21 replies to this topic

[david i]

Hi,

 

I'm examining a pair of MB 146's sent for inspection.  I've handled some before but wouldn't mind some input as to when these were made.

 

Both have nibs marked 14k, Monotone.

 

Barrel ink view window is clear not lined.

 

Piston threads appear to be plastic

 

Clip washer is marked "Germany" not "West Germany"

 

 

 

regards

 

David

[Christof Z]

David

I am not 100% sure about that but I believe that Montblanc started with the "re-production" of the 146 in the middle of the 1970's. These early pens had light blue ink windows. Yours look identically except the grayish ink windows. So I'd say that yours may be have been made in the 80's, probably early 80's. Hope this helps.

Christof

[david i]

Hi Christof,

 

Would not they have West Germany markings then, not just Germany?

 

regards

 

d

[david i]

Also the ink view window is pretty clear not really dark gray. The angle and background made it seem dark in the photo.

 

regards

 

d

[quinden]

I think it's late 70s - the 2-part section, grayish ink window, smooth trim ring by the turning knob. They only used the W. Germany mark from 1980-91.

[Christof Z]

Good point David and quinden.
I once had a 149 from the 1970's with Germany imprint only.
The feeders may be of interest too. Are they solid hard rubber or the later (1980's) split hard rubber feeders?
Christof

[BMG]

You might want to take a look at this post, which compares '50s, '60s, and '70s era 146s. In a word, it suggests that the pen is indeed a '70s model, for the reasons quinden points out above.

 

Regarding the feeds, in one of the comments the OP notes:

 

I've seen 6 different feeds on the 146 series so far:

• flat ebonite (celluloid model)
• round ebonite grooves face and shank (celluloid & transitional model)
• split ebonite feed (1970's model with monotone ink window)
• early plastic (1970's-1980's model with monotone nib and grey window & later short version with striped window and two-tone nib)
• plastic (short version with striped window and two-tone nibs & long version with striped window and two-tone nib)
• modern plastic (current long version; c. > 2000/02)

 

 

 

The engraving on the clip is not addressed.

[entertainment]

That thread on 146s from FPN is not very reliable when it comes to the post 1970s pens.  IMO, the pen shown in the FPN thread as a 1970s pen is really a 1980s pen.

 

These are my observations on the dating of certain features, based on looking at lot of ebay auctions:

 

In 149s, the nib designation changed from 14C to 14K around 1985.  I am not sure that anyone has pinned down the change for 146s but I would assume it happened around the same time. 

 

The ink window changed from clear to lined in the late 1980s or early 1990s about the time the piston threads changed from plastic to brass.

 

Very few pens are marked W Germany and only for a few years before the Berlin Wall fell.

 

The collar of the nib unit changed from one that had a pronounced lip where it met the section to one that tapered so that it was a larger diameter near the nib but the same diameter as the section where it met the section.  This change happened about the same time as the change from 14C to 14K.  Your pen with exposed nib seems to have the earlier collar with a 14K nib (although it is a little hard to tell from the photograph).

 

I would guess the pen you show is from the 1980s.

 

What kind of feed does it have?  Is it solid or split, assuming it is ebonite?

 

I hope that anyone will challenge these guesses if they know better!

 

John

Edited by entertainment, 24 January 2014 - 07:03 PM.

[david i]

Hi,

 

I pulled one to examine again. In fact the ink window does have a bit of a grayish cast, not just clear as I'd first claimed.

The feed has a sort of solid smooth arrrow  (shaft from the gripping section, the arrowhead pointing to tip of nib) with perpendicular combs radiating from it.

 

I can shoot it later

 

regards

 

david

[Idazle]

Taking into account that the pen shows plastic threads at the filling knob, if it also happens to sport the split ebonite converter you can narrow down the date to the range 1975-1985. That is because the split ebonite converter was used from 1975 to the early 1990s while the plastic threads were used before 1985.

 

On top of that, since the w-germany inscription was only seen between the early 1980s and the early 1990s and before that it was used "germany" (I've got a 149s dated in 1972 with that mark in the clip ring), then my guess is that your pen can be reasonably dated in 1975-1980.

 

I've seen very few 146 clips marked 14C instead of 14K, so maybe14 K was used in these 146 pens before it was extended to MB149 as from 1985.

Edited by Idazle, 26 January 2014 - 09:38 PM.

[AeRoberto]

I will say it's from the late 70s, I have an identical one.

[entertainment]

Lacking any meaningful counter evidence (advertisements, catalogs, company records, etc.), the best basis we have for dating the 146 is the chronology of the 149. 

 

Reasons I still think that this pen is from the 1980s:

 

-I doubt that the use of 14K on the 146 nib would precede its use on the 149 by over five years.

 

-I have a similar pen found in the wild in a box that has the "Art of Writing" slogan.  This began in the mid to late 1980s.  Boxes can be easily switched, but no one else has offered anything more substantial as evidence for dating.

