This story originally appeared on the Gents Cafe Newsletter. You can subscribe here.
Sometimes a single object is enough to ignite a lifelong passion and shape a career path. For Michael Gutberlet, that object was an ancient pen, found at a flea market and gifted to his father.
Fast forward a decade—and an ever-growing collection of pens—and the father and son duo committed to revive Kaweco, rediscovering the heritage of the brand and leading it towards the future, with a vision shaped by curiosity, and an authentic passion for handwriting.
In this Brand Talks interview, Michael, now the CEO of the company, invites us into his world where writing instruments are more than objects—they’re companions for ideas, memories, and the timeless joy of making things by hand.
Your own passion for collecting pens is often mentioned as the spark behind reviving Kaweco. Can you recall a specific pen that first made you curious about collecting and noticing the details that make each instrument unique?
It was a gift I bought for my father. Yesterday, I picked it up again from my showcase at the office: it’s an Italian safety pen with a gold overlay, an Ulman’s Eterno, still in its original box.
I found it at a flea market around 1980 or ’81. I needed a birthday gift for my father and thought, “This looks nice,” without really knowing what I was buying. When I gave it to him, we opened it together and were amazed—how was it made? When was it made? We had no idea, so we started researching. After a few weeks, we discovered it was a safety pen from around 1910, incredibly well-made.
That discovery was the spark—it was like an injection of passion. From that moment, we started collecting everywhere we went: flea markets in Paris, little pen shops in Italy—there was even one near the Duomo in Milan, called Borsa, that sold both antique and new pens. I bought everything I could find.
Because of our business connections to pen factories across Europe, I also started asking manufacturers if they had old stock, catalogues, or parts lying around. Many of them said, “Take it, otherwise we’ll throw it away.” So the collection grew and grew.
Your family has been active in the business of pen manufacturing for many years before you joined the trade. How did it all start?
It all started with my father, just after the Second World War. He began as an electrician in a wood pencil factory, and that was his first real contact with writing instruments. During his time there, he discovered not only the technical side of the work but also his natural talent for sales.
In 1960, he decided to start his own company making pen parts. His idea was quite visionary for that time. He looked at the car industry in Germany and saw that car manufacturers no longer produced everything themselves: they worked with specialized suppliers for parts. He thought, “One day, pen companies will do the same. They’ll need specialists for components.”
With that in mind, he founded three small companies: one that produced ballpoint refills and mechanisms, another that made plastic parts, and a third that manufactured metal tubes for ballpens.
With these factories behind him, he began visiting big names like Staedtler, Lamy, and Faber-Castell, as well as many smaller pen makers, and told them, “You don’t have to make everything yourselves anymore. You can get standard parts from us.” It was a completely new concept for the industry back then.
He started as an independent agent and freelancer, first covering southern Germany, then expanding his territory across the whole country and later into Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, Scandinavia, and even Eastern Europe. The business grew, and so did his team.
That was the world I grew up in. When my father went to trade shows like Paperworld in Frankfurt or the Hannover Messe, he always needed pen samples for display. He’d bring home the parts, and I had to assemble the pens, maybe even 100 or 200 at a time. I got ten Pfennig for each one, so I was very motivated!
Growing up around your family’s manufacturing business, what did you observe or learn about precision, materials, or craftsmanship that still influences Kaweco today?
I actually did training on the job after school, a three-year apprenticeship that’s quite common in Germany, where you learn either something commercial or a craft. I trained in a metal factory that my father also represented as an agent. It was a deep production facility at the time—they had injection molding, deep drawing for metal, cutting, polishing, a tool shop, and even a technical drawing department.
I went through every part of the process in detail. I worked on the machines for weeks, then moved to assembly, working alongside the women who did that every day, timing every movement. It was hard work, but it gave me a real feeling for how things are made.
That experience still shapes the way I make decisions today. I understand how production works, what’s possible, what’s not, and what’s worth preserving. Not everything done in the past is outdated. Sometimes you look back and think, how did they do that by hand? And often, the old ways were better. Of course, you can’t afford to do everything by hand today, but that craftsmanship stays with you.
Can you tell me more about the moment you decided to acquire the Kaweco brand—how you went from manufacturing parts to owning a historic pen company?
That story really starts in 1987. My father had just returned from a business trip to Japan and brought back a cosmetic pen, which was built like a fountain pen but had a brush nib. The quality and technology were incredible. We looked at it and thought, why doesn’t anyone in Europe make something like this? We had the know-how from fountain pens, so we decided to develop our own cosmetic pen production. That was the birth of our first big venture.
We designed a simple liquid eyeliner that worked like a fiber pen, and it took off like a rocket. We produced for brands like Bourjois and others in Germany and France. Everything we made sold immediately. By 1993, we had a solid business in pen parts and cosmetics. That’s when we thought, why don’t we make a complete pen under our own name?
We took all the antique pens from our personal collection—thousands of them—and laid them out on the meeting table. We studied every model, every detail, and asked ourselves, what’s missing in today’s market? And then we saw it: pocket fountain pens had completely disappeared. No one in the world was making them anymore.
