"western" Pens Made In China

[Allsop]

I have heard a rumour that some of the West's best known fountain pen companies manufacture their pens in China, Mont Blanc was specifically mentioned and I am wondering if there is any truth in this? I know that Apple and a lot of other computer companies use Chinese manufacturers and it would not surprise me if pen companies did. Does anyone know if some of our best known pens are actually made in China?

[Chrissy]

Montblanc pens are made in Hamburg, Germany. Pelikan pens are made in Germany. Aurora pens are made in Italy.

[JulieParadise]

  On 7/22/2018 at 7:24 AM, Chrissy said:

Montblanc pens are made in Hamburg, Germany. Pelikan pens are made in Germany. Aurora pens are made in Italy.

 

Pelikan nibs for sure are made in Peine/Hannover. I made a trip to the plant and a guided tour there and I saw the nibs being made, gold and steel.

[Allsop]

  On 7/22/2018 at 7:24 AM, Chrissy said:

Montblanc pens are made in Hamburg, Germany. Pelikan pens are made in Germany. Aurora pens are made in Italy.

Thanks for this. I thought it bit of a stretch to say Montblank were made in China but I would be interested to know if any other's are.

[Chrissy]

  On 7/22/2018 at 7:35 AM, Allsop said:

Thanks for this. I thought it bit of a stretch to say Montblank were made in China but I would be interested to know if any other's are.

 

I believe that Chinese fake "Mont Blank" pens do exist. They spell it wrongly in order to not infringe copyright.

[SoulSamurai]

I believe Parker and Sheaffer manufacture their pens in China now?

[sciumbasci]

Sheaffer along with (apparently) some Parker and Waterman pens are being manufactured in China.

 

let this not dissuade you, though. The Chinese factories are more than capable of delivering a quality product: it all depends on how much is being put into quality check.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Parker makes some of it's pens in China. Others in a Parker/Waterman factory in France. Parker closed it's UK factory with in the decade.

Cross, which now owns Sheaffer is in China.

 

:headsmack:I remember when Cross only made a nifty matt black and gold rimmed; then expensive ball point, in the '60-70's. a Parker Jotter had cost $3.75, and the high status Cross thin black ball point a whopping $8.00..........but at least among Americans it was 'the' high status ball point.........at the time MB was very affordable in the ball point market........having so many.

To tell the truth, MB was not on my radar nor Pelikan......Fountain pens were passe` to me. Too much trouble, for any tiny scribbling I was doing.

 

Later MB was still not on my radar, I'd inherited a couple from my wife's uncle. and one of them ended up being sold for used ball point prices at a flea market. :headsmack:That little snowflake on the top of the ball point I'd not noticed, nor had my wife. In the '60-70's and a bit later when MB had three levels of it's own fountain pens, they also made market priced ball points.

 

Back to Cross. In fact I'd gone to the BS, USAF PX, Post Exchange @ 1970-71 to buy the high class Cross black ball point. At the pen island, then drooled over a classic Black and Gold Sheaffer Snorkel. A pen I'd been going to buy once I became an adult....but had decided I didn't need a fountain pen.

Then there was the P-75 Stirling silver ball point, for $18, that put that $8 Cross in the deep shadows. Having more money in my pocket than good sense bought that matching P-75 fountain pen to go with it for an additional $22.

 

That was back when we still had silver money and the Dollar was Almighty. The German Mark was sitting at 3.60 to a dollar....down from the 'normal' 4-1. Back in Silver Dollar times....you could take your blue seal dollar bill into any bank and get a silver dollar for it.

Mercedes and BMW were cheap cars....small (still are to those days standards....only the SAAB reached then US middle class size inside where it counts), under powered............that they cornered had nothing to do with stoplight to stoplight. (Was on a back road in Virginia a decade ago, and laughed my self sick, some little corner was rated at 25mph, that would have been 45mph/70kpm in Germany. So corners are still a foreign word in America.)

(Because of different transaxels, you did not want to take a Camero out on the Autobahn or you'd burn up the motor going Autobahn speeds for any length of time. The German cars, were slower to the stoplight, but had much higher cruising top ends....ah yes, the good old days, when one flew low on the autobahn....before the Greens ruined everything.)

 

 

I do have a pretty shimmering blue heavy Cross Townsend nail, under the bed. I don't use nails much, but got it on Sale at Galeria Kaufhaus, like my 605.

