Some companies are led by a brilliant product, others by a brilliant leader – Kaweco has both. We were recently honoured to welcome the infamous, charismatic and vivacious owner of German pen maker Kaweco, Michael Gutbertlet, for a Q&A covering topics including the passion of pen collecting, the future of German pen making, and more importantly, how he created and grew, more than a pen brand, a global lifestyle design cult object.
Stocking Kaweco since 2012, Choosing Keeping has been an early supporter, recognising the brand’s unique point of view. Choosing Keeping is now the UK’s #1 selling brick-and-mortar shop for the brand. Over the years of working day in and day out with Kaweco pens, we have developed a fond and deep respect for the people behind the company, sharing with them the rewards and challenges of small business ownership. This was a rare opportunity for our customers to be a fly on the wall for an exchange between the owners of two innovating small companies – retailer and supplier, Choosing Keeping and Kaweco.
Choosing Keeping: We have been working together for over 13 years, and from the very beginning, I knew Kaweco pens were a bit different. I could see the potential of a company that was driven by design and history – but mostly by really clever people behind the company who were passion driven.
One thing that seems to bind all pen companies throughout recent history is spectacular rises and falls. What is it about pens that caused this up-and-down trajectory in the twentieth century?
Michael Gutberlet: One thing is the ballpoint pen, which had a very big impact on fountain pen makers in the past. Many companies, like Kreuzer, disappeared when the ballpoint pen become famous. The biggest mistake, I think, was from the fountain pen makers who tried to make a fountain pen as cheap as the ballpoint. They lost the character of the pen.
We have two fronts at the moment where we are faced as fountain pen makers: The one front is digitalisation, which takes away handwriting. And the second one is the very cheap products from China, which undermine with very, very low prices any production costs in Europe or the US. This makes the up and down for the pen industry partly. Not everything can be controlled, so everybody has to find his own way, his own character to be accepted in the market.
CK: With Pelikan now belonging to a French group and Lamy having been sold to Mitsubishi, a Japanese company, what is the future for German pen making? Kaweco’s history is very much rooted in Germany. Are you patriotic about German industry?
MG: I would say it must be a mixed show always. Germany was always an export country. We are leading in many areas, and we send our products to many countries. So it’s only fair that other countries can supply products to us or help us develop something also. I see this in a balance. But on the other hand, there’s a reason why Pelikan and Lamy were sold. In the case of Lamy, it was not very clever, I have to say.
CK: Speaking of companies going bust, let’s go back to 1981, which is when Kaweco went out of business the third time and was the last touchpoint before you came along. Tell us, how did you come into the Kaweco story?
MG: The interesting point is that my father had Kaweco as a customer before. In the ’60s and ’70s, my father was working as an agent for pen parts, and Kaweco was one of the customers. But of course, he never had in mind that one day we would go to Kaweco. This, we never thought about.
At the same time when Kaweco went bankrupt, I found in a flea market an antique pen, a safety pen made in Italy between 1910 and 1920. It was gold overlaid in a nice box. I thought, ‘This is a nice gift for my father for his birthday.’ I bought it and gave it to him, and it was like an injection in our blood.
From this point on, we were collecting pens. It was easy for us because we knew all the industry. When a small factory was closed, we went there and took all the old stock, the parts, everything. We cleaned stores. Thousands of pens we collected and traded.
Our agency business was stable and running quite well – our customers were Lamy, Staedtler, Faber, Montblanc, Pelikan. But we thought we should do something on our own. So then we said, ‘Let’s take a look at the antique pens. What does not exist anymore? What can we make as a revival?’ We held a big meeting, and on a table we put, one by one, all the pens we collected. Then we looked at it all and said, ‘There’s no pocket fountain pen anymore. None of our customers, no one in the world makes a pocket fountain pen.’
So we decided to make a pocket fountain pen but had five different brands to choose from. Kaweco looked like the most successful pocket pen brand because we had different colours, different years from these pens on the table. We picked the Kaweco Sport, specifically one from 1934.
