Tag Archives: #fakepens

Don’t Get Fooled by Fake Montblancs: Greta Garbo

By on September 5, 2024
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One of the greatest screen beauties in golden-era Hollywood was Swedish-born Greta Garbo. She expressed a bold, raw sexuality uncommon in America in the 1920s and ’30s, and she maintained a famed “mystique.” Unlike so many who sought fame, Garbo famously said, “I want to be left alone,” though she was often misquoted as “I want to be alone.”

Her greatest films include the 1926 silent film “Flesh and the Devil;” “Mata Hari;” “Grand Hotel;” “Anna Karenina;” and my favorite, the Billy Wilder comedy “Ninotchka.” Garbo rarely smiled in her films, and the tagline for “Ninotchka” was simply, “Garbo laughs.” Considered a serious dramatic actress, Garbo is an absolute scream in the screwball comedy “Ninotchka,” where she plays a seemingly emotionally distant Soviet agent in Paris trying to sell stolen “White Russian” jewels to fund the communist regime when she is pursued by an unscrupulous playboy played by Melvyn Douglas. Easily one of the 10 funniest movies ever made.

Not surprisingly, Montblanc was quick to chose Garbo as the inspiration for one of its first…if not the first…Muses series limited edition pens in 2005. Celebrating the greatest female entertainers of the 20th century other muses include Ingrid Bergman, Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor and Maria Callas, among others.

As an early, and very desirable collectible, the Montblanc Greta Garbo is often faked. And those fakes can be surprisingly good. On first glance, the one we found can be easily mistaken for the real thing.

Here is a fake Montblanc Greta Garbo we discovered in a collection of pens.

It is easy to Google images of the Montblanc Greta Garbo set to see the original boxes and papers. (We thought we had and sold a set a little while back with photos of our own, but we cannot locate them.) The real pen has a unique serial number and Akoya pearl on the clip. The trim also is also silvery not golden. Authentic pens are also more solidly made.

The fake Garbo pen that we found looks real, but it feels flimsy and squeaks when you unscrew the cap. The clip and the golden trim are also rather loosely attached. You can feel the edges of the trim in the fake versions and maybe even wiggle the metal. The fakes likely also come with a generic converter or oddly imprinted converter with nontraditional Montblanc fonts and logos.

This close-up shows the poor quality of the fake pen’s steel nib, along with the condition of the “pearl” and trim.

In the close-up photo of the fake nib, you can see it is obviously a steel nib with an imprint that looks real. If you aren’t sure if the nib is steel or rhodium-plated, a test scribble will generally reveal a poorly made, scratchy steel nib.

Although we don’t presently have any photos of the authentic pen, we hope this helps to showcase the things to look for in the fake versions of the Montblanc Muses Series Greta Garbo fountain pen.

Fake Mont Blanc Pens Part IV

By on December 1, 2022
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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 on May 20, 2021
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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 fiancée 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 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 à 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 à 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.