The Pen Addict 229/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	229
Title:	The Most Nervous Pen Repair of All Time
Release Date:	November 2nd, 2016
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	Brian Anderson
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 229
Audio File:	Audio Episode 229
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 229
Length:	6161 min <br />1.017 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Podcast Intro

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 229. Today's show is brought to you by Harry's and Capto. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Mr. Brad Dowdy. Hello, Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Well, you're not just joined by me today. I mean, I appreciate that I'm joining you today and that you're joining me, but what I'm really appreciative of is Brian and Lisa Anderson from Anderson Pens joining us. Hey, Brian and Lisa.

Myke Hurley: Good morning. Hello.

Brad Dowdy: How are y'all?

Myke Hurley: I cannot believe that we are 229 episodes into this show and we're just having you on.

Brad Dowdy: What is it?

Brian Anderson: Well, we just wanted to make sure you had it all together before we were out.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, make sure it was legit. What we had to do, Myke, is we had to make sure that we were always ahead of them in podcast number. That's true. I know. Y'all are like over 200 though, right?

Brian Anderson: We were, yeah, there were a couple weeks where we really didn't want to do a podcast because it was right before a show or right after. And we were like, no, we have to because Brad's like one ahead or one behind or whatever. So we're competitive that way.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we did 201 last night. Wow.

Myke Hurley: Congratulations.

Brad Dowdy: Well, congratulations. That's pretty awesome. We'll talk more about that as we get through the show. But gosh, between us and y'all, that's well over 400 podcasts about pens. Did you think this would ever be like a thing?

Brian Anderson: Well, you know, if you do the math, that's over eight years. Wow.

Brad Dowdy: That's kind of scary. Don't do that to me again, Lisa.

Brad Dowdy: I'm not good at math.

Brad Dowdy: So, I mean, I think most everyone listening to us or, you know, that has been around the pen community a while are familiar with Anderson Pens and Brian and Lisa Anderson and the world tour that they're on and the awesome shop that they have. But I think, you know, there's probably some listeners that aren't too familiar with it. So I wanted to just take a step back just for like a second and talk about how before there were pens, before you were like doing pen shows, before y'all even knew each other. Like, Lisa, how did, were you into fountain pens like as a thing as you were growing up? And like, did this turn into something as you were older? Or was it just something you kind of latched onto later in life?

Journaling Pens

Brian Anderson: Well, I've always enjoyed writing and always had special pens that I would use for journaling or even homework. And as I got older, I kind of stopped. I lost interest for a little while with kids and all of that. And then got back into it in the late 90s. Just remember, I was bored and just remembered how much I really enjoyed, you know, some of the really cheap like Schaefer school pens and things like that that I had used when I was in school. And found a couple and got re-hooked.

Brad Dowdy: And did you start like trying to find other fountain pens then? Or did you, you know, the internet was in its younger years then. Did you jump online and try to figure out where I can get more of this stuff? Or did you look locally and try to find some pen shops to get more involved?

Brian Anderson: I was in Tampa and there was one pen store, but it was downtown. And I hate one-way streets and parallel parking. So I spent a lot of time on eBay. And I was lucky. I met someone online who did some pen repair. And he became a bit of a mentor and kind of steered me toward Estrobrooks because they were cheap. They were easy to find. And they were easy to repair.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's super cool to have like that little bit of a guiding hand to kind of get you in the right direction when you're just getting into it. What about you, Brian? Is this like a deep-seated thing, this love for pens that you currently have? Has this been around your whole life?

Brian Anderson: Well, I've always been interested in antiques. And I used to go to a lot of antique stores. And I came across one day a Venus President, which was a striped pen, looks similar to a vacuumatic. And I couldn't take my eyes off it, so I bought it. I ended up actually breaking the pen between the point where I left the antique store and getting home.

Brian Anderson: That was a good buy.

Brian Anderson: Ended up calling the antique store owner and asked if I could get in touch with the vendor. And we ended up having about a two-hour phone conversation about fountain pens. And then eBay came along, and I started buying pens off eBay. And then I realized there were literally millions of variations. And then the rest is history, as they say. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So, you know, you started doing this, started getting into eBay, started kind of building your collections, figuring out what you liked. And what was kind of the next turn for each of you individually? I mean, is that when you're starting to, like, okay, go out into the community, go to pen shows for your own personal leads? This is obviously before Anderson Pens is a thing, because at this time, you're not married, right? I mean, that's kind of part of your story.

Brian Anderson: We were both in other relationships and didn't know each other, but we were both collecting Estabrooks and kind of became linked just by reputation. You know, if you had a question about an Estabrook, you know, ask Lisa or ask Brian. I went to a couple of pen shows, probably about the same time. We think that we may have gone to a pen show together before we knew each other in Miami. But the Miami pen show back in, I don't know, 99 or 2000 was an eye-opening experience for me. It wasn't just me interested in all of this. And it was amazing. I met a couple of people who I'm still good friends with at that one pen show.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, wow.

