The $10,000 Montegrappa Q1 Fountain Pen - a 360 Look

When a $10,000 fountain pen comes walking through your door, it's hard to resist sharing the hands-on experience.

You may have heard about the Montegrappa Q1 back when it made a flashy debut in Baselworld earlier this year. A fountain pen that can change ink color at will. At first, one could imagine that this is a "game changer" of a pen. The idea of being able to change ink colors on the fly would be revolutionary and hard to replicate with current cartridge / converter technologies. Then, I saw the price tag.

A whopping $10 G's.

Well, at least the idea is noteworthy. Although wildly impractical for the average fountain pen end-user, the years of development and investment in patenting this concept may eventually translate into a version of the pen that can be somewhat accessible to the other 99%.

Courtesy of Kenro Industries' Blog

The Q1 is limited to 100 pieces world wide and is crafted from solid titanium and genuine Italian leather. The design of the pen is reminiscent a revolver pistol. The cap and blind cap unlatch with a bolt-action lock mechanism. The blind cap is attached with a piece of leather to keep the cap from being misplaced while changing ink colors.

The active chamber slot has the piercing feed mechanism that leads to the nib's feeder. The other three chambers are plugged with a small metal stopper that prevents the ink from the open cartridges from leaking or drying out when not in use.

Courtesy of Kenro Industries' Blog

The solid 18kt gold nib is standard issue for Montegrappa on a limited edition pen of this value. The heft and weight in-hand is quite significant, like holding a .45 caliber pistol in your hand. The sample piece that our representative had brought to the office had a broken nib, otherwise we would have inked it up for a writing sample.

Although the pen is way out of the ballpark in terms of price, it certainly is noteworthy and interesting to look at. Hopefully, Montegrappa will use this patented technology to bring a more economic version of this pen to market.

What do you think? Would you be interested in a fountain pen that can change between 4 colors on a whim? Or is it just a novelty that wears itself thin quickly? How much would you pay for such a fountain pen?