Sorry Mont Blanc, I will not be purchasing any product from you in the future
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That being said, I would never, ever, buy electronics from them. They simply aren't an electronics company. You wouldn't buy a fountain pen or leather bag from Sony and expect it to be a premium product would you?
In the fountain pen world Monte Blanc is like Rolex or Tag is to the watch world. One od the foundational brands of the genre.
Unlike Patek Phillipe which is for true sophisticates.
Irrespective of whether a company is expert or not in a particular domain, they can choose (independently) whether their policy is to engage in customer-unfriendly business practices.
I never thought that someone will consider that fountain pens and luxury leather goods add a great deal in his life.
So yes, to many people an expensive guitar is just a status symbol, to a true artist it's something that adds a great deal to their lives.
It's the same here, my wife and I aren't lawyers, doctors or politicians, these pens aren't status symbols. These pens are used for creative pursuits, to design, art. Many of them are vintage classic pens that have deep history, family value, etc.
Just because you value certain things in your life, doesn't mean that others don't value other things.
Tried a Lamy Safari, a "cheap" for fountain pens at least (23 euros), and I have never looked back. I love writing by hand now, and take every opportunity to do so. It's just so much more fun writing when your thoughs can just slide out from your hand on to paper.
Daily drivers are my Lamy Aion (a 80Euro pen)with my Safari as a backup.
Best option is a watch with a common battery type (e.g. CR2016) and accessible battery compartment.
AFAIK they don't need to be replaced on a comparable time frame if the watch regularly gets light.
At least with cars, you know when one is a sports car or expensive lol
1) The mechanisms. It's just cool. Many of us on HN are engineers — wristwatches and time-keeping more broadly is one of the most classic, widespread forms of engineering. It's a form of engineering that has been around for a millennia, and it's fun to have something on your wrist, full of tiny gears with a satisfying subtle noise when held up to your ear, that can keep time to around 1-2 seconds a day with the 86,400 seconds in each day.
2) The history. There's so much to find that's unique. One of my favorite watches is the Doxa Sub300 in orange, it was the favorite of Jacques Cousteau who inspired so many of us with regards to diving (invented Scuba) and the ocean in general through his documentaries. Many of these brands have so much interesting history down to each model along with admirable craftsmanship. Some people like models that look like out-of-normality for a brand, like "oh wow can you believe Rolex did THAT?", e.g. a pulsation dial for a doctor to measure someone's heart-rate, while some like the classic model that exemplifies everything about the brand.
3) The accessory. As men, we don't typically have the amount of jewelry that women do, or the ability to wear the same wide range of dress. Watches are that thing where we can show off some aspect of our personality, of who we are or who we want to be, whether that's classy and subtle, fun and unusual, or even ostentatious.
4) The bonding. This is a smaller thing, but when you're into watches, and you meet someone else out in the wild who is as well, you have the best conversations. It's this thing you mutually geek out over, and it's incredibly pure. It's a great feeling, it's like finding someone who roots for the same sports team as you in some random city abroad.
Why expensive? In points 1 and 2, the expensive watches are the ones with the best mechanisms and the best history. In point 4, the expensive watch is the one that signals that you really care about watches, because it epitomizes 1 and 2. :)
Any Joe Average knows a Ferrari when he sees it, but he's not going to look twice if the guy standing next to him in the Starbucks queue is wearing a Lange & Söhne wristwatch.
But I would.
They're "status symbols" in as much as if someone turns up to a meeting with x pen or y watch, I recognize the value of those things, I think maybe they are successful. Maybe they're also counterfeit, stolen, or what they have to say has no merit, but they do like toys and can't think of anything better to spend their money on. Either way, it's a prop, just like someone's nice suit is a prop, just like their luxury car is a prop.
Can someone see through the bullshit? Of course. But in some circles, bullshit is all there is and the props are a crutch for having nothing of value to say or contribute, i.e., they can't possibly be wrong, or worse yet, ineffective, after all they turned up in the German car with a nice suit and nice pen.
Spoiler: I love Casio watches, specifically the cheapo G-Shocks. I have an Omega and a Breitling, but the G-Shocks get all my loving. The brand isn't what counts for me, the design is everything.
Sapper designed a nice watch... FML.
The battery maker is under NDA, I'm sure Mont Blanc made sure you're not going to find something on AliExpress.
And, yeah, I hate to blame the victim here, but who buys high-tech electronics from a maker of...fountain pens? (And maker of fine fragrances, too. sigh)
So I can see how this is a way of making a moat for themselves, it's just also a terrible way of doing so.
So rich people can show off their wealth.
Then don't.
I have a battery that fits but the connector is different. It is too small for me to replace and the risk of destroying the connector in a such tiny flex pcb is very high.
After the shenanigans I have experienced with my 2017 MacBook Pro (screen connector failure not warrantied on the 15”, premature battery failure, and obvs the butterfly keyboard) I’ve resolved to never buy another Apple laptop.
Assuming the 16” Framework stacks up, that’s where my money will go - I like (very much) all that they’re trying to do.
https://ultimatefieldwatch.com/
You won't impress anyone except other fans, but they are simple, comfortable, durable time pieces. Not 'smart', just hours, mins, sec.
you'd get a 200+ dollar writing experience for about 8 dollars. https://unsharpen.com/pilot-g2-montblanc-hack-200-pen-for-7/
You could also do this with a fountain pen buy buying a gold Diplomat 149 replacement nib and put on a Jinhao 159 Mont Blanc "homage pen" (pirate copy). and use mont blanc ink in that pen. Gold Nibs are not cheap but they are about 150-200 usd, but when a pen could easily be 1000-10000 usd in the extreme high end then that's a bargain https://www.instagram.com/p/ChJSq-Iv6HE/
Why would you do this? Because some people like to have good writing tools without paying an extra premium.
The Jinhao 159 is creaky junk and buying it supports the CCP. As with the ink, it's people kidding themselves that just because Mont Blanc charges x for y then that must make x somehow special and worth having in 2023. For the same price point, you can do much better, and probably even go Japanese-made, and not support the CCP.
It's a century later, with modern manufacturing techniques, don't you think someone can do better than a Meisterstuck or Meisterstuck clone?