They certainly are a great pen, I just gave mine away to a friend who really loved the look and way it wrote but could not afford one, she loves using it.
As a collector I have to say that there are better made pens out ther for the money but that does not matter, there is something special about Mont Blanc, that is why a 149 is on the way for me
If you want to go a bit left field and get a truly hand made pen though then look to the land of the rising sun!
There is a company in Japan that makes the most exquisit fountain pens, Nakaya.
It takes on average three months to make one of the Urushi pens, they are made of the old fountain pen material, Ebonite (a hard rubber) this is the material that was widely used at the birth of the fountain pen.
The barrels and cap are hand turned by one man on a lathe, the barrels are then sent to be hand lacquerd (The Urushi part) this can take three months or longer to complete, you can go from the very simple clean look like I have to hand painted designes to your specifications, some have fragments of abalone shell pressed into the finish to give the appearence of a starry night!
Each on has it's gold nib hand tuned to your writing style (the order form comes with a very detailed questionare on how you write and use your pens, from this they tune the nib to write specifically for you)
All of this comes at a starting point of $335 for the basic black, though I would highly recommend going for one of the Tamenuri finishes like I have that start at $460. This finish is spectacular and my photos do it not justice at all! In my example the first coat is red, this is then followed by many more coats of black (this lacquer is a natural resin from a tree) over a period of time the black becomes sligthy translucent so as to show the red underneath, it is like looking into a still pool, it really is stunning, the depth and the shine is something to behold. Oh yes, this pen is hands down the best writer I own as well!
Here is a link to their site
http://www.nakaya.org/eindex.html
Here are a couple of picture of my example, this is the Portable writer and is about the same size as a 149.
the pen and the exqusite hand made wooden box it comes in:
The nib in comparison to my MB and waterman:
My old trio (only the Nakaya now remains, I now have two vintage parkers, a vacumatic from 1945 and a duofold from 1928 as well as a conway stewart from 1955, a 149 will soon be joining this stable
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