The Pen Addict 170/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	170
Title:	Mykeanical Pencils
Release Date:	August 31st, 2015
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 170
Audio File:	Audio Episode 170
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 170
Length:	5151 min <br />0.85 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 170. Today's show is brought to you by Lynda.com, where you can instantly stream thousands of courses created by industry experts and the Pen Chalet. Great deals on high-quality pens with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. My name is Myke Hurley, and I'm joined by the one and only, the wonderful, the beautiful, the magnificent Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Well, thank you, mate. How's it going?

Myke Hurley: Pretty good, my man. How are you?

Brad Dowdy: I'm good. You know, every time you do the little intro, say what episode number, say who we're sponsored by, I do a little dance in my seat. You know, it's not something, you know, I'd want to periscope or put on a video, but, you know, it's like I'm getting ready for the game. It's like, you know, I'm about to come through the tunnel and, you know, we're going to get ready for the show. So, I'm excited about today's episode. We've got lots to talk about. You are coming off a really rough day, so to put you in your happy place, we're going to talk about bunny rabbits and glitter ink. And, you know, I don't know what kind of podcast this is, talking about bunny rabbits and glitter ink, but it's going to get you through the rest of your night in a very positive and uplifting mood. What do you think?

Myke Hurley: Sounds absolutely perfect to me.

Brad Dowdy: All right. All right. All right. So, to start this off, we are both on the receiving end of gifts, neither of which we know of each other's. So, you got something this week. What'd you get?

Mechanical Pencil

Myke Hurley: Right. So, about a week or so ago, the one and only Mr. Myke Dudek sent me a DM and he said, I'm sending you something. Can I just confirm your address? I said, sure. And he said, don't look at the shipping label, the custom sinks. Spoiler. Right. So, I was like, okay. So, I was waiting. I was really excited, actually, because he's good with this sort of stuff. He's the best. And I was really excited. I was waiting. And then one day, something came through the door and I knew it was that, right? Because it just, it was an American thing. I didn't check the customs thing. And I rip it open and I pull something out. And I think I did a combination of a squeal and then a bunch of giggling.

Brad Dowdy: That's the way to go.

Myke Hurley: So, he sent me a mechanical pencil. He sent me a rotary. He sent me a rotary lava.

Brad Dowdy: Ooh, get out. Yeah, that's nice. God, those things are so pretty.

Myke Hurley: And it's one of those gifts that you're so excited about that you're mad at the person for doing it, you know? Right, right, right. Because, and he sent me a lovely little card and he was like, don't look up how much these were because I got a good deal.

Brad Dowdy: So, don't think of it that way. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: But I... That's amazing. Yeah, this is a fantastic gift. I mean, now that I have two, now I have my fountain pen and now I have my mechanical pencil. And I've been using this one for a few days of maybe about a week or so. I really, really love it. So, it's different to my other rotary, right? The grip isn't knurled. The grip is soft, like smooth. It's definitely heavier. Heavier. Excuse me. And it also has a completely retractable... It's not even a pipe, though. It looks like a ballpoint, right? You know, like the little end part. Sure, sure, sure. Yep. So, it looks like a ballpoint pen, but you press it and the pencil comes out. Gotcha. Yep. So, it has... But it has it in a different way to the Colt pens. It doesn't have a button on the side. It has two different pressure of clicking. You push all the way down and up for the little pipe or whatever you'd call it. Sure, the retractableness. To retract. And then you just press it gently to make the pencil lead come out.

Brad Dowdy: And how's it doing now?

Myke Hurley: No comment. It's totally fine. I dropped it on my pad here.

Myke Hurley: I was hoping that didn't come through in the audio. Yeah. Just to be excited.

Brad Dowdy: There's hardly anything in the pen world in my book that competes with the lava finish that Rotring did. I'm fascinated by that finish. I have the one fountain pen in that finish. And it continues to just be one of the coolest things. One of the coolest things going. And to have the pencil much less a gift from the dude. That's pretty sweet. I think this is probably going to... I don't know. We'll see how much this overtakes some of the other pencils you've been getting into recently. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I mean, I really, really love it. I haven't even wanted to pick up any of the other ones.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's certainly got that extra cachet to it. Not just what it is, but who it's from and things like that. You know, that makes a difference in, you know, our personal feelings about pens. You know, the story behind them. I talk about that a lot, right? I mean, the stories oftentimes is as important as, you know, what the physical pen or pencil is in this case.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, totally. Yeah.

Fountain Pens

Brad Dowdy: So, I got a gift. It's a little bit shiny, too. Not quite as shiny as the lava. Well, I guess it could be in the right light, but I got my Emerald of Chavor ink from wonderful listener Penelope, who wanted to gift that to me. She said, do not buy it. I'm buying you this ink. I want to give you, you know, my way to say thanks for doing the podcast and the blog and all this stuff. And it was a wonderful note, wonderful gift. I just got it about an hour ago, so I haven't had time to ink it up. I didn't want to just, you know, throw it into a pen and scribble with it a little bit before coming on the show. So, I'll talk about, you know, what I think about that in upcoming episodes. I just wanted to let Penelope know it arrived. She told me it was on the way, so it is here. And thank you, Penelope. You are awesome, and I really appreciate it. I'm going to use the heck out of this ink. And I look forward to seeing what my own thoughts are on this ink, because we're going to talk about this a little bit later in the episode, too.

Myke Hurley: So, you haven't tried this at all yet?

