Montegrappa Marconi Model 150 Limited Edition Rollerball

Are you ready?” These were the words that Guglielmo Marconi chose to send the first wireless transmission across open sea. The world wasn’t yet ready, but history was. At the tender age of 23, Marconi was already destined for greatness. On the writing instrument made in his honour, period materials and modern ingenuity celebrate an inventive mind that laid the foundations for today’s connected world.  An intriguing new chapter from our science-minded Avanguardia series is preparing to leave our laboratory. Our 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, 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. Our 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.

Fountain pens use a concealed Power-Push mechanism, and carry an 8mm, 18K rose-gold nib (EF, F, M, B, Stub 1.1) with ebonite feed. On the nib, custom engraving reproduces wave forms on a copper-coloured ground, and pens are supplied with a custom-engraved bottle of black ink.

Custom packaging is perfectly married 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.