Tag Archives: fake Mont Blanc

Fake Mont Blanc Pens Part IV

By Nathaniel Cerf on December 1, 2022

Some days you just never know what you will find. Someone reached out to me with a collection for sale, and they told me the original owner was an avid Montblanc collector. Naturally, I was curious to see it. It didn’t take long to assess that this person had a huge collection of fakes. Sadly, they probably didn’t even know they had fake pens. Then again, maybe that was a good thing, as they were very happy with their collection until the day they passed.

This first batch of fake Mont Blanc pens has some really convincing models.

The fascinating thing to me was how some pens were extremely convincing, others were pretty obvious and some invented designs looked better than actual Montblanc pens! It was quite an education that I hope to share here.

In this first photo is a recreation of the Mont Blanc Writers’ Series William Faulkner. It (the bottom pen) looks very convincing…even better than the real thing, as the real pen’s color is a Spanish moss green-grey, and this knock-off pen is a cinnamon brown. The white pen behind it looks just like a Montblanc Tribute to Montblanc ballpoint. Only the real one has the exact same trim in a platinum plate not gold plate. Otherwise the serial number, Pix, small details were all identical. The red pen behind it looks just like some of the special edition MB pens that looked like the original safety fillers. However, the modern MB tribute pens were never made in red. I actually kinda like the red more than the official versions. The golden one in the back will look convincing to a novice, but on really close inspection the black cap bands were poorly painted on, and the black tail isn’t something an actual MB would have.

This second selection of false Montblanc pens shows is a little less convincing.

This second photo of fakes is also interesting. One of the things Montblanc does is make special or limited runs of slight alterations to its primary “Classique” design. Clever scammers can play on that variety by making their own unique version. Yet, with any experience with Montblanc pens and a little help from a search engine online will quickly reveal designs such as these four to be fake.

I don’t know the technical way to say this but the cap wring on the bottom pen is just worn wrong. The gold plating doesn’t wear like that on heavily used Montblancs. Plus, all of these pens have black bands around the cap bands when the pens are not black. Real Montblancs would have the black lines above show as the same color as the rest of the cap and/or remain gold. The bottom two pens might not show it in the photo, but their color and finish is far too cheaply made to be a real Montblanc. Also, not visible in the photo, some of the 6-point mountain top logos/stars are either rubbing off or poorly painted or unevenly inset into the caps. The black tails on two of the pens are another indicator they are fake.

These final two pens are much more egregiously impersonating Mont Blanc.

These final pens stretch the boundaries of faking Montblanc. The closer pen looks like it could be a pen from the 1970s, but MB never had a model quite like that…and it didn’t fit Montblanc refills. The distant pen has the outline, shape and clip of a Montblanc, but it doesn’t have the logo. Maybe technically it isn’t a fake Montblanc, but in all other ways it tries to look like Mont Blanc.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this latest segment looking into the wonderful world of fake Montblanc pens. With any luck, it helps you avoid the pitfalls of the stunningly large market of counterfeit pens.

How Do I Start Collecting Pens: Fake Montblanc Serial Numbers

By Nathaniel Cerf on May 20, 2021

33 Replies

This is one of the most convincing fake Montblanc fountain pens we have ever seen.

After 14 years in the pen business, I have just encountered one the very best fake Montblanc pens I’ve ever seen. It came with a collection of vintage pens for appraisal. I had been told it was a Montblanc rollerball, and it looks very much like a Montblanc Classique. The appraisal customer told me it was a LeGrand.

A quick inspection showed it had a serial number in the clip band, Pix written under the clip, perfect cap band nomenclature. It came with a convincing box and set of papers!

My first clue something was wrong came when I tried taking off the cap. A true Classique has a slip cap. This cap was threaded…and LeGrands are supposed to be threaded…though this pen was too skinny to be a LeGrand. Open the pen, and it took an authentic Montblanc rollerball refill. But, inside the barrel was a metal threaded space when there are no metal threads in an authentic MB Classique. There was so much right and wrong with the pen.

That’s when my brilliant fiancÃ©e recommended searching the number on the clip band.

EN1340798 is one of the most frequently used serial numbers on fake Mont Blanc pens.