Brian Anderson: Yeah, yeah. Deb Kinney kind of took me under her wing at the show. I clearly looked like a deer in the headlights. And took me around, introduced me to people. I bought my first modern fountain pen, which I regret selling. So I'm always on the lookout for it.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, what was it? What are you going to tell us now?

Brian Anderson: It was a Visconti Kaleido, the original version in Burgundy.

Brad Dowdy: Nice. Nice. And so this finally escalated to a point where y'all are kind of running across each other's paths more frequently. So how did this finally come to be Anderson Pens?

Brian Anderson: Well, a long story short, I guess, Facebook came along. And I was sitting there in my room one day. And I thought, well, I wonder what that Lisa is doing. And sent her a request.

Brian Anderson: That was after we met the first time.

Brian Anderson: That was it. Well, yeah, we did. We met in 2003 at the Chicago Pen Show.

Brian Anderson: Two geeky, nerdy pen friends. And we actually had some of our pens photographed for one of Paul Arano's books. And it's one of my favorite stories and Brian's least favorite stories. The pens were all attributed to me in the book, even though most of them were Brian's. So it was.

Brian Anderson: He got it straight in a second printing.

Brian Anderson: Yeah. But we used to bid against each other on eBay. And I cost him a lot of money. And because if I couldn't have it, he was going to pay for it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Brian Anderson: But then we called a truce. And then we met, like Brian said, in 2003 at the Chicago Pen Show. And then kind of lost touch for a couple of years until he friended me on Facebook. And we reconnected.

Brad Dowdy: That's pretty cool. I'm over here grinning because I love these stories like this. And you're probably like, oh, we've told this story a million times. But I want to hear it. I want to make you cringe a little bit telling it again. But I think it's important that people understand that you guys have been doing this for a long time. Like this is what you've been into for, I mean, decades at this point. And, you know, it's important to y'all. And you've always been in this community. You've always been like a very positive light in this community and very helpful. And, you know, this comes from this backstory. I mean, this has always been a thing for you guys, right?

Brian Anderson: Yeah, we both started in 98. And I guess the one thing Lisa didn't mention was... Makes me teary. One day she sent me an email. She was having a bunch of her pens photographed for an online pen magazine. And she was all excited. She sent me these pictures. They were professionally photographed. And I'm looking through it. I'm like, you know, that's cool. I have that one, that one. That's a neat pen.

Brian Anderson: Right.

Estabrook Pen

Brian Anderson: And they came across a rather unusual Estabrook doctor's pen, which is white. And it had a certain person's name on it named D.T. Rosborough. And I actually had the matching pencil with the same guy's name on it.

Myke Hurley: Oh, come on. This is like a movie out of you guys.

Brian Anderson: So we made a pact that if either of us ever decided to sell our piece, we would offer it to the other person first. And of course, you have to buy it.

Brian Anderson: She got me good on that one.

Brian Anderson: So I did end up selling it at one point. But when we got married, we used the pen to sign the marriage certificate.

Myke Hurley: Oh, this is so heartwarming.

Brian Anderson: Well, of course, the pen was not restored. So I had to restore it. And I remember thinking one day, this is going to go one of two ways. It's going to be fine or I'm going to totally break this pen. Lisa was taking a nap. I went down two floors in the house. Underneath the stairs in the basement, I grabbed a heat gun. And I'm trying to open this pen, trying not to break it so I can resack it the day before the wedding.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, my God.

Myke Hurley: The most nervous pen repair of all time. It was terrifying.

Brian Anderson: I'm glad I didn't know.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So I want to get into the Anderson Pens, the building of the company. First, I want to get a sponsor real quick. Myke, if you will take care of that for us.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we have a new sponsor today on the pen act. And that is Capto from Global Delight. So let me tell you a story. There's a school in Melbourne, Australia. It's called the Ybarra Valley Grammar School. Close to 1,200 students attending school. And in order to keep the study cycle smooth, the faculty is regularly trained with the new developments and updates of their learning management system that they use. To make this possible, to get all of these teachers up to speed so they can get everything done and get their students up and prepared as soon as possible, they do this with Capto, which is installed on all of the Macs that they have there. Capto is a powerful screen capturing, recording, and editing application. The developers of this app are super happy to know that their software helps make these types of things possible. It helps these teachers create learning tools and systems, enabling them to educate. This is the type of stuff that's great as a maker of things. All of us use Macs for different purposes, like coding, video editing, website development, or creating keynotes. And every once in a while, we'll come across the need for capturing a screen, recording it, and maybe editing it as well. Capto helps you do this. It helps you capture the full screen, or just a part of the screen, or maybe an entire web page. You can easily edit, add annotations, numbers, arrows, and so much more. It can also let you record yourself from your own built-in camera on your Mac, in parallel to the screen recording, so that maybe you can make a tutorial video, you can present things in just a few clicks. And all of this comes packaged in an app that's been designed for the best ease of use. As an added bonus, Capto also features iOS recording as well, so it helps you record the screens of your iOS devices with ease. You just plug them in to your Mac. So, if you're looking for a screen capturing, recording, and editing app that is efficient, powerful, and will save you time, Capto is the app for you. You can go to capto4mac.com to find out more. That's C-A-P-T-O-F-O-R-M-A-C.com to find out more. Capto usually costs $29.99, but it's a special offer for listeners of this show. If you use the coupon code INSIDER, you'll get yourself 30% off. Once again, that's capto4mac.com and the code INSIDER to get 30% off the purchase price. Thank you so much to Capto from Global Delight for supporting this show and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: All right, Brian and Lisa, so you guys have been in the pen community for a while. You've met. You've gotten married. At what point does the conversation come up? Hey, I think we should start selling pens. I think there's a business around this. How does that happen?

