Friday, April 24, 2009

My Grail Fountain Pen...never thought I'd manage it so soon!!



Hi...
This was two weeks back and happened on a Wednesday...that was the day when I was finally able to lay my eager hands on my grail pen...Montblanc Meisterstuck 149...this fountain pen, the king among pens (IMHO), was in my sights for the last 15 years or so...days before fountain pens became my regular passion...at that time I didn't even venture to find out the price of this pen...and after I got a job and all that the passion to own and write with a Montblanc got intense(r)...and a few years later, I heard that MontBlanc had opened their boutique in Hyderabad...I tentatively called them one day to find out the price...they quoted a price which was double my monthly salary at that time!!!...and whenever I telephoned to ask the price, it would have increased and I would find it impossible to even think of buying one... and sometime around 2007 December, I happened to join the fountain pen network and met Hari and one of the first things that I told him was that I wanted to own a Montblanc Meisterstuck 149...he kind of laughed...I think the pen is one of the targets of FP lovers...and it took me over a year since to even think of seriously buying the pen...I wanted to buy it from the boutique, but knew that I could never afford it on my own...I then asked for contributions from near and dear ones...!!! and my near and dear ones were so good that they generously contributed...I could collect quite a bit, but still needed an equal amount to run after the increasing price of the pen...then one find day, Hari told me that he would soon be acquiring his MB 149...and he then told me that he'd be getting a pre-used pen from one of the sellers on FPN...I then saw that this was a sensible way and asked Hari to help me out...the money that I had collected would cover the pre-used cost of the pen...Hari got in touch with Bryant Greer who owns http://www.pentime.net/ and Bryant sent me some pics of the prospective MB 140 and I was hooked!!! right and proper!!! and Hari helped me a lot in acquiring this pen...right from getting in touch with Bryant to sending him the money and keping track till the pen reached me...and it took close to 4 weeks for the pen to arrive from the US...and to add to my anxiety, there was a major incident with the post office...which unnerved me and finally, after a great deal of waiting...I could get it finally...never thought I'd see and have my own Montblanc Meisterstuck 149... (the first photo is taken by me; the other two are taken by Bryant)

2 comments:

Vinod Ekbote said...

Jai, Congratulations!! It is a pen to be enjoyed.

Vinod

Ariza said...

Its nice to see someone work on collecting something for a long time. Congrats