Why High End Fountain Pens Are The Next Big Luxury Collectable

ON MY HANDS is a pair of black cotton gloves; in front of me, a selection of very elaborate fountain pens is placed, like exquisite pieces of jewellery, on a velvet-lined tray. Carefully, I pick one up and examine its glinting, golden exterior. It’s heavy – more suited to signing business deals than filling up pages in a journal, surely – while its shiny surface is decorated with spirals, swirls and lines, three brilliant-cut diamonds set into its clip. The design of this particular pen is inspired by the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt – hence the lashings of solid au750 gold. It’s the newest addition to Montblanc’s coveted Masters of Art series. There are, I’m told, only 97 of these pens in the world.

I have flown from Sydney to Melbourne to see this pen, as well as a selection of others from Montblanc’s new High Artistry collection. If that sounds excessive, let me stress: these are not just any old pens. Even calling them pens feels wrong, verging on insulting. They are objects of beauty. Functional works of art. They are not just pens; they are writing instruments. And, as I discover, there’s a thriving community of collectors around the world who will happily part with hundreds of thousands of dollars to call one of these limited-edition beauties their own.

Montblanc is the best-known maker of high-end writing instruments. Today, the German brand is equally well known for crafting luxury leather goods and timepieces, but the company launched with a pen and has never forgotten that.

“We’ve never sold as many writing instruments as [we are] today,” Francesc Carmona, managing director of Montblanc Australia and New Zealand, tells me. “It’s far beyond what we had expected, [and has occurred] despite the digital era.”

That first pen was called the Meisterstück. This year, it celebrates its 100th anniversary – and to give you an idea of its cultural cachet, Wes Anderson directed a film in its honour. Montblanc’s new High Artistry collection features two special Meisterstück pens; one, which has a cap top encrusted with green tsavorites, is limited to 100 pieces. The other, which features marquetry inlays cut from genuine feathers, is limited to 88. It’s not even the rarest in the collection: four pieces, including The Winged Dragon (main image, previous spread), are limited editions of eight.

Viewing the High Artistry collection is a privilege reserved for Montblanc VIPs (among which I’m not) and, this year, one lucky Australian journalist (me). When my viewing is over, Montblanc’s No. 1 Australian pen collector – a man referred to simply as Mr Lim – will come to inspect the offering. He has his eyes on Homage to The Great Gatsby, which is part of Montblanc’s Great Characters collection, as well as the one from the Meisterstück Origin Collection – the one paying homage to the pen’s centenary.

“The Gatsby is a bit more feminine, and the Meisterstück is a bit more masculine. I think they match very well,” says Mr Lim. When I ask how many pens he owns, Mr Lim says it’s “a difficult question to answer”. His wife, who has joined him for the viewing, laughs: “He’s probably saying this because there are many pens I don’t know about.”

IF YOU ASK SAMUEL NALDI, he’ll tell you we’re in the golden age of pen collecting. “The pen industry is where the watch industry was 50 years ago,” says the Swiss pen entrepreneur. He’s referring to the quartz crisis that threatened to render mechanical wristwatches redundant, before they rebounded and became luxury collector’s items. “This is the start of the start of the start.”

Naldi is wearing a blue baseball cap; his white T-shirt has an embroidered flower on the chest pocket. I’m not entirely sure what I expected a pen collector to look like, but Naldi is not it. He is young, exuberant and very easy to talk to. “There are some people who dislike what I’m doing. Because pen collecting was their little safe haven, and they didn’t want anyone arriving and being too loud,” he says. “But honestly, I think it was needed. It needed someone to come in and shake it up.”

In 2008, Naldi launched Style of Zug, a pen retailer in his hometown of Zug, Switzerland. Before this, he was working for a luxury watch boutique, selling timepieces for half a million dollars a pop by the time he was 18. His parents owned a pen shop around the corner; when he took it over, he began to wonder what would happen if the pen industry marketed its products more like watches. “I was looking at the watch industry, which was rising and communicating in a certain way – it wasn’t so much about the watch anymore, it was more about the designers, the rappers, NBA players, the VIPs, the stories behind the watches,” he recalls. “So, I realised, we need to speak the language of the modern luxury consumer. I mean, you cannot speak French to someone who speaks English and expect them to understand what you’re saying.”

When Naldi launched his business, he knew content creation was key to reaching a wider audience of collectors. He made YouTube videos that delved into the extraordinary craftsmanship of writing instruments, as well as interviews with top collectors and visits to manufacturers from Germany to Japan. But most crucially, Naldi wasn’t clandestine about the high prices certain pens command, framing them as the kind of covetable items that a high-net-worth individual might want to collect.

“Before this, people would be pen collectors, but they would feel weird about themselves. If you had a watch collection, you were the coolest guy in the room, but a pen collection? Oh, you’re the weirdest guy in the room.” Naldi, who has also launched his own in-house brand of writing instruments, is largely responsible for changing this cultural perception. “We started these collector talks, and now people are like, ‘Wow, this guy is 40 years old, he’s a super-successful entrepreneur, look at his amazing pen collection’.”