Brian Anderson: It actually was more of a demand by me. If you're going to continue to buy this many pens, we need to sell some of the duplicates.

Brian Anderson: There were things we wanted to do for the house or the kids or buy a new car or whatever. If you're going to buy this many pens, we need to sell some.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I don't really have many duplicates. Yeah, so Brian has a problem and Lisa needed to fix it, basically.

Brad Dowdy: I wouldn't call it a problem.

Pen Shows

Brian Anderson: You know, just like with anything else, if you are going to buy pens, if you don't have an unlimited income, sometimes you buy something and a year later it's no longer your favorite. And maybe there's something else you want. So it was just time to start to sell off some of the things that we no longer loved and used. And years before, I had actually been an Execlare retailer. So I knew that we could get paper and ink. And so we started with, vintage is not sustainable necessarily on its own. You know, there are only so many vintage pens in our collection or there are only so many vintage pens you can buy at a decent price online and then, you know, on eBay and resell. So we started to do just a few lines of pens and ink and paper that were modern and started to resell those. And it went well and we just kept going.

Brad Dowdy: What year was that? When was your first appearance, Anderson Pens Online?

Brian Anderson: I think it was about probably 2008, 2009, in that range. Probably 2009.

Brad Dowdy: And this is, you started to do the online shop before you started to really kind of get out and go to different pen shows as Anderson Pens, right? Like the online sales came first?

Brian Anderson: Yeah, we actually had, we had a very kind of a crude website. But we were selling, like Lisa said, we were selling some of our pens. But then we had a friend of ours who was also an Estabrook collector, among other things, that he had a health issue. And he kind of came to the realization that he had way too many pens. And he decided he wanted us to do a consignment for him. So we constantly had mostly modern pens available on the website to put up. So that kind of fueled it. And then after that, there was another consignment. And we were doing consignments for a while.

Brad Dowdy: Gotcha. And Lisa, at the time, and Brian, both of y'all, this was not your full-time job? Or was your full-time job? Or mix of both?

Brian Anderson: No, we fitted in around work. I was a college professor. And Brian was working IT for a local company. So it was definitely part-time. But since we were doing it at home, it was nights, weekends, before work. On my half days, we were constantly working on it.

Brad Dowdy: So as busy as you were, your full-time jobs, your day jobs, you have Anderson Pens going. And then you decide, I think traveling around the country going to pen shows is a good idea. How did that happen? Because you're not busy at all, right? And where does this come about? Because you're extremely well-known for making the pen show circuit these days. How did that original idea come about to say, let's hit the road?

Brian Anderson: Well, even before we got married, our first show together was Atlanta in April of 2009. And it was just a good time and a good place to – I could drive from Tampa. Brian flew to Atlanta and then drove back with me to Tampa after. So it was a good excuse to see each other. But we look back at the pictures of our single table with some desk sets and 12 pads of paper and two slaughter boxes of pens.

Brian Anderson: It's cute.

Brian Anderson: It's cute.

Brian Anderson: But it was good exposure. And we knew that we could both – Brian, far more than me – but we could both buy and repair Estrobrook. So it was also a good opportunity to see if there was anything worth buying that we could flip. And it went well. And then we did Chicago in 2009. And I hadn't moved up yet. So that was –

Brian Anderson: Yeah, I hadn't moved up yet by that point. So we just kept doing it. And in the early days, we actually – we would actually buy pens one day, go back to the hotel room, restore them, and then put them off the table the next day. Wow.

Brian Anderson: Yeah, there wasn't much sleep going on.

Brad Dowdy: No doubt. No doubt. That's great. And then slowly, as the years go by, you fast forward all the way to now. And how many shows are on your calendar this year to drive to? I guess you have maybe one more this year in Ohio in a couple weeks. How many did you go to this year?

