I was watching one of those life hacks videos and they suggested something which seemed bizarre to me.
They said that ink refill cartridges for pens are often the same size and you can substitute a cartridge designed for one pen in another pen. When they were setting up the hack, they were showing Pilot G2 and Montblanc pens. My initial thought was that they were going to put a G2 cartridge into a Montblanc pen and I was thinking this wasn’t a very bright idea - you’d have to buy the initial Montblanc pen for a couple of hundred dollars.
But they did it the opposite way. They said that while Montblanc pens cost a couple of hundred dollars, you can buy the refill cartridges for only around ten or fifteen dollars (which is around three or four times what G2 refill cartridges cost). And then you can put one of the Montblanc refills into a G2 pen.
My reaction was this was even dumber then what I had originally thought they were doing. If you put G2 refills into a Montblanc pen you might at least impress the kind of people who’d be impressed by an over-priced pen. That’s a minimal advantage considering the cost you’d put into it. But the hack they actually suggested doesn’t even have that - people are going to think you’re using a regular G2 pen and never know you’re using expensive Montblanc refills.
But am I missing something here? I’ve never used a Montblanc pen. Is there any objective improvement in the quality that would justify paying more for Montblanc ink cartridges even if nobody knew you were using them?
When you say ‘cartridge’, are you talking about a disposable cartridge? Or a refillable cartridge known as a converter? If the latter, it makes no sense to use a Montblanc one because Pilot has their own. If the former, then I’d say to ditch them and get a piston converter.
What really matters most in a pen is how it writes and whether it writes at all. With this hack using the refills you get writing completely identical to an expensive pen but for much less money.
Here is another nice pen mod. For about $15 you wind up with a very nice all-stainless steel pen and a Fisher Space Pen refill that writes really well. I keep one in my car because it always works even in cold weather.
This. And I know Pilot has their own refills. G2’s were my favorite pens when I was working and I’d buy refills (although you could often find G2 pens on sale for a lower price then the refills).
I guess that’s the fundamental question then. Does Montblanc ink write noticeably better than Pilot ink? Enough to justify a significantly higher price?
Not the purple ones. I have to mail-order the occasional batch of pens and larger quantities of refills to keep my pennage costs down.
I have yet to find a ballpoint or rollerball that writes significantly better than a good commodity pen - like, G2s. Cross, MB, the other “premium” makes… all have the same problem of getting ratchety if they stand for more than a day or so. After a while the degradation is permanent.
When I really want a smooth pen, I load up my Sheaffer fountain pen with blue-black and slither away. But purple G2s - every day, all day. 