While he’s dealt with his share of sceptics, Naldi says that, for the most part, the international pen-collecting community is supportive. I joined his Instagram broadcast channel, ‘Goodfellas of the Pen Industry’, while writing this story, and was impressed by how much engagement his videos and posts received. “It’s a very friendly community, a beautiful community, a kind community. Whenever we have some rotten tomatoes, we expel them, honestly.” I ask if the pen industry has ever been rocked by drama. Naldi directs me to a recent New York Times article, which details the backlash that a German pen manufacturer called Lamy faced when it re-released a popular shade of ink (Dark Lilac) that was, to the trained eye, visibly different to the original. A public apology from Lamy ensued.

Often, collectors find their way to pens via other luxury goods – many of Naldi’s customers also collect wine, art, cars and, yes, watches. He has one client with a collection of pens worth $2.9 million; he knows of another with a collection worth $14.9 million. His own, which he unveiled after reaching 10,000 subscribers on YouTube, is worth around $75,000. “It’s relatively small,” he laughs. “But on social media, I think it’s important to be a little bit provocative in order to get the point across . . . but also,” he says, switching gears, “writing instruments aren’t like watches. They bring a certain cultural depth into what you’re doing. It’s not just about the flex. There is a philosophical thought behind writing instruments, which is the power and the ability to write your own history.”

One of the most illustrious pens on the market is a collaboration between Japanese pen manufacturer Namiki and historic British fashion house Dunhill. The brands have been making pens together since the ’30s, but it’s only recently that these pens have become highly sought after by collectors – each new edition is finished with a rare and ancient Japanese lacquer decoration technique called Maki-e. Other status symbols of the pen world come from Swiss brand Caran D’Ache and Italian makers Montegrappa and Tibaldi – the latter sold one of its Fulgor Nocturnus pens for $11.5 million at a charity auction in Shanghai in 2020. It was iced-out with 945 black diamonds and 123 rubies, while, when closed, the cap and barrel are equal to the Phi ratio of 1.618.

According to Naldi, the secondary market for writing instruments is in a nascent stage, but he predicts it’s only a matter of time before it takes off. “The secondary market will grow in a way that it’s probably one of the most interesting sides of the business,” says the entrepreneur.

WHILE WINE COLLECTORS cellar their magnums and art collectors admire their paintings from a distance, pen collectors actively use their objets d’affection. Even the most elaborate, expensive pens are inked and written with. If anything, this is part of the joy. “Everything I have is inked,” says Sydney-based collector Brian Tran. “They’re not for resale. They’re never going to be sold. My pens are just for me.”

Tran says his love of collecting began with watches, but more recently, he’s become fascinated by the untapped potential of fine writing instruments. He currently owns around 25 pens, and tells me he’s planning to purchase a grail – a Meisterstück 149 commissioned by the King of Oman – in the coming days. “For me, the thing that connects watches and pens is the same,” he says. “It’s the same passion for precision, detail and engineering.”

It’s been a month since I viewed Montblanc’s High Artistry collection, and Tran has offered to bring some of his favourite writing instruments into Esquire’s Sydney office, so I can see and appreciate the detail IRL. “You might say, ‘Who needs a nice pen?’ If you need a pen, you could buy a Bic for 50 cents at Officeworks.” Self-consciously, I glance down at the free Qantas pen I’ve been scribbling notes with, broken clip and all. “But just like a nice watch, a nice pen says something about you.”

Tran has a number of Montblancs, including a couple of Meisterstücks. One of them is part of this year’s 100th anniversary release. “It’s like the Rolex Submariner of the pen world,” he says of the iconic design. But his collecting journey began with more “out there” pieces, including an extremely rare Montegrappa Lord of the Rings ballpoint pen – the fountain version was completely sold out. Etched with incredible detail on the pen’s exterior is the Eye of Sauron, Sméagol, a hobbit house, the Two Towers and myriad swords. Tran twists the cap away from the barrel, revealing the golden ring that seals both ends together is a replica of the One Ring. “It’s the whole package,” he smiles.

Tran also believes that, soon, pens will become highly sought-after luxury collector’s items. “There is a community of us who really believe that, in 30 years’ time, pens will be where watches are today. People like myself, who understand what happened in the watch world – we can see that this is the time to get into pen collecting.” Yet he insists he didn’t start collecting pens because of their potential to appreciate. “Journaling has changed my life. Writing is a way for me to slow down and be more intentional. Also, my pens are a talking point. Every day I think, Where am I going today? Who am I meeting and what am I writing?” A lot of people will say, ‘Oh my gosh, you still use a fountain pen? That’s crazy’.”

For Naldi, using a fountain pen is a way to connect with your inner self. “It gives you emotions that are difficult to describe to someone who hasn’t written with one before. If you start writing with a fountain pen daily, just one page – you don’t have to become Shakespeare – you will begin to feel different,” he says. “And I’m not just saying this to sell pens,” he adds with a wink. “It’s about the sensation it gives you.”

Opening image: The Winged Dragon (LE8), from Montblanc’s ‘A Journey among Dragons’ series, from its 2024/25 Artisan Novelties collection.

This story appears in the November/December 2024 issue of Esquire Australia, on sale now. Find out where to buy the issue here.

Inside the crazy niche world of high-end pen collecting