Brian Anderson: Columbus is the last one for the year. And we did 12 this year.

Brian Anderson: Okay.

Brian Anderson: Including that? That'll be 12?

Brian Anderson: Yeah, that'll be 12, including Columbus. Columbus. We've done 72 shows together since 2009. Whoa.

Brad Dowdy: I can't wrap my head around that.

Brian Anderson: It averages to 12 or 13 a year. And considering we don't do shows in the summer generally, it's six or seven shows in the first five months and then six or seven shows in the last four months of the year.

Brad Dowdy: And just to be clear for all of those who don't know, y'all are driving to these shows, right?

Brian Anderson: Yes.

Brad Dowdy: No matter the distance.

Brian Anderson: Yep. We live in Wisconsin and we drive to San Francisco, LA. We drove to Miami. Yeah. DC, Dallas.

Brian Anderson: San Francisco was probably the longest and that was about 40.

Brian Anderson: It's like 50 hours.

Brian Anderson: 50 hours. Wow.

Brian Anderson: And we don't stop. It's really crazy. But we don't spend the night in a hotel and then get up in the morning. We take a nap in the car at a rest stop and keep going.

Brad Dowdy: Wow. Power through. That's impressive. That's impressive. Or insane.

Brian Anderson: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: We've been called both now.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. How many cars have you gone through or have you tracked how many miles you've actually driven on shows or anything like that?

Brian Anderson: Well, originally, we used to drive in my Saturn Ion, which is...

Brian Anderson: Small four-door sedan. Small. Small.

Acura

Brian Anderson: And then after a couple years, we bought our Acura. We had an MDX. And this year, actually, it died on the way to the LA Penn Show. We were about half an hour out of town and the car just gave up. And we ended up buying a new car that day on the way to the show.

Brad Dowdy: Wow. I guess you didn't have a choice at that point, right? You were fully packed, right?

Brian Anderson: We were. And LA is such a big show, we couldn't afford to miss it. We'd already paid our fees and all of that, so we had to go. It was certainly not the way most people, including us, would choose to buy a car.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, for sure. That's never a good experience, no matter if you're in the perfect situation. You were far, far from it. So, going to these shows over the past few years and seeing the online growth continue. Y'all are bringing in more brands online. You're adding more tables at every show you go to because your product lineup is expanding. And everything is going great. And you get this wonderful idea, again, to just throw more at yourselves. Let's open a brick and mortar store on top of all of this other stuff going on. So, how did those conversations come about? Because in my book, you're already on the crazy train. Everything you do, and it's awesome. It's like beyond impressive. I say that jokingly because what it is, it's impressive what you're doing. And then you say, let's do exactly what everyone thinks we shouldn't do, and that's open a brick and mortar store. So, how did that come about?

Brian Anderson: Well, I think it was actually a natural extension of what we were doing. At one point, we had Penn stuff in every room of the house. And I think a lot of people will relate to that. But, I mean, we literally had it in both bathrooms. We were finding stuff in the kitchen, like, for years after we moved out of the house.

Brian Anderson: Under pot holders, in the junk drawer.

Brian Anderson: Crazy places we would find things. You know, syringes. I found a bottle of Aurora Black in the cabinet in the kitchen. But we decided we were going to renovate our basement. And we had about, I don't know, it was about 500 square feet. We had shelves put in. It took us about a year. And six months later, we had completely outgrown it. We couldn't sustain it. And we said, well, we need to move this out of the house. And so, we were kind of walking. We have a nice little downtown area. We live about a mile, not even a mile from the downtown area. We said, well, why don't we just get a place that we can open, not only to house the inventory and handle shipping and all that. But maybe we can have some walk-in traffic. And then there are also some brands that will only sell to brick and mortar. So, we walked around. And we eventually, it took us about, I don't know, about a year? Yeah. About a year or so. And we finally found the right place. And we made it happen.

Brad Dowdy: And when was that? It's been, what, maybe two years?

Brian Anderson: It'll be three years.

Brad Dowdy: Next month.

Brian Anderson: Actually, I think we signed the lease three years ago this week. And we got the keys right at Halloween.

Brian Anderson: Yeah. So, sometime like this week, three years ago. And then we opened for business two weeks later.

Brad Dowdy: Dang. That's so cool. Yeah. I can see how that actually, in your minds, the way everything is going. And as busy as you guys are, that actually makes sense. Let's have our own shop. You know, it's close by. We can at least do our work out of there. And oh, by the way, it'll be a storefront. Maybe people will come in, too. And at this time, are you still working other jobs at this time? Like, are you doing all these things, traveling all over the country, open a brick and mortar? Or are you still, you know, teaching Lisa O'Brien? Are you still in the IT world?

Brian Anderson: Yes. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That boggles my mind.

