The Pen Addict 212/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	212
Title:	Captain Orange Beard
Release Date:	July 6th, 2016
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 212
Audio File:	Audio Episode 212
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 212
Length:	4747 min <br />0.783 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Pen Chalet Sponsor

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict. Today's show is brought to you so kindly by the fine folk over at The Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by Mr. Brad Dowdy. Hello, Michael. How are you? I am very well, Mr. Brad Dowdy. How are you? Good, good. Did you have a good 4th of July weekend? It was really good, actually. Good. I had a very nice 4th of July. July the 4th, 2016 was a nice day.

Brad Dowdy: Good. It was an excellent day for you. Good. I'm glad to hear that. So, wonderful. What did you do? Tell me what you did. Nothing, really. Just hung out, had my wife work Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and we cooked out on Monday, swam, and drank. That's pretty much what the 4th of July is good for. Watched a lot of baseball.

Myke Hurley: Cook out and cooked out is an interesting phrase to me, because we just call it barbecue.

Brad Dowdy: Barbecue. Right. See, in my area, you never do that. Because barbecue is the type of food. Barbecue is the food, right?

Myke Hurley: Yes, it's interesting. It is interesting.

Barbecue Discussion

Brad Dowdy: I either grill or I cook out. Those are interchangeable, but I never barbecue. Does that make sense?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, Stephen says the same stuff. Says grill and cook out. Because obviously barbecue is also extremely important in Memphis. Yes, a little bit. So, I wanted to bring back, I don't want to do this every episode, because I feel like it probably doesn't change that much, but I figured we should maybe talk about what stuff we're using today.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so we kind of got out of that habit. We're like, we should start this habit, and then we failed completely.

Myke Hurley: I feel like as a habit, though, it should just pop up every now and then. Because week to week, at least for me, it's not going to be too different.

Brad Dowdy: I agree. I agree completely. It shouldn't be an every week thing, and it doesn't always fit with the flow of the show, especially if we have guests, but sometimes it's good to see what they're using. But I thought this was a timely one, one, because we haven't done it in a while, and two, because I'm kind of carrying things differently these days, and we'll talk about that a little bit. And it's something I want to get into and something I've been thinking about a lot recently. So, it was good that you put this in here, because the timing was perfect for what I'm carrying.

Sailor Pro Gear

Myke Hurley: So, today, I am using my beautiful Sailor Pro Gear in orange with the rhodium trim. It remains to be the best pen that I own, my favorite number one Mr. Pen.

Myke Hurley: And I go back and forth. You know, the M90 is so fantastic, but it's just not as flawless as the Pro Gear is. You know, like, with the M90, I had to kind of, like, give a little bit of a clean the other day, because it built up a little bit of gunk around the nib. Sure. The Pro Gear doesn't do that. You know, the Pro Gear has had the same Fuyugaki ink in it that I have in it today, and it's had it for months, probably. And it's just, like, it's ready to go, you know, like, immediately ready to go. So, every time I pick it up, I'm like, is now the time that I'm going to have to empty and refill this thing? It's like, nope, nope, we're all good. We're good to go. It's like, I've been waiting, I've been waiting. You know, that's how I imagine my Pro Gear thinks, and he talks to me when I pick him up.

Brad Dowdy: What's his name?

Brad Dowdy: I haven't got one for him. Yeah, I don't know. Mine don't have names either.

Myke Hurley: No. I should probably, maybe, like, Captain Orangebeard or something, you know, because he's, like, a sailor.

Myke Hurley: So, I'm going to go with that. Captain Orangebeard.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Chat room, you're not typing fast enough. I know.

Myke Hurley: I'm going to get that title in quick. Oh, there we go. Oh, there we go. Kathy got it in just before Doug. Doug even went with CPT as a way to try and get it in quicker. This is Tales from the Chatroom, as the chatroom suggests. Yeah, so if you don't know, when people listen live, they can suggest titles in the chatroom that get pulled into a system that we have where me and Brad will then pick the title at the end of the episode. So, people listening will hear the things that we say and type them in and submit them as titles. And we have two veterans of the chatroom, Kathy and Doug, who are always here. And this week, Kathy just beat Doug to that suggestion, which is probably going to be the episode title. But you never know what other things might come up. But anyway, so one of the reasons that I haven't used the Pro Gear for the job that it is doing right now, which is to take notes during the recording, is because it has a cap on it. And what I realized was, and I didn't notice this until for a while, every time I took a note, you could hear me uncapping the pen.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, really?

Myke Hurley: Or you could hear like some sound. Nobody else would hear it, but I could hear it when I was editing. So, I'm throwing caution to the wind and doing something which is perfectly fine to do, but I never do. And I'm leaving it uncapped.