Lo and behold, this pen turned out to have one of the most faked numbers for faux Montblanc pens: EN1340798. Research quickly showed it on fountain pens, rollerballs and ballpoints.

In a security fail for the actual Montblanc company, they don’t track their serial numbers. As such, many, if not most, MB serial numbers are not assigned to a pen owner or provenance of any kind. Montblanc has even acknowledged that sometimes it reuses serial numbers! Ironically, this makes the very security measures the company uses to authenticate its pens that much less secure.

In an effort to help separate the real pens from the fakes, please write in the comments section any other serial numbers you know to be fake. Thanks!

Identifying More Fake Montblancs

By Nathaniel Cerf on January 31, 2020

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We recently received two more great examples of fake Montblanc pens from a collector to share with you. As you might recall, we wrote a much more extensive piece about identifying fake Montblancs in a piece we called: Don’t Be Fooled by Fake Mont Blanc Pens.

This time we are just going to showcase the features of these two specific fraudulent pens.

A close inspection of this pen reveals that it is a reproduction of the rubberized Montblanc Starwalker fineliner pen.

Up first is meant to be a rubberized Montblanc Starwalker fineliner. At a glance, it looks like it could be the real thing. BUT! A closer inspection proves it isn’t. The first thing you can notice in real life, and not online, is that the rubber material is very sticky as it decomposes. We haven’t experienced that in the originals, but this is common in cheaper rubbers and plastics. Those cheap, 1990s Sensa office pens with the huge “ergonomical” rubber grips decomposed to a sticky mess all the time, just like this pen.

The biggest visual error you can spot is that the tail is black and not platinum or rhodium plated like the original.

We can’t get a good enough photo of it, but the floating star inside the clear cap topper is scratched.

Plus, there is no “Pix” written under the pocket clip. While that pocket clip does have a serial number, it is a two-part number with a gap between numbers, which Montblanc doesn’t do. Lastly, the pocket clip has a more obvious weld to the cap.

Pictured is a fake Montblanc Hommage Ã Nicolaus Copernicus ballpoint pen. Yet, to hold in real life, will easily prove it is not the real thing.

The other pen on today’s showcase is meant to be a copy of the Patron of the Arts Montblanc Hommage Ã Nicolaus Copernicus. At a glance to the untrained eye, it passes. It has what looks like the anthracite-colored lacquer on the ribbed body with potentially sterling silver rings. There’s what appears to be a diamond in the clip.

Yet, the real pens had a yellow diamond or green-yellow jewel, depending on which edition you had.

Again, in real life, this pen is extremely light weight. Sometimes experience helps, and, having held real samples of the Copernicus, this feels 2 or 3 times lighter.

Another big give away is that there are no markings on this pen. No serial number, “Pix” under the clip,” no limited edition number and no “Germany.”

It is difficult to see in the photo, but you can see the edges where the white part was glued into the black part of the logo. On Montblanc’s high-end pens, there are no seams that are detectable, and we think the original pen had a mother-of-pearl star instead of a white plastic star.

One sneaky thing the pen forgers got right is that it uses real Montblanc ballpoint refills.

The last big thing they got wrong is the company brand logo of the 6-point star or snow cap representing the mountain. This one is a soft plastic that looks odd in real life, and you can see the edges of the hole they glued it into on the tail. True Copernicus pens have a seamless logo that is lacquered over to look like one piece regardless as to whether it really is.

Last but not least is the box. We received two pens in one box that is made to look like a true Montblanc box. The differences are pretty obvious. Most simple MB boxes similar to this have a leather or faux-leather outer casing in black. This is a black paper case. On the inside the company name is poorly silk screened on with some black ink bleeding into other parts of the name/logo. Annnd, the pad that holds the pen is a cheap cardboard with a paper tray beneath it. The black leather Mont Blanc cases have a padded beige or tan cloth lining, which you aren’t intended to get underneath. Papers for the legit pens are stored between leather box and the outer cardboard box. Please see the picture of the fake below.

As always, we hope this helps you spot fake Montblanc pens in your quest for inky glory as a writer or collector.

Paper outside, poor silk screening inside and the wrong pad and under-tray make this Montblanc box an obvious fake.

