Montblanc Vintage 1940–1949 Meisterstück 132 to 139 of the 1940s

In the 1940s the Meisterstück pens were piston fillers with a telescopic piston and a flat cap top, in the sizes 132 to 139; of the older push-knob fillers only a few continued until 1940. During the war only the 134 and 136 remained, without a cap ring and with a steel nib, and after the war they carried three cap rings. In 1949 the 142, 144 and 146 replaced the old shape; only the 139 was still made in it until 1952.

Numbers and models

With the numbering system of 1935 the Meisterstück pens received a 1 as their first digit. The second digit gives the filling system — 2 for the push-knob filler with ink sac, before the war 3 for the piston filler —, the third the size from 1 to 9. Of the push-knob fillers 122 to 129 only a few versions continued until 1940:

• 122 G, 122 PL and the short 122 KPL
• 126 G and 126 PL
• the large 129 L
• the 124 PL, which from 1938 had light-coloured cap rings and a light-coloured clip of white gold

The Meisterstück pens received the telescopic piston in 1937. Montblanc had applied for a patent on the brass mechanism in 1936; it takes up more than 30 % more ink than an ordinary piston. This type was made as the 132, also as the short 132 k, the 134 and the 136, from 1938 as the 138 and the 139 L — the large Meisterstück, with a size 9 nib. The 132 ran until 1940, the 138 until 1941.

Besides the black pens these versions existed until 1940:

• the 132 in black-and-silver striped celluloid (PL)
• the 132 k, 134 and 136 in rolled gold with barleycorn guilloche
• the 132 in 585 gold, also with barleycorn guilloche

There was also a high-gloss 136 G with a star in the cap top, according to volume I probably a prototype. It too is a piston filler; the collectiblestars.com database describes it in the same way.

How to recognise them

The piston fillers 132 to 138 have these features:

• a flat cap top with the star
• a wide gold-coloured ring at the cap lip and a clip ring
• the tie clip, which belongs to the Meisterstück pens of 1935 to 1952
• lengthwise on the cap of the smaller sizes the imprint “MONTBLANC Meisterstück” — according to the Diary and the collectiblestars.com database already on the pre-war pens

Beside the wide ring the 139 has two narrow light-coloured rings. According to a forum post of 12 August 2009 they are silver, and the 139 was the only Meisterstück of this range with such rings. The push-knob filler 129 L already had similar rings (maxpens.de), the 149 later. On the 139 “Meisterstück” is on the wide ring (Fountain Pen Network post of 5 May 2010).

Cap and turning knob were first of hard rubber, later of celluloid. Depending on the period there are pens entirely of hard rubber, pens of celluloid with cap top and barrel end of hard rubber, and pens entirely of celluloid (forum post of 13 June 2008). The striped ink window was long until 1943; pale yellow at first, ink darkens it to dark red.

The barrel often reads “D.R.P. 652405” — according to maxpens.de the patent of June 1936 on the process by which the stripes were applied. On the post-war pens of the range, above all the 139, the number is missing according to a Fountain Pen Network post of 23 June 2018. The model number is on the turning knob, the nib width on the opposite side.

Nibs

The two-tone Meisterstück nib existed from 1935; “Collectible Stars” volume II describes it as rhodinated. It is marked “4810”, with the M in the star and a size number. Volume I gives 220, 225, 235 and 245 — according to dealer data at penboard for the 132, 134, 136 and 138 —, and the 139 has 250. From the factory the nib was of gold, 14 ct, 18 ct for France.

From 1939 gold could no longer be used for fountain pen nibs. The Meisterstück pens of the first war years therefore occur with a steel nib and with a palladium nib, which is marked with a curved P, as maxpens.de also describes. Meisterstück steel nibs marked “4810”, plain or gold-plated, existed from 1940 to 1947. On the 138, made from 1938, gold nibs are also documented (forum post of 15 June 2008).

Palladium nibs were made in two ways: of solid palladium and as steel nibs with a palladium plating (the plating on steel is also described in a forum post of 30 October 2005). According to him two-tone nibs were made in three ways:

• gold nibs with a platinum-plated layer
• gold-plated steel nibs on which the steel remained visible inside
• palladium nibs, partly gold-plated

During the war

The war began in September 1939. Production was rationed as early as 1940, and army offices were supplied first. In June 1942 a war regulation came into force:

• no more coloured pens and no patterned ink windows
• decorative rings for export only
• the cap at most 14 mm and the barrel at most 12.5 mm thick
• only one pen size in at most two versions, two sizes for export

Of the Meisterstück pens the 134 and 136 remained. Their war version has no cap ring, “MONTBLANC MEISTERSTÜCK” is engraved in the cap, and the nib is of steel only. The pen on the page 134 war model has an engraved band where the ring would be. According to a Fountain Pen Network post of 4 August 2008 only part of the 134 and 136 received the engraved cap.