Brad Dowdy: No, I literally just opened the box about an hour ago, and I haven't taken the ink out of its box yet. So, I don't have it inked up in anything.

Myke Hurley: Interesting.

Brad Dowdy: And I'm going out of town this week, so I don't know if I'm going to ink it up. I'm definitely not taking hardly any pens with me. So, I don't want to ink it up today and let it sit until I come back next week to mess around with it. So, we'll see. I'll get it inked up. Knowing myself, I'll just end up putting it in something to try. I can't let new things sit that long, unless I'm reviewing them, and then I'm terrible about doing things in a timely fashion. But, hey, we've got lots to do. Lots to do. So, are you still using the Emerald of Shavor?

Myke Hurley: If I was using fountain pens. Ah, that's true.

Brad Dowdy: Hey, I like this mechanical pencil mic. This is a good mic. It's one of my favorite mics.

Myke Hurley: I guess we could start calling them my mechanical pencils, right? Nice. Can we do that? Can we try that one? I like that idea.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we can try that. We can try that. All right. We have names for other stuff that I want to get to. You know, our fun line, lamy animals that we talked about last week.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: You know, they have the brown, the safaris and the brown with the bear and the white with the rabbit and the yellow with the little chick. And Joji Bear, one of our Korean listeners, has sent me the names of each of those characters. And said, was listening to episode 169 of the podcast and I didn't know if anyone told you. The line mascots are called Brown, the bear. Super original name there.

Brad Dowdy: Coney, C-O-N-Y, the rabbit. And Sally, the chick. So apparently, there's lots of line characters. It's apparently, it's a pretty, I mean, I know line is big on its own, but the characters that they create around the brand are a pretty big thing. So all of these animals have names. So if you were any line, lamy animal, Myke, what would you be?

Myke Hurley: I think I'm going to have to be the unimaginatively named Brown, the bear.

Brad Dowdy: Really? Yeah. Yeah, I'm thinking Coney, the rabbit, just because I don't even know what that means. And it sounds kind of cool. So.

Myke Hurley: The names are so weird, right? Obviously, this is one of those scenarios where the translation. Yes. Into English has lost everything. Because there are three, like, completely different types of names. Right. You know, like Brown, the bear, Coney, the rabbit, and Sally, the chick. It doesn't even make any sense. Like, if it was like Billy the bear, Coney the rabbit, and Sally the chick, I might understand it, right? Right. You're getting closer. But, like, it doesn't make any sense. But, again, I bet they make a ton of sense in the content. In the market. Yeah. If it's in Korean. Sure.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. In the market that they're in, it's probably, like, the greatest thing ever. Which, heck, I think they're probably the greatest thing ever. Right now, anyway.

Myke Hurley: I want one of these. But, as I said, I don't make this in the show or not. I'm not going to pay $70 for them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. But, Joji Bear on Twitter actually offered us to say, hey, if you guys really want them, I'll go see if I can find them. And I was like, no, don't do that. We'll pass on that. But I appreciate the offer. That was really nice.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I love the idea of one, but I don't want one enough to either, A, spend a ton of money on them, or, B, have somebody go and get them. You know, like putting somebody out. Exactly. I feel like you can only get a few of those a year, right? Right, right, right. So you've got to use those wisely.

Hermes Nautilus Pen

Brad Dowdy: Yes, very much so. Very much so. But if anyone does want to buy us something, I'm pretty sure the Hermes Nautilus pen by Mark Newson, that could be on somebody's list. It came via Bruce Lehman on Twitter because we've been talking about the Montblanc M that Mark Newson designed, and I had forgotten about this pen. We've talked about this pen before because I remember seeing it, and he sent this link, and I completely forgot this was Newson's first pen that he designed. And it was only earlier this year, I believe. And it's a way expensive pen. It's $1,600, $1,800 or something. It is stunningly beautiful. This is just one of the flat-out coolest pen designs I've seen. It's a retractable pen with a twist mechanism to get the nib out. And it's just beautiful. But, yeah, the fountain pen is $1,670. But now that once he sent me that link, it clicked in my head that we did talk about this pen way, way, way back, several months ago. So is yours writing well? I'm sure you picked one up.

Myke Hurley: Of course, yeah. It's like a dream.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I keep seeing mixed reports coming in about the M.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I agree. So we had one. I don't have the link pulled up, but I know which one you're talking about. We had one today. The theme that all of these reviewers are saying about how light the pen is, that kind of surprises me.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, but you see, my Mont Blanc is like a feather.

Brad Dowdy: Is it? Okay. I guess I just haven't used enough Mont Blancs.

Myke Hurley: The way I would describe my Mont Blanc is hollow. All pens are hollow. This one feels hollow. Like there is nothing to it. Like so much so, when I got it for the first time, I was surprised by it and wasn't happy. So I wonder if this is for the people that don't like it. It's their first Mont Blanc. But then when I used it, I could see it is a great pen. It's great. Right. Weight doesn't mean money. And I think far too often, a lot of people, they get that confused.

Brad Dowdy: Well, sure. I mean, and I agree with that because, you know, my Nakayas are the lightest pens I own, but they're also not metal. They're not aluminum or any other metal. And I think, you know, when people are seeing like an aluminum construction, they have to understand that aluminum is a pretty lightweight material. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: My favorite pen, the Sailor, is just acrylic plastic. It's nothing to it. Right. You know, like there's nothing even like it's a beautiful color. But the Pro Gear, there is nothing about it which tells you this is going to set you back $250 or however much they are.

