Montblanc Vintage 1950–1959 Ballpoint pens of the 1950s: Ballograf and the lever ballpoints 115 to 715

Montblanc took up the ballpoint late. From 1955 the company sold pens made by the Swedish firm Ballograf as “Montblanc-Ballograf”, and from 1957 its own lever ballpoints with a large-capacity refill — the 115, 215, 315, 615 and 715.

Background

In 1938 the company declined an offer from the Biro group to develop a ballpoint together, because the device was considered not yet mature; this is reported by “Collectible Stars” II and by the Diary. In 1950 came an ink ballpoint, the “Kugelfüller” — a failure according to “Collectible Stars” II.

The English chronology of “Collectible Stars” II calls it a “roller ball fountain pen”, and for 1950–1951 the tables list exactly one such pen: the rollerball 444 of the third series. It has no refill but is filled from the ink bottle like a fountain pen (maxpens.de).

Ballograf from 1955

Only in 1955 — as one of the last German makers — did Montblanc offer ballpoints, at first as “Montblanc-Ballograf”. The Swedish company Ballograf supplied the pens, and Montblanc adopted their design unchanged. According to a forum post of 18 August 2006 the Austrian Eugen Spitzer had founded the company Ballograf in Gothenburg.

Ballograf held a Biro licence and could offer refills that differed from the standard refill usual in Germany. Under a special licence from the Danish inventor Henricksen a large-capacity refill with about three times the writing length was developed. In it a “flotter” of a vaseline-like grease floats on the paste and lets its level sink evenly.

The Ballograf pens

Under “Ballograph and lower price ballpoints” “Collectible Stars” II lists these pens:

• 1G and 1S, 2G and 2S, 3G and 3S from 1955
• 4S and 5TT from 1957
• the series 9, 9M, 9PL and 9G from 1957
• 20, 30 and 40 from 1959 to 1961
• a desk ballpoint without number

In the tables G goes with a cap, ring or clip of yellow metal and S with white metal — not with gold and silver. The barrels are plastic in black, brown, turquoise, burgundy, blue, grey or white. The early pens carry no Montblanc number, but one engraving by Ballograf and one by Montblanc. The 3G and 3S had the large-capacity refill, the 4S with its plastic clip a standard refill (collectiblestars.com).

“Collectible Stars” volume I calls the numbers 1 to 9, O8, OO8, 20, 30 and 40 Ballograf push-button ballpoints. The partnership was meant as a stopgap; according to the text of “Collectible Stars” II, however, the Ballograf range stayed on offer until 1968.

Montblanc’s own lever ballpoints from 1957

In 1957 came Montblanc’s first own ballpoints, with its own large-capacity refill and a mechanism in the clip: a lever springs back and retracts the refill as soon as the pen is put into a pocket — a safety ballpoint, as the illustrated book calls it. Only Montblanc built this clip-lever mechanism (forum post of 18 July 2005); push-button ballpoints of its own manufacture followed only at the end of the 1960s (forum post of 11 January 2008).

“Collectible Stars” volume I assigns the 115, 615 and 715 to the Meisterstück, the collectiblestars.com database the 215 to the second and the 315 to the third series. The first digit thus follows the lines of the fountain pens and pencils, even though a forum post of 16 September 2005 sees no recognisable system in the ballpoint numbers. The versions:

• 115: black, and green or grey striated (1958–1959)
• 215 (1957–1959) and 315 (1958–1959): in black, green, grey and red
• 615: cap of 14 ct gold, rolled gold or Silvre over a celluloid barrel
• 715: entirely gold or rolled gold

According to forum posts the 115 existed in two shades of green, never in brown: brownish pens are discoloured, and loose clip rings come from shrinking celluloid (forum post of 31 August 2005, forum post of 31 August 2005).

Refills

The first pens take the Ballograph refill. A thick standard refill (such as Schneider Express 225 or Schmidt) with its plastic end clipped off and filed round serves as a substitute; the air hole must stay open (forum post of 17 August 2004, forum post of 20 July 2005). Today’s Montblanc refills do not fit the ballpoints made until about 1968 (forum post of 18 July 2005).

Alongside

In the late 1950s or early 1960s Montblanc also bought in a small twist ballpoint, the “calendar pen”. It was sold with a pocket calendar or notepad in a leather case (forum post of 24 May 2007). A “ballpoint” in the body of a wartime fountain pen, on the other hand, is a private conversion (post on Penexchange (thread “Der erste Kugelschreiber von Montblanc?”)).