Brian Anderson: I had stopped teaching face-to-face during the day. And I was doing, I was teaching some online classes and some night classes in Appleton. And I was the only one at the store for quite a while. But, you know, we figured that if we were going to have to pay, you know, warehouse or office space, it might as well be retail. And we were surprised at how well it took off.

Brian Anderson: Yeah. And downtown Appleton is not, real estate prices aren't that, this is not downtown Chicago. Sure. The prices are very reasonable. But I was still working. And we were often doing, going to a show. And then we would, we always leave right after the show. We drive home. And we were, in most cases, we would drive home. And then I would go directly to work. I mean, I would not sleep. I would just go straight to work because that's how it worked out.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, if nothing else, people should take away from this how much you guys love what you do. Like, as far as this pen industry that we're all fortunate to be in. I mean, you guys are committed like no other that I have ever heard of in my life. And I, quite honestly, it's impressive. And I don't have a question. I just wanted you to know that. It's seriously, seriously impressive. And you should be proud of everything that y'all built.

Brian Anderson: I was going to say that we're both pretty driven and goal-oriented. And we knew that we could do more. And we knew that this was what we wanted to continue to do. And we knew that we both still wanted to buy other pens, which meant we had to sell some things. Yeah, we're going to talk about that. It was just, you know, you put your head down and you do what you have to do. And when you look up, you are shocked at how far you've come.

Myke Hurley: So I'm wondering, like, kind of about the store. Is there a lot of foot traffic? Or is it like you have the store because you need the space for the online stuff as well? And kind of it goes hand in hand quite nicely.

Brian Anderson: No, we're surprised at how much foot traffic we get.

Brian Anderson: It's quite busy. That's awesome. You know, we get some traffic during the week, of course. But Saturdays are just when we're open. It's just it's completely crazy. You open the door. People start coming in. The next thing you know, it's time to close.

Brian Anderson: And people are still there.

Brian Anderson: Yeah. Yeah. We're very surprised. I mean, the store pays for itself and all of its expenses and all the employees on its own.

Myke Hurley: So that's really exciting and like not meant in a bad way, but surprising. It's just interesting that like a dedicated pen store in a town can do that. Right. Like it's it's it's an exciting thing to think about.

Brian Anderson: Well, especially with so many other pen stores closing, I think that we had the advantage that we both had retail experience. So and Brian has an MBA. And so we just tried to be really smart about how we did things. It got to be a kind of a problem that we were so busy and we were open barely five months and we hired our first full time employee.

Myke Hurley: Wow. Wow. Full time as well. Like that's such a huge jump. Right. Like from from nobody to a full time employee. Like that's that's amazing.

Brian Anderson: It was nice to have company.

Store Products

Brad Dowdy: I want to talk about like some specifics about the store. I want to talk about some specific products and product lines that you guys carry and some really interesting things that you guys are doing online and, you know, at the shows and and things like that. But first, we got one more sponsor to talk about today. And that's our good friends at Harry's.

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Brad Dowdy: So Brian and Lisa, you've introduced this thing on your website in the past few months that I find to be invaluable for me personally. Invaluable as someone who's in the community and needs to answer questions. And invaluable just for the amount of fun I have with it. And that's the ink comparison tool that you built on Anderson pens. And it's really fascinating to play with. And I can't even imagine what went into building that and making it work as well as it does. So why don't you tell me how impossible that was to put together? Because I'm guessing it was.

Brian Anderson: It took over a year to do everything that we wanted to do. We knew that we wanted to do. We wanted to bring back some things that some of the pioneers in the industry had done.

Brian Anderson: And we knew that in order to do an ink comparison tool, we had to completely redo the ink swabs that we had at the time, which were a horizontal layout. And that wasn't going to work to compare the color the way we wanted. So we had to completely redo all of our ink swabs. And we are up to over close to 900 inks. And we did five of each. One for the photographer. You know, the three different books that we have. And then one as a backup. And I did all of them. We got a hundred.

Brad Dowdy: That's 4,500. See, I can do some math, right?

Brian Anderson: Well, we started with a broad nib. And we ended up, after about 100 colors, deciding that maybe we should use a medium nib. So we had to start over. But we were very intentional with all of our choices. If we are going to take on this massive undertaking, everyone in the company had input. Which cardstock we changed to, which font we now used, the format. You know, what do we include? What do we not include? And it was very much a collaborative effort with everyone in the company and a couple of friends who gave us some good feedback.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and the results show. Because you have to have that consistency across the swabs. Because you're pulling them up. You're pulling up basically images of each of these swabs as people go through. Choose a shade. Choose a brand. Choose however they want to put these things together. And then they come up side by side. And if you don't have that consistency across every number that you have, it kind of like sticks out a little bit. But so to like see that and pull that off, I know that took a massive, massive amount of work. So because you're not busy at all anyway. Like as I've proven throughout this show, you guys aren't doing anything. So that probably took you like a day.

