As I gaze around the highly secret nib manufacture department at Montblanc, I note that the black-and-white photos of craftsmen from the 1930s mirror the prideful expressions of those hovered over ...

To top it off, in all its luxurious grandeur, is an 18-karat gold nib engraved with the number “4180,” representing the height in meters of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Western Europe.