So we decided to bring back the pocket fountain pen, and among all the old brands on the table—Knirps, Senator, Melbi—Kaweco stood out. The Sport line had been successful from the 1920s all the way to the 1980s: sixty years of continuous success were a good sign.
We decided to revive that design, especially the look from the 1930s. The only change we made was to use cartridges instead of the traditional piston filler, because it was simpler and cheaper to produce.
At first, we didn’t even own the Kaweco name. We launched the pens under the name Ranger and Trekking. About a year later, we managed to acquire the Kaweco trademark, registered it worldwide, and officially relaunched the brand. We chose to use the name not for commercial reasons, but because of its heritage. During our years of collecting, we had gathered old catalogs, advertisements, salesman cases: that became our DNA. Whenever our designers work on something new, they can draw from that history.
At first, we didn’t realize how powerful that would be. When we showed Kaweco at Paperworld in Frankfurt, some retailers told us, “We love the Sport, but we need higher-value products too.” So, we developed a new modern pen called Kaweco Dia, in collaboration with Pelikan. But when we presented it, everyone said, “No, this isn’t Kaweco.”
They wanted the old Kaweco—the classic shapes, the heritage. So we scrapped the line and went back to the archives. That was the turning point: we started reinterpreting old designs with new materials no one else was using at the time. That gave Kaweco its modern identity: timeless design rooted in history, but built with today’s precision.
Leading a brand that dates back to 1883 must come with both pride and responsibility. How does it feel to be the custodian of such a legacy, and how do you balance honoring its past with shaping its future?
Sometimes it’s challenging: not all customers distinguish between the Kaweco of the past and the Kaweco of today, and some of them don’t accept that we are unfortunately unable to repair older pens—even though we take service very seriously, and do all we can to help them out.
On the other hand, I also get many beautiful messages. People write things like, “I have my grandfather’s Kaweco and it still writes perfectly. Can you tell me when it was made?”. We answer every single message personally. For me, that’s proof that what we’re doing today is truly connected to Kaweco’s history: it feels like one continuous story, one family stretching across 140 years. And that makes me proud.
I’m also happy that my son and daughter are both involved in the company. We’ve had offers from large companies wanting to buy Kaweco, but I asked my kids, “Do you want to sell?” And they said, “No. We enjoy it too much.”
They see the business differently than I do—they come more from the marketing and strategic side, while I grew up with the technical and collecting side—but that’s fine. The important thing is that they love it. They believe in the brand, not just as a business, but as something meaningful. For me, that’s the best feeling of all. Knowing that Kaweco will stay in the family, and that they’ll continue to make products that make people happy: that’s the real legacy.
Kaweco often speaks to deceleration and design with purpose. In your own routine, what’s a small ritual that steadies your decision-making?
I always carry two fountain pens with me, usually from the Sport line, because I’m constantly testing them. Every note I make, every quick sketch or idea, I do it with a fountain pen or a mechanical pencil.
On my desk, and even next to my bed, there’s always a notebook and a pencil. When an idea comes to me, I write it down immediately so I don’t forget. Putting thoughts on paper does something special. It’s not just about remembering; it helps anchor the idea. When you write something by hand, you remember it better. That’s a daily practice for me. Writing and sketching by hand keep me connected to my ideas in a way that typing never could.
And when I have a new idea, I make a quick sketch of the pen or a specific part. Sometimes it’s very accurate, and from that, I hand it to my technician, who makes the technical drawing. That’s often how a new Kaweco pen begins. I’m still very involved in the design process. I’m always asking, “Why did we do it this way? Could it be better another way?” That exploration is one of the things I love most.
What’s the most fulfilling part of your work today?
About ten or twelve years ago, a journalist asked me if I was living my dream job, and what I would do if I could start over. I realized, in that moment, that I always wanted to be a designer. I never studied design, never had the chance. But today, I have the freedom to create and design my own products, and that, for me, is the fulfillment of that long-held wish.
Today, I have the freedom to create and design my own products, and that, for me, is the fulfillment of that long-held wish.
If you had to tell the story of Kaweco through three of its most iconic products, which ones would you choose—and what do they reveal about the brand’s evolution through the decades?
The first one would, without question, be the Sport. It’s the heart of the brand. From everything we learned in the old catalogs and papers, it was always treated as a special product range, something distinct and full of character.
The first Sport appeared in a Kaweco catalog around 1910. It was a small fountain pen, not yet faceted like today’s version, and the advertisement described it as a “pocket pen for officers, military personnel, ladies, and sportsmen.” Basically, for people who were always on the move and needed something compact. Even then, the idea of practicality and mobility was built into its DNA. Seeing how the Sport evolved through generations of design is like watching the whole story of Kaweco unfold.
The second product I’d choose is the Special, which has its roots in the mechanical and twist pencils of the early days. These were designed as office instruments—sleek, reliable, and made in different lengths, with various lead sizes and cone shapes. I have some old balance sheets from Kaweco, and they show something quite interesting: back then, fountain pens were always number one in sales, and pencils were number two. Ballpoints didn’t exist yet.
