in Steindamm, then in Grosser Burstah; in 1922 one in Leipziger Strasse in Berlin followed.

Only Montblanc and Stöffhaas goods were sold there. The shop received fittings, advertising material and training from Montblanc and in return the sole right to sell in its area. A box lists Stöffhaas specialty 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. According to the illustrated book there were Montblanc shops only in Germany.

For the 1930s volume I lists the following pens under the Stöffhaas brand; all the fountain pens were available with a Montblanc nib on request:

• safety pens A, B and C, 1929–1934, with a round top and without clip
• push-button fillers A, B and C, 1932–1934, with a round top and without clip
• safety pen 301, 1935–1936
• push-button filler 321, 1936–1939
• twist pencil 5, 1923–1933

According to the Diary they are the same pens as the Reflex of the same designation: the barrel of the A, B and C reads “REFLEX”, from 1932 also “STÖFFHAAS”, and on the 301 and 321 the name is on the cap. The dimensions in volume I, however, differ slightly from those of the Reflex for the safety pens and for the 301 and 321.

Dealer names on Montblanc pens

Stöffhaas also had its name imprinted on ordinary Montblanc pens, mostly on the cap — as “Gebr. Stöffhaas, Hamburg”, as “Stöffhaas, Hamburg, Berlin, Leipzig” or simply as “Stöffhaas”. An example on this website is the 322 K black and pearl of the third series with “STÖFFHAAS” on the cap. Some pens also carry “S.-S.” below the model number, for instance a 334½ with the Stöffhaas imprint (Penexchange forum post of 26 October 2015 (thread “Fragen zu Montblanc 334 1/2 u. Pix 70”)); it is read as “Stöffhaas-Spezialgeschäft” (Stöffhaas specialty shop, forum post of 26 November 2005), but that is not documented.

Other dealers too had their name and town imprinted on the cap in the 1920s and 1930s. Volume I names about twenty, among them:

• Otto Acke in Bremen
• Esperstedt & Co in Königsberg
• Hermann Gompertz in Cologne (also “Hergo”)
• Heinr. Hünicke in Lübeck
• Jos Lustig & Co and Max Weidler in Vienna
• Mylius in Munich
• the Schloss Papierhandlung in Charlottenburg, which also bought from Astoria
• Uhlmann (“Eterno”) in Milan
• John Dunhill in London

The collectiblestars.com database lists a Reflex C with the imprint of the Schloss Papierhandlung. There were advertising imprints as well: maxpens.de shows a push-button filler of size B from 1934–1935 with a UFA print on the cap top and “MONTBLANC-ERZEUGNIS” on the barrel.

Diplomat

Diplomat was a 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 certain dealers, and afterwards pens were made to order under this name again and again until about 1940. Montblanc could not protect the name, because other makers had already registered or used it.

For the 1930s volume I lists azurite blue push-button fillers “Diplomat” of size b with a Montblanc nib, 1932–1938 and 1936–1940. The brown and blue marbled ones of 1940–1942 and “Diplomat” as a name for large Meisterstück pens are described on the page Stylos, sub-brands and special productions of the 1940s.

Trigon and Westminster

In the same size b and with a Montblanc nib of size b, two black dealer brands appeared in 1933–1936: the safety pen Trigon and the push-button filler Westminster. The letters a, b and c were also the sizes of the third series, where b corresponds to size 4.

Volume I also names Trigon among the dealer brands that Astoria stamped; the Trigon on the plate dates from after Montblanc’s takeover of Astoria. According to the Diary, Westminster was already a trade name of Excelsior, and the collectiblestars.com database lists a black Westminster as a push-button filler no. 2 with a round cap top.

Fiedler and Klawun

For the stationer Fiedler a push-button filler 321 without a star on the cap top was made in 1936–1939, 14.0 cm at Ø 1.25 cm. On this plate volume I places the dealer in Leipzig, but in its list of dealer imprints in Dresden (“Erich Fiedler, Dresden”, also “Fiedler Spezial”) — which is correct has not been resolved.

For the dealer brand Klawun volume I gives a piston filler of size b from 1934–1935 with a long cap top in the shape of the 234 or 235, 15.5 cm at Ø 1.35 cm. The chronologies of volume I and of the Diary record Montblanc’s first piston filler for 1934.