Myke Hurley: So, I started doing this with the M90 as well, strictly because Thomas told me that the pen was, the M90 was very good for that, that you could just leave it uncapped. And it would be fine. But today, I am doing that with the Pro Gear as well. And I am very happy. It very rarely has any problems starting. But if I leave it for like 10 minutes or something, it might just take two attempts for the first character. You know? Sure. Sure. But, yeah, I'm very happy to be using it. And as I mentioned, it is filled with Fuyugaki, of course. Hiroshizuku Fuyugaki. And I am writing on the Field Notes byline, which is one of my very, very favorite things right now. I've got to say. Mm-hmm. So, there you go, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's, so I kind of did this in two sections. One, because when I podcast, I use something different than what I'm necessarily using every day. So, like the caption you put in our show notes is, what are we using today? Well, that's one thing. But what I've been carrying every day is a different thing. So, I want to talk about what I'm using today first because it's so similar to yours. I'm actually using a Sailor Pro Gear Slims. And it's one of the Four Seasons editions. This one is called Haruzora Spring Sky. It's blue with gold trim and black end caps. It's really pretty looking. I like the look of this pen. It's obviously smaller than the Pro Gear you're using. And one of the things that I like about your Pro Gear, because I have the exact same one, and about this Pro Gear that never gets talked about, they have really excellent clips on their pens. Do you ever think about that? I think about clips on pens a lot. That's just one of my things.

Myke Hurley: I never ever clip pens.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's just a really sturdy, really nice shape. It's always firm and never gets loose or wiggles or anything like that. Anyway, I like this pen a lot, this clip. And I have a fine nib in this one. I have a Sailor Blue Black ink cartridge, which I'm using. And I, too, am writing on the Field Notes Byline Edition because it's kind of like the really great desk pad. So I have a really small end table that I podcast on. So I have my laptop, my microphone, and the Byline Edition with this pen all set up perfectly. It's like all the right size all the way across.

Myke Hurley: So what was the name of the Sailor, the color that you have?

Sailor Four Seasons

Brad Dowdy: So it's part of the Four Seasons collection. And it's Haruzora, H-A-R-U-Z-O-R-A, Spring Sky. Wow. So I think probably we could shorten that to Spring Sky and be good. Yeah, I think that would be fun. It kind of looks like a Tiffany pen, you know, like Tiffany, the brand Tiffany. It's not quite as deep of a blue. It's a much lighter blue, but it looks like something that would be sold in, like, the Tiffany jewelry store or something like that. It's a really neat kind of color that they did for this. And there's four total colors in this. I forget which other one. This is the one I'm working on to review. They have, I don't know, I could have picked a different one, but I wanted to pick one that I wouldn't normally pick. So this was actually the one to see about the color. This probably would be my third choice of the four. But I wanted to see something different. But why I found this whole thing interesting is because what I've really been literally carrying every day is a Fodderstack XL, which is the NotCo memo book holder. It's the real skinny one. It has one pen pocket in the front. And I have a Fisher Space Pen in there, a brass one, just the traditional shape, brass bullet Fisher Space Pen in one of the Pen Addict notebooks. And what I found myself recently, and this is going on a couple of months, that when I'm going to knock three days a week, I end up not bringing any fountain pens with me because they're not great around the shop. I don't want to clip them to my shirt, you know, have them fall out, have them drop, you know, if I'm writing on the copy paper that we use in the printer that we're printing orders on, you know, I want to use something that's not a fountain pen because that's not the best for the situation. And I think that's what I found is like I found a kit that's better for the situation I'm in. And that's what I talk about all the time, using the right pens and paper in the right situations. It doesn't matter what's the best pen or what's your favorite pen. What's the best for the situation that you're in? And I found this little kit with the notebook, the notebook cover and the pen to be like a really, really good setup for me because I can just throw it in my pocket. It fits easily in my back pocket. It fits on a side pocket if I'm wearing a short with like a cargo pocket or something like that. It doesn't get in the way. It's light. I can use this pen on anything and anywhere in the shop with the Fisher Space Pen refill. I always switch out those refills, by the way, from the 1.0 millimeter black to the 0.7 millimeter blue. I don't like the black Fisher Space Pen refill in the 1.0 millimeter size. It's not my favorite at all. So that's kind of been like my carry. Like I'll leave the house. I just grab the fodder stack and everything's there and I throw it in my pocket. It doesn't get in the way. I don't know. That's kind of been my thing recently. And it's sticky. It's been sticking with me. I haven't been using my fountain pens near as much. Which I wrote recently. I was talking about this because Myke Dudek wrote a post about how he hadn't been using his fountain pens as much. And I got to think about it. I was like, you know, I'm kind of in the exact same boat where my fountain pen usage was like 75% of my pen usage. It's dropped down to probably under 50% of the time. I'm just using more different pens nowadays than I am using fountain pens. I definitely rotate through my fountain pens a lot less than I used to just because I'm using them less. Not using the ink as much. So not as much need to change through them. So it's an interesting transition I'm having right now. And it's just environmental. It's just like what's being called for for the job that I'm doing right now. So, yeah. So I totally hate fountain pens again, Myke. You can quote me on that.

Myke Hurley: Oh, you're back around.

Brad Dowdy: You've come all the way around again. Yeah. Tony.

Myke Hurley: Tony wanted to remind me of that. I want to make a clarification on your sailor that you mentioned. Sure. Is it sky blue or spring blue? Spring blue. Okay. Because I'm finding Haruzura sky blue everywhere. Really? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Including on Nibs.com and on Pen Chalet. Okay. I was looking on gold spot and they have it as spring blue. So, yeah. Wow. So maybe we should go to the sailor site to get the official name.