Brad Dowdy: Until you write with it.

Myke Hurley: Exactly. And so I'm wondering, I don't, I mean, I don't know. Because some people are saying it writes fantastically. Some people are saying it writes horribly. I haven't made my mind up about this one yet.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so I'm going to Vegas later this week. And, you know, they have all the high-end shops out there. So I'm going to hit Mont Blanc and Louis Vuitton looking for some ink. I doubt the pens are over here yet. I think they were going to be a while before they made it to the U.S. But I'm going to stop by and see if I get time to quiz them on that. If, in fact, they are aware of it and if it is coming to the U.S. And hopefully pick up some ink while I'm there. But we'll see. I've never actually gone shopping at a Mont Blanc store or a Louis Vuitton store. It's not how I roll.

Brad Dowdy: You know, maybe at the Nike store. That's more my speed.

Myke Hurley: I wasn't going to comment. I was just going to let it go by. I wasn't going to cast judgment on you. All right.

Skill Craft Pens

Brad Dowdy: So one of the pens that has been on my radar for years and listeners have emailed me about for years and that I have never reviewed for years because, honestly, I just keep forgetting. I'm terrible sometimes. Is skill craft pens. Have you heard of skill craft pens, Michael? I expect the answer is no.

Myke Hurley: I'm pleased you asked me this question because I was going to jump in. I've never heard of them and I can't see why anybody looking at the photo that is on your Instagram. Can't see why anybody cares. Right. Because they look like they look like the pens that the field notes just throw in as little freebies. Right. Exactly. Little ballpoint pen.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. Exactly. And it's essentially why people know the name and why they are so, I say popular in air quotes. They're popular just from their ubiquitousness or ubiquity, whatever the proper term is there. It's because they're pretty much a U.S. government approved pen. And so, you know, all the different agencies in the U.S. government from, you know, office work to military, you know, the skill craft pen is on there. One of the few things that they're able to order for a writing instrument, at least, you know.

Myke Hurley: What a contract to have, huh?

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. So the thing about skill craft pens is no one will say that they are going to give you an amazing writing experience. But the thing about the skill craft pens is more about the company and who makes the pens and why they're in business and why what they do is important work. And we'll put a link in the show notes, but they basically run a program called the AbilityOne program. And let me just read it off of here so I don't mess it up. It says the AbilityOne program is a federal initiative to help people who are blind or have other significant disabilities find employment by working with a national network of over 600 nonprofit agencies that sell products and services. To the U.S. government. Skill craft pens are made by blind people in this program. It's really, really cool. And, you know, I've been chatting with them via email and I'm going to review the pen soon.

Brad Dowdy: And people have a fondness, whether they even know the skill craft story or not, or how these pens are made and why it's important, you know, this company exists. People have a fondness for, you know, like things they get things they use in their job that they don't see other places. Like, you know, I my office is never going to carry skill craft pens. They'll go through corporate express or one of these other generic things and get these junky generic call points. And then, you know, the government employees, they'll only see these skill crafts. So they've been using these pens for decades, you know, in some cases. So a lot of people have a lot of love for these skill craft pens. And a lot of people were commenting on the Instagram post saying, you know, my dad used to have drawers filled with them. My mom's pen cups were filled with these pens just, you know, because of their job. So it really it kind of brings them back to a to a time when, you know, it brings back some fond memories. And then to have the additional story on top of it about how the products are made and things like that. It's just pretty cool. And I've waited too long to review the skill craft pen. So I have a I got a box in from skill craft and I will be reviewing them soon. But in the UK, is there any would there be any type of stationary equivalent? Like, have you ever heard of any products? Like there's two things that come up in the U.S. government here. It's the skill craft pens I see a lot. And then in the army, there's these green issued hard hard bound notebooks. Those are the kind of two government products that I see that have kind of bled over, you know, to people emailing me. Hey, check out these products. You know, this is what I used in the army, things like that. Have you is there anything like that you've seen in the UK that's kind of, you know, runs through the government type of thing that people really latch on to?

Myke Hurley: Can't think of anything. I mean, you know, yeah, stuff like Bic, you know, like those clear Bic pens. They're just everywhere.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's the main stock. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Like that's it. Like every business I've ever been in, every office I've ever been in, like that just seems to be the prevailing pen. It's just like a Bic pen.

Brad Dowdy: Sure, sure. And we're going to talk about that pen in a little bit. No way. Yeah, way, way, way, way. Before we do that, we're going to talk about how we pronounce things.

Brad Dowdy: That's always a fun, that's always a fun email to get, isn't it?

Myke Hurley: See, I'm looking at what's here in the thing. Are we going to find out that it's actually Pilot? Like we've been saying Pilot wrong all this time?

Brad Dowdy: No. So, Bartek, which I'm probably pronouncing that wrong, sent us a Pilot Orochizuku pronunciation guide. A lot of the Orochizuku inks I have very much trouble with. You know, a few of them, you know, listening through the YouTube video. And we'll share this with everyone so you can pronounce the YouTube, pronounce the YouTube, pronounce the Orochizuku inks correctly. Yautube. Yautube.