The interesting point was that we did not have the brand name Kaweco, just the idea to make a pocket pen and sell it. We didn’t even have a customer. We invested around €130,000 for the moulds, and then we had a product. We called them Trekking, Ranger and Yacht Sport as an idea for an outdoor pen for people who like cycling or camping so they could use their little pocket pens while out and about. But this was not successful. We could not find any customers.
CK: Is it a problem to design a product with no customer or market in mind?
MG: We had the money during that time, so we did it just because we wanted to. But the idea behind it was really that sports and the outdoors had become more popular in Germany.
CK: Were your colours similar to the original Lamy Safaris? The terracotta and green, which were about big-game safaris.
MG: We weren’t looking to Lamy’s direction. Ours was really a camping and outdoor pen, and we even developed a linen pocket for it. It came with a pocket knife, a lighter, a special marker and so on. I don’t know why the concept was not accepted. Luckily, a few months or a year later, we also got the Kaweco name – for free.
Before, it was registered with another company: Mutchler Reform had the name in Heidelberg. But they were in financial trouble and could not pay the registration fees anymore. On the same day that they went out, we went in.
Everything became a totally different picture at that point because with the Kaweco name, we could go to one of our business friends, Diplomat. My father and the owner of Diplomat, Mr. Michaelis, were friends. Mr. Michaelis told my father he would sell the product with co-branding, and he placed an order of 150,000 Kaweco sets. This was an enormous number of sets. The leather pouches were made in the Czech Republic during that time, so we did only the assembling and he was selling.
It was quite good because Diplomat during that time had a worldwide distribution, including also good shops like Manufactum, a little shop chain with good old things from the past that last a long time. With this customer base, it was very successful the first two years.
But then we were unlucky: Two years later during the Frankfurt fair Diplomat’s owner, Mr. Michaelis, passed away. He didn’t wake up one morning, and we lost our distribution again overnight.
So it's like a rollercoaster.
CK: Frankfurt has historically been important to the pen world. Can you explain what it means to the pen industry and specifically to Kaweco?
MG: When we started exhibiting at Frankfurt in 1980, there was a trade fair known as the Frankfurt International Spring Show. It was the best show for musical instruments, small furniture, writing instruments and stationery – a worldwide leading show. During the 1980s, there was a waiting list of four or five hundred companies that wanted to exhibit in Frankfurt but could not get a booth. Today it’s completely different, because you come and get the booth immediately.
During that time, Montblanc and everyone with a good name was at this show. It was the biggest pen show. Later on it became Paperworld.
CK: At the time, then, there was a more traditional network for manufacturers to put their product out into the market. Today things are different. How do you decide as the maker where you want to see your products? Because I think Kaweco have an interesting trajectory. Where do you want to see your products sold?
MG: We always see the market, how it changed. The real simple stationery or pen shop nearly does not exist anymore. In Nuremberg, for example, we have no pen shop, not even a shop like yours anymore. We have two or three department stores and drugstores that carry cheap plastic pens, but we don't have a good specialised shop over there.
For that reason, we always think about where we can get attention from. This year we tried exhibiting in the toy show. It was not a success because we didn’t have a very good place.
CK: Do you have any views on the future of retail? How does a shop like Choosing Keeping fit into this landscape of retailers if you also consider online retail?
MG: From my thinking, a mixture is the only way to stay alive. In Nuremberg, we sell our pens in a men’s clothing shop. When people buy a jacket for €500, they say, ‘The brass Sport is matching. Why don’t you buy it, too?’
I think the mixture is the only way that it works. Today, what you expect when you go shopping – not online shopping – is a feeling. When you come here, you can touch the paper, you can smell the paper, you can test the pens. You can buy little things and there’s no extra charge, no shipping costs. You can speak with people. If something happened, you can bring the item back and say there was some mistake on it. And I think this experience we should really hold on to. We should protect these kinds of stores and help them. This is also why we do the Do-It-Yourself, the special colour for brick-and-mortar stores: to bring people back into the stores.
