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Most people searching for the James Bond pen mean one thing: the clicking grenade from GoldenEye. It is the best known, but it is not the only one. Q Branch, the CIA and at least one villain have all hidden something inside a pen. This guide goes through each pen gadget in the films, says which real pen sits behind it where that is known, and ends with the Bond pens you can actually buy and write with.
The short answer
The pen in GoldenEye (1995) is a Parker Jotter, adapted by Q as a class four grenade: three clicks arm it and three more disarm it. Before that, Q gave Roger Moore’s Bond a Montblanc fountain pen full of acid in Octopussy (1983), and in Moonraker (1979) Bond borrowed Holly Goodhead’s CIA pen, which hides a poison needle. The Jotter is still made and costs very little. For a pen made as a Bond object rather than one used in a film, look at S.T. Dupont’s SPECTRE pens from 2015 or YARD-O-LED’s Casino Royale pen from 2026.
How we checked
We worked from the films’ dialogue, the published plot records and the gadget files kept by MI6 HQ and Bond Lifestyle, and we name the source where a detail rests on one. Where a pen’s exact model is not certain, we say so. We have not handled the film props.
GoldenEye: the Parker Jotter grenade
Q, played by Desmond Llewelyn, hands Pierce Brosnan’s Bond a stainless steel Parker Jotter that contains a class four grenade. Three clicks in a row arm a four second fuse; another three clicks disarm it. Bond does not use it as planned. At the Cuban control centre at the end of the film, the pen has been taken from him along with his watch, and Boris Grishenko, played by Alan Cumming, picks it up and clicks it nervously as he works. Bond knocks it out of his hand into a pool of fuel that has leaked during an earlier gunfight, and the explosion lets Bond and Natalya escape.
The Jotter itself is an ordinary retractable ballpoint that Parker has made since 1954. Prop Store sold a metal prototype of the film pen in its London Winter 2025 auction: it had a red arming light that flashed through a small window after three clicks. According to Prop Store, the pens used on screen did not flash. Our record of the prototype has the details.
Octopussy: the Montblanc with acid inside
In Octopussy, Q shows Bond a fountain pen in his workshop in India. Twist the top, he says, and it releases “a highly concentrated mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acid”, which dissolves all metals. Bond replies that it would be “wonderful for poison pen letters”. Pull the cap off and there is an earpiece inside, tuned to the bug Q has hidden in the Fabergé egg.
Bond uses both halves. He listens in on Kamal Khan and General Orlov through the earpiece, and he uses the acid to eat through the bars on the window of his room at Khan’s Monsoon Palace and escape. Bond Lifestyle identifies the pen as a Montblanc Meisterstück, either a 146 or the larger 149, with a pinstriped body, and notes that the top was altered, because the film pen does not carry Montblanc’s white snowcap emblem.
Moonraker: Holly Goodhead’s poison pen
This one is not Q’s work. When Bond searches Dr Holly Goodhead’s hotel room, he finds that she is a CIA agent carrying the agency’s equipment: a diary that fires a dart, a perfume atomiser that is a flame thrower, and a pen with a needle that can be pushed out to inject poison. MI6 HQ describes it as a gold click pen. Bond takes it, and later, thrown into the pool at Hugo Drax’s base in the Amazon, he uses it to kill Drax’s pet python.
The Man with the Golden Gun: a pen as a barrel
The pen in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) belongs to the villain. Francisco Scaramanga, played by Christopher Lee, carries his gun in pieces: a fountain pen forms the barrel, a cigarette lighter the chamber, a cigarette case the grip and a cufflink the trigger. It fires a single golden bullet. It is a pen in appearance only, and you cannot write with it.
Never Say Never Again: the rocket pen
Never Say Never Again (1983) is not an Eon film, but it has a pen gadget of its own. Sean Connery’s Bond produces a fountain pen when he is asked to write something, and fires an explosive dart from it at Fatima Blush. Wikipedia’s list of Bond gadgets describes it as a Montblanc 149 decorated with the Union Flag; we have not confirmed the model from a second source.
Skyfall: no more exploding pens
By Skyfall (2012), the joke had become part of the series. Ben Whishaw’s Q gives Bond a gun and a radio, and when Bond is unimpressed, Q asks whether he was “expecting an exploding pen”, adding that Q Branch does not really go in for that any more. The film does have a real pen worth knowing about. Our catalogue records the pen in M’s hand at the public inquiry as a Parker Vector rollerball in matte black, a plain working pen for someone with other things on her mind.
The Bond pens you can buy
None of the gadgets are for sale, but the pens behind two of them are, and two makers have produced pens as official Bond pieces.
Parker Jotter: the GoldenEye pen
The closest you can get to a Bond gadget for the price of lunch. Parker still makes the Jotter in stainless steel with the arrow clip, and most Jotter ballpoints were under US$37 at Pen Heaven when we checked in October 2026. Choose the stainless steel with chrome trim, which is the one that looks like the pen in the film. It is the one we would buy first.
Montblanc Meisterstück: the Octopussy pen
The Meisterstück is still Montblanc’s best-known fountain pen. The film pen had a pinstriped body and a modified top, so no current Montblanc matches it exactly. We do not have one in our catalogue yet, so we have not given a price.
S.T. Dupont SPECTRE: the official tribute
S.T. Dupont made a SPECTRE collection for the release of Spectre in 2015. The Premium pens are Ligne D models with a guilloché body swirled like the gun barrel opening, a hidden compartment and the 007 and SPECTRE logos, each numbered out of 1,963. They are not seen in the film. The fountain pen, rollerball and ballpoint are joined by the less expensive Défi ballpoint from the Access line; our product pages say where to look for each.
YARD-O-LED Casino Royale: the Fleming pen
The most Fleming-specific pen made so far. YARD-O-LED, the Birmingham maker, produced it in 2026 with Ian Fleming Publications to celebrate the first novel. It is hallmarked sterling silver with 72 engine-turned pinstripes, the four card suits engraved on the grip, a gold Jamaican doctor bird in the base and a small quartz watch set into the cap. The fountain pen and the rollerball are each numbered and limited to 253 pieces. The fountain pen is £4,750 on YARD-O-LED’s site at the time of writing (November 2026). Our launch piece covers the set in full.
If you buy only one, make it the Jotter. It is the pen most people mean, it costs very little, and it is a good everyday ballpoint without the grenade.
Where to go next
- Pens and writing: every pen in our catalogue.
- GoldenEye: the film hub, with the rest of Q’s kit.
- Octopussy and Moonraker: the Roger Moore films with pen gadgets.
- Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye: more on the film’s props and cars.
- James Bond gifts under US$50: other inexpensive Bond gifts for Christmas.
Sources: YARD-O-LED, Casino Royale fountain pen; MI6 HQ, Montblanc pen (Octopussy); MI6 HQ, pen and poison needle (Moonraker); Bond Lifestyle, Montblanc Meisterstück fountain pen; The Legend of Q, Octopussy gadgets; Wikipedia, List of James Bond gadgets; Wikipedia, GoldenEye; Wikipedia, The Man with the Golden Gun (film); Wikipedia, Never Say Never Again; Wikiquote, Skyfall.