Myke Hurley: Well, I went to Nibs.com and they have it as sky blue. It's all very confusing, everyone. These are the real kind of challenges that we have here.

Brad Dowdy: I know. And, you know, I'm definitely prone to screwing that up. Yeah. Gold spot says spring.

Myke Hurley: Well, who knows whether it's spring or sky, but I'm going to put a link to the sky blue in the chat room because it looks similar, at least.

Brad Dowdy: But I'm going to go with spring blue because the series is called Four Seasons. So there's spring, summer, autumn, and winter. So...

Myke Hurley: Well, then it doesn't make any sense, does it, really? Nope. So as Kathy would say, suck it. Well, it's not my fault, is it, really? I mean, I feel like you've unfairly asked me to do that.

Brad Dowdy: You asked me. You asked me the color. No, I feel like...

Myke Hurley: I had the color right the first time. Look, I'm just saying, all right? All I'm doing is looking these things up because you're going to provide me with the links and I want to give the links to our listeners. Fair enough. Fair enough. What do you want me to do? I love the patina in the photo of your Fisher Space Pen because it just looks green now. It looks like you just bought a green one.

Brad Dowdy: I keep photographing it because it's kind of blowing my mind. So it came out, obviously, when you get it, it's just the brightest, clearest, most perfect brass. That patina took all of about two days of me carrying it in my pocket. It was like zero to a hundred in two days. It's just like crazy, crazy patina. So now you have it at me, me making those noises that you don't like.

Myke Hurley: That's interesting, right? The patina thing because you buy a pen for a specific look and then within days, it doesn't look like that anymore. Yeah. You know? It's weird.

Brad Dowdy: I have a few... Like, I still have my pen type B that I carry and it patinaed like gradually and it's nowhere near as dark as this is. And it's a huge hunk of brass. This is... I think people were actually saying because this one is so thin, it causes that to be a quicker transition, I guess. And the pen type B, you know, just has a more stable, you know, looking effect on it than this one does. This one is really kind of crazy, especially with the time they took.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Interesting. Very interesting. Interesting. So you mentioned your buddy to me again today. Yeah. That was in the pregame. Yeah. So you were brought up by Kevin Rose on the Tim Ferriss podcast, which is very popular.

Myke Hurley: I have nothing to say.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I didn't really have anything to say either. I just... You just want to rub it in my face.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I just want to rub it in. I know what you're doing.

Brad Dowdy: Actually, I didn't know about it. Like I was sitting around... It was either Sunday or Monday. It was on a super quiet day. And I started getting a few tweets saying, hey, you got to mention in the Tim Ferriss podcast, Kevin Rose was talking about... They were talking about what's a purchase under $100 that, you know, has kind of changed how you do things. And Kevin mentioned the podcast.

Myke Hurley: And just how you changed his life, basically.

Uniball Signo

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. So he's now using the Uniball Signo 207 and 307 is kind of his go-to pin.

Myke Hurley: I just... I can't get on board with Signo.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I'm coming around just because I know I should say it. It still... It'll always be Sino to me, but I've just gone with Signo now, just like, you know, Moleskine. You know, I don't know. You know, I feel bad when I know the right pronunciation and I still don't even attempt it. So I feel like I should drop some Signos in there. So...

Myke Hurley: It just makes me sad. I like Sino. I really like Sino. I'm going to be a Signo denier.

Myke Hurley: That sounds like... It kind of sounds like Cinco de Mayo.

Myke Hurley: I just wanted to draw attention to another installment in Ginny at Three Staples look, like a deep look at a Field Notes edition. I promise I'm not going to do this every single time she posts, but this time it was Arts and Sciences. So, you know, one of my favorite editions, probably my second or third favorite edition. So I just wanted to mention it because the photography is great, even though I fundamentally disagree with a lot of Ginny's points because she wasn't a big fan of the edition. And anybody that's not a big fan of Arts and Sciences, I will just disagree with. I understand where she was coming from in the idea of... She's kind of the purist mindset of size and format of the notebooks. And this fundamentally changed that. And kind of like to paraphrase Ginny, without really adding much to it, they just blew up the book in dimensions. And I guess it's different to Byline, right, where they kind of changed it. But Ginny kind of shows her colors a little bit towards Byline. She doesn't seem to like Byline for that reason either. Sure. But I do. I love both of these editions. But I also understand why it freaks people out because they buy these books sight unseen and they kind of see them as, I guess, as a specific role that they fill. But I like to have these books thrown on me because these books are two of my favorite editions because they have found an additional utility that I didn't know I would need them for. So that's why I like them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's exactly right. And I actually mentioned this in the newsletter this weekend because these two issues will now forever be linked, right? They're the two outliers of size and shape that cause, you know, a wide gap in the love-hate. There's not a lot of middle ground in arts and sciences and Byline. You love them or you hate them. And both of those stances are correct, you know, based on how you use your field notes. But I thought it was just a timely review. And I said when I was talking about them that we had been clamoring for like a stock edition arts and sciences for the last two years. That's never happened. And now people are saying, well, stock edition Byline. And I'm pretty certain that's not going to happen either. I think if either of them happened, it'd be arts and sciences. But if I had to put money, I would bet neither would ever be.