The third product would be the Dia2. It may not be our most commercially successful model today, but it holds a very special place in our history. During the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, the Dia was one of Kaweco’s signature designs—an elegant, standard-sized fountain pen that represented the brand’s craftsmanship and refinement at the time. Even today it remains an important part of Kaweco’s evolution. It shows how the brand moved from purely functional, work-oriented tools to something more refined, an everyday luxury with character.
There’s a certain calm in drawing ink from a bottle—a small ritual that makes writing feel more intentional. Do you think the return of interest in piston fillers reflects a broader cultural desire to slow down and reconnect with tangible experiences?
Absolutely. I think when the world becomes faster and faster, many people naturally start looking for ways to slow down a little. Writing with a fountain pen, and especially with a piston filler, is one of those things.
It’s a small ritual that demands attention and care. You can’t just rush it, otherwise you’ll end up with ink everywhere. It forces you to be present. And there’s also something deeply personal about it, because when you use bottled ink, you can choose from over a thousand shades—inks with different tones, even metallic effects. You don’t get that kind of variety with cartridges. It’s a way of expressing your individuality, one color at a time.
The interest in this slower, more deliberate experience is growing not just among older collectors, but also among the younger generation. We get so many letters from people who write, “I’ve never owned a fountain pen before, and now I can’t believe I waited this long—it’s so much fun.” And they’re often very young, which is beautiful to see.
Some even send us handwritten letters, pages of drawings and notes made with their Kaweco pens. We keep the most special ones here in the office. You can feel the time and emotion behind them. I’m sure some of those letters take two or three hours to make. They’re personal, tangible, human.
For me, that’s what makes the fountain pen so special in our digital world. You have to slow down. You pay attention to how the nib touches the paper, how little pressure you actually need. You feel the ink flow. Your handwriting becomes smoother, more elegant, in a word: more you.
When the world becomes faster and faster, many people naturally start looking for ways to slow down a little. Writing with a fountain pen, and especially with a piston filler, is one of those things.
The Kaweco DIY Sport invites people to step into your world—assembling their own pen just like in your Nuremberg workshop. How did this initiative come to life, what was its original purpose, and what have you learned from seeing people build their own Kaweco?
The idea actually goes back to my father. When he designed products, he always tried to make the construction as simple and clever as possible. His philosophy was that a single part should work across multiple models. “One part for ten pens,” he used to say.
The Kaweco Sport was built around this logic. In the end, you have just a few main elements—the nib and feed in one unit, a front section, barrel, cap, logo cap, and the airtight ring. My father worked with our technicians to design it so that every piece could be pressed together precisely, without any adhesive. When we saw how smoothly it worked, it became part of our DNA.
In our workshop, we had several machines that our team used to assemble the pens by hand. One day, we decided to take two of these machines to a pen show and demonstrate the process live. We showed people how each Kaweco Sport is actually put together.
That’s when the idea came: what if we let people build their own pens? Of course, the original machines were big and heavy, so we developed smaller, lighter ones that could be used at events or even in stores. Soon, our distributors and retail partners started using them, and the DIY Sport was born.
Watching people assemble their own pen is incredible. You can see their excitement when the final part clicks into place. They look at it and say, “That’s it? My pen is ready?” And suddenly, that pen has a whole new value to them, as it’s not just something they bought; it’s something they made.
In a world dominated by screens and instant communication, do you think people will keep coming back to handwriting? How does Kaweco nurture that experience?
Handwriting, especially writing with a fountain pen, has moved more and more into the background. When you look at daily life today, everything is digital. Even in advertising, it’s rare to see a fountain pen featured anymore. That worries me a bit, because if the big market leaders don’t keep handwriting visible and relevant, people simply forget it. But from our side, we can still work from the “ground up” and try to bring writing back into people’s awareness.
I think one of the most important things we can do is to encourage handwriting in schools again. In the first few grades, children should still learn to write with a fountain pen that makes them concentrate on every letter. My grandson, for example, is 11, and honestly, I can’t read his handwriting! It’s like a doctor’s handwriting already. And that’s a pity, because it shows how easily the skill disappears when we don’t train it early.
Still, I think handwriting will never disappear completely. People are rediscovering how satisfying it feels to slow down, to write by hand, to see ink flow across paper. Whether you buy a €10 pen or a €10,000 pen, the feeling is the same: it connects you to your thoughts in a way a screen never can.
Beyond Kaweco and the world of writing instruments, what passions inspire you—and how do they influence the way you lead and think about the brand?
I am a big Lego fan. I have something like 50’000 bricks, and I especially enjoy building houses—sometimes following instruction leaflets, sometimes on my own. It helps me train my brain.
Besides that, I like sports, and I’m a long time windsurfer. Although I no longer compete, I still love getting out on the water, and even picked up kitesurfing five years ago as a way to spend more time with my daughter.
