Montblanc Vintage 1930–1939 Multicolour pencils of the 1930s

In the 1930s Montblanc offered multicolour pencils in two forms: black two-colour pencils in hard rubber with the numbers 30 to 43 and four-colour pencils 60 to 62 in metal. Montblanc did not make them itself; who made the four-colour pencils has not been resolved.

Why multicolour pencils

Multicolour pencils came about because in some professions — “Collectible Stars” I names bookkeeping and the military — one had to change quickly between two colours. At first two twist pencils were joined at the rear end to form a two-colour pencil, mostly for blue and red.

At the same time pencils with several coloured leads appeared, which were pushed forward in turn, at first mostly with four colours, later with two to six. To keep these pencils handy they were made of metal, and above all the metal industry in Pforzheim offered many models and systems.

Montblanc did not make them itself: according to volume I the company obtained its multicolour pencils among others from Fend and from Bossert & Erhardt, according to volume II they were bought-in goods from the start, meant to round off the range. Volume I heads the multicolour pencils with 1929–1941; its tables begin in 1928 with the two-colour pencils 40, 41 and 43 and end in 1940.

The two-colour pencils 30 to 43

The two-colour pencils 30 to 43 are black, round or eight-sided, 14.5 to 23 cm long and 0.9 to 1.4 cm thick — the eight-sided 38 is the longest at 23 cm. Volume I lists most of them for 1929–1932, the 30 for 1931–1936. The 40 to 43 ran from 1928 or 1929 until 1934, 1936 or 1938 and took 1.2 or 2.45 mm leads.

According to the collectiblestars.com database they are of hard rubber, the number is on the barrel end, and the barrel carries “MONT” and “BLANC” with the mountain symbol in between. In volume I the numbers 30 to 43 also denote other instruments: 30, 35, 40 and 45 Meisterstück fountain pens until 1934, and numbers such as 30, 32 or 40 the twist pencils made in Denmark in 1937–1949.

The four-colour pencils 60 to 62

The four-colour pencils carry three numbers that indicate the material; according to the collectiblestars.com database the number is not imprinted.

• 60 — silver-coloured metal, Alpacca according to volume I
• 61 — silver
• 62 — rolled gold, in the first type also 585 gold

Volume I distinguishes three types:

• 1929–1931: round top and colour selection by an “arrow”, 12.4 cm long and 0.85 cm thick, the 60 round, the 61 and 62 eight-sided
• 1932–1935: round top, 12.8 cm long and 1.0 cm thick, the 60 eight-sided, the 61 and 62 round, plus a black enamelled 61, probably a prototype
• 1936–1940: long top, 13.4 cm at 1.1 cm in diameter, round or eight-sided as the 60 A, 61 A and 62 A

In the photos of the page four-colour pencil No. 61 the clip ends at the top in an arrowhead, above which coloured marks sit on the head piece. On the last type, according to the database, a black-rimmed star, on the A versions an enamelled star, sits on the long, cylindrical barrel end.

Operation and mechanism

An advertising leaflet of 1930 for the “Montblanc” four-colour pencil explains in pictures how to set the colour, turn the lead forwards and back and insert a new lead. According to volume II the multicolour pencils at first had a simple sliding mechanism. The semi-automatic one, in which the old colour springs back by itself when a new one is selected, only came after the war.

Who made the four-colour pencils?

Who made Montblanc’s four-colour pencils of the 1930s and who invented their mechanism has not been resolved. According to a forum post of 25 February 2007 a round four-colour pencil in 900 silver with a Montblanc imprint from around 1930 to 1935 came from Fend in Pforzheim, the inventor and patent holder of these mechanisms. Fend made them for many brands, and the pencils differed mostly only in clip, top and lettering; the coloured leads were 1.18 mm thick but only about 2.5 cm long.

According to a forum post of 24 February 2007 Montblanc never made such pencils itself, and according to a forum post of 1 November 2004 the sliding and the visual mechanism of the multicolour pencils were based on inventions by Fend. According to a Penexchange forum post of 30 December 2014 (thread “Kosca”), by contrast, none of Fend’s patents fits the first Montblanc four-colour pencils, but one of the Pforzheim firm Kohler & Schäfer (Kosca) almost does; the post therefore suspects this firm as the maker.

According to another Penexchange forum post of 13 February 2014 (thread “Montblanc Vierfarbstift 30er Jahre”) the engineer Albert Hirth developed the four-colour pencil around 1930 on behalf of Fend and received the patent, with Fend taking over series production. A forum post of 2 November 2004, on the other hand, names a Swiss as the inventor and refers to a patent notice in the Montblanc catalogue of 1936. A Montblanc multicolour pencil is recognised by the star and a Montblanc engraving (forum post of 12 July 2013).

Accessories and what came next

On the same plates “Collectible Stars” I shows accessories for the pencil; the illustrations carry datings between 1926 and 1943:

• lead containers, among them a silver one of 1930
• a lead box marked “MONTBLANC FÜLLBLEISTIFT MINEN”
• erasers (1926–1936, also in the catalogue of 1928)
• a marking pencil and a combination of three pencils from the catalogue of 1928
• a rolling ink blotter

After 1940 Montblanc only took four-colour pencils into the range again in 1955, once more bought in and once more under the numbers 60 to 62, plus 63 and 64 — described on the page Multicolour pencils 1955–1977. The four-colour pencils of 1936–1940 are also listed on the page Twist pencils and four-colour pencils of the 1940s.