Safety pens are so-called because they have a retractable nib when the nib is telescoped into the barrel and the cap screwed down, the pen is sealed against leakage. The company's first pen was the Rouge et Noir safety pen. GMBH in 1907, at the same time it moved from Berlin to Hamburg. Montblanc got its start when three German partners created the Simplizissiumus-Füllhalter pen company in 1906, which changed its name to Simplo Filler Pen Co. In the beginning, they were generally just simple tubes (usually made of vulcanized rubber) which could be filled with an eyedropper by the turn of the century, however, the development of filling systems using pistons or inflatable rubber bladders had begun. But understanding why you're preferring to start with an expensive one could be helpful.There were precursors to the modern fountain pen that had certain elements of what we know as the fountain pen today, but it wasn't until the late 1880s that recognizably modern fountain pens began to appear. You don't have to start with a cheap pen, though there are some inexpensive ones that are actually very good. Or lead to a way to reframe your question to the community here, to get you more useful information at least. So I guess the question I'd pose is what do you want to get out of jumping in head-first? That answer might guide you. And there can be prestige in being knowledgeable, and in having pens that suit you perfectly, or having custom commissioned pens, like some of the urishi and maki-e ones, or other models often referred to as "grail pens." But that's more among all us pen nerds here, rather than in the wider world which might be able to recognize a Montblanc rather than possibly just peer at the oddity of a fountain pen at all. Use cases vary, even before every question of different brands' quality control levels. It's pretty subjective which pen suits an individual best. There's a collecting element too, of course, but not everyone can or wants to do that. Which is the process of discernment and discovery learning. So someone who shows up with a new pen day post, their second pen, and it's a photo of most of the commonly recommended starter pens, and six colors of ink and three different types of paper, that's overkill, but a head-first dive into what many, maybe even most of the folks here enjoy. I think a lot of the responses you're seeing here, which may not be what you were looking or hoping for, are coming because there's generally a different sense of what jumping in headfirst looks like in this hobby and community. You might find that you genuinely like something way cheaper. That’s why it’s bad to start big with pens. I have a $10 pen that I genuinely think feels better to write with than my $160 sailor. Some people might genuinely prefer how a cheaper pen writes to how a montblanc writes. Sure there might be some things where going big right from the start is ok, but it’s not like expensive pens are objectively better than cheaper pens. Everyone is making these suggestions because they don’t want OP to potentially make an expensive mistake. Sure, you can find your own way, but if dozens of people who are more experienced at something are telling you that you shouldn’t do something, then you probably should listen. I don’t care how good of a pen it is, it isn’t a smart decision. They can do whatever they want with their money, but it isn’t smart to buy a $400 pen as your first. They may think they know, but they don’t really. Because often times people don’t know what they want when they start out.