The war version was made from 1942 to 1946. It reached the shops only in mid-1943, because the factory and the dealers still had old stock, and it was sold until the end of 1946. Montblanc did not make the 139 from 1942 to 1946. Three striped 134 pens of 1942 to 1944 are also recorded as prototypes:

• black with white stripes
• red with black stripes
• white with black stripes

After the war

After the end of the war Montblanc at first worked only for the British occupation forces. Until the currency reform of 1948 the staff were mostly paid in fountain pens assembled from existing parts, which were exchanged with English soldiers for cigarettes. This produced many Meisterstück variants that appear in no catalogue, mostly 134 and 136.

From 1946 pens with decorative rings were made again from old stock, and from 1947 they were in the shops. The 134 and 136 now had three cap rings — a wide one between two narrow ones —, a short ink window and a gold or steel nib. “Collectible Stars” volume II lists them from 1946 to 1948 and also mentions pens with a long window and “engraved cap-bands”.

For 1948 to 1949 volume I gives a version with a flat cap top and “three cap rings, engraved”. On the photo pages of the 134 and the 136 the wide middle ring reads “MONTBLANC – MEISTERSTÜCK”.

Because of the shortage of materials, Meisterstück pens were sold with various clips during and after the war, sometimes with the fluted clip of the second series (Fountain Pen Network post of 17 August 2013). The diamond clip, developed during the war and first used on pens from Denmark, was used in Germany from 1947 to 1949; “Collectible Stars” volume I shows it among the Meisterstück clips.

In 1948 the second series was the first to receive a new streamlined shape, inspired by the Parker 51. In 1949 the Meisterstück 142, 144 and 146 followed and replaced the 132, 134 and 136 (Fountain Pen Network post of 4 August 2008) — described under the Meisterstück pens of the 1950s. With the new shape the second digit of the piston fillers changed from 3 to 4 (forum post of 3 July 2004).

The 139 kept the old shape. It was made again from 1948 to 1952, with a short window and slightly shorter than before the war; the later pens are entirely of celluloid (Fountain Pen Network post of 4 August 2008). At the end, according to a forum post of 3 May 2005, it already had the section of the 144 and 146 and thus became the model for the Writers Edition Hemingway. Its successor in 1952 was the 149.

Names, imprints and letters

Until 1935 Meisterstück pens intended for export carried the name in the local language — “Masterpiece”, “Chef d’Oeuvre”, “Capolavoro”. The English form remained in use until well into the 1950s. France required the mark “IMPORTE D’ALLEMAGNE” on imported pens, Great Britain “foreign”.

At penboard a 136 with “CHEF D’OEUVRE” around the cap top and pens of this range with “FABBRICATA IN GERMANIA” for Italy are described. A Fountain Pen Network post of 5 May 2010 knew of no 139 cap with “Masterpiece”, but a dealer describes a 139 of the early 1950s with this imprint.

Letters after the number stand for separate versions: K for the short version (Fountain Pen Network post of 23 June 2018), PL for black-and-silver striped celluloid. The G (136 G, 138 G, L 139 G) originally stands for gold, i.e. the gold nib. A pen with G is always smooth and always an early version; once gold was a matter of course again, the G was dropped. This fits:

• a catalogue of 1936, according to which G denotes the smooth, high-gloss finish (Fountain Pen Network post of 17 July 2009), similarly a forum post of 13 June 2008
• “Collectible Stars” volume I, which calls the 136 G high-gloss

The reference works do not explain the L of the “L 139”. A catalogue shown in a Fountain Pen Network post of 6 November 2018 calls the 139 L “Luxus-Format” (luxury size).

Not a Montblanc is the fountain pen known as “Dicke Berta” by the Berlin firm Weltpen, engraved “Das Meisterstück” and slightly larger than the 139. According to a forum post of 25 August 2004, as far as is known, Montblanc took action against it, but the war prevented a ruling.

Dimensions

Volume I gives these lengths at 1.35 to 1.70 cm in diameter; the collectiblestars.com database gives them with the cap posted:

• 132 k: 13.5 cm
• 132: 14.5 cm
• 134: 15.0 cm
• 136: 15.1 to 15.3 cm
• 138: 15.7 cm
• 139: 15.8 cm, after the war 15.0 cm

Closed, individual pens at penboard measure about 118 mm (132), 128–130 mm (134), 124–131 mm (136), 135 mm (138) and 135–138 mm (139). The cap measures 13.3–13.5 mm (132, 134), 14.3–14.5 mm (136), 15.3 mm (138) and 16.2–16.4 mm (139) in diameter.