CK: How do you shop on a personal level? What are your preferences and habits? What kind of shopper are you, and how does that relate to your professional experience?
MG: I have to say, I’m a block shopper. I go somewhere and buy five shirts, three pairs of shoes. My shirts I buy from England online. And for the last 15 years, I buy always five or ten shirts, and then I have enough for some years still.
CK: So you’re a loyal shopper.
MG: Yes, a very loyal shopper.
CK: And if you had to buy a very expensive item, such as a pen, where would you buy it?
MG: Not online. I would go to a real shop, or I would phone the factory owner.
CK: Back to Kaweco, it seems to stand out from other pen brands in its approach. Can you tell us, what are the singular attributes of Kaweco? What makes Kaweco different?
MG: In the beginning, we were helped by a retailer that visited us at Paperworld. When they asked about our new products, we showed some new design and then they said, ‘No, this is not Kaweco. We want the old stuff. This is what Kaweco was, and this we want in future as well.’
The special thing that we did was combine the modern production techniques of CNC with raw materials – brass, stainless steel and raw aluminium. We combined the historical design, modern production techniques and this material. Montblanc cannot sell a raw brass fountain pen. This is impossible. People will complain that there’s a fingerprint or a scratch. But Kaweco can do it because the product is like leather. When you have leather and you use it, you get scratches. In the end, it’s yours. It’s your style. This is what we wanted with our pens as well.
CK: What inspired that idea? You’ve said two things: You said on one hand, your retail customer wanted the old stuff, but the old stuff wasn’t made of metal. What brought you the idea to change the product in this way?
MG: I’ve been in the industry so long – I was also trained in the workshop of a metal and pen company. And I always had ideas. When I brought my ideas to Lamy or to Pelikan or Faber-Castell, they always said it wasn’t for them. ‘We cannot buy this’, or ‘We cannot use this idea.’
So these old ideas were in my head. Believe it or not, stonewashed aluminium came about because of a Lamy pen I forgot in my clothing and my wife put through the washer. It was a black Lamy, and it came out like stonewashed. So I went to the factory that makes the aluminium parts for us and asked them to make a black aluminium pen and then wash it so that it gets the corners washed off and looks like jeans. The idea was there, but then I had to push the people to follow it.
It was the same with the raw aluminium. One day I was in the factory that makes the aluminium parts, and they said, ‘Michael, we must raise the prices for your aluminium pens. We have so many with little mistakes on them, and we cannot sell them to you.’ It was one pallet of parts. I said, ‘But it looks nice.’ ‘No, no’, they said. I asked them to polish it by hand and then show me. The next day they brought me the parts with a high-gloss polish, like an aeroplane. I said, ‘Wonderful, I can sell this.’ They were shocked that I would sell the rubbish that they threw away.
Aeroplanes in the old days were raw aluminium. Why should we not sell a pen like that? Of course, the dimensions were not perfect anymore like when it’s anodised, because you polish the corners and they’re a little bit round. But it was a perfect feeling when you touch the raw aluminium and Sebastian, my son, found a nice advertisement: ‘Don’t buy it if you do not like scratches.’ It was a perfect match, and people liked it.
CK: It went with the general zeitgeist of people wanting things to be personal, to have the mark of history. You see that also in people’s appreciation for leather notebooks – they want to see the age component that’s really personal to their experience with that object. That's very different to, like you said, a fancy Montblanc you keep on your desk that is very precious, only for signing important letters. Suddenly, when it bears the mark of time the pen is much more for every day, and that’s really inspiring.
MG: I was also collecting limited edition Montblancs for some time. Once a year or every two years, I visit Montblanc’s development department to show our new ideas, new mechanisms. When I was there, I took out my leather case with the Agatha Christie set inside, the limited edition with the red stones and the snake clip. I had three together in the leather case, and I put it on the table, scratched and used. The development director was shocked. ‘You write with this pen?’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s what it was made for.’ But he couldn't believe that I write with €4,000 just like a normal pen. I like writing with that pen. I was using it, that’s it, and I don't want to put it in a safe.