Don’t Be Fooled by Fake Mont Blanc Pens

By Nathaniel Cerf on April 1, 2018

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When you are the #1 selling maker of luxury pens, everyone will be chasing your brand, trying to emulate it. That is why the market is flooded with myriad knock-off Mont Blanc pens.

At a quick glance this looks like an authentic sterling silver Mont Blanc Classique, but MB never paints its logo on the pen like this fake has.

We’ve seen our share of them. They range in quality from obviously fake to nearly identical to the real thing. In fact, some fakes are so good, only Mont Blanc can tell the difference, which is why the company has an authentication service.

However, with a little research and careful observation, you can suss out the bulk of the fakes while saving a fortune on authentication fees.

The most common modelsÂ in the Mont Blanc line up are known as Classiques and LeGrands (146 fountain pen), as well as the oversized fountain pen known as the 149. Mont Blanc makes the bulk of these pens from what they call a “precious resin,” sterling silver and plated and solid gold. The precious resinÂ pens are trimmed in gold plate or platinum plate.

Look closely at the gold-plated clip band of the cap to see a finely machine engraved serial number.

There are 3 obvious details to search for when you look at a Mont Blanc pen made of precious resin. Since 1991, Mont Blanc has included a tiny serial number on the clip band of its pens. Only the very best fakes include a serial number, and that only started in more recent years. The vast majority of fakes leave out the serial number. It doesn’t help, that Mont Blanc actually reuses some of its serial numbers and didn’t keep the best records of who got which serial number and where the serial numbers were sent.

Another detail to look for on authentic Mont Blanc writing instruments is the word “Pix” written under the clip. It is nearly impossible to get a good photo of that with our lighting rig. However, starting around 1997, Mont Blanc began including that detail to help customers authenticate its pens. Of course, in recent years, the very best of the Mont Blanc replica makers have started including that feature. Yet, the vast majority of the fakes leave it out.

Black “precious resin” on a Mont Blanc is really a wine-red plastic when you hold it up against a really bright light source, as we did with this glass of wine.

Lastly, among the black pens, the precious resin has several special give aways to its authenticity. First, the black pens are not metal with a black paint job or lacquer. The precious resin is actually a very brittle plastic. Although it looks black, it is really a very deep wine red. If you hold it up to a very bright light source that won’t do any eye damage, you can see a deep red glow around the edge of the pen, much like this more easily seen red edge of this glass of wine. (My favorite blog homework assignment. I mean, I couldn’t let that glass go to waste.) This is generally the most difficult authentication test to perform, as you really need to catch the light just right…and not go blind in the process. Most fakes just use a normal black plastic or a metal barrel painted black.

This Mont Blanc Starwalker rollerball pen fake nearly had us convinced until we couldn’t fit an authentic MB refill in it.

Rollerball pens have an additional feature that helps you authenticate them: refills. Mont Blanc rollerball refills are specially threaded and screw into the barrel. Even some of the best fakes that we’ve seen, fail on the refill. The fakes might take a standard plug-in Schmidt-style 888 refill. The Mont Blanc Starwalker rollerball pen in the photo was one of the best fakes we had ever seen. It even came with a screw-in refill that said Mont Blanc, BUT it would not take a genuine MB rollerball refill. The guy who gave it to me after we couldn’t find a refill to fit it confessed he got it in China for only $25 and thought it was too good to be true. At least he wasn’t out a full retail price! That was about 11 years ago when we got it. Back then the crystal topper was clear, but now it also is discoloring, which the real ones won’t do.

Although boxes are easily found on eBay and other places, as a rule of thumb, if you see a pen being sold in its original box, then you are more likely to be dealing with the real thing. So many of the fakes don’t come with any boxes. Also be sure to check with the dealer. The well known pen vendors out there can be trusted to stock the authentic secondhand pens. However, you really might want to check the penÂ closely if you’re buying from someone at a flea market who knows nothing about pens or from a seller on an auction site that has lots of bad reviews or no reviews.

For pre-1990s Mont Blanc pens, there are myriad other ways to date and authenticate them. However, we shall save that for a future post.

Follow the Leader

By Nathaniel Cerf on October 15, 2017