Montegrappa Marconi Model 150 Limited Edition Rollerball

An intriguing new chapter from Montegrappa's science-minded Avanguardia series is preparing to leave the laboratory. Montegrappa's new Limited Edition pays tribute to an Italian icon and titan of technological achievement. As the inventor of wireless telegraphy, Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937) was a a Nobel Prize-winner whose curiosity and ingenuity led to one of history’s most consequential discoveries. Today’s connected world is built on Marconi’s groundwork, while the wealth and celebrity he enjoyed during his lifetime make him a notable precursor to today’s Silicon Valley overlords.

To commemorate 150 years since the inventor’s birth, the Montegrappa Marconi Model 150 is a period piece that elaborates Marconi’s work. Material, design and engineering details return to the aesthetics of a pioneering age in editions of 150 fountain pens and rollerballs. The design uses high-tech modular componentry, interactivity and imaginative accessories to let owners share a profound sense of invention.

Brass is used as a principal material for the body, grip section and for framing modular segments made from palisander rosewood, braided wire and polycarbonate. All brass elements are precision-milled on CNC-machines, and use rose-gold electroplating to mimic copper ferrules, winders and other details. A steel-wire pocket clip also uses a copper effect to simulate a vintage transmitter.

Mechanical complications provide additional highlights via a domed resin cap top with telegraph key haptics and a polycarbonate, particle-filled barrel segment – a reference to the coherer wave-detection device that was pivotal to Marconi’s discovery.

Custom packaging is perfectly matched to the edition’s theme, providing owners with a wooden work cabinet finished with steel plaques, mirrors and an acrylic lid. The design’s spring-loaded cap top allows it to be suspended between two Montegrappite nodes. Alternately, owners can dismantle the pen and use the bureau’s compartments to clean, charge and arrange the various components.

Italy's first pen producer, Montegrappa, began manufacturing pens in 1912 in its factory in Bassano del Grappa in Italy. Utilizing natural celluloid and precious metals,Montegrappa combines traditional methods such as die-casting with more recent innovations as low-relief engraving to form their precious art objects. Whether Montegrappa use colors reminiscent of the master painters or ornamentation suggestive of Baroque palaces, the Italian heritage and romance is infused into each product.