Ink Spotlight: Three Recent Montblanc Special Editions

I make no secret that I love Montblanc Inks. In fact, I think they’re some of the best all-around inks out there. Why? Because the company makes a well-behaved, “safe” fountain pen ink that comes in unique, interesting colors. Though the craze has cooled a bit lately, Montblanc attracts a lot of attention for their annual special edition inks, many of which correspond to a special or limited edition pen. While I don’t have the coin to collect all of the various pens, I do tend to pick up the special edition inks. The past few have been superb, and include some of my favorites since the release of the legendary Alfred Hitchcock limited edition ink in 2012.

Montblanc Antoine de Saint-Exupery Encre du Desert (Burgundy/Maroon)

Antoine de Saint-Exupery is my personal favorite of the three inks reviewed here. It’s a rich burgundy, with more depth of color than the standard Montblanc Burgundy or the now-discontinued Bordeaux. There’s even a rollerball version of the Saint-Exupery, though the color is much more gray/brown than the fountain pen ink, which has purple undertones.  

Review Pen: Conway Stewart 100 in Honey Noire, courtesy of Vanness Pens. 

The rollerball refill compared against the fountain pen ink (which I prefer). Review pen: Montblanc Le Petit Prince Classique Rollerball, courtesy of Appelboom.

Montblanc Great Characters the Beatles (Psychedelic Purple)

Another riff on one of Montblanc's standard ink colors, the Beatles "Great Characters" ink is a bright rich purple that has a some “psychedelic” pop. If the limited and special edition Beatles pens are too out there for you, consider the ink.  It's tame enough to use at work, but just loud enough to be interesting.

Review Pen: Montblanc for UNICEF Doue Classique, courtesy of Appelboom. 

Montblanc for UNICEF Blue (Turquoise)

I reviewed this ink last year alongside the Montblanc for UNICEF Solitaire Doue Classique fountain pen, and while turquoise will never rival burgundy as my favorite color, this vibrant blue remains one of my favorite Montblanc inks overall. UNICEF Blue is still available, but it's unclear how long Montblanc will continue with the UNICEF lineup.   

Review Pen: Faggionato Petrarque in Blue Tortoise, available at Papier Plume. 

Takeaways and Where to Buy

In my opinion, you can never go wrong with Montblanc ink. The colors are always interesting, and the ink behaves well on most paper types, without bleeding, feathering, or slow dry times. Moreover, Montblanc makes high-end pens, which generally means that their ink should be “safe” to use, without undue concern for staining or corrosion. (PLEASE take this with a grain of salt and use common sense. Ink is ink, and even “safe” inks can stain or cause problems if you don’t clean your pens regularly. Light colored pens, celluloids, and valuable/rare writing instruments need to be treated with caution, especially with bright colors like purples, reds, and oranges.)

Montblanc’s standard lineup of inks is priced at $23.50 USD for 60ml of ink, representing good value, especially in today’s market with rising ink prices. The special edition inks are pricier, at $43 USD for the larger 50ml bottle and $20.50 USD for 30ml. All three of the special edition inks featured here in this review come in the larger 50ml bottle, and are still available from most Montblanc retailers, including Anderson Pens, Appelboom, Pen Boutique, and Goldspot. Montblanc also releases rollerball versions of the special edition colors, but not all retailers stock them. Goldspot and Pen Boutique carry some, and if I come across these refills on Amazon I typically add them to my affiliate storefront (link at the top of the sidebar).

Disclaimer: With the exception of the UNICEF ink, which was supplied by site sponsor Appelboom, I purchased the inks featured in this review with my own funds, for my own collection. This post contains affiliate links. 

The three pens pictured in this review, from left, include the Faggionato Petrarque in Blue Tortoise, the Conway Stewart 100 in Honey Noire, and the Montblanc for UNICEF Solitaire Doue Classique. 

Ink Review: Lamy Vibrant Pink Special Edition Ink

Around this time every year I review Lamy's special edition inks that they release to complement their special edition Safari and AL-Star fountain pens. If you recall, last year Lamy released their "Petrol" fountain pen ink, which ended up gaining more attention for its scarcity than the actual color. This year they have another winner with Vibrant Pink, though it seems to fall a bit outside of the typical Lamy "safety zone," as I'll discuss more below. 

Wait, Sheen AND "Glistening"? 

What is this madness? 