Brad Dowdy: Google-ay. So, this is perfect. I love this kind of stuff. I like being corrected on this stuff and I like learning about this stuff. And even though I still butcher it sometimes just because I honestly I get going too fast and not thinking about what I'm saying a lot of times. I'll butcher pronunciations that I know good and well. I'm saying it wrong. But it's cool to see these videos like with the Je Harbin video. That was super helpful. And this Orochizuku one is helpful too. So, have you listened to this yet, Myke?

Myke Hurley: I have not.

Brad Dowdy: So, there's some tough ones in here. There's, you know, like Fuyugaki. We're pretty close on. Like, it's that one's pretty straightforward. But a lot of the ones with any kind of leading TS sound in there, I am way off on that making that sound. That's a real, real tough sound to make. So, you know, listen to the pronunciation guide. Keep this saved for when you buy a new Orochizuku ink. So, that way when we talk about them, we can say them appropriately.

Myke Hurley: We're never going to get it right, are we?

Brad Dowdy: That's okay. It's part of the process.

Brad Dowdy: Always learning, Michael.

Myke Hurley: Yeah?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Speaking of learning.

Myke Hurley: Oh, look at that. I'm so proud of it. Wait, hang on. Hang on. When segues happen, you're supposed to, like, ignore them. High five. Right? Not me. And go with it. Because that's the point of the segway, right? Is to lead in. Sometimes. Every now and then. They are so good.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I'm Captain Obvious over here. Yeah. I want credit.

Myke Hurley: I'm very proud of you right now.

Brad Dowdy: I gave myself a high five. Did you hear that?

Myke Hurley: I did hear it. I did hear it.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Tell us about our good friends at lynda.com.

Myke Hurley: Lynda.com is the online learning platform that has over 3,000 on-demand video courses that can help you strengthen your business technology and creative skills. You can get yourself a free 10-day trial by visiting lynda.com slash penaddict. That's L-Y-N-D-A dot com slash penaddict. Lynda.com is for people that have problems that they want to solve. It's people that are curious. People who want to make things happen. Maybe, you know, it's about time that you really understood how to use Excel. Like, you've always wanted to know what a pivot table was and how to use it. Lynda.com can help you with that. Maybe you want to start your own business and you want to get a bit better understanding of viral marketing and advertising. And you want to think about sales stuff and want to work out how to optimize your conversion rates. All of these things seem really, really complicated. But lynda.com have great videos by super awesome experts who are really passionate about teaching and they'll be able to help you with this stuff. Maybe you want to learn a bit more about design. Maybe you want to learn about Illustrator, Photoshop. You want to learn about color, typography. These are all the things that you've been wanting to master as a hobby for years, but you've never known where to start. Well, I can tell you where you start. You start at lynda.com and there you can feed your curious mind. You'll be able to watch these videos in your web browser and follow along with their fantastic transcript stuff so you can read exactly what's happening right in front of you. And you will even be able to click back in those transcripts later. If you want to just go back to a part of a video, you can just search for the word or the phrase that you're looking for. Click that part of the transcript and the video will start playing along exactly at that point. There's also stuff when you're watching along online, you'll be able to, some of the courses, you'll be able to download project files and things like that. So maybe if you're working on logic, you know, like the audio editing application, you can follow along with what's happening with a demo project file. If you want to watch on the go, maybe you've just got a bit of time every day when you're on the bus or on your break and you want to do some lynda.com learning, then you can watch and download courses to your Android or iOS device, so your phone or your tablet, and you can watch on the go wherever you like. You can also create and save playlists of courses that you want to watch. They're all broken down into bite-sized pieces so you can arrange them in whatever order you like. Customize your own learning path and share it with your friends, colleagues and team members. lynda.com is a fantastic resource and your membership will give you unlimited access to training on hundreds of topics all for one flat rate. Whether you're looking to become an industry expert, you're passionate about a hobby, or you just want to learn something new, I would love it if you would visit lynda.com slash penaddict, that's lynda.com slash penaddict and sign up for your free 10-day trial because it will also help support this show. Thank you so much to lynda.com for their continued support with The Pen Addict.

Brad Dowdy: Awesome. Thank you, lynda.com.

Myke Hurley: Have you ever seen Ace Ventura? Uh-huh, yeah. So at the end of that, when I finished that sentence, I felt like Ace Ventura. You know, when he talks for loads of time, he just doesn't breathe?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I was getting that feeling there at the minute, right when you were getting close to the end, I was like, whoa. I felt like I was on a roll.

Myke Hurley: Sometimes when I'm on a roll, I decide not to breathe. I don't know if that's the right thing to do, but it's the way I work, I guess.

Fountain Pens

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. It works for me. So there's something happening in the fountain pen world that I think needs our attention and needs some discussion around. And we mentioned it earlier with the Emerald of Chavor, how I'm actually looking forward to getting, you know, the gold fleck glittery ink after, you know, Jay Harban redid their first four inks in the 1670 series, the Rouge Hematite, the Blue Ocean, and the Stormy Gray. And they, the first two, the red and the blue didn't come with the gold, gold flecks in them. They changed the formula, added the gold flecks. Stormy Gray came out with the gold flecks. They decided the gray and the blue, the flecks were too strong. So they lightened them up. So you can get the good glitter ink with, without as much of a maintenance hassle. And now the Emerald of Chavor has come out and it's kind of blown all those other three inks out of the water, in my opinion. Great. So this has happened. This is awesome. I'm happy with that. Do what you need to do, Jay Harban. Then all of a sudden I start getting tweets and emails this week, Michael, that Diamine is coming out with a line of shimmering fountain pen inks. As I said in the show notes, this needs to die in a fire.