Brian Anderson: Well, you know, we're actually still working on it. We're right now on our third version of the tool. And there are some things that we did that I'm not happy with. So we're actually redoing. We're tweaking some of the swabs that didn't come out quite right. We found a better way to do it.

Brian Anderson: But, you know, now we have, we took input from anybody who was willing to offer. And we came up with some really great ideas. You know, right now we have drag and drop. So if you want to, you know, pick two colors and you want to move next to each other, you can just click on it and drag it and move it over. And, you know, we came up with some really, really good ideas. I think we've got a solid tool right now.

Brad Dowdy: So I didn't think of this until you just said it. It's really, really difficult to capture ink colors accurately in a digital manner. I mean, and you don't have to give me any secret sauce or anything. But what they look like to your eyes in person in a bottle going down on a swab, it's hard sometimes, especially with some inks, to capture that correctly. And, I mean, is that a challenge you ran up against?

Brian Anderson: Yeah, it was. And, you know, people are very critical of that and rightly so.

Brian Anderson: I think maybe one of the biggest problems is not only getting the color right on our end, but most people don't understand or they're not aware of having their monitor calibrated. Sure. We calibrate ours every 30 days so that when we're doing images of swabs, they're as accurate as they possibly can be. So sometimes, while it looks right on our machine, it might be a little bit off maybe on yours. And so it's definitely a challenge to try to get it as close as possible so you know what you're looking at.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, like this stuff is so incredibly difficult anyway. I mean, like I've been in person and bought ink and I've looked at it on the swabs in front of me and it ends up being different on the notepad that I use, right? Like it's not even just about the way that the images come out. This stuff just varies so, can vary so much, right? Depending on the tools that you're using even to use the ink.

Brian Anderson: That's true. Not everybody realizes that. One of the other things we wanted to do was include inks that have been discontinued. You know, everybody's looking for a replacement for Parker Penman Sapphire or, you know, Sailor Apricot when it was discontinued or some of the Mont Blanc limited edition inks. You know, you missed out and now you need a replacement. There was no way to find something close to that without finding a bottle at a show and paying a fortune for it or begging a swab from somebody. And now you can do that. And we added the properties to the inks as well because, you know, people are always looking for a fast dry ink or a bulletproof ink or something that's lubricated or whatever.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think that's big for like we refer to things like the Parker Penman Sapphire and there's just no way to get it unless they're going to break into your house and go under your bed. Right. So that's the only stash left. I told you not to mention the bed. That's the only stash left in the country. But it's it's cool that, you know, when I bring up certain colors, I can put up that sapphire up there. Like if I'm someone's asking me a question, that's what I use it for the most, actually, is like, you know, I'm thinking about this thing. How does it look compared to this thing? And it's cool. I can pull up that sapphire swab on there. And, you know, you just you don't get that anywhere else. I mean, that's that's really cool how you can have these older colors because people are always referring to give me something like this ink that I used to use. That's not made anymore. And you're like, oh, by the way, here's the swab right here and you can put it up right next to these. How cool is that? I love that.

Brian Anderson: And we have people who send us samples of ink we don't have in the tool that they would like to see included. And it's you know, we're so grateful that people are so generous. You know, it's it's win win. We get to add something else to the tool to give back to the community. And customers have other inks that they can use for comparison.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think it's fantastic. And it's it's one of my favorite things online. And I always share it and use the heck out of it. So that's very cool. So you did another thing, I guess, probably within the past year. That's near and dear to my heart. And you not only started carrying sailor, which isn't like the most common thing to have in the US. You have like the high end sailor bespoke lineup, which is really, really difficult to get all these special nibs and, you know, different styles. So why don't you talk a little bit just about how sailor came in, how that ramped up to the bespoke lineup to that you have today?

Sailor Pens

Brian Anderson: Well, we started carrying sailor, I guess it was about three years ago and started as their, you know, newest account. And it was a brand that I had had sailor pens in the past and thought they were good. You know, it's hard to beat a beautiful pen with a gold nib. Good brand, wonderful reputation. And we would sell one and buy two and then sell two and buy six. And we just kept building and building. And in order to be able to offer all of the standard pens in any nib combination that was possible, we had to keep buying and buying and buying. And we just really feel we believe in the brand and the support from the sales group and from Atoya out in California is amazing. It's just it was a good fit.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and it helps that not only you're, you know, online, you can get that, but then you bring that out to shows. Like I walk up to y'all's table and, you know, like I'll bug you at a show like while you're setting up. And Lisa will give me that. She'll she'll know like why I'm over there and she'll just like cut her eyes. And she's like, go talk to him. And he's like got some he's got something new. And it's like, oh, man, this is going to be bad for me and my wallet. And Brian's like, hey, let me show you this. And it's always something new from Sailor. Brian gets so excited about this Sailor lineup. Like what's your what what should people know about this bespoke lineup, Brian?