[Allsop]

  On 7/22/2018 at 8:17 AM, sciumbasci said:

Sheaffer along with (apparently) some Parker and Waterman pens are being manufactured in China.

 

let this not dissuade you, though. The Chinese factories are more than capable of delivering a quality product: it all depends on how much is being put into quality check.

That was my contention in the discussion I was having that led to my question here. I asserted that the quality of some Chinese products are as good as western and indeed some western companies actually made their goods in China. Good to have it confirmed.

[thx1138]

Parker IM and Urban are made in china. Not sure if any other models are.

[Driften]

Some Yafa (Conklin, Monteverdi, ?) pens use parts made in China and some pens might assembled there as well.

[DanceOfLight]

  On 7/22/2018 at 7:32 AM, JulieParadise said:

 

Pelikan nibs for sure are made in Peine/Hannover. I made a trip to the plant and a guided tour there and I saw the nibs being made, gold and steel.

+1 Took a tour as well as got my special M1000 Nib ground there. Fantastic people doing good honest work.

[chromantic]

There's also a company in India that makes some low-end Parkers under license - Beta, Vector and Frontier.

[CheapFP]

  On 7/22/2018 at 4:16 PM, Driften said:

Some Yafa (Conklin, Monteverdi, ?) pens use parts made in China and some pens might assembled there as well.

Expand  

It seems that many/most of the Monteverde pens are MIC. At least now they're disguising it a little by getting exclusive colors. Take the Jinhao 992, which Monteverde sold as the Monza a few years back in the standard 992 colors. Now they're 6 colors they alone seem to have.

[A-xy]

I am not sure if other models are, but the very well made Cross Peerless 125 is made in China, with a Japanese made (Sailor) nib.

 

 

[Honeybadgers]

The only super premium pen I can think of is the peerless 125. But that pen can trade punches with the $1000 MB 149 all day long, as long as you're okay with a japanese F or M nib. The fit and finish on it is stunning, and it's clearly a pen made by artisans, not by the lowest bidder.

[CheapFP]

  On 5/25/2021 at 3:46 AM, Honeybadgers said:

The only super premium pen I can think of is the peerless 125. But that pen can trade punches with the $1000 MB 149 all day long, as long as you're okay with a japanese F or M nib. The fit and finish on it is stunning, and it's clearly a pen made by artisans, not by the lowest bidder.

Expand  

 

That's a gorgeous pen. Just because something is MIC certainly isn't a bad thing! 80% of the parts making this post possible were likely made there (if not the CPU and SSD, then just about every other computer part!). I've got some higher end acrylics from Chinese factories that are gorgeous. Fitted with german nibs and feed systems, they write perfectly.

 

Is the Peerless 125 a lacquered brass pen? Is it heavy?

[A Smug Dill]

  On 5/25/2021 at 9:27 AM, CheapFP said:

Is the Peerless 125 a lacquered brass pen?

Expand  

 

That would depend on which variant (or colourway, or ‘edition’), wouldn't it? For example, and this is far from being an exhaustive list,

• Peerless 125 23KT Gold Plated Fountain Pen
• Peerless 125 Platinum Plated & Medalist Fountain Pen 
• Peerless 125 Obsidian Black Lacquer Fountain Pen

aren't all going to have the same body material and finish.

 

  On 5/25/2021 at 9:27 AM, CheapFP said:

Is it heavy?

Expand  

 

But what counts as heavy, objectively and absolutely (i.e. not compared to some idea or experience someone has in mind)?

 

Anyway, the (hyperlinked) product pages give the weight of the pens.

[Temenos]

There is a paradox of luxury that while we like things to be cheaper and high quality, we actually tend to associate cheapness with less desirable. Hence, why we tend to gravitate towards wanting more expensive pens even though cheaper pens work just as well if not better.

 

So, while manufacture costs would most likely go way down if the pens were made in China, and the quality probably just as good, people who enjoy the premium feel of fountain pens would probably just no longer buy them.

 

Just look at the luxury market, for example. Louis Vuitton, Hermes and so on... even Chinese people would not buy them if they were made in China.

 

This is why I don't think well-established Western fountain pen companies would ever shift their manufacturing to China. It's just paradoxically unprofitable.

 

(There are exceptions to this rule of course... Apple and so on, but I don't want to go into subtleties of behaviorial economics.)