I recently met a fountain pen buddy during a dinner gathering for fountain pen lovers over the Chinese New Year. I knew he owns some beautiful limited edition fountain pens and found out that he owns a couple of Montblancs. Requesting to have a look at his pen pouch, which was a nice black leather case with two pen slots, I found the delightful-looking Montblanc George Bernard Shaw inside!
I didn’t manage to find a white background to place the pen on while taking this photograph, so we’ll have to make do with this view for now. The black background does not complement the pen design well. But you can still see the green marbled pen barrel interspersed with rings of metal. What a beauty!
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish writer who has contributed literature of various forms, such as plays, novels, essays and critiques. One of his most notable works is Pygmalion, the story of Eliza Doolittle, which may be better known in popular culture as My Fair Lady. This fountain pen was designed with Pygmalion in mind, representing the development of Eliza Doolittle from a poor flower girl into a well-refined lady. This development is portrayed on the pen design as thicker and thicker platinum-plated rings replace more and more of the green marbled resin, from the end of the pen towards the cap.
One can easily be mesmerized by the deep green of the marbled resin. The green is a representation of the homeland of George Bernard Shaw, Ireland. To quote Montblanc,
This deep, marbled green, indeed, originally represents the lush green meadows of Ireland that Shaw left behind.
The nib has not been overlooked, of course. It is a rhodium-plated 18K gold nib with the intricate engraving of a huge flower, representing Eliza Doolittle the flower girl. There are also engravings of “4810”, the height in metres of the Alpine peak, the word “MONTBLANC”, the Montblanc star with an elaborate “M” in the centre, as well as the year 2008, when this pen was launched.
The pen is a heavyweight, so I am surprised that my fountain pen buddy uses it as an everyday pen. On the cap, there is also a light engraving of “G. Bernard Shaw”, as if it was signed by the author himself.
Worldwide, there are 16,000 pieces of this fountain pen, 18,000 pieces of the ballpoint pen version, and you can also try your luck to purchase a writing instrument set comprising a fountain pen, a ballpoint pen, and a mechanical pencil. There are 4000 such sets available worldwide.
The Montblanc Writers Edition is a collection of pens that have been launched annually, one pen per year since 1992, to honour famous authors in the world. I hope to have a chance to feature the other pens in the collection as well!
I am the founder of this website.
Chemist by day, slacker by night, fanatic of stationery all the time.
I write with my left hand, but can also do the same with my right hand – it just won’t look very pretty.