Brian Anderson: Well, bespoke in the United States is limited to three dealers. So in bespoke essentially is a series of handcrafted nibs, which include the Naginata togi and everything else from the Fude, Concord, Cross Point, Cross Music, even the King Eagle and the King King Cobra that people see online. But in addition, there are special bespoke only bodies. So unfortunately, they just discontinued the ribbed version. But many people are familiar with the ribbed Sailor 1911s. There are different colors, different color and trim combinations. And probably most importantly, Arushi, King of Pen. And most of the variations are in the King of Pen family. Ebonite, King of Pen, Arushi and the limited editions.

Brad Dowdy: So what is if someone's new to this? Like I've I'm obviously a huge Sailor fan. I love their pen designs. I love their quality. I love their nibs. And I bought my first King of Pens from you this year in Atlanta. But it was just, you know, a standard. It wasn't in the bespoke lineup. I didn't get, you know, one of the the big, you know, crazy looking nibs. When people are looking at these, like what type of things do they offer? Like from a writing experience that someone might be interested in adding that to, you know, like one of the one of these pens that in the end of the spoke lineup.

Brian Anderson: Well, most of the the bespoke nibs have the ability to write on both sides of the nibs. So upside down is maybe a finer line or a different line width in the the other direction. And the interesting thing about bespoke nibs, they don't except for the Naginata togi, they don't actually come in nib widths. So you can't get a you can't get a food in a fine. It is what it is. And every every single pen has its own unique characteristics. They're all made by hand by Yukio Nagahara. He has two assistants. But depending on what you what you like, many of them are very, very juicy, very wet. Some act like architect's nibs. I mean, there's just there's a whole range of whatever you can imagine, essentially.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So there's a cool link on your site. We'll have it in the show notes and that I've shared a bunch and talk about a bunch where you can go read about these nibs. Look at the different styles. Look at the types of lines that they offer. They the thing about those nibs is they're not just going to write one way, kind of like you're saying. I mean, depending on pretty much everything across that lineup is going to write, give you two different lines, depending on how you're holding it. And some, you know, much more variation than that.

Brian Anderson: Right. Right. Yeah. Some of them are some of them have the line variation based on direction, similar to an architect or cross point. Right. It's very similar to an architect. Some of them based on angle, like the food or the concord. And then some based on which side of the nib you've got it. You've got it turned to. Yeah, that's very cool.

Brad Dowdy: And you bring these out to the shows, right? I mean, if you have them in stock, right, you sell a decent amount of them. So sometimes you don't always have stock in on these, but you're bringing these out. People can look at and check them out. Right.

Brian Anderson: Right. We do have a decent supply of Naginata togi nibs. Most of the rest of the Nagahara lineup are in such high demand that Sailor Japan is having a difficult time keeping up with stock and quantity. And so we actually get them when we can get them. And they'll send us an email and say, hey, listen, we found three food days. Do you want them? And I say, absolutely. And then we have them and then they're gone. So we carry whatever we have to the show and we do the best we can to get the inventory that we get.

Brad Dowdy: Do you keep any kind of waiting list if someone's looking for a really specialty item like that?

Brian Anderson: Well, it's difficult. Sometimes we can. The problem is they're literally on the order of thousands of orders behind in Japan. So they're really not not really taking orders from us on some of the specialty nibs. So we have a lot of people ask about the most most common is the King Eagle. Everybody wants the King Eagle, which in and of itself is a thousand dollar nib. Right. Oh, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And that's the thing. I mean, since there's no there's no I guess there's no time manufacturing time frame. So there can't really be a waiting list.

Brian Anderson: Yeah, it becomes difficult. Even Naginata Togi nibs right now in specialty bespoke bodies with Naginata Togi nibs are nine month wait right now. So, you know, that means if we're even able to order a King Eagle or a Fude, it's going to be, you know, really it's over a year or more if we can even order it.

Myke Hurley: So the King Eagle, if anybody doesn't know, it's like three nibs laid on top of each other.

Brian Anderson: Yeah, it's three layers. Like Sailor actually has a couple of different steps. So their cross point is two layers that are that are split. And then the King Eagle is a third additional layer of gold that's split. So essentially it amounts to six times. Wow.

Myke Hurley: So I assume you have a long waiting list for these.

Brad Dowdy: Or none because you can't get them. It's hard.

Brian Anderson: We have access to one King Eagle nib, but it comes in a very special Maquia body. So if you're interested, it's for about $4,300.

Brian Anderson: Let me know.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Brian Anderson: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Let Lisa know.

Brad Dowdy: So Lisa, you mentioned something kind of in passing earlier, but it was something I wanted to point out and something I wanted to get your take on. So having a brick and mortar shop allows you to carry certain vendors that you can't if you have an online only shop. So number one, what are those vendors? And number two, do you find products that do far better in brick and mortar than online or vice versa? Like you can't sell something online, but it flies out in the shop or things like that?

