Travelogue: München - Trendspotting

At a recent trip to Munich I found myself with a couple of hours to spend outside of planned meetings- what better to do than to visit the local pen shops? Being slightly short of time I opted to revisit a few  shops in the very city centre more. There are at least 4 major shops within 10 minues walking distance from each other loosely between Odeonplatz and Marienplatz.  If you are short of time and want  to sample some higher end pens this would be a very good starting point.

Schreibmayr (Theatinerstr.11)
is set in a high end shopping "galeria" and has a very broad selection of  high end items 
and current LE's, not for the budget traveller but very keen and knowledgable staff.

Bethge (Theatinerstr. 1) 
A much smaller shop with not as wide selection as Schreibmayr, provides a more relaxed setting and has a broad range of desk items and stationary. The shop is not that easy to find as it is actually not on Theatinerstrasse but rather set off some ways away form it.

Galeria Kaufhof (Marienplatz, Kaufinger Straße 1-5)
Has a very nice stationary section in the basement, more of a writers shop as it has a stronger focus on daily writer pens rather than executive tools.

Kaut-Bullinger (KaBuCO) (Rosenstrasse 8)
This is a five floor store for all things "Büro". The entrance level sports a very nice selection of pens.

Ludwig Beck Papeterie (Marienplatz 11)
A haven for all stationary freaks, not much in the way of pens but a great selection of cards, paper and related stuff.

So what about trends and trendspotting? Not surprisingly, all shops are full retail  and  the focus is on higher end brands. In particular Montblanc, Graf von Faber Castell and Caran d'Ache all have large displays in Screibmayr and Kaut-Bullinger providing essentially the full range of products. Being quite a fan of both Graf and CdA I was quite pleased to see this and it is clear that although they come with quite a price tag quality really is outstanding and it is refreshing to see companies stand by their products and still provide life time warranties.

Galeria Kaufhof has a more modest range of pens but focuses more on the "discerning writer" and has a broader range of  Pelikans and Lamys. This is also the best place to get some good deals as they tend to have severe rebates on occasional items. (The M605 release exclusive for them being a case in point - and yes I do have one).  Kaut-Bullinger had at the time I was visiting a tray with 50% off items with some very interesting pens.
If your main forte is Italian pens you should look elsewhere as the selection, if at all available, was quite slim. Although set in a high retail area it shows that there are real prospects for pen shops to survive and interestingly the pecking order in terms of brand percpetion you sense from online browsing is  almost reversed after visiting these shops.

Now, most (but not all) brands mentioned are available from pennshoppen