The company that became Montegrappa was founded by Austrians in 1912 in the northern Italy town of Bassano del Grappa. Its first pen was the Elmo, which was based on the design of the Waterman safety pen. The company had its first brush with fame during World War I, when Ernest Hemingway used one of the company’s pens while working as a volunteer ambulance driver for the Red Cross. John Dos Passos, who was also in Italy at the time, may have...Continue Reading