Meisterstück is the company's flagship, iconic line of pens. The Meisterstück pen, as a purchasable item and with many variations, dates back more than one hundred years; it reached centennial status in 2024.
Montblanc pens (rollerball, ballpoint, fountain, fineliner, calligraphy) and luxury mechanical pencils are regarded with high presige. They are coveted as collector's items as status symbols, works of art, financial investment, and family heirlooms.
The most expensive regular production fountain pens are traditionally Montblancs, with some retail pens (like the rare editions with only a hundred or less made) selling more than US$30,000, and some specialty pens selling for substantially more. Many upper-tier models are purchased as investments and never used.
An article in the Associated Press that was also printed in the Washington Post in 1989 indicated that the decade saw a noticeable peak in retail for Montblanc fountain pens. "Fountain pens are the fastest-growing category of writing instruments. About 12 million were sold in 1987, 21 million last year. Because they require special care -- refilling the ink and professional cleanings -- fountain pens have more cachet," said a marketing executive from Waterman Pens at the time. An executive from the Parker Pen Company elaborated by saying that cachet and appearance were everything when it came to the fountain pen surge in the 1980s. In 2019, when there was another surge in the market for fountain pens, the 1980s boom was referenced again by the Washington Post. It was mentioned that, after the continued surge of the fountain pen in the 1990s, there was a dramatic dip following the 2008 financial crisis. Then came the revival in the late 2010s, especially among millennials, it was noted. In 2023, Washington Post contributor Tara Bahrampour noted that the generation that didn't learn cursive had taken a surprising fancy to the fountain pen, along with surging interest in slower, less digital activities like journaling and drawing by hand.
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CEO Nicolas Baretzki noted these cultural trends, rises, and peaks during his tenure as well as the interesting and counterintuitive fact that the COVID-19 pandemic did not significantly harm the luxury pen market, but in fact, rather worked in its favor as the usual pace of modern living slowed down and people spent more time at home.
Great characters
The Great Characters Series, launched in 2009, is a line of fountain pens honoring legendary figures. The pens are "designed to annually honor a cultural icon, great thinker or emblematic leader." The list includes:
Mahatma Gandhi 2009
Alfred Hitchcock 2011
Albert Einstein 2012
Leonardo da Vinci 2013
John F. Kennedy 2014
Andy Warhol 2015
Miles Davis 2016
The Beatles 2017
James Dean 2018
Walt Disney 2019
Elvis Presley 2020
Enzo Ferrari 2021
Writers edition
Writers Edition pens pay hommage to the literary masters, including:
Ernest Hemingway 1992
Agatha Christie 1993
Oscar Wilde 1994
Voltaire 1995
Alexandre Dumas 1996
Fyodor Dostoevsky 1997
Edgar Allan Poe 1998
Marcel Proust 1999
Friedrich Schiller 2000
Charles Dickens 2001
F. Scott Fitzgerald 2002
Jules Verne 2003
Franz Kafka 2004
Miguel de Cervantes 2005
Virginia Woolf 2006
William Faulkner 2007
George Bernard Shaw 2008
Thomas Mann 2009
Mark Twain 2010
Carlo Collodi 2011
Jonathan Swift 2012
Honoré de Balzac 2013
Daniel Defoe 2014
Leo Tolstoy 2015
William Shakespeare 2016
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 2017
Homer 2018
Rudyard Kipling 2019
Victor Hugo 2020
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 2021
Brothers Grimm 2022
Robert Louis Stevenson 2023
Jane Austen 2024
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2025)
Bram Stoker 2026
Capsules, collaborations, and commemorative editions
While Montblanc is most known for its luxury pens, it also designs and distributes bags, small leather goods, and watches. The company also produces special editions of pens and watches and other items that are either commemorative (limited edition) or by private order of customized items at the Atelier Creation Privée.
In 2007, Montblanc celebrated the life of Rainier III, Prince of Monaco with its production of 81 (marking the prince's age when he died) fountain pens. Half the proceeds from the sale of this pen were donated to the Princess Grace Foundation.
