I think I found a one-of-a-kind...

I know not all of us are pen fanatics, but let me tell you a little story.

Montblanc has a line of pens called the “Writer Series Limited Edition” where they pay homage to a famous author every year. In 1996, that honor was bestowed upon Alexander Dumas, the famous author of many classics including The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers. All of the writer series pens bear the author’s signature on the cap, unbeknown to Montblanc at the time, they employed the wrong signature on the cap of their Alexander Dumas pen. Montblanc used the signature of the son who bared the same name (who was a less famous author and not the writer of the book The Three Musketeers nor The Count of Monte Cristo). The mistake was quickly spotted by Montblanc collectors soon after the release, and the pens that were shipped were immediately recalled. Today, a small unknown number of the Dumas-fil (son) pens still exist, but the vast majority of the delivered are of the Dumas-per (father), making the Dumas-fil pen highly collectible.

Photo credit: Pens limited

Photo credit: Pens Limited

Photo credit: Montblanc

Montblanc would encounter a similar mistake just a couple years later, with the debut of the Rouge Et Noir retractable fountain pen. The pen was almost immediately recalled upon launch and renamed as the “Boheme” pen supposedly due to a copyright infringement by using the name Rouge Et Noir. Today, the Rouge Et Noir and Noir Et Noir fountain pens are the rare birds that preceded the Boheme line of pens. And there are collectors who covet these original pens that preceeded the Boheme pens.