Myke Hurley: Let me see if I can explain that for you in a better way, because I think I know what you're getting at. The four, how many, is it four, Jay Harban? Yes.

Brad Dowdy: Four.

Myke Hurley: Those are special. They were different. They have improved it over time and they shimmer, but they have other properties to them which makes them dry really nicely. All of those things may be, they may be the same when it comes to the Diamine inks, right? They all might look really, really awesome as well, but they're not special anymore. Right. Most of the greatness of the Jay Harban stuff is they're the only ones doing it and they did four of them. They were special and they got better over time. You know, doing it now, other companies doing it now, it's not special anymore.

Brad Dowdy: Right.

Brad Dowdy: So, I guess we're going to see these Diamine inks. There are ten of them. Ten inks. It's just too much. All to hit at once. You know, it's got your blues, reds, greens, turquoises, purples, grays, yellows. I'm just wondering, you know, everyone latches onto that thing that's hot right now. I mean, we're all guilty of that in various ways.

Myke Hurley: Sure, sure, sure.

Brad Dowdy: I just, I don't know. The glitter thing, I just don't see, and I say glitter flex, you know, which, you know what I mean, sparkle in the inks, I just, no. Make it stop. But I have a feeling this is only, it's not the tip of the iceberg. It's not going to become like a huge thing, but I imagine there'll be a couple more companies jumping in on this bandwagon as well. If they don't already have something in the books, we're going to start seeing something coming up when these two big companies do it. There's certainly going to be another couple to follow, but in my opinion, it's okay if you don't follow this trend. This is a trend that doesn't need to be a trend, in my opinion. So, that's just me. I've never liked the inks anyway, except I have a feeling, you know, I think I'm going to eat my words, and I've said it before on the Emerald of Chavor, just because it has a lot more going on with it than just the gold. I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be pretty good. I'm anxious to give that a shot. See, now I'm going to have to go ink it up, right?

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Field Notes

Brad Dowdy: Terrible, terrible. All right. Our good friend, Dr. Jonathan Deans, wrote a very cool article this week called The Field Notes Bubble. And if you haven't seen this, you need to go read it because just my talking about it, it's not going to scratch the surface on the discussion that he had. But it's basically, it's the articles based around Field Notes, but it's more his discussion and his thoughts from an economic perspective about bubbles in general, whether bubbles actually exist. Like in his economic belief, his belief is that a bubble doesn't exist. And then he breaks down, you know, what he's, he's basically schooling us all, which is why I love him so much, you know, you know, teaching us about these concepts and how, and then allowing us to apply them into our little realm and such things as Field Notes. And, you know, I mean, there's no, there's no black or white definitive answer here. He doesn't see a bubble in Field Notes, but he talks about, you know, like what you should expect from, you know, rare Field Notes editions, you know, how people, people such as myself don't care that, you know, one of these packs is, is theoretically worth, you know, $200 or whatever, or, you know, we'll just open it up and start using it. It makes no difference. Um, you know, and one point he made, uh, towards the end is like, if Field Notes wanted to, um, they could actually, you know, inflict, I say inflict damage, but, uh, but basically burst the bubble by reprinting all these old things, which is, I don't, I don't think that's something that Field Notes will ever do. Um, they never saw this coming in to begin with, and that doesn't seem like their business model at all. Their business model isn't to, to rehash the old. Um, it's to keep inventing new, um, in my perspective. So there's, there's a lot to take in with this article when we have, uh, Jonathan back on, and we'll definitely explore this more. And, you know, I, I could probably do, you know, I've read this article twice and I still have like bits and pieces I want to pull out there and discuss deeper. So it definitely deserves a, a longer conversation. So yeah, the one thing that, uh, Dr. Dean's pointed out and that Doug Beal is, uh, mentioning in the chat room is that I'm surprised that we haven't seen counterfeits because essentially the recipe for Field Notes is there, right? You know, it's in the back cover. Here's everything we did to manufacture this book.

Brad Dowdy: Um, I don't, I don't think it's going to be worth people's while because I, the market's so limited. I don't think a counterfeit would really work in this situation. People have discussed it before and, and wonder if how, you know, if that was even possible. Um, you know, if we started to see that, you know, prop up, pop up in the marketplace, would we be able to tell? I just don't think it's the end result for a counterfeiter would be worth the effort in this market. I think there's, I think the Montblanc counterfeiters would probably get away with it a little bit more than the Field Notes counterfeiters.

Myke Hurley: I don't think it would have reached that point yet. Still, like, even though we've seen these high prices, I just, I don't see it happening. I don't see it working out, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Right. So I guess in general, I don't know if there's a bubble for this. I just, I'm pretty uncomfortable with the ridiculously high prices. Um, just loving the company as a brand. I don't want it to be thought of as something different than what it is. And Field Notes themselves, uh, Brian and Jim have done a wonderful job. Managing that. Um, it's more taking a life of its own outside of the company. And, you know, that's okay. I mean, it's cool. I mean, I was, I've been part of that collecting too, trying to make my own set. Um, but not with the intention to sell it. You know, I just think it's something cool to have. Um, I don't know. Did you have anything to say on this article? It's, there's, it's a long article. It's a lot to take in. I've probably done a disservice just, you know, kind of glossing over some of the high points like this. You definitely need to read it and check it out on your own.