In 2011, Montblanc made a pen celebrating the Marriage of Albert II, Prince of Monaco and Charlene Wittstock. This was marketed as the Royal Wedding Pen, a private creation of which was launched at the Artisan Atelier in Hamburg before use by the princely couple to sign the marriage register. This private creation, with 128 diamonds and 161 rubies, was the only pen made, exclusively for the princely couple and not for public sale.
In 2012, Montblanc launched its Collection Princess Grace de Monaco, a collection of bejeweled ballpoint pens and fountain pens. This collection included a ballpoint pen with a drop-cut pink sapphire; a rare edition of three pens symbolizing the princess's three children (Albert II, Princess Caroline, and Princess Stephanie); a limited edition of 29 fountain pens; and broader-availability, special edition fountain pen, ballpoint pen, and rollerball pen.
In 2018, Charlotte Casiraghi (granddaughter of Monaco's Princess Grace and Prince Rainier III, and global brand ambassador herself since 2015) collaborated with Montblanc's creative director, Zaim Kamal, on a line of jewelry called Les Aimants. The capsule was inspired by a photograph of Nancy Cunard from 1926 that was taken by Man Ray and is part of the photographic collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was officially launched at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.
In November 2019, Montblanc launched a partnership with The Webster for a limited-edition, capsule collection.
In 2022, the company began collaborating with streetwear brand BAPE and lifestyle brand Maison Kitsuné to broaden its leather goods portfolio and attract a younger audience. CEO Nicolas Baretzki told Vogue Business in 2022 that he believes leather goods will become one of the company's biggest categories, possibly even overtaking pens.
In 2024, a capsule was created to celebrate the novel Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne. The design of the cap invokes the length of that journey—25 days.
Watches
Montblanc entered the watches market in 1996. The following year, Montblanc Montre S.A was established in Le Locle, Switzerland, a place known for a long historical link with the watch industry. So far the company only made men's watches. In 2000, Montblanc Montre launched its Meisterstück Sports watch collection. Ten years later, the Metamorphosis watch further cemented the reputation of Montblanc watches for innovation because of its complex system of synchronously moving components.
In 2006, Richemont, the parent company of Montblanc, bought the Swiss watch company Fabrique d'Horlogerie Minerva (known for short as Minerva), whose hand-finished chronographs date back to 1858. Montblanc was still considered to be perfecting its watchmaking production, so the acquisition of Minerva signaled a positive future for the brand in this area. Montblanc released the Collection Villeret 1858 in 2007, the name of the collection signaling the year and place of Minerva's origin. Montblanc had established the Institut Minerva to train watchmakers. The new school led to the creation of the Star Nicolas Rieussec Monopusher Chronograph, the first Montblanc-branded watch made entirely at the Le Locle facility, and named for the famous watchmaker Nicolas Rieussec of the royal court of Louis-Philippe. The Rieussec watch signals real credibility as a watchmaker in Montblanc's history and is considered to have only been possible due to the acquisition of the Minerva company.
Twenty years after the acquisition of Minerva, Montblanc has decided to bring the Minerva brand back to its own productions. Pieces made at the Atelier in Villeret will now (as of June 2026) be branded Minerva watches, and pieces made at the Atelier in Le Locle will be branded as Montblanc watches.
Branding
A trademark identified with Montblanc is the white stylized six-pointed star with rounded edges, representing the Mont Blanc snowcap from above, the symbol adopted in 1913. The number "4810," the mountain's height in metres, is a common recurring theme.
Montblanc is an official sponsor of the Les Rencontres Philosophiques de Monaco, of which brand ambassador Charlotte Casiraghi is founding president since 2015.
Global Brand Ambassadors
In January 2014, Hugh Jackman was announced as Montblanc's Global Brand Ambassador, outside of the United States. The deal extended to North America in 2016.
In October 2015, Monegasque philosopher Charlotte Casiraghi was announced as another Global Brand Ambassador for the company. The announcement accompanied a new advertising campaign for the Boheme Collection featuring Casiraghi wearing the Boheme Night & Day watch.
Soccer star Zinédine Zidane became a brand ambassador for Montblanc in 2022.
Other Montblanc brand ambassadors include: American filmmaker Wes Anderson, English actor Rupert Friend, Chinese actress Xin Zhilei, and Chinese actor Jing Boran.