Myke Hurley: And as I've made myself perfectly clear, if Byline becomes stock before arts and sciences, I will march upon Chicago. I might actually pay for that so we can go together so I can see it. I'll have to see how I go with this because I think for the job that I'm using it for, Byline is actually better than arts and sciences. But for me, it's just a case of principle now. You know? It's like I wanted it for so long. Even though now I would probably prefer it to be Byline. Right. But I've asked for arts and sciences for so long, I would be upset.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. They'll never do anything with Byline as long as Steno exists.

Myke Hurley: That's what I believe too. And I can't see Steno going away because part of the reason people like it is that it's bigger.

Myke Hurley: Maybe they'll combine arts and sciences and Byline. They'll just make one of the big formats with a ring binder along the top. The stationary internet would explode. Oh my God. Oh my God. Talking about the explosion of the stationary internet. Let's talk about a company that does awesome stuff. Penchelay. You know Penchelay. They have all your favorite brands. We were talking about those sailors earlier. So the four season sailor. Penchelay of course have those because they have all of your favorite brands. They have Cafeco, Pelican, Lamy, Pilot, Namiki. So many more. They're an authorized dealer of all of them. They have all the fountain pens, roller balls, ballpoints, mechanical pencils that you'll want. As well as all of the accessories that you're going to need to put stuff in and to put them inside. So carrying cases and refills and converters. The whole shebang. They even carry some inks as well. They're always adding new styles of pens. They're always adding whatever they can. And they have great deals. And they have great deals on shipping as well. They ship internationally with really reasonable shipping rates. I've had stuff. So from Penchelay a bunch. They also do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the United States. So Penchelay also offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee on their high quality goods. Go to Penchelay.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password PenAddict. And you will get this week's special offer. Which I'm going to tell you about in a moment. And also the code that you'll need to save 10% on anything at Penchelay. I want to stress this. We always talk about the offers that they have. But you can buy anything at Penchelay and get 10% off just by going to the site and entering the little PenAddict password in the podcast link. Because the code changes week to week. So you've got to make sure you go there. So you'll get to see the special offers and also pick up the code. So you can pick up a sale of your own if you want to. But we do have a bunch of special offers this week. Ron has put together a cavalcade of deals for you. We have the Monteverde Jewellery Ballpoint. Which retails at $50. But after the discount and coupon you can pick up for $9. The Conklin All-American is full for July. Rollerball. Retails at $85. You can get it for $30.60. So being a listener of the show. Because you'll get the discount and coupon. The Lamy AL Star Ballpoint in blue or green. Which retails at $37. You can get it for $23.31. And the Lamy Logo Fountain Pen in the new Pearl and Twilight colorways. Was $50 at retail. But you can get it for $31.50. After the discount from Pen Chalet. And the coupon that you put in at checkout. So there's some fantastic stuff there. As always. Thanks so much to Pen Chalet for their support of this show. And Relay FM.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So a couple of things here. One, the Lamy Logo Fountain Pen is a really good deal. It's a skinnier barrel pen. Without the molded grip sections. Like you'll find in the Safari. The AL Star. Things like that. But they'll also take the Safari nibs. If you want to swap those out. If you have a favorite. This Conklin All-American Rollerball. I'm interested in it. Only because the picture shows it with a fineliner refill. And I find that extremely odd. And I like those refills. It's a Mont Blanc slash Monteverde type refill. So I'm interested to see why that's got that refill in there. Because that's kind of cool actually. Because not a lot of pens take that. Or not a lot of pens come with that. You can retrofit a lot of pens to fit that. And what I meant to mention earlier. When we were talking about the things I'm carrying. I'm carrying a lot of ballpoint pens recently. If I'm not carrying this Fisher Space Pen, Myke. I've been carrying the Lamy Pico. It's stuff you can bash around. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And I enjoy writing with them. The Lamy ballpoint refills are really, really good. So like last week. When, you know, Ron stuck in the Pelican Burnt Orange M800. For a really good price. Which is still in there. I wanted to make sure I scrolled down. To see if he stuck anything else in these deals. And he did. So he did the Platinum 3776 Gathered fountain pens. The one with the rings around the barrel. That's a really good deal for $148.50. That's a pretty cool pen. I used those at one of the pen shows I was at. I like the feel of those. Pretty cool.

Myke Hurley: I'm starting to think now that Ron is not telling me about some of the stuff he puts in. Because you always find these like kind of awesome deals that he doesn't tell me about. I know what you two are up to.

Brad Dowdy: You know, I rarely talk to Ron. You know, we chit chat every now and then. But I think he just knows that I don't look at it beforehand. So he wants to see what I come up with, I guess. So we'll see.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Pensilay. And they're always so great to work with. We really appreciate it. Very wonderful. Thank you, Ron. We were talking about Lamy. And it's Lamy City over here, baby.

Brad Dowdy: Good grief. That's all. It seems that's like everything in the pen news over the past few days, as far as products goes, has been around Lamy. They're kind of... The initial leaks of the images were coming out. Gearing up for the big release for the 50th anniversary stuff. So let's get the big one out first, because that's what everyone... Just quickly.