Brian Anderson: Well, the first question, we, Lamy used to be, you know, anybody could carry Lamy. Then they went to brick and mortar only. And so we, as soon as we signed the lease at the store, we could order Lamy. We could order Visconti. And I don't remember how long we'd had the store. And Mont Blanc called. We had been in touch with them and we were the first pen store account to be opened by Mont Blanc in seven years.

Brad Dowdy: Whoa.

Brian Anderson: Yeah. So it was, it was quite a, quite an honor, quite a surprise when the sales rep called and said, hi, I'm so-and-so from Mont Blanc. And I thought it was a friend just teasing me. I'm like, yeah, who is this? I was like, no, really? Here's my phone number. Call me back. I'm like, no, who is this?

Brad Dowdy: That is cool.

Brian Anderson: Yeah, it was, it kind of took us to the next level retail wise. But there are certainly things that sell better in the store than online or at shows. When we opened the store, Brian only wanted to carry fountain pens, period.

Brian Anderson: And that didn't last long.

Ballpoints/Rollerballs

Brian Anderson: Yeah. So a lot of like Schaefer pens do, I think, better in the store and ballpoints and rollerballs. Definitely better in the store.

Brad Dowdy: It's a- That makes sense from the foot traffic, I think, yeah.

Brian Anderson: And it's kind of a gateway drug. Like you need to sometimes ease people in from the cheap Bic that you get at the office to a retro or a Schaefer or some other nice ballpoint or rollerball. And from there, once they're used to a nicer feel in the hand and a nicer writing experience, it's not that much more of a stretch to go to a fountain pen from there.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And the next thing, your shop is full of shop rats on Saturday.

Brad Dowdy: They live there all day and they just want to be there and be around all the pens and are buying all the new fountain pens. That's awesome, I think.

Brian Anderson: We've become a destination for a lot of people, which is not anything we ever thought we would be. People drive from Chicago, from Milwaukee, Madison, from Minnesota. We have several- We're big in Minneapolis, apparently. We have several people who drive over on a regular basis. People who travel from all over the country and they're in the area for a wedding or an event or the big airplane event here in Oshkosh. And then while they're in the area, they just zip on up.

Brad Dowdy: Make it a point. That's awesome. That's so cool. Yeah, I wouldn't have thought- You don't think of those things. At first, Brian's like, okay, I got to get all this stuff out of the basement. And then next thing you know, you're like a destination pen shop. It just goes to show the people behind it are the reason why. I mean, let's not kid ourselves. It's Brian and Lisa Anderson is the reason why they're coming.

Brian Anderson: I guess we don't think of it that way.

Brad Dowdy: But I mean, you definitely have fans and people want to come and see you guys. And I just think it's one of the coolest things ever that y'all have this going and things just seem to be going gangbusters for y'all. So what's next? I mean, you guys, I mean, it's obviously nonstop. You're busy all the time. What's next for the Empire?

Brian Anderson: Well, our first main goal was just to have both of us quit our full-time jobs. And I did that before Brian did. Brian was working. He changed IT companies, and they just kept offering him more money and a six-month contract, a six-month contract. And it was just stupid money. So we would use that, and that supported us and helped us grow. And last year in August, Brian quit his job. And so we've both been full-time for the company since then. Yay!

Brad Dowdy: That's exciting.

Brian Anderson: It was kind of a scary move, but it was really... No joke. It was time. It was probably past time.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Brian Anderson: But we just... And I thought it would just be us and our full-timer Dave for a long time, but we'd just keep needing more people.

New Projects

Brian Anderson: And we've grown by leaps and bounds. And we've got a couple big projects in the works that one of them came out of nowhere. So we're working on that. And a couple other things that we've been working on and planning for quite a while that are almost ready to be revealed.

Brian Anderson: I think June of... Summer of 2017 is going to be a very interesting time. I can't... We can't say much. Wow. Right now. But let's just say I think it's going to blow some people's minds.

Brad Dowdy: You're terrible.

Brian Anderson: I know. That's just the worst.

Myke Hurley: That's great. We must know. When will we know? June of 2017.

Brian Anderson: I think by June, probably. Yeah.

Brian Anderson: Late spring, early summer.

Myke Hurley: I thought I could maybe try and move it up there, you know.

Brian Anderson: Well, not all of it depends on us. But, yeah, there's some interesting things going on. And this past summer, Brian spent a week away from the store and away from the company. And that was kind of fun for all of us.

Brian Anderson: Just, you know, sometimes you need a little space. And the team and I were back in Appleton while Brian went and trained with Richard Binder.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, nice. I remember that. Yeah.

Nib Class

Brian Anderson: Yeah. And took the master nib class.

Brad Dowdy: Fantastic. Yeah. I remember reading about that