The Meisterstück 149 Calligraphy Appreciation Thread

[fpupulin]

3 hours ago, dftr said:

Shoot, I'm really impressed you could could get such nice writing in a moleskine.  Hemmingway used one but I think he used a pencil too.  I had horrible feathering years ago... maybe they've changed their paper.  I realize most of the world uses ballpoints or gel pens.  

 

 

 

dftr, this is written with Montblanc Black Permanent, which virtually does not feather or pass through any kind of paper. It is one of my inks of choice exactly for this reason. I can write everywhere...

[Keyless Works]

What do people think of the Aurora Flex nib compared to the Montblanc 149 Calligraphy nib?

 

I have both and I am not sure which I like better. The Aurora nib is wetter and pretty hard to railroad but the lines are not quite as fine as the Montblanc's. For slow writing, I think the Montblanc is better, but as an everyday multipurpose nib I might prefer the Aurora.

 

5 hours ago, fpupulin said:

 

dftr, this is written with Montblanc Black Permanent, which virtually does not feather or pass through any kind of paper. It is one of my inks of choice exactly for this reason. I can write everywhere...

Interesting. How often do you clean out your pen when you use this ink? Do you have any issues with it staining the ink window?

[Uncial]

The Aurora is great for everday writing. I'm very fond of it.  It does spring extremely easily and without warning. I haven't done that that to mine but know a lot of people, who don't have a heavy hand, who have. If you push it a bit - I don't  - the gap between the tines can become very slack and it can both railroad and drip ink. Its a slightly problematic flex nib. I think of it as a soft nib so I'm never tempted to push it.

[Keyless Works]

3 hours ago, Uncial said:

The Aurora is great for everday writing. I'm very fond of it.  It does spring extremely easily and without warning. I haven't done that that to mine but know a lot of people, who don't have a heavy hand, who have. If you push it a bit - I don't  - the gap between the tines can become very slack and it can both railroad and drip ink. Its a slightly problematic flex nib. I think of it as a soft nib so I'm never tempted to push it.

Good to know. I've never sprung a nib but I don't want to start now.

[TheDutchGuy]

On 3/17/2022 at 5:23 PM, fpupulin said:

I took the following photograph of my 149 Calligraphy's nib a few days ago, under the microscope. You can appreciate the still perfect alignment of the tines - despite the much use - and the perfect central slot, which practically closes at the tip, as it was when new.

 

 

 

Wonderful!

[dftr]

I tried the Aurora flex nib and wasn't quite so impressed.  It is soft.  

 

I would hope that MB would offer their flex nib on their limited/special editions coming up!  

 

[invisuu]

I saw como took the plunge and unscrewed the nib and feed unit in the other thread. Good news that he was able to confirm what I wrote. I didn't want to write there as it feels off topic.

I've had this pen for 14 months now. Wew, time flies fast. This pen has killed my desire to buy new pens. I bought only 1 new pen since and I currently have no desire to buy any new pens further. Even the pen I did buy, I didn't use at all and already sold. Outside of toying around a few minutes, I haven't used any other pen than the 149C for the past 14 months. I seriously love this nib.

[fpupulin]

15 hours ago, invisuu said:

I've had this pen for 14 months now. Wew, time flies fast. This pen has killed my desire to buy new pens. I bought only 1 new pen since and I currently have no desire to buy any new pens further. Even the pen I did buy, I didn't use at all and already sold. Outside of toying around a few minutes, I haven't used any other pen than the 149C for the past 14 months. I seriously love this nib.

 

Really, I have no good reason to keep repeating my thoughts on pens and calligraphy with insignificant variations, much less for wasting beautiful sheets of paper in these tests and retries, and finally none at all to bore my forum friends with these writings that add nothing new.

 

However, the truth is that the pen calls me out loud, it requires me to do something, and the something doesn't always want to be a copy of someone else's thoughts.

149 Calligraphy doesn't want to rest even for a day. I echo what invisuu eloquently wrote, this blessed pen has removed a lot of temptations from me, I almost have no eyes for my other beautiful pens, if not to tinkle in my hands for a few moments and gaze at them in their beauty. I'm not looking for new pens, because 149 Calligraphy is enough.

So, I apologize for a new sheet of small delirium: it is not my fault, it is the will of the pen...

 

 

[Arcadian]

We all very much appreciate that your pen is so strong-willed 😉 

 

 - P. 

[tunney]

On 3/25/2022 at 3:27 AM, Keyless Works said:

Good to know. I've never sprung a nib but I don't want to start now.

What does "sprung a nib" mean?

[dftr]

39 minutes ago, tunney said:

What does "sprung a nib" mean?

 

Basically a broken nib.  Normally the tines flex w/ pressure and the more pressure the wider the ink flow and when let of pressure the tines come back together and you get a nice narrow line.  But if you go too hard, the nibs will spring apart and stay apart.

[fpupulin]

Oh, I guess you may have a 149 Calligraphy nib sprung if you really make a lot of force on the nib AND you maintain it close to vertical. 

 

If you use the nib at those angles around 45º at which most people is used writing, having the tines sprung is truly difficult. Indeed, much before you can flex them at the non-return point, the feeder will touch the paper, giving you a warning about trying to flex more. I had the feeder touching the paper a lot of times, and this just said me that I was at the limit (probably still well within the limit) that Montblanc designed this nib to de flexed. 