Myke Hurley: So I do have thoughts about it, but I feel kind of uneasy mentioning them because I feel like I am arguing economics of an economist. Like there are just some parts of it that I, I don't agree with from, from Dr. Dean's perspective. Um, like I, I, I don't necessarily agree that reprinting would help because people would want the addition numbers. Right. Um, I don't think that the field notes would be able to stop that, uh, because if they reprinted it, they couldn't pretend that it was back in history. Right. Um, and there will always be something that denotes the, an original as an original, hence why there is still, uh, a market for first edition printed books. Exactly. Um, and also he talks about how the bubble could end up leading to a bust for field notes where, um, they go from print, you know, they go up to print in 20, 30,000, uh, books and then the bottom falls out of the collector's market and then they struggle. But the company have grown over time so they could go back to printing 15,000 again. They might just have to scale back their operations. So I don't know. Like I understand, I completely understand what he's saying, but I don't think it's going to go that far. And, uh, I would be surprised if something like that happened because field notes are completely plugged into what the community is doing. Right. So they know, they know, like, I mean, you can see it, right? That at least on the face of it, I mean, we need to see if we can try and get an answer out of them on this, on the face of it. It seems like they're trying to curtail some of the collector stuff by doing, you know, like the unexposed edition and the, um, the two rivers, which you can't, you can't get the, the set, right? You can't just buy that.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Um, it's my opinion and it's strictly that I have no information otherwise is that Brian, Jim, Aaron, the entire design team, when they're making field notes additions, they pay absolutely no intention to what they think the collectability of a particular edition will be.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I agree with that. I believe that's their, their thought process. That's, that's not, that does not even register.

Myke Hurley: Because what their mindset is, what is cool, what will sell well. Yeah. That's what it's about, right? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And then we'll move on to the next, we'll make something cooler next time.

Myke Hurley: Because you know what would be great for a collector's market? Create an edition that flops and nobody buys. You know?

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So. We should probably know, right? Yeah.

Myke Hurley: As we record this tomorrow, it looks like.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's exactly what I was going to say. Tomorrow, the new field notes drops. So I'll be interested to see what's going on. I haven't used these last two editions as much as I've used previous editions. Like I've gotten through like one notebook, each of the last two. I honestly, I mean, I'm not going to lie. I've been using the notebooks. I'm using the one I'm in though. I'm on my last page right now. So if those field notes ones, if they get here before I leave on my trip, I'm going to take one with me.

Myke Hurley: So like I've just been slowing down on my paper usage in general since, you know, going full time at Relay. But I'm still using them and I'm still going to keep buying them. And I'm still going to buy way more sets than I need because I have a problem. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: But use them. You know, that's what they're made for. Use them.

Myke Hurley: I think actually field notes are my biggest problem, if you'd call it a problem.

Brad Dowdy: I think that's a fair problem to have though. I mean, it's in the grand scheme of things, it's not that expensive of a problem to have.

Myke Hurley: Like, you know, maybe, I mean, not even Retro 51 is so much anymore because I can let some of those ones go. Although I'm really gutted that I missed out on the one that looked like a plane.

Brad Dowdy: That thing was sick.

Myke Hurley: I don't know how I missed it. And I can't get one.

Brad Dowdy: That's not my type of pen, but I don't know that I've seen a cooler design than that one. That one, I keep staring at the pictures of that one and it's like, wow. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: What is that one called?

Brad Dowdy: I can't remember. I was just looking at someone was talking about one yesterday. Inktronics did a review of it. So look up Inktronics. That's where I read it yesterday.

Myke Hurley: I'll report back in a moment.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Well, then I'll keep going. Dr. Deans did want me to send out a shout out to a new Facebook group he created for Fountain Pens Australia. We have a lot of Australian listeners. And I think this is a great community for the Aussies to get together and discuss some local pen things available to them that aren't available to us and vice versa. And if you want to check that out, we will have the link in the show notes to the Fountain Pens Australia Facebook group and get in touch with Dr. Deans. And I'm sure other our other Aussies like Pete Dennison and David Brennan, they'll all be in there. We have lots of awesome Aussie listeners. So I look forward to seeing what they have going on there. And as a matter of fact, I'm on that page. I'm going to join the group right now. So I don't think you're allowed. That's all right. We'll see. It's a closed group. So I sent an invite. I'll let you know if I pass or fail. Don't let him in.

Retro 51 Tornado Popper

Myke Hurley: It's the Retro 51 Tornado Popper Flying Tiger LE Limited Edition. I want one of these. They're basically impossible to find. If anybody knows where I can get one, I need to know.

Brad Dowdy: So Lisa Van Ness texted me the image. She's like, oh, check this out. I was like, man, that is beautiful. She's like, yeah, they're already sold out. I was like, why are you texting me this?

Myke Hurley: I don't know how I'm missing this one. It doesn't help. If anyone from Retro 51 is listening to this, you've got to help me out on this one. Come on. How many pens have I sold for you guys so far? That's right. That's right. This is one that I'm so annoyed that I missed this.

Brad Dowdy: I was actually, I kept meaning to ask you about this one. I didn't know if this one would be up your alley or not. So apparently, yeah, it's pretty awesome. All right. Pen blog of the week time. We have a new pen blog. Cody actually reached out to me via email. He writes a blog, thepenhall.com. So you can find him there. He's just getting cranked up. He's got a handful of reviews out there. He did a nice post over the last week or maybe it was over the weekend about some, it's kind of like a beginner fountain pens tip thing. Some common issues you find with fountain pens, how to rectify those issues. Some real basic type stuff. But it's stuff we have all had questions about, you know, either when we were starting or to this day, you know, and he did a good post about, you know, ink drying times, ink performance, you know, what type of cleaning regimen and maintenance, things like that. So congrats, Cody, for getting the blog set up. Check him out at thepenhall.com. We will have the link in the show notes for you. So be sure to check that out.

