Montegrappa

Montegrappa was established in 1912 under the name Elmo, in Bassano del Grappa on the river Brenta in northeastern Italy, with the founding slogan "Manifattura pennini d'oro e penne stilografiche" — maker of gold nibs and fountain pens. True to that name, the company's earliest production was limited to gold nibs; hard-rubber eyedropper-filled fountain pens followed, and full fountain-pen manufacturing did not begin in earnest until the start of the 1920s. Production has stayed in the same Brenta-side factory since the company's founding.

Bassano became a center of military activity during the First World War, and among the soldiers who wrote with the company's pens were two future literary figures serving as volunteer ambulance drivers in the area: Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos. That wartime connection has become a fixed part of how Montegrappa tells its own history, tying the brand's earliest years to two of the twentieth century's best-known American writers.

The Elmo name was later retired in favor of Montegrappa, and the company has continued making fountain pens, rollerballs and limited editions from the original Bassano del Grappa site through to the present day. Its billing as "Italy's first pen factory" rests on that 1912 founding date and unbroken run of production in the same location, making it one of the oldest continuously operating pen manufacturers in Italy.