Cigar Aficionado

The tip of the pen glides buttery smooth across the page. Your eyes widen at the effortless movement of your hand. The ink flow is perfect—precise and consistent. You write faster, the words pouring out from you now. You’re holding the new Montblanc StarWalker Blue Planet, an instrument designed to elevate, and inspire, your writing experience.

It also represents a return to Montblanc pens’ space travel theme. The first StarWalker pens, released in 2003, challenged us to look deep into the cosmos. The Blue Planet collection shifts the perspective towards the planet Earth.

“We wanted to look inward [with the new StarWalker collection], because we have something so beautiful to preserve [here on Earth],” says Montblanc creative director Zaim Kamal.

The pens’ blue motif references Earth’s abundance of life-giving water. The shape of the polished, platinum-coated cap represents a rocket ship. At the cap’s finial, a translucent blue dome beneath the white Montblanc emblem creates an image of the Earth rising over the moon’s horizon.

Of the three versions, an all-blue precious resin edition has platinum-coated fittings. The Doué edition has a blue precious resin barrel and platinum-coated metal cap and forepart. An all-metal version is made with a translucent blue lacquer barrel over a guilloche water molecule pattern and a platinum-coated cap. Depending on the material and the format (ballpoint, fineliner or fountain pen) they are priced from $355 to $1,045.

Among the matching accessories is a 50-ml bottle of ocean blue ink. Previously, all StarWalker fountain pens accepted only cartridges of ink. But next year, Montblanc plans to launch the first-ever StarWalker piston converter. It will allow all StarWalker fountain pens to access the many Montblanc inks available for its other fountain pens. Now that’s astronomical news.

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