Myke Hurley: I have to say about the leaks and stuff. People know that I also do tech podcasting, right? You know, that is the thing that I do. This process of this Lamy coming out is basically the same as when like a new iPhone comes out. There's rumors, speculation on the colorway, then the leaked images come out, right? Like, oh, such and such website's got an image. And then a few select sites get to talk about it, right? Like Goulet pens seem to have more information than anybody else. Like, it's been really interesting to watch this kind of rollout of this product here. But we finally know, after months of speculation, what the Lamy 2050th Anniversary Limited Edition is. It's called the Black Amber. Which is a way better name than what we get.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, this is a totally... It's the Lamy 2000 Black Amber 50th Anniversary Limited Edition. Womp, womp, womp. Like...

Myke Hurley: It's such a letdown. You're going to find a bunch of links in the show notes.

Myke Hurley: There's... One of the first places that I saw it was an Instagram account. I don't know this. Apple Boom Pen? What is this?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, out of the Netherlands. It's a big pen shop out of the Netherlands. Okay. I'd never heard of them before. Good people. Absolutely really good stuff.

Myke Hurley: And then Goulet has a good kind of sneak peek at this and another pen we're going to talk about in a minute. Where we've got a bunch of details about it. There's also a video that Lamy put out. Which is like a two-minute video. And you see... This is also from Apple Boom. They posted it. Right? But I think it looks like an official Lamy video to me anyway. You get to see the Limited Edition at 1 minute 30 in this video. And effectively, it is a Lamy 2000 in stainless steel.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: So it looks just like the... What color... Didn't they have a stainless steel one before?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, still do.

Myke Hurley: Still do. So... Yeah. Stainless steel.

Lamy 2000

Brad Dowdy: It's a stainless steel, but it now has this coating on it. This black amber coating. Which is kind of an odd look, to be quite honest. It either needs to be black or it needs to be amber. I don't know. It's gray-ish.

Myke Hurley: It looks like it's maybe a little bit goldy in the right light. Yeah. And it has a small 50, which is imprinted under the Lamy logo. So to kind of denote it, it's 50 years. They have 5,000 units. They're going to be 500 euros each available in September. But... This is such a bad effort.

Myke Hurley: Now, I don't know how this pen feels to hold, right? Like, it might feel real nice. Did you say the price? Yeah, 500 euro. 500 euro, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So... For what? Close to 700 US? 650, 700?

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I mean... So, let's be perfectly clear. There's no doubt they'll sell out of these immediately. They will. They just will.

Brad Dowdy: I... Yeah. But going to what you were saying, it's just a total letdown from what could have been an amazing thing.

Myke Hurley: Now, I don't know why they've made the choices that they've made. Because, like, the stainless steel 2000 is the lesser of the 2000s anyway. Right? In my opinion, the best 2000 is the black one because of the Microlon. Right? That's one of my things as to what makes this pen so amazing.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. That's what makes the 2000 the 2000.

Myke Hurley: So, they started with, in my opinion, and I guess yours too, the wrong base. Mm-hmm. And then added something to it that isn't really that great. I mean, and again, this might feel great to hold, right? Like, this satin finish, which has been quoted from the Gulo Pens blog, doesn't really excite me. Right. And you put a link, and we brought this up when we originally spoke about this, to the special edition auction that Johnny Ive put together and Mark Newsom of the red Lamy 2000, which is exactly what we want.

Brad Dowdy: They kept the Macrolon material, made it red, and made something incredible. And this is the stainless model that's painted. It's like, really? Wow. Okay. For that price. I mean, and I really want the stainless model. I would get the stainless model over this in a split second. It's a really great pen. But this edition, no thanks. And then when you know, good and well, they can actually do something like this. I mean, if they're going to charge a super premium for it, even no matter how much it costs them to make that Johnny Ive, Mark Newsom one for Project Red, you charge it. I mean, you just, I don't care how much it costs. You show off. This is the time to show off, right? You could make that for less than 500 euros. Yeah, I would wager.

Myke Hurley: What a shame, man. Yeah. I feel like they really kind of less down on it. Because Black Amber, like, why did they even give it that name? It's not Black or Amber.

Brad Dowdy: I don't understand. It's like, it's the color of my, like, when my kids finger paint and mix, like, the yellow and the green and the blue and the red, it ends up kind of like Black Amber. It's just not a color. It's not a real color.

Myke Hurley: But imagine how, you know, I was imagining, like, you know, like orange and black. And I was like, ooh, this is going to be real great. But let that out.

Brad Dowdy: Or even, like, when the pictures first came out, the tags weren't clear that they were saying male, because the pictures didn't show the color off very well. They were thinking, well, maybe this is a titanium pin.

Brad Dowdy: That would have been disappointing, too. But in retrospect, that might even, that might have, I might have been more interested in that.

Myke Hurley: I wouldn't have bought a titanium, but it wouldn't have upset me so much.

Paint Jobs

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I still wouldn't have bought it. But, I mean, it's a paint job for, like, a really important release that they're doing.