CK: I’m a small business owner, and in a way you’re not really a small business owner, but you are an independent owner and have gone through different phases with Kaweco. What kind of advice could you give to somebody who was starting their own pen company or their own business?
MG: You must always trust in yourself, even if it doesn’t matter how long it takes. This is the most important point: don’t lose your way. You can rest a while if something goes wrong. Wait a little bit, but later on, start again and push it forward. And when you want to start a new pen company, come to me and ask for the components. We can help.
CK: Do you have anecdotes specifically about moments in the Kaweco journey where you thought, ‘Note to self, this is a lesson of what to do or not do’?
MG: A Swiss retailer said to me, ‘Michael, when you are here in 10 years again, still alive, then we will buy Kaweco from you.’ If everybody said the same to me, I would not exist anymore. This showed me I have to be strong.
I have many stories about things that drive me crazy. Retailers sometimes say they want a certain display, a certain decoration, and then we do everything they ask for but nobody wants to buy it. So you should follow your own direction – mostly.
CK: In the similar area of advice, your children work with you. Not to bring up Lamy, but Lamy was a family company that wasn’t able to pass the company on to the next generation. In my own profession, I work with a lot of family-owned companies. And I think it’s a really important component to seeing companies go forward into the future, that there are children willing to work in them.
You’re such a strong leader, which makes you a tough act to follow. How can each generation be successful within a company that is passed down?
MG: When I look back on the work with my father, it was totally different than with my children today. With my father, I had a blind understanding. It was not necessary to exchange any words with him. We had totally the same thinking. Sometimes I was really afraid of what this is, how this happened.
With my kids, it's a little bit different because I never pressured them to come to the company. In the beginning, they had no interest. And I accepted it. But later on with Kaweco and our cosmetic production, then they showed some interest, and step by step they came and enjoyed it as well.
But how they lead and how they enjoy the company is different. I came from very little, from a background of making every part, from knowing pens in this industry, and they came to a ready-made house. They are not interested in collecting antique pens. They are happy to show the museum, but they do not like the collecting. They like the marketing. They like the service. They like the people, the sales, the social contacts. This is what they love.
Of course, we got offers for the company. We had Chinese and Italian companies who wanted to buy Kaweco. Then I asked my kids, ‘Do you like the money or you like Kaweco?’ And they said immediately, ‘We love Kaweco. Why we should give away what we love?’ So it was a clear decision. I feel very warm around my heart that they love the business. It’s in a different way than I do, but they love it.
CK: Are they workaholics now?
MG: No, not like me.
CK: Do you think that’s a requirement for starting a company?
MG: Yes, unless you have a software or a great idea that is patented and everybody needs. It’s always hard work in the beginning.
CK: And now a few questions from the audience: what colour ink do you like to use in your pen?
MG: Brown is my favourite, I have to say. But sometimes it dries too fast. When I sketch I use blue, standard blue.
CK: If you could only keep one pen in your collection and the rest are going, what would you keep?
MG: This is very difficult. I have some pens with a lot of memories attached. For example, with Visconti. I had a deep friendship with the old owner, so I have some pens from him.
So it’s really very difficult to keep only one pen. But if it is really that I can only take one pen on an island, it will be a Kaweco Sport.
CK: Which one?
MG: A sterling silver Sport I engraved myself. This is also how I get ideas. I take pens that are broken or have scratches, and then I go into my basement and do experiments.
This is how the fire blue was done, with a crème brûlée torch in my basement. The first five hundred fire blue Liliputs I did in my basement, and then my daughter did it at home in her basement. But one day she came and said, ‘There was nearly a fire in my basement.’ So I don’t do it anymore.
But I still go into my basement and use some tooling or chemicals and make experiments to try to change the colours. Then I go to my design team and tell them we need something like this experiment.
