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These are two of my 149's, the one on the top is a 1950's celluloid 149 with the words "Made in Germany" on the cap. The one below has a celluloid cap without the "Made in Germany" imprint. This one however has a later (Non-Celluloid) resin barrel. Although the caps look similar, the one on the top has the early curved clip. In addition, the cap of the early pen will fit the resin barrel, while the cap of the resin pen will not fit the celluloid barrel. I would appreciate some insight and feedback from my Montblanc friends out there. All the best! Jose Garcia PS: On the photo of the Montnblanc star the early cap is the one on the left, while the later celluloid is next to it. The cap on the extreme right is a later 1980's cap that I put there for comparison.

I am embarking on the journey of having a 149 refurbished, and I would like to share my story as it happens with all of you. Hopefully you will feel better about your good pen buying decisions and maybe even cheer on the successful rehab of an old pen. As they say, let’s begin at the beginning… Thanks to this forum and all the lovely vintage pen photos, I decided I want to get my hands on a silver rings, celluloid 149. The fool that I am, of course, I did not want to just pay the good folks at Penboard.de for a near mint condition pen. Instead one night, while paying for an eBay auction win on my phone (lovely Danitrio Genkai limited production pen), I looked at my saved searches and saw a just listed 149 silver rings with a seemingly reasonable price and a “best offer” option. I quickly looked at all the pictures and read the description pretty carefully. The pen looked “well loved” but was only used by one person since new. I would say it was heavily used, but I thought to myself that these pens are workhorses, and it could probably be brought back to life. Since I am a glutton for punishment and Christmas was coming, I put in what I thought was a fair offer and hoped it might be too low to get the pen. Now at this point in the story you should be asking yourself, “Who is foolish enough to buy a pen that will be hard to refurbish just looking at pictures on a mobile phone?” Apparently I am. After a little back and forth on the price, the seller and I came to an agreement and the deal was done. That night I was digging around on FPN and I found a thread where I think someone was discussing the pen I bought a few months ago. The consensus was that then pen was one to avoid. Unfortunately, I did not have the links or pictures to confirm one way or the other if this was the pen I just bought. I tried to convince myself the pen was going to be fine. Instead I just lay in bed wondering how big of a mistake I made. The next day at work I went to eBay and looked at the photos of my pen on my nice monitor. Oh (bleep)… the cap looked worse than I thought with discoloration around the star and the nib definitely was missing a tip. The gouges on the pen seemed deeper on my computer in the light of day. Now I wondered if the piston worked or I would have to add that to the list of reasons not to impulse buy a vintage pen. This disappointment was followed by another FPN search where I learned you cannot “refresh” the color of celluloid once it has changed. You certainly can buff the black off the body, but apparently not blacken the cap. Well, nothing to do now but wait for the pen. Thank goodness the seller was willing to accept returns. At least I had an out if needed. Christmas break came and I was on holiday for two weeks for the first time in 17 years. The pen was going to be delivered while I was away. In the mean time I contacted some of the usual suspects in the restoration game and asked some initial questions. As you can guess, responses were along the line of “it depends” when it came to refurb estimates. Some were optimistic of success, others probably more realistic with a bigger forecast cost. Still no certainty. Once I returned to the office there was a nice little stack of “me presents” I had purchased - mostly ink and the like. And there was THE BOX. Waiting for me to be disappointed or relieved. I decided to wait until afternoon to open it. No reason to be downtrodden at work if the pen was a mess. The time eventually came and I dove into the box to fetch the well packed pen. Once freed from the wrapping, I was struck by two feelings… “Boy that cap looks terrible” and “I like the way this pen fees in my hands.” You have read long enough. Here are some of the pictures of the pen as it arrived. Here was my quick inventory of the initial pluses: Masterpiece editionSki slope feed looked goodModel and nib markings on coneRings still pretty tight The bad news: Did you see the color of the cap? Yikes!Cap is a little too tight. Hello shrinkage.What is that inside the cap? A bad repair? A tropical disease?Don’t nibs need a tip?There seems to be some type of gouge brail on the section.

At last I found some time to start a new topic on FPN, that's the problem with a time consuming job. Just a couple of days ago, our member James ( thank you for the excellent idea of the Review Index ) made a suggestion to use the Iphone. Well, a bit less quality but much quicker to have the job done than a Nikon. Since I am obsessed by the number 9 nib and Montblanc seems to keep this one reserved for the 149 ( yes there are the Hemingway and the Dumas, but that's all folks ) one has to go vintage to find some other 9ers. The only 2 other models with this nib are the 139 and the 129. In the beginning I didn't even know there was a 129. During the search of a decent 139, one of the welknown restorers said he had a 129 for sale. That decision was quickly made. So here the 3 are together Montblancs trinity: 129-139-149. All have the 9 nib and silver rings. The 129 is a pushknobfiller, both the two others have the telescopic pistonfiller.The inkfeed is the skislope one on all 3. All are in regular use, as you can see on the 139 inkwindow. Here's some pictures. There is also a writing example of all 3, sorry but my handwriting isn't as good as the pens are, professional deformity.

Dear FPN Friends, Good day! How would you rate this 50's celluloid Montblanc 149 Silver Rings pen on a scale of 10. Pen has been completely restored, writes a smooth line and in excellent condition otherwise... Appreciate any help received in advance! PS - Can't upload pics directly here but there are Flickr links below https://www.flickr.com/photos/100486217@N02/15027763791/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/100486217@N02/15007825026/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/100486217@N02/14844271187/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/100486217@N02/15007819436/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/100486217@N02/15027754131/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/100486217@N02/14844262977/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/100486217@N02/15027746511/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/100486217@N02/14844138560/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/100486217@N02/14844135500/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/100486217@N02/14844249477/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/100486217@N02/14844055199/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/100486217@N02/14844128950/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/100486217@N02/15007793856/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/100486217@N02/14844123870/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/100486217@N02/15030423362/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/100486217@N02/14844236247/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/100486217@N02/14844168738/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/100486217@N02/15030416102/in/photostream/ Regards, S