Myke Hurley: Again, this is what's going to happen in September when Apple unveil the iPhone 7 and the body hasn't changed. Right? Because that's the current rumors. It's like, it's going to look just like the 6 and the 6S. And then everyone's going to be doing this, right? Complaining about the fact that it hasn't changed very much. Right. And that maybe they just have a new color.

Myke Hurley: And one of the reasons I keep bringing up the iPhone is because of the Lamy Lux. It's LX, but it's pronounced Lux or Lux. I'm going to go with Lux because it has an E at the end from the pronunciation guide. And this has been referred to by many, including you, as the iPhone pen. And it is because it is a kind of a next level up from the AL. It is made out of aluminium, anodized aluminium, four colors. Gold, what they call gold, palladium, rose gold, and ruthenium. Palladium and ruthenium are kind of a cheat because they're not made of those materials. It's just the colors that those materials give. And basically, it was just so they didn't use silver and slate gray because these are the exact same colors as the iPhone, iPad, and MacBook color choices that you can get now. Gold, rose gold, slate gray, and silver.

Myke Hurley: The nibs are gorgeous. They are black with this gold detailing. Have you seen the nibs? Yes. Oh, they look good. They give you matching anodized cases, anodized aluminium cases that match the color.

Myke Hurley: And I'm being told space gray in the chat room. It's not slate gray. I apologize. It is space gray. This is an approximate $70 MSRP. Goulet say $56 with them. I don't know how, but that's what they said in their blog post.

Brad Dowdy: That's pretty standard retail pricing, 20% off MSRP. Okay. It's what most retailers, is the street price.

Myke Hurley: So let's say it's $56. Yep. I'm so in on this pen. Oh my god, these are amazing. This is so cool. Now, I can hear that you don't think so. But I think they look really good. And also, freaking genius. Freaking genius. If you want to make four pens in a new line in aluminium, of course you make them the iPhone colors. Like, why would you not do that? And I don't know why people are getting mad about this. This is freaking genius. And I want all four of them now.

Brad Dowdy: Excuse me. I kind of felt that you might feel this way.

Myke Hurley: I'm just shaking my head. Like, you put these in, like, stores. Like, regular stores. These are going to fly off the shelves. Because they look like the iPhone.

Brad Dowdy: I'm not going to disagree with you. Except for me, personally. The sound you heard was my head shaking back and forth while you were talking. This just makes me, personally, want to pull my hair out. This drives me absolutely insane.

Brad Dowdy: It's... Why? I mean, it's because of the matchiness and the attempt to do that. If you're going to do that, drop me two more colors in there as well that are just badass. Like, blue or orange or green or purple. I mean, go with these four, which is a clear matchy-matchy thing that you're talking about. And then drop me two more, and then I might get excited on it.

Myke Hurley: Well, but they've given you the dark lilac and the green this year.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, but not in this model. Not with this finish. Not with this nib.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, but the point is, like, the materials. Like, so, for example, the clips, they are plated with the actual metal that the pen is representing.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So, I mean, I wouldn't pay the extra price for these, to your point. They gave me those colors for $20 cheaper. I mean, I don't get a black nib and a carrying case, but I like the pen better. The best thing about it is the carrying case and the nib. You know, if I can buy the nib separately, I might get one. But this doesn't excite me. I laugh more at this than anything. But again, just like the other 2,000, they will sell the snot out of these. It's just not for me personally.

Myke Hurley: But for a different reason, though. Like, the 2,000 will sell because it's limited. These will sell because it's a freaking genius marketing move. Like, you can't deny that, right?

Brad Dowdy: I do not deny that.

Myke Hurley: This is genius. It's so smart of them to choose these colors. And I want them because I actually just think they look great. I think they look great. I think there's four great colors and they've done a really good job of putting these together. And I think it's a very smart move. And it's what upsets me so much is that they will do this and then the black amber together. And it's like, oh, you were, like, so close.

Myke Hurley: But I know people are getting real upset about these because of the price and stuff like that. But just don't buy it.

Brad Dowdy: I'll end up with one of these just to review and, you know, get one of the gray ones. And because I want to see the case, I want to see if the nib's any different. And it'll be a perfectly fine pen. It's just, again, it's just not super exciting when they could have done something super exciting.

Myke Hurley: I think it's exciting for different people. Sure. But it excites me, though, right? Like, I do think this is exciting.

Brad Dowdy: It's going to do extremely well. There's no doubt.

Myke Hurley: So I will be buying one of these as soon as I see them available because I don't know when they're coming out. I think this is September also. Okay. So just in time for the new iPhone?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Which is even better marketing.

Myke Hurley: You know, when I initially saw these, I was like, are they going in Apple stores? Like in the campus store?

Brad Dowdy: I mean, I thought if they see things going on with, you know, like Retro 51 getting in there and doing the color matching thing. I was like, well, maybe we should do something and we could at least do it in the European market, if not worldwide. I see no reason why they wouldn't. I mean, Lamy's obviously has fans in people like Johnny Ive, right? So maybe these will show up in the campus store. I wouldn't be surprised.

Myke Hurley: Or at least a version of them with the Apple logo on. Who knows?

Brad Dowdy: Who knows?