Yep. In a Lamy ink. Until now, the craziest thing about Lamy ink was the bottle, with its incorporated roll of blotter paper. The inks themselves were fairly staid inks that didn't venture into outlandish colors or properties. So when I inked this one up and wrote with it, I was surprised to see a fair bit of gold (or sometimes greenish?) sheen, as well as a subtle glistening/glitter effect. 

This photo came out better than I thought it would! You can see a lot of the sheen in the wetter areas of this swab, as well as some of the glistening effect. In normal writing both are fairly subtle. 

Some sheeny and glistening inks suffer from slow dry times and smearing, but this one not so much. I've been using this ink to mark up documents at work, and it even works fairly well on cheap paper, so in that respect Vibrant Pink is similar to your standard Lamy ink. You may get a bit of precipitation on the nib (i.e., "gunk"), which is not uncommon with sheeny inks, but it didn't affect the ink flow or writing experience in any way. 

Comparison swabs with the other two pinks in my collection: Callifolio Andrinople (top) and Kyoto TAG Imayou-Iro (bottom). 

Takeaways and Where to Buy

Lamy makes great inks, and IMHO they don't get enough attention. The limited edition Vibrant Pink is a bit of an outlier, with the gold sheen and shimmer, but I haven't had any issues in the two or three fills of this ink that I've used. Since I have so much ink right now, including several different pinks, I won't be stockpiling extra bottles, but if you're looking to add a pink to your rotation, this is a good one. 

You can purchase Lamy Vibrant Pink Special Edition Ink from our site sponsor Pen Chalet. One nice thing about Lamy Ink is the price point - you get excellent ink for $12 per bottle, and that's before any applicable coupon codes or discounts. 

Disclaimer: I purchased this ink from Pen Chalet using affiliate credit. I was not compensated monetarily for this review, though this post does contain affiliate links.   

New Pen Alert: Lamy Studio in Racing Green

I hardly ever "re-review" pens, and I won't really do that here, but I did want to take the opportunity to talk about Lamy's absolutely gorgeous new special edition Studio, in Racing Green. 

Everything that I wrote about in my previous review of the Lamy Studio remains true: It's a sleek, modern, nicely balanced pen with a metal section that offsets the weight of the cap when the pen is posted. The pen caps and posts securely, using a clutch mechanism that has an audible "click" or "snick" (choose your adjective). Lamy has chosen not to sell the Racing Green Studio with the 14K nib, opting instead to travel at a lower price point using the same stainless nib featured on the Safari, AL-Star, and Studio. 

The sub-$80 Lamy Studio features the same stainless steel nib as on the Safari, AL-Star, LX, etc. For another $90, you can separately purchase one of Lamy's 14kt nibs, which are outstanding, but the price is pretty steep. 

I previously reviewed another special edition Studio (the Ruby/Royal Red), which I regrettably sold off a couple years back. (Regrettable because I can't find another one.) Lamy seems to make fewer special edition Studio pens than they do special edition Safaris or AL-Stars. You can typically still find the latter in stock at retailers up to a year later, but the Studios tend to sell out relatively quickly. I imagine this is due to the higher price point and the lower profile of the Studio translating into lower demand; Lamy likely has an easier time selling the less-expensive Safaris and AL-Stars than the $70-plus Studio. Thus, it's also more difficult to find special edition Lamy Studios on the secondary market. 

I touched up this photo a bit to try to bring out some of the iridescence.  It's not noticeable at first, but when the light hits this pen in a certain way....

The Racing Green studio is an incredibly attractive pen, coated in an almost iridescent dark green matte finish. It remains to be seen how the matte finish on this pen will hold up over time. My red Studio looked pretty beat after a while, with the powdered coating wearing off underneath the clip and around the edges of the cap, which ultimately frustrated me and led me to sell the pen despite the excellent nib. I will say that the coating on the Racing Green feels thicker, and I haven't seen any dings or scratches yet despite carrying this pen in a bag for a week. 

Takeaways and Where to Buy

I stand by my previous review of the Lamy Studio as a great option in the sparsely populated "great pens under $100 category" that TWSBI typically dominates. The Studio is also widely available and relatively easy to find, and with a coupon code you can get some colors for as low as $65. To me, that's a no-brainer (provided you can live with the metal section).

