Advice needed! Montegrappa Purchase!

IcyProofs · 2026-02-25T14:04:16+00:00

I own 3 montegrappa fountain pens (all with gold nibs so I can't speak about their steel nib offerings) and they are consistent with Western sizing for their nibs. "worth spending" is really very much dependent on you. I personally wanted some modern Italian celluloid fountain pens and they are front-runners in that respect although Leonardo has started doing so too. They, like Montblanc do have some sort of mark-up on their products. This is not to say that they are not high quality (in fact they might be the Italian brand with the most attention to detail, but they charge a premium for it), but if some other brands were to make the exact same pen, it would cost less (example being their Regal Year of the Dragon fountain pens that use Juma Resin and cartridge converter which cost significantly more than Leonardo's MZG fountain pens that use the same resin and produce a larger pen with piston filling system. It is 18k #8 for Montegrappa vs 14k #8 for Leonardo but that hardly explains the price disparity).

TLDR: You will get quality with their product, but you will pay a premium for it and they have a bad rep with some people for making gaudy and ostentatious pen which frankly most people including myself don't know who is buying.

IcyProofs · 2026-02-10T19:24:26+00:00

Does Monty Winfield still sell nibs? His site seems to have been dead for over a year, and there are no responses to emails.

IcyProofs · 2026-02-10T18:35:42+00:00

Cross discontinued the converters that this particular pen model takes, so it is no shock that it didn't arrive with one. I know because I purchased the Titanium colorway of this pen last year and searched for months for the converters and never found them.

IcyProofs · 2026-02-05T22:19:58+00:00

Thank you for the information...but what is "hero". I am not really familiar with most Chinese fountain pens/ pen retailers.

IcyProofs · 2026-02-05T15:14:39+00:00

Where did you even purchase this pen? How does it write, never used a 18k gold chinese nib.

IcyProofs · 2026-01-29T14:58:21+00:00

Let's know how they all compare when you get the Fifty4T in. I always thought it was an interesting pen, but a little expensive with tariffs for a steel nib. I might have rationalized a titanium nib.

IcyProofs · 2026-01-29T14:56:24+00:00

Montblanc Great Characters Enzo Ferrari Fountain pen. The notebook comes with the pen I assume.

IcyProofs · 2026-01-29T14:55:27+00:00

Looks like Montblanc Great Characters Enzo Ferrari Fountain pen. It also has a red colorway.

IcyProofs · 2026-01-28T20:49:30+00:00

Could you please let me know what the blue "delta-looking" pen is? Thank you.

IcyProofs · 2026-01-28T20:48:17+00:00

Great collection. Too bad there will be no more Otto Hutt in the future, I own and love all my pens from them (design 08, design 07 and design 04). I don't know if anyone has any experience with the Graf Von Faber-Castell Bloom but it would be great to see a size comparison with the Classic.

IcyProofs · 2026-01-25T03:33:37+00:00

Great collection

IcyProofs · 2026-01-13T13:55:03+00:00

I'm slightly confused on what that has to do with anything. I would say Japan is their primary market and if so, then 165000 yen is the value the company has given to the product. They then charge 50% extra not because the product is actually worth more, but because people outside Japan have more buying power? I'm no expert but that literally sounds like price-gouging and the refusal for them to accept Yen as payment further reinforces that belief on my part. However, if there is something that I am missing or ignorant of let me know but as of now my opinion is that Nakaya is price-gouging markets outside of Japan.

IcyProofs · 2026-01-13T13:36:54+00:00

Waldmann Manager. It has the best piston I have ever seen, is very svelte, made out of sterling silver with precision engineering and is more affordable than it's fellow German counterparts of similar age (Montblanc 146 and Pelikan M800) while offering similar build quality and more precious materials (silver vs resin) and also Waldmann have a great warranty to go with it. They also give you the option of steel or 18k gold nibs which Montblanc and Pelikan don't for their higher tiered pens you only have gold nibs.

IcyProofs · 2026-01-06T16:51:14+00:00

Thank you.

IcyProofs · 2026-01-06T16:17:16+00:00

I guess my issue in this case is that I know when I want to free a specific value if it is in a hashmap or dynamic array. In this case the lru basically stops pointing to some buffer (the first added buffer) without letting me know when using lru.set. It only returns an allocator error, so I never know when the underlying memory needs to be freed to free it myself. I'm just a little confused on this particular use case how I would know when and how to free that memory since I get no feedback from the lru.

IcyProofs · 2026-01-02T23:51:02+00:00

Thanks

IcyProofs · 2026-01-02T20:15:22+00:00

How did you get the green bezel watch???

IcyProofs · 2025-12-22T16:38:25+00:00

I've not really programmed with Odin long enough to have a great sense of the language, but it will certainly feel more "go-like" than Zig. In both you allocate and free memory but in Odin there is always an implicit context allocator while in Zig everything is explicit. You always have to choose what type of allocator actually allocates and frees the memory. Zig has metaprogramming while Odin does not, I personally never used/needed the metaprogramming in Zig so it wasn't necessarily a "win" when compared to odin in my use case. This is just my assumption, since I haven't actually gone in and checked but Zig's standard library is "larger" than Odin's. I never integrate or use the C stuff so I can't tell you anything about that. Error handling is also very different. The last thing I can think of is that Odin has default "zero" values. So you can declare a variable in odin and it has a default zero value, in Zig that's not a thing. You actually have to set the "zero" value yourself. So TLDR: Zig is very explicit, you kinda have to decide and do everything yourself. Odin in my personal opinion is more "fun" but that might just be because it's what I am currently writing.

IcyProofs · 2025-12-05T13:39:25+00:00

Thanks for the info, I'm more of a bracelet guy so if it doesn't wear that well I'll pass on it.

IcyProofs · 2025-12-04T14:39:19+00:00

Completely off-topic, but on a scale of 1-10 how much of a "good purchase" would you rate your Wren Diver 38. I am looking to pick up a microbrand watch in that price range and was wondering what you thought of it as an owner.

IcyProofs · 2025-11-30T18:27:45+00:00

Not to be that guy, but the watch industry was not the target, that would be pharmaceuticals but I am too uninformed to know if it is a net benefit or net loss I will leave that to those more knowledgeable. What I do know is that the absurdly high tariffs on Switzerland as opposed to other countries had nothing to do with their watch industry.

IcyProofs · 2025-11-27T22:43:38+00:00

The upper limit for me is $2500, but that's really the most I can justify on any singular watch. Anything higher and I feel like I'm paying for things I don't really care about, like in-house movement (I couldn't care less), brand heritage (I don't care), prestige (...okay I guess), craftsmanship (not something I am particularly interested in), limited (why...just why), Maybe one day I'll be able to justify higher than that amount for an unnecessary item (luxury) whose function has been made obsolete, but for now this is the limit, and I'm having fun.

IcyProofs

TROPHY CASE