TWSBI Pens

Myke Hurley: Now we get on to more incredibly frustrating product marketing decisions. We get to talk about our favorite Facebook page in the world. Twisby's Facebook page. Woohoo! Why are you bringing this to my attention?

Brad Dowdy: Because it's bamboo and it's cool looking. I like this one. And it's the same model as the micarta. I mean, same barrel shape. And you know, I love the barrel shape of my micarta. It's not going to feel at all like the micarta. The micarta has a density that I don't think this bamboo is going to be able to pull off. But this is kind of cool. But when did they do those? When did we tease those last wood pens? Like when they did all the rare materials? That was probably almost two and a half years ago. Is it over a year?

Myke Hurley: I feel like I've been doing it for my entire life.

Brad Dowdy: And they've never done it. And those looked way better than this bamboo model is. But yeah, I'd be all over this. This pen is sweet.

Brad Dowdy: So I'll get this and you get the Lamy. And we'll all live happily ever after.

Myke Hurley: Well, the thing is you're never going to get this.

Brad Dowdy: That's true.

Myke Hurley: That's so true. This is why it annoys me. Like the pen itself looks brilliant. But they do this all the time, right? Like, oh, look at this thing we're working on. But it's so far away from actually arriving. That's what annoys me about them. Yeah. They do this all the time. It drives me crazy.

Brad Dowdy: Hey, I was the one getting in trouble for the red lava that they did last week where I was complaining or two weeks ago. But whatever. I'm all about the bamboo. So, yeah. I subscribe to their Twisby page. To their Facebook page. But I never read it just because it's always something, like, super cool that's never going to exist. But, you know, I'm all about that, too. You know, I do that, too. We make cool things at Noct that don't exist. And I keep teasing them because it's fun. It's fun to do. And, you know, it's a maybe, Myke. Maybe it'll exist.

Myke Hurley: It can get me all jacked up about it. So, I need to make a quick addendum to my original point right at the top of the show. My sailor has now run out of ink. So, I have now turned over to the Pelican M205 that I own.

Brad Dowdy: Did it run out of ink because you unscrewed it and looked? Or did it run out of ink because you've left it uncapped the entire show?

Myke Hurley: It ran out of ink because I unscrewed it and looked. Okay. It is out. But I'm using the M205, the striped one. It's a 205, isn't it, that Mrs. Thomas Hall gifted me?

Brad Dowdy: Well, it's like a 200, the way they call it. It's a weird number. But, yes, it's that size.

Myke Hurley: So, I've now switched over to that, which has also got Fuyugaki in it. But I upgraded this one with a gold nib. That's right. It was very expensive. It sure was. I remember doing that, though, because I wasn't a big fan of the original nib. So, I went ahead and bought a gold one. And this was my favorite pen for a long time. And this was still for the world.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, very, very long time. It is superb. I'm talking about potential favorite pens. That exist. This one exists. So, this is going to be a problem, Myke. It's the Montblanc Meisterstuk Ultra Black. I'm like, I got my fist pumped up in the air about this one to talk about this one. I had some time to spend reading and thinking all about it yesterday. And I didn't know if you got time to look at it. So, I kind of want to know what your thoughts are about this.

Myke Hurley: So, I've taken a look at all of the links that you provided me, which we're providing for the show notes. This is absolutely beautiful. And I am very scared of it.

Myke Hurley: It looks... It has the look of the Macrolon from the Limey 2000, which is quite interesting. Like, it has a kind of a matte-looking finish to it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's a matte finish. Resin barrel, matte finish. It's not Macrolon. No. Just make sure.

Myke Hurley: No, it isn't. But as I say, it has the look of it. So, it has that really interesting texture look to it. But we have two different versions. The Classic and the LeGrand.

Pen Size Comparison

Myke Hurley: Is it different in size? What is the difference between the Classic and the LeGrand?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, just kind of like my ProGear Slims that I'm using in your regular ProGear. You know, they have that different size comparison. And also, with the LeGrand, it's a piston filler. Where the Classic is a cartridge converter filler. So, the LeGrand, you'll see the ink window because it has a piston filling mechanism. And the Classic, you won't see that because it's a cartridge converter system pin.

Myke Hurley: But it's got a little ink window in it. And, yeah. It's just incredible. If you look at the Where to Focus WTF page from Anderson Pens, you'll get kind of a good view. They've got some great photos of this thing. I'm lusting. I am lusting.

Brad Dowdy: I am too. I mean, this is like... I'm glad I didn't buy the Rouge Noir. Like, and then this come out. I would have been ticked. Because I couldn't afford both of them. There's no way. And this is the one that's speaking to me.

Myke Hurley: There's a thing that upsets me, like, deeply. Which is on Anderson Pens' website. You have to click for them to email you the price. That's when you know you're in. Yeah. In bad times. Right? Like, this is bad. This is not good.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Those are those things that come from down on high. Right? Yep. Come down from on high. And, I mean, you can only carry Mont Blanc if you have a brick and mortar store. I believe it's still one of their things. That's why Anderson has them. But then there must be some kind of rules directly from Mont Blanc that you can't publicize the price. But the European companies do publicize the price. So there's got to be something up.