Myke Hurley: Sounds like a good one. Should I take a break? Yes. We were talking about field notes a moment ago. You know, I've got something special at the end of this little spot here today.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. This is my, this is my tea spot. This is where you spend my money. These are the spots that I don't know about.

Myke Hurley: PenchLA. You know the PenchLA. They sell authentic, amazing roller balls, fountain pens, ballpoint, mechanical pencils, and so much more. My loving mechanical pencils. PenchLA do them. They have all of your favorite brands like Pelican, Lamy, Pilot, Namiki, Sailor, Kaweco. They're an authorized dealer of all of them. And we're not just talking about pens and all those great brands as well. We're also talking about things like carrying cases, pen holders, refills, fountain pen converters, everything you need to feed the pen addict in you can be found at PenchLA. They have awesome customer service. They're super fast, super reliable. They will sell internationally. They have very reasonable shipping rates, but they also ship on orders over $50 for free in the continental United States. So, you know, I mean, you go to PenchLA, you want to spend one in $50, of course, and you'll get shipping for free if you do. PenchLA has great prices. They are always doing great sales and discounts and all that kind of stuff. And they also have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. As well as those sales and discounts, they have closeout specials as well. So when they're getting rid of new stock, they give you to you. Get rid of old stock and get new stock in. They give them to you at a great price. Now, we know what you love. We love you love the special offer part. That's what I'm going to tell you about. So if you go to penchLA.com, you want to use the code pen addict. It's going to get you 10% off anything that you buy over at PenchLA. If you have something that you're thinking about buying, go to PenchLA first. See if they have it. Not only will you get 10% off if you use the code on anything you find, it'll also be helping support this show. But for the special offer this week, click the podcast link at the top of the website. Use the code pen addict for even more savings as well as your 10% off, including a special offer on the Workshop Companion Edition of Field Notes. I'm not going to tell you how awesome the deal is. I'm not going to tell you the price. You have to go to the site yourself and find out. But it is also worth noting, as you all know, Field Notes make limited editions. The Workshop Companions Limited Edition. By that nature, there is a limited stock at this price over at the PenchLA. So if you haven't yet got yourself some Workshop Companions or you want to get some more and you want a great deal on them, go to PenchLA and they'll hook you up. Thank you so much to PenchLA for their support of this show.

Brad Dowdy: You're evil.

Myke Hurley: It's a good price, right? It's. You've seen it?

Brad Dowdy: I've never seen this much of a discount on Field Notes before.

Myke Hurley: On a current edition? Yeah, on a current edition.

Brad Dowdy: It's a legit discount. It's big time. And plus, this is a good edition for PenchLA because it's the most fountain pen friendly paper that Field Notes has done, in my opinion. So yeah, it's great. And then just to stay on the PenchLA thing, like two sponsorships ago, the Platinum 3776 Century Black Rhodium Fountain Pen, which is also on this list. I bought one from our sponsorship. And I have it off with Dan Smith, aka the Nib Smith, to put an architect nib on for me. So I will hopefully be able to report back in a couple weeks on that. So I was looking at that. The first pen in the list, that's one I picked up from one of PenchLA's good deals here myself. So yeah, Ron always knows how to tempt us, and he has certainly done it this time.

Althaven

Brad Dowdy: I love this next link. I love this one so much. Speaking of separating you from your money. So at Althaven, our friend Junie sent a...

Brad Dowdy: I guess in Singapore, there was a big event this weekend where one of the Nibmeisters from Nakaya, and now since the site is down, I can't pull his name up. He came and visited Aesthetic Bay, which is one of the... I certainly don't know if they're standing, but they're a super, super well-respected, big-time pen shop in the region, if not worldwide. I've actually ordered some Sailor Limited Edition inks from them. I've shopped Nakayas from them before. They have a good website you can check out. They have some models. Like nibs.com had some colors and a model that Nakaya makes for them that only they carry. Aesthetic Bay has the same setup with Nakaya. Yeah. So they're a big-time Nakaya dealer, which means they're just a big-time pen dealer to begin with. So there was basically several days where lots of people in the Singaporean pen community were able to go to Aesthetic Bay and get their nibs worked on by a gentleman from Nakaya. And Junie made this post on how to buy a Nakaya in four simple steps. And it's basically, you know, it's just kind of a send-up of buying a Nakaya. And she did end up buying one. So we'll save this because I can't pull it up right now. We'll save it for you to read it during, you know, when you're checking out the show notes because it's hilarious. I tweeted this out the other day and everyone just thought it was hilarious. She did a really good job. And of course, she ended up with a sweet Nakaya Decapod herself, which is that, I think it's eight-faceted, really cool-looking Nakaya. So how are you on your Nakaya quest? One of these years?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's fair. There needs to be an achievement. Sure. And I just don't know what that achievement is going to be, I think. And then I'll drop the money. But it's still there. As I say, I know exactly what one I want, whether it will still be available when I want to buy it. That's another story.

