Customer Reviews

Montblanc(R) Refills, Rollerball, Medium Point, Blue, Pack Of 2

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The reviews here are somewhat entertaining to read. The nature of all rollerballs (Mont Blanc included) is that they use more ink than a ballpoint and therefore won't last long, particularly if you do much writing. The medium points have even shorter lives than the fine points, again, because there is more ink used. That said, no other pen has the feel and smoothness of a Mont Blanc. I've used plastic rollerballs like a Pilot or Zebra that aren't long-lived either--they may last a little longer than the MB, but that's because the entire barrel of the pen can store ink. Also doesn't have the prized little "snow peak" on the end.

Genuine Mont Blanc refills are packaged with a hologram on the box. I can't speak to knock-offs, because I've never bought them. If the short life of a rollerball refill doesn't work for you, you may consider a ballpoint.

Bottom line is this: Complaining about buying a refill for a $400 pen is like buying a Mercedes and complaining about the cost of the service or the 93 octane fuel. If you want cheap, go get yourself a $0.99 Bic and write for 6 months...and drive a Kia while you're at it, not a BMW. You can't have champaign taste and a Busch Light pocketbook; that goes for cars AND pens. (And most everything else)

Have to agree with the previous reviewer. These Montblanc refills run out at the drop of a hat. I have both the black and blue versions and both of them have run out after 3 days or so of use. At first I thought it was just clogged with paper debris or an air bubble, but after several minutes of trying, the ink just will not flow again.

These refills come with a little plastic end cap on them. I think you might need to store the refills (even the ones you are using in a pen) with the caps on in order to stop this dry out problemm but that's a ridiculously impractical solution. You might as well buy a cheap ballpoint pen.

Summary: If your MB refills suck, don't worry! It's how they are. Don't assume they're counterfeits- I think that's just brand mythology, at least in real retail outlets in the US. However, if you are willing to give them another go at less than full cost, call Mont Blanc and they should be able to arrange something. If not, take them back to the store from which you got them.

I'm a fountain pen guy, but everyone has to journey back to the dark side once and a while while filling out a form. For a long time, I'd just kept a Parker Jotter w/ a Parker Gel refill in my bag just in case, and it was serviceable, though it did suffer from running out very quickly as well as random dry outs that no amount of spit or hot water could bring it out of. That said, it worked- though you did end up wasting a bit of cash on the Parker brand. They make nice fountain pens, and made nicer ones in their hayday, but their Gel pens... meh. So, out looking for a new rollerball or gelpen to be my just-in-case pen I was convinced by a friend to try out a Mont Blanc. We went to a local pen shop and I tried out some of the higher end FPs- I'd only used some of the sub-$500 MB FPs; and in their world, that's cheap- as well as their ball pens. My friend spoke well of the MB rollerball refills- and the clerk, not surprisingly, raved about them. Neither actually used them, so I suspect a rather simple minded attachment to brand or image.

Much to the chagrin of the clerk, I decided to play it safe and just buy a pack of the MB refills, using some hackish engineering to shoe-horn the refill into a very secure screw-top Esterbrook that was quite nibless. At first, I was pretty pleased with myself- not only did I have what was supposed to be the finest writing refill on the planet (according to the clerk and MB), I managed to make it happen in a much classier pen than any modern MB could aspire to be.

In the end, the rollerball fared much worse than the medium-quality Parker Gel refills did. I don't know how often they run out- I never managed to get past 3 days before it dried out. The first one lasted two days, and in the second one I borrowed a friend's Starwalker Fineliner and had it go three days. To round out the experience, the refills suffered from chronic skipping that wasn't helped by all of the random suggestions I got.

I'd read a bunch about "counterfeit" refills, and in the interest of science got a MB rep's phone number from the pen shop- they sent out a new pack of 2 refills for a small fee, which is pretty lame but understandable. With these, I managed only 3 days again, with each refill being split into being used in the Estie and the MB to see if there was a difference.

In the end, MB makes a lot of over-priced plastic doo-hickeys. I'm sure it's a good way to buy some cred around the country club, but as far as writing utensils go they're pretty third tier. I didn't expect much from a rollerball refill in general, but for refills that cost $5 each I expected something quite a bit better than the Parker or generics I usually use. In fact, I got worse.

For the $12.50 I spent on the original refills and the S/H fee I paid later, I could've just bought a bottle of Noodler's Ink, or better yet, bought one of those fountain pen ink refillable rollerball pens and skipped over re-learning the lesson that "Mont Blanc is nothing but jewelry for dandies, not serious pens for people who write." Live and learn!

I am glad I bothered to read the reviews .I agree with the assertion that MB just makes cheap refills.I went trough a set of two refills in less than a year.Mind you,I only use it to write checks and for the last six months I've been struggling to issue checks until the irritation just got to me."So now what" I say ? Live with that ! I can't really say I will throw the beautiful pen away.besides,writing checks is going the way of casettes,so how many refills will I need ?

Well, it's a good product but it doesn't last long. None of them do, so....

Don't waste money on generic refills for your Mont Blanc unless you don't mind having to change them all the time. These refills are the way to go.

I bought these after reading about how to convert these into the Pilot Gel G2 pens, and sure enough, they work perfect! I'm not the proud owner of two Pilot Gel G2's, that write just like the real Mont Blanc pens. An excellent way to combine the best ink refills with an already excellent pen. If you are unsure of how to do this, all you need is any sharp knife (I used a collapsable boxcutter I own, about $10 at Sears), cut off part of the end, and it fits in perfect (google search 'Mont Blanc gel G2' for a guide, anyone can easily do this.

Ok... for thos of you looking for a review of a pen refill. These ARE pen refills. They have ink in them. They write very nicely... until they run out of ink. Then they don't work any more. :) I do continue to buy them.
They arrived quickly, new in the original packaging at a great price. I will buy them here again.

I bought a Montblanc pen not because it was practical but because I thought it said something about me. Yes, the refills run out quickly, but that has always been the case with the Montblanc rollerballs pen. You could buy a lifetime supply of Bics for one Montblanc. We got what we paid for: they write incredibly smoothly, so live with it. The mediums last much longer than the fine points, BTW.

If you read a lot of reviews you see that the big complaint is the pens dry out fast. The refill I was replacing lasted a year after the date printed on the cartridge. The replacement cartridge's date is for over two years in the future. This leads me to believe it will not dry out until about 3 years from now if I don't use it up in the meantime. Three years on a refill is more than satisfactory performance in my book.