As I mentioned, the "Racing Green" Lamy Studio pictured here is a special edition, meaning that they will be made for a short time. Currently available from Pen Chalet at $79 retail (less with a coupon code), these may not last long, given how quickly past special edition Studios have sold out. Pen Chalet currently only has medium nibs in stock, but fines are still available on special order.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, meaning that I may be compensated a small percentage of any sales made through links in this post. 

Pen Review: Pelikan M101N Bright Red

Pelikan's annual release of its vintage-inspired special edition M101N fountain pen has become a bit of an event, with collectors anxiously awaiting each announcement. Pens in the series have included the M101N Tortoiseshell Red, the M101N Tortoiseshell Brown, and the M101N Lizard. All recreate the look and feel of vintage Pelikan pens from the 1930s. Many thanks to Appelboom for loaning me this year's model, the M101N Bright Red. 

The Bright Red acrylic does a fairly nice job of mimicking the appearance of vintage celluloid.

Appearance and First Impressions

The Pelikan M101N is larger than I originally anticipated. For some reason, I expected this to be a smaller, almost "pocket-sized" fountain pen. That's not the case - it's a decent sized pen at 4.5" unposted and 6.2" posted. Pelikan packages each pen with its customary white "penvelope," and includes a special bottle of Pelikan 4001 blue "Konigsblau" ink with a vintage-inspired label. It's very attractive packaging, and certainly complements the pen. 

A nice bonus - this Pelikan 4001 vintage-style "Konigsblau" ink bottle.

To me, two things make the M101N's design distinctive: the cap and the ink window. The cap features an elongated "cap head," with the clip set lower on the cap than you would ordinarily see. It's an interesting look - again, vintage-inspired - but it's not really my thing. The pen also sports 24kt gold trim, and I do appreciate the double cap band. The yellow ink window offers nice visibility, and on this particular pen it provides some variety to what would otherwise be a solid red pen.  

A close up of the nib, ink window, and "Bright Red" acrylic

You all know that I'm a sucker for red pens, and Pelikan did a nice job with the marbled acrylic. You can tell that they tried to mimic the look of vintage celluloid, and pull it off fairly well (at least to the casual observer). The acrylic doesn't have the camphor smell or warmth of real celluloid, but it's still visually attractive. Both the piston knob and the "cap head" (Pelikan's term) are made from synthetic resin, which supposedly "polishes itself as it is used - meaning that Bright Red continues to shine." Huh. I've never heard that one before, but the material is shiny. Take it for what it's worth. 

Writing Experience

Like nearly all Pelikan pens, the M101N is a piston-filler. And like nearly every Pelikan pen that I've written with, the piston mechanism worked smoothly without a hitch and held a fair amount of ink. The 14kt gold fine nib was moderately wet and wrote what I would characterize as a traditional medium line. Again, this is something I notice with every Pelikan pen out there, and generally recommend that readers purchase one Pelikan nib size down from the size they actually want, if they haven't had the opportunity to try the pen themselves at a pen show. To get a truly extra-fine nib, you'll likely need to have the nib ground.

Vintage-inspired engraving on the Pelikan M101N Bright Red

The M101N is a very light pen, and would serve nicely as an everyday writing instrument. Posted or unposted, it was comfortable to use, though I found the length a bit too "in-between" for me. The pen was slightly too short unposted, and slightly too long posted. Keep in mind that this reflects my personal preferences more than anything else, but I'd say that this is a pen you'd want to "try before you buy," especially at the price point.  

Takeaways and Where to Buy

The Pelikan M101N is a solid pen, and provides an outlet for those people who appreciate the style of early vintage Pelikan, but may prefer to stick to modern writing instruments as their daily users. Though I'm one of those people, this particular model doesn't really speak to me aesthetically, and if I was to purchase an M101N my personal tastes gravitate more towards the Brown or Red Tortoiseshell models than the Bright Red. If you like the look of this pen, however, it's a Pelikan, and Pelikan's are great writers that should provide you with years of reliable service. 

You can purchase the Pelikan M101N from Appelboom for around $450 (excluding VAT). The M101N pens sit at a high price point, but they are special editions made in smaller production runs, and in any event the pricing is fairly consistent with Pelikan's other high-end piston fillers with a gold nib. While it's a special edition that won't be around forever, as a practical matter these M101N pens tend to remain in stock for at least a couple years.

Disclaimer: Appelboom loaned me this pen for review purposes, free of charge. Many thanks!