Brad Dowdy: I would just like to say that Aesthetic Bay carries the one you want, I believe, in what they call the long piccolo. That's their, the Aesthetic Bay's design. Like, I have the orange one. It's the piccolo size. They carry a long piccolo. And I think it has the same Nogoro finish that mine does, I think. Don't quote me on that, but I think it might. So just throwing that out there. All right. We're going to wrap this up on the most shared link of the week in the pen community, Michael. And this is how the ballpoint pen killed cursive. Dun, dun, dun.

Brad Dowdy: So it's a massively clickbaity title.

Brad Dowdy: It's lacking content. It's mostly fluff.

Brad Dowdy: You know, it's clickbaity. You know, a title is clickbaity when it doesn't really tell you the, you read through the whole article and you don't really answer how the ballpoint pen killed cursive. I mean, the author kind of did saying, well, you know, ballpoint pens write worse than fountain pens. Therefore, we don't learn cursive anymore because it was easier to write with a fountain pen. That's just asinine. I mean, the whole article, the whole article is not asinine, but the premise of it is. A pen didn't kill cursive handwriting. The lack of focus on it in the school system killed cursive handwriting. And technology has a role to play in that. Just to say that the ballpoint pen, because it doesn't write as smooth or as easy as a fountain pen killed cursive handwriting, is just, you know, for our world, it's the epitome of clickbait in the grand scheme of things. It's like a super minor article. But for us, it's kind of, for me, it's like kind of egregious. It's a really stupid, stupid title. I just think the, you know, the author could have done a better job, especially as a teacher. The author is a teacher and is lamenting the fact that, you know, the same stories we always hear. My students, not only can they not write cursive, they can't read cursive. And, you know, that's a problem. You know, everyone's on their digital devices and we're losing this. You know, cursive's never coming back like it used to be. But I think there's a place for it to be taught in schools. And it's just a matter of that focus has changed. You know, that's not the focus of schools anymore. When I was growing up, we're probably a good decade apart, you and I, growing up through the school system. And, you know, I think starting in third grade, I was, you know, I had cursive handwriting classes. And I was graded on my letter shapes and, you know, my styles and my letters. And all through high school, I used cursive. And then when I was out of school, I just, you know, reverted to printing. It just is what it is. How did you, did you have any type of cursive focus in your schooling? Was it an actual taught subject, if you will?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, yeah. We were taught how to write in, you know, what we call joined up handwriting. And we also, we were even taught to write in italics. Sure. Which I'll never understand. I still don't know why they did that. Yeah. But we were taught to write in italics, which made no sense to me. I don't even know if it was called italics. Like, I feel like it might have been called something else. But I remember at the time as a kid, no, I think it was called, it was called italic. Like, I was really angry about it as a kid because I could never understand when I needed to use it. And it could never be, it was one of those things that it frustrated me and nobody could explain it. And I still don't know why you would teach it, but I did.

Brad Dowdy: So the ballpoint clearly killed cursive handwriting for you, right?

Myke Hurley: I mean, I understand what they're trying to get at.

Brad Dowdy: Right. It's a ginormous stretch to put this article together.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And I made the mistake, like you don't do on YouTube, to start and look at the comments. And holy crap. It is a cesspool. It is a literal cesspool of comments. I'm going to read the first one. And I pretty much stopped after there. The first comment, it says, Nobody, nobody, nobody cares about fountain pens. The Atlantic could have covered any of 10,000 more crucial stories, including an overview of the national shortage of Davy Crockett coonskin caps before it ran this story. And it would still be more relevant.

Brad Dowdy: The outrage over ballpoint pens, Michael. Killing cursive? Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. But anyway, we got this article a million times. I felt like discussing it only because I don't have a lot to say because it's the grand scheme. It's a less than useful article. You don't learn anything from this article. There's no... It's a clickbaity article is what it is. So, you know, I wish cursive would make a comeback. I wish my kids in school would learn cursive handwriting. My daughter's in fourth grade. They don't teach them handwriting at all. You know, they teach them, you know, a little bit of the printing stuff, you know, trying to write in between. Basically, they want them to write straight across the line and then however they want to do it, they can do it. She could write cursive if she wants. She practices on her own because she sees it in her books and she wants to mimic that. But, you know, that's why cursive is going away is because it's not taught in schools anymore. Not because of a stupid pen. The end.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It's, you know, it's one of those things that, like, someone had an idea. I don't really know what the idea of this piece was, but... Right. You know, it got written anyway.

Brad Dowdy: Yep, yep. And we certainly, you know, we had a lot of comments and tweets on it and, you know, I don't... I've never... What I haven't seen is anyone say, wow, you're absolutely right. Yeah, that's not going to happen with this article, so...

Myke Hurley: No way.

Brad Dowdy: All right. I think that's a wrap, sir. Yep. I think this was a fun episode. And just so you know, I was admitted to the Aussie Fountain Pen Facebook group while we were talking. So, eat it.

Myke Hurley: Guys, kick him out. He doesn't deserve to be there. You're just letting him in because it's Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: I'm going to go tell him what you said about economists.

Myke Hurley: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. If you want to find our show notes, head on over to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 170. If you want to find us online, there's a couple of places you can do that. You can find Brad over at penaddict.com. He is also penaddict on Instagram and dowdyism on Twitter, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. I am imike, I-M-Y-K-E on Twitter and Instagram. Thanks so much to our sponsors this week, lynda.com and penchelet for helping support the show. And we'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad.