Montblanc 342

[penwash]

I always liked this supposedly low-tiered Montblanc offering.

The pen is very nice in the hand, not too fat, not too slim, just right.

And the nibs are just super nice and flexible.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4729/24316702827_2b04489276_c.jpg

Anybody else has one and care to share about it?

[Jerome Tarshis]

I've only just now come upon this thread, since I don't think of myself as a Montblanc person; I own only three of them, which is nothing by pen message board standards.

One of mine is a 342, and it's a delight. About its flexibility I can't speak, although it feels more vibrant under my hand than many a pen of more recent decades. I don't strive for spreading tines. My pen has some kind of special grind that results in heart-warming line variation. From the shape of the writing part, not from variation in pressure. I find it awfully lovable, indeed so lovable that in the end it doesn't get much use, since I feel that I ought to write with a less felicitous pen, or many of them, and God knows I have less felicitous pens, to earn the relative bliss of writing with my 342.

As for "supposedly low-tiered," I don't know what "supposedly" means. There's a lot we don't know about the ancient Mediterranean, but Montblanc in the 1950s is better documented than Crete under King Minos, and yes, it was a far less expensive pen than others. I also own a Monte Rosa 042, which is not very far from being the same pen, and that was demonstrably less expensive still. A bargain, I'd say. As I would also say of the Parker Super 21.