• Normally, we view over-priced pens with a certain amount of disdain. But this pen is just too cool for us to do much sneering. Why? Because this Dunhill Sentryman is covered with a coating of space rock! According to Luxist.com, the pen:

…features an innovative lacquer finish containing authentic crushed black diamonds and meteorite stone for a stunning effect.

The meteorites apparently come from a well-known field of rocks that crashed in Argentina. Of course, the price reflects the fancy design. It goes for US$1,100.

• The newspaper in Pueblo, Colorado ran a nice little profile of a local pen enthusiast who has become something of a self-educated expert on inks.

John Bosley was a college student looking for some variety in his note-taking when he bought his first fountain pen on eBay. That blossomed into a fountain pen and ink obsession, according to the Pueblo Chieftain.

Bosley says his favorite pen changes from day to day, but his favorite brand is Esterbrook.

“It’s kind of the Bic of the ’40s and ’50s,” he said. “Probably anyone who was alive then has heard of and used Esterbrook. They don’t get much respect, but they just work so well. I kind of got addicted to them — I’ve got 50 or so.”

And as Bosley realized immediately after purchasing that first pen — an antique from the 1940s — you need ink. Good ink is beautiful. It comes in many colors. To use only one hue would be wrong, wouldn’t it?

Bosley started a website called Vintage Inks and has even been invited to the Smithsonian Institution for an event organized by Pen Collectors of America.

It’s always good to see pen collectors get some recognition.

• Anyone planning to attend the Stationery and Office Products Shows in London on April 13tand 14th? You might want to stop by the Zebra Pens display to have your handwriting analysed.

“We could not resist the idea of sponsoring this new attraction at SOPX” says UK sales & marketing manager, Martin Notley.  “Just as a person’s handwriting reveals a lot about them, so does their choice of pen.  Zebra pens epitomise style, fun and good taste as buyers will be reminded at the show!”

Everyone who signs up for the handwriting analysis will be entered into a drawing for a free bottle of champagne. Cheers!

(Register for free entry to the shows here.)

• This is easily our favourite video of the week. From the guys at Instructables.com, it shows you how to make a Pilot G2 into a Montblanc rollerball in 2 minutes.

The only question: Does the Montblanc refill write well enough to make this worth the effort, minimal as it is?

Actually, not quite so random this week.

• Lock up your good pens; there are thieves about. The Herald is reporting that burglars in Plymouth have stolen a collection of jewellery and high-end pens, including a Montblanc Greta Garbo special edition ballpoint.

(Greta Garbo was a classic Hollywood movie star in the ’20s and ’30s. The Montblanc series pens carry her signature and have a pearl in the cap.)

The other items were:

A Delta Dolce Vita chunky-sized fountain pen. The pen is bright orange with a black cap.

An Elysee slim silver-coloured fine-fibre tipped or ballpoint pen. It probably has blue ink and twist mechanism to bring the nib out. The base and lid are covered in an ornate filigree textured design.

A black Parker (possibly ballpoint) pen.

According to the paper, the take for the heist was about £10,000. The thieves, who broke in during the day, also made a mess in the home, even spilling ink on the carpet.

• The above is interesting because Bonhams & Butterfields just held an all-Montblanc auction in Los Angeles during the LA Pen Show – and, coincidentally, a Greta Garbo pen was among the items auctioned. However, the one sold at the auction was a solid gold fountain pen that fetched a whopping Us$21,350.

All together, the auction brought in US$715,000 for fountain pens that included a Black Widow, a Fortune Number 88 and a George Washington, all limited editions, according to Art Daily. The auction reportedly broke a few world records, with at least 10 of the pens going for more than $20,000 each.

They weren’t all that expensive, though. The auction house’s fountain pen catalogue shows one Alexandre Dumas limited edition from the Writers Series brought less than $900.

• Speaking of Montblanc, do you remember the company’s decision to honour Gandhi with an 18K gold fountain pen that cost roughly 50 times the average annual income in India?

Now, sales of the Gandhi Montblanc have been halted while an Indian court decides whether it’s even legal. The Centre for Consumer Education had sued over the pen, arguing that the Emblems and Names Act of 1950 prohibits the use of Gandhi’s name and image for commercial purposes.

From the BBC:

“We have agreed to stop selling the pen until the court decides on the matter,” Pankaj Shah, director of International Trading Private Limited, which distributes Montblanc pens in India, told the BBC.

Just 241 of the handmade pens will be sold, reflecting the number of miles Gandhi walked in his famous march against salt taxes in 1930.

Each pen comes with an eight-metre golden thread that can be wound around the pen, representing the spindle and cotton Gandhi used to weave simple cloth.

Mr Shah said 42 of the 70 pens “allotted” for India had already been sold since they were launched in early October.

By the way, the pen goes for about £16,000.

As part of the deal, Montblanc donated £100,000 to a charity run by Gandhi’s grandson, Tushar, who told The Times that he did not agree with the opposition to the pens in India.