Myke Hurley: But it's like you just know it's going to be expensive, right? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So for the small one, it's $670. I've typed Euro in the sheet, but it's $1. And then $870 for the LeGrand. Boy. This, if there's a pen designed for me, this is it. And we were talking in the Slack room yesterday in the podcast. Number one, we were talking, are we having blacked out fatigue? You know, where the all black and the ruthenium and, you know, the whole murdered out look.

Brad Dowdy: And my answer to that was no, because that's just the style that appeals to me. You know, I already have three or four pens that way. I'm not tired of it. I would add another one. And then that conversation continued with our friend Joey Feldman. And they're joking about this in the chat room. He went to the, he regaled us with a tale of him visiting the Mont Blanc store yesterday in LA when they were unboxing these. And he got to play around with them. And somehow he didn't leave with one. But he's working on it. And he's working on a deal to try to get a little bit of discount on it. But he said it was pretty awesome. And woke up this morning having dreamt about it last night. And this is one of those pens I hope to see at the DC Pen Show. And we'll kind of chart a course from there if I'm interested in it or not. I want to see what the size of it is. I'm assuming it's a good medium-sized fountain pen. So I'm not familiar with Mont Blanc's big shapes. Everyone was hoping it would come in the 149, which is the bigger of the three models.

Brad Dowdy: And it does not. So I'm interested to see where this falls into, if it's comfortable for me. And this one's on the list, Myke. So what are you thinking? What am I thinking? I'm not like Jones into like jam buttons and put it in a shopping cart.

Myke Hurley: All right. It's cheaper than I thought it was going to be in the UK.

Brad Dowdy: It's about where I thought it would be.

Myke Hurley: Just looking at the prices that you put into the document. It's like £450 and £570, which is still an incredible amount of money. And it's not a, I'm just going to go ahead and buy this. But I am willing to go and take a look at one. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That's what I want to do. I want to look. And like I've just said earlier in the show, I'm not using fountain pens as much. So I'm not like all over this. Like I have to have this like maybe, you know, a year ago. It's like, oh, I got to have this. I got to have it now. And I'm ready to ink it up. And I know what ink I'm putting in. And we're going to go to town. Now I'm, for something this expensive, you know, takes quite a thought process to get into. But this is one of the few Montblancs that have spoken to me. And this one is, it's a looker. I know that. So I'll be anxious to see it in DC. I'm guessing they'll be there. Yeah. I guess if they're already available. So they'll have them. I'm sure the Andersons will bring them.

M205 Feelings

Myke Hurley: But as I said, like I had stronger feelings than this towards the M.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. And that made me, that didn't, that kind of made me sad. It didn't really live up to what I wanted it to be. So. Yeah, I know. I will want to try this before I buy this.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I kind of want to like buy an M for like $200 just to have it. Knowing that it's going to suck and I'm not going to like it. But it's a really cool pen. I mean, I'll never get one for that price. It'll be beat if it is. But it's just not a pen I wouldn't really use. So there's no use in paying, you know, probably before something. I think I could probably get an M for. But I would much rather pay the money for this and enjoy it and really, really use it. So we'll see. I got maybe I should. Maybe I should sell a few pens before DC and, you know, have the have the money. I had it like DC's in four weeks. I haven't even started saving yet. I should probably work on that. Probably be a good idea. I've been so busy. It's busy, busy, busy. So DC real quick. Like I've always said that Knox coming to DC and we're going to have a table. We're not. Which is OK. We're actually pretty happy with that because of the things that we got going on right now that I don't know if we'll be able to announce before DC or not. But we're we're working on stuff.

Myke Hurley: Oh, you're the worst.

Brad Dowdy: But I know. Sorry.

Myke Hurley: Worst in Twisbee.

Brad Dowdy: Well, no, I'm just I it's it's it's a whole new world.

Myke Hurley: I know, but you could have like left the other half of it out. Right. Just be like, we haven't got a table. Sorry. Like, but then you're like, because we got some awesome stuff we're working on.

Myke Hurley: Worse than Twisbee.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I'll take it. I'll eat that.

Brad Dowdy: But I'll be working for Van Es Pens in DC just like last year. So I'll be there all four days. So Thursday to Sunday, something like that. So I'll be there regardless. And we'll have a good time. We'll talk about more about DC as we as we get closer for sure.

Myke Hurley: DC seems like a fun show. I'd love to do it one day.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think we'll we'll have to work on that and make it happen.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. But there are a bunch of other shows I want to visit as well. So my goodness, for sure.

Brad Dowdy: For sure.

Myke Hurley: All right. I think that brings us to the end of this week's show. If you would like to find our show notes for today's episode, head on over to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 212. If you want to find Brad online, he is over at penaddict.com and knock.co. And he is at dowdy as I'm on Twitter. D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. Penaddict on Instagram. I am iMike. I-M-Y-K-E on both. Thanks again to Pen Chalet for the continued support of this show. Make sure you go and check them out and consider Pen Chalet as the place where you go and buy your next lovely pen. And we'll see you on the other side. Hopefully we won't have both bought Montblancs in between now and then. You never know what's going to happen. So until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.