Montblanc

In my obsession with everything Marc Newson, I purchased the Montblanc M Ultra Black Fountain Pen several weeks ago. The M has been around since 2015, but the Ultra Black finish is new to this pen. Ultra Black is a matte finished resin rather than the highly polished finish usually found on Montblanc pens. The Ultra Black finish gives the pen a new tactility; the matte finish makes the pen easy to grip. The Ultra Black finish also gives the pen an even more modern, technical look.

The M is already very modern in its silhouette. The meeting of body and the cap of the pen has only a slight gap, making a smooth, unitary object. The clip is the only added element to the pen.

The cap has the Montblanc star embedded into its hemispherical top. The clip has an elegant hidden connection to the cap and holds firmly to a shirt pocket. The cap also has an unusual feature; a magnet that aligns the cap with the plateau and also keeps the cap on the pen. If the cap is already aligned with the plateau, the magnet has the power to snap the pen cap to the body. If the cap and plateau are not aligned, then the cap automatically rotates and aligns, but requires an additional push to click the pen closed. The M Ultra Black has a small orange ring between the grip and the barrel, so if the pen cap has not snapped closed, you will see orange.

Also, the cap does not post. Period. End of sentence.

The plateau is perhaps the most controversial feature of the M. The plateau, the flattened end of the pen with the Montblanc star embedded in it, seems to critics as a gratuitous. Yet, I always find my thumb naturally resting on the plateau to handle the capped pen. Somehow. Marc Newson had an intuitive sense of how we handle pens and provided the plateau.

Uncapped, the nib and grip are revealed. The nib is made of 14k (Au 585) gold. I will talk about the writing quality later. The ribbed grip is the other controversial feature of the M. Many reviewers of the M have commented that the grip is not comfortable because the large step between the barrel and the grip and the size of the ribs themselves. I don’t grip my pens that far down, I would get a cramp in my fingers if I did. None the less, I did try to grip the pen down there and it was O.K., but the step between the barrel and the grip is large.

Now the writing… this is the first Montblanc pen I have owned. I have owned Lamys, Sailor, Faber Castell and various other pens. This nib just glides across the page with a nice, wet, line which I like. No skips or bumps. I bought a fine nib, but I tried the medium nib in the store as well and there is was not that much difference, which might be good or bad. Anyway, I can get a good number of line weights from the nib which is what I am most interested in for sketching. The M is designed to take cartridges, but some owners have reported that certain convertors will work as well.

Here is a sketch of Thomas Jefferson’s vegetable garden at Monticello when I was there about a month ago.

And here are some lectures notes that I took with the M Ultra Black.

 As you can tell, I am very happy with my M; it has a quality in design and execution that none of the other fountain pens I have owned have.

use Montblanc pens now for over 20 years. I like this one very much. Sometimes change is good.

and I think Marc Newson was the right designer to bring it to Montblanc.

And this is a beautiful example!

Thank you for sharing.

Best

Blomman

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I too uses fountain pen exclusively and like you have a variety of them.
MB pens are nice and lovely to use but I think they are overpriced.
Pelikan and GVFC are the another brands which I love.
Love your sketches and writing - excellent penmanship.
The line shown on your sketches and writing seems like medium than fine.
I guess the paper is a factor.
Look forward to more of your inputs on pens.
/W72

but I still had to have it. Thanks W72!

As an owner and happy user of both the regular M and the Ultra Black I can definitely say that they are very pleasant. The one additional advantage of the Ultra Black is that the cap now stays on the back of the pen (magnetic) unlike with the regular one. Need to take a picture or two of mine to share

(cap on the back) if you can manage one KMII. I cannot do that with the fountain pen version.

Looks like I left it at the office. Will do so Monday. The MB Boutique staff especially pointed that feature out as a product improvement over the initial M, too.

I have a number of Montblancs and fountain pens from other makers including Aurora, Pelikan, and Nakaya. I have been enamored with fountain pens for 20 years or more; long before an interest in watches. I was lukewarm to the original M pen but the matte black is growing on me — your review is making me even more interested in the pen. I enjoyed your photos and observations. Thanks for that!

and finally took the plunge when I saw it in person on a trip to Washington D.C. Thanks for the kind words, Orahu!