Montblanc #34 Fountain Pen. First loaded with Montblanc Mystery Black ink. Now loaded with Parker Quink.
Bought from eBay a while back without realising it was a slanted/ground down to the left oblique nib. Paid £80 I seem to remember. Receiving it I was puzzled with it’s performance and looked at the nib closely. As said. An oblique. At first I was unsure if this would suit. I looked it up on the internet to seek which writing style and technique it required. Ideal for writers that rotate the pen anti-clockwise or write with unusual angles. In secondary school, as most schoolchildren did back then, I wrote with an Osmiroid flat medium italic pen. Always slightly rotating and writing on an angle. My style kind of grew with this producing an intentional ‘I have to make this work,’ Why? Because as a working class child in the 1960s I had no option to simply go out and spend money on other pens or different Osmiroid nibs. However. In reality, I adapted quickly and loved the feel of this set up.
So an oblique should have suited me really. At first, with the Montblanc, I used their own Mystery Black ink. Writing with it was very hit and miss. No full contact with individual letters exhibiting ink starvation on certain directional sweeps. Either faint or no ink presence at all. A real struggle to get any flow, flourishing and freedom with natural style.
Puzzled I did not ultimately change the ‘tilt’ of my writing positional style. However I changed to Parker Quink and the whole experience simply changed in the blink of an eye. Now it has a completely different feel. Amazing. Write in my ordinary manner as usual and the pen glides across the paper.
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A few descriptions:
Made of black resin with a 585 gold nib. It has the Montblanc stars at both cap end and barrel end. Clip and trim band on the ‘screw on’ cap are seemingly gold plated. On the trim band it reads a Montblanc 34. A blue ink window is also part of the design. It is a piston filler with the turning ‘knob’ at the barrel end having a long turning action. Nice and smooth too in reality. I love writing with this posted. It’s about 14.5 cm posted. Unposted about 12.4 cm. The whole capped pen is 13.5 cm. The balance works when posted in use for my preferred positional holding of pens. Manufacturing date is a bit of a guess. 1960s or 1970s. Will have to investigate further.
Do love this pen now. After owning it for an age and not truly appreciating it fully. To be honest, I never used this at work due to fear of losing or dropping it. A busy ward was hardly conducive to bringing pens like this to work. I learnt with the mistake of the Sheaffer Taranis dropping onto the floor, nib down, and subsequently ruined. So never had the opportunity to build a familiarity or relationship in wielding it and allowing it to become comfortable to use.
I feel that it was never my handwriting style that seemed to be the problem. Simply changing the ink worked somehow. Good old faithful Parker Quink too.
A fine description exists on these links:
https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/325455-montblanc-34-restoration-guide/
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Gray Summers 