 

-Resin pens with gray ink windows exist with montone 14C nibs.  These are the only ones I would feel comfortable dating to the 1970s when the 146 was revived.  Here is one for sale on ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/...=item51b8198369

Another thing to note on this one is that the bend of the clip has very little material compared to the one being sold by Tom Westerich at the link below.  Clips with more material at the bend are later.

 

-According to the Barry Gabay article on the 149 in Pen World, the brass threads on the piston started in 1990 (p. 42). The FPN charts shows 1985 as the date for this transition, but there are lots of 149s with two piece barrels and plastic piston threads, so I believe the chart is wrong.

 

-The Germany vs W Germany designation of the clip is meaningless.

 

Here is a similar pen being sold on penboard.de that is dated to the 1980s by Tom Westerich:

http://penboard.de/s...blanc 146 61576

 

Still hoping for a photograph of the feed.

Edited by entertainment, 27 January 2014 - 10:44 PM.

[Idazle]

-I have a similar pen found in the wild in a box that has the "Art of Writing" slogan.  This began in the mid to late 1980s.  Boxes can be easily switched, but no one else has offered anything more substantial as evidence for dating.

 

As you say, boxes can be switched. In addition, old stock of pens manufactured in the late 1970s or early 1980s could have been sold years later.

 

-According to the Barry Gabay article on the 149 in Pen World, the brass threads on the piston started in 1990 (p. 42). The FPN charts shows 1985 as the date for this transition, but there are lots of 149s with two piece barrels and plastic piston threads, so I believe the chart is wrong.

 

Yes, if BarrY Gabay is right, the chart is wrong on this point.

 

-The Germany vs W Germany designation of the clip is meaningless.

 

Could you possibly share with us the reasons why you think that is meaningless?

 

Here is a similar pen being sold on penboard.de that is dated to the 1980s by Tom Westerich:

http://penboard.de/s...blanc 146 61576

 

In that ad we don't see the piston knob's threads or the feed. But let's suppose they are made of plastic and ebonite, respectively. If as you suggest we have to take Tom Westerich's word for granted, he dates the pen in the early 1980s, which is not compatible with your Art of Writing argument above.

 

 

[entertainment]

Well, all I said was that I think David's pens are from the 1980s based on the 14K nib.  If my pen (gray ink window, plastic threads, 14K nib) is from the mid to late 1980s , that does not disprove that a pen from the early 1980s (or even the late 1970s) could have the same characteristics.  So I am not being inconsistent.  TW actually says his pen is from 1985 when forced to pick a specific year.  If I am not mistaken, 1985 is in the mid-1980s in concert with what I claimed for my pen.

 

My only assertion here is that David's pens are *probably* from the 1980s and claiming they are earlier without accepting that they could be from the 1980s would be misleading at best.  But no one has presented any evidence that makes definitively pins them to a date before 1980.  Posters just keep asserting that they are.  That proves nothing.  Please prove me wrong!! 

[Idazle]

From the ebonite feed (which we haven't seen yet) and the plastic thread, the evidence suggest that we can safely say that the OP's pen is from 1975-1990. So our controversy refers to the earlier part of this period, that is to say 1975-80.

 

The evidence for a pre-1980 production would be the "german" inscription in the clip ring and the testimony of our fellow member AeRoberto, who has claimed he has one like the OP's from the late 1970s. The evidence agains the 14K nib, which appears later in the MB149 production.

 

Concerning the "germany" inscription you have disregarded the evidence by saying it is meaningless without telling why. However, I've seen quite a few 1970s 149 pens -including one I own- with that inscription, whereas never seen one from that period with w-Germany. While I'm not prepared to assert that the "germany" inscription was replaced with the "w-germany" by 1980 as many people in FPN contend, I don't have reasons to claim that such contention is "meaningless" or unfounded.

 

As to testimonies of people, I would invite AeRoberto to expand his statement given in a post above. Does he keep a record of when he bought the pen? If he can confirm his statement I must say that to me it would be more trustable than anything said on the Penboard site. They are sellers and quite "hetherodox" -to put it mildly- about the characteristics of their pens:nibs that do not correspond with the pen advertised, etc.

 

Regards 

Edited by Idazle, 28 January 2014 - 07:05 AM.

[david i]

Hi,

 

Spent today sorting a pen collection with Paul Erano. Hope to shoot the feeds tomorrow.

 

regards

d

[BMG]

Not to thread jack (still waiting for the feed pic myself), but I've been wondering what Paul Erano has been up to. His website doesn't seem to have been updated since late 2010...

[david i]

Paul keeps busy running PENnant magazine and buying/selling at shows and backchannel. He and I have done a couple collections together.  I just yelled at him for being lax with website of his. He hopes to update it soon. I hope to update mine tomorrow.

 

regards

 

d

[david i]

Feed.

 

 

 

Regards

David

[AeRoberto]

Actually I have bought my 146 recently, I've ended up dating the pen to the late 70s after some research. At this point I cannot put my hand on fire, but I am quite confident. To be sure we should ask to the original owner of one of this pens, unless we find one (or we find somebody who spoke with one of these people) we can only speculate.