“People are being deprived of the right to commemorate Gandhi and that’s a very un-Gandhian thing to do,” he said.

Asked what his great-grandfather would have thought of a £16,000 pen, he said: “Everything that has been said is conjecture. Who are we to decide what he would have thought?

• The Chief Officers’ Network painted a bleak picture of the economic future in a recent report and part of the forecast was based on ink pens, of all things.

The so-called “luxury goods” sector found the same thing: if you can write with a two dollar gel pen; why buy a Mont Blanc? For us, an indicator was the number of people in meetings who used pens bearing hotel logos: these are people who were thinking twice not just about the capital cost of the pen, but even about its running costs – refills for an expensive rollerball cost a lot more than taking a promotional pen from the bedside table. Their expensive, expired, pens stayed at home.

Of course, they could just buy inexpensive, good-quality rollerballs instead of the pricey ones with the refills that cost a fortune – but alas, what’s a chief executive to do?

When the Manchester Evening News recently mentioned an expense claim by a certain MP that included a pricey ink pen, we got curious. What other pen-related claims had been uncovered in the expense reports of MPs?

Turns out, there have been a few.

Gerald Kaufman, MP for Gorton, claimed £225 for a Viceroy Barley rollerball pen, according to the Evening News.

Iris Robinson, MP for Strangford, claimed £306 for a Montblanc and a bottle of ink (but wasn’t reimbursed), according to the BBC. We aren’t sure what kind of Montblanc.

Andrew Slaughter, MP for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush, claimed £90 for a fountain pen nib, according to the Telegraph. No details on what kind of nib, or for which pen.

Tim Yeo, MP for South Suffolk, claimed £135 for repair of a fountain pen that was “one of a pair of fountain pens I have had since I entered parliament – and I always use it to sign letters,” according to the Telegraph. Again, no details on the kind of pen.

Well, at least the UK’s most influential people are setting an example by using pens and paper for their business. That’s good…right?

By the way, in the context of the above expense claims, this one just seemed downright hilarious:

Claire Curtis-Thomas, MP for Formby, claimed 45p for a ballpoint pen, according to the Formby Times.

If you’ve seen any other examples of MPs claiming pen or pen-related expenses, let us know.

What better way to honour a man devoted to a life of peace and poverty than with a pen made only for the very rich? Apparently, that was the thinking at Montblanc, the German maker of high-end writing instruments. The company has released a special limited edition fountain pen bearing the likeness of Mohandas Gandhi, just in time for the 140th anniversary of his birth.

LiveLounge.com reported that Montblanc debuted the pen at an event this week at the Taj Mahal Hotel where:

The Mahatma Gandhi Limited Edition 241 pen set was placed under a spotlight…surrounded by a pair of resplendent gold Gandhi spectacles, some antique-looking fountain pens cased in wood and an oblong shaped small bottle of flaming red ink that contained, what was labelled, the Mahatma Gandhi ink.

Source: LiveLounge.com

The pen is 18k gold and rhodium-plated and contains a saffron-colored opal. Gandhi’s signature is on the pen, and there’s a carving of him on the nib, wearing a robe and leaning on a walking stick. It also comes with a 26-foot golden thread meant to be wound around the pen as a reminder of the simple cloths that Gandhi wove – because nothing says humility and simplicity like 26 feet of gold thread.

Montblanc plans to sell only 241 of the pens in order to commemorate the 241 miles Gandhi walked in 1930 to protest unfair salt taxes. They will cost about £15,000 each.

As you might expect, the release of this pen has caused considerable controversy, given the completely unmaterialistic life that Gandhi lived.  The criticism has been particularly strong in India, where Gandhi is revered as Bapu, or father of the nation.

One organisation has filed suit to stop sale of the pens. Dijo Kappen, managing trustee of the Centre for Consumer Education in the southwestern state of Kerala, argues that the use of Gandhi’s name and likeness represents a violation of India’s Emblems and Names Act of 1950, according to the Spicy IP intellectual property blog.

Kappen told the Associated Press:

“Mahatma Gandhi advocated a simple lifestyle…He was, of course, a nationalist and, in the nature of the independence struggle, the only thing he promoted was Indian-made goods. It is a mockery of the great man and an insult to the nation … to use him as a poster-boy.”

Montblanc continues to be clueless about the impropriety of the pen. One senior manager told the AP that the pen is not “opulent.” (UPDATED: the average annual income is about £300). And then there was this comment to the BBC from company CEO Lutz Bethge:

“I certainly have to say, I wouldn’t have thought that people would have reacted negatively…Yes, there were questions asked. Does it make sense to combine Montblanc and Mahatma Gandhi? But from what I noticed people were delighted that we were paying tribute to him.”

Interestingly enough, Gandhi’s own grandson seems to support the idea. According to the BBC report, Tushar Gandhi’s charitable foundation has already received about £91,000 from Montblanc and will continue to collect a portion of the proceeds from each pen sold.