 

I imagine another way to have one of tines sprung is flexing a lot with the pen strongly twisted on one side, because this would made much more pressure on a tine than on the other. But, honestly, trying to flex hardly with the nib twisted is not a good idea in general...

[dftr]

I found an interesting video on La Ronde calligraphy.

Forewarning, there is quite a bit of MB product placement/selling   At one point, someone asks the instructor what they use for practice paper, and she replies: I use my MB journals b/c it works so well w/ MB inks... I rolled my eyes; I know if we can afford a MB pen, we can afford to use $150 notebooks as practice pads without starving but still...

 

It is also amusing to me that you have an English lady using a German pen to achieve French Calligraphy.  I appreciate her instruction and pointing out things like why she'd use a variant or how this letter'd be done in copperplate but Ronde does it this way for these reasons.  The MB salesguy does talk about the Calligraphy nib btw but as this is from last year, the info's out of date.  One key thing is that they explicitly say a flex nib or pointed pen isn't ideal for this style; but you can use the 149c for monoline w/out flexing; you can even use a pencil or rollerball.  

 

If anyone has any more links to other workshops w/ this lady or MB, please let me know.  

 

 

 

 

[Keyless Works]

Wow they couldn't afford to give her a Montblanc watch? I heard those really help to improve one's calligraphy, especially when using Montblanc pens and paper.

 

Joking aside, thank you for sharing this. I attended one of their video calligraphy courses last month and really enjoyed it.

[dftr]

12 hours ago, Keyless Works said:

Wow they couldn't afford to give her a Montblanc watch? I heard those really help to improve one's calligraphy, especially when using Montblanc pens and paper.

 

Joking aside, thank you for sharing this. I attended one of their video calligraphy courses last month and really enjoyed it.

You're giving them ideas   

Did MB email you about their course?  Or is it on their website somewhere?   

[Karmachanic]

22 minutes ago, dftr said:

Did MB email you about their course?  Or is it on their website somewhere? 

 

Go to your regional MB site and subscribe to the newsletter

[fpupulin]

Last weekend I changed the ink on the 149 Calligraphy, which had finished its Black Permanent fill. I washed the pen (20 suction and ejection cycles) to eliminate with certainty the suspended pigments of Montblanc's permanent black ink and loaded it with what I consider the best ink for this pen, the Montblanc Blue Permanent. A saturated blue, which does not widen the line but is smooth, does not feather and, what is very important to me, does not pass through any type of paper, therefore leaving me a lot of choice in terms of supports.

 

For having overwhelmed you on this forum with bland metaphors and comments on calligraphy and writing, you will certainly have noticed that I enjoy putting "in fair copy" a bit of nonsense that I deliberately invent as an excuse to waste a few sheets of good paper ...

 

Here is the last one I wrote:

 

 

 

The most critical part of this work was certainly a decent execution of the two "T" which serve as block initial letters, as well as the harmonic curvature of the flourishes on the ascenders and descendants. I practiced the two with some exercises on an A4 EcoQua notebook by Fabriano. This notebook, with 85g/m2 paper, has the lines spaced 8 mm, the same height that I had already decided to use for the final version. You will notice that Blue Permanent ink performs excellently also on this paper, however unsophisticated. 

 

 

For the "fair copy" version I had half a nice sheet of Fabriano Artistica for watercolor, a cold pressed cotton paper that I had never tried before but which is beautiful to the touch and has a warm white color. My sheet is of the 240g type.

 

I roughly calculated the height of the two blocks of text and I pencil-sketched the guide lines, with an x-height of 8 mm and a line spacing of 18 mm. The line spacing between the two blocks of text is 42 mm. Then, with the help of a ROLL-O-RULER I drew the diagonal guidelines with an inclination of 50 degrees. For both drop caps, I drew in pencil the outermost point of the curve, on which I would then have to coincide with the ink. In the photograph of the final result, you can see that in the upper "T" the ink has covered the pencil, but in the lower one the hand has remained a little "high" and the sign is still visible. Once the pencil is erased, however, only a highly trained eye would notice the difference.

 

When it was time to start writing on the immaculate sheet, given their difficulty, I first wrote the two drop caps. They are not perfect, but acceptable enough to get on with the job. In case of a serious mistake, I should have changed the sheet, because it is completely useless to continue to calligraphy a work that will in any case be unacceptable in any of its parts.

[como]

@fpupulin What a great excuse to "waste a few sheets of paper"! And really, no one can say this is a waste of paper, with such calligraphy and such a pen. I am going to use your example to practice flourishing. 

 

By the way, could you please tell me which fonts are good to try with pointed nibs, besides Spencerian, Copperplate and Avalon? I am thinking of trying something new. Also, somehow I think that MB would eventually come up with a truncated nib in this series of "Calligraphy" nibs, as there are so many scripts that are written with a truncated nib. Or have they already launched something? The only thing I remember is that Fritz-Schimpf collaborated with MB and had an Italic Expressive 149 nib and a stub 146.

[dftr]

This video was interesting.  I also like his bird flourishing videos.

He has an interesting explanation for some of the nib creep.

 

 

[fpupulin]

Thank you for sharing the video. It is interesting to see how Dr. Vitolo maintains a perfect control of thin versus engrossed strokes, and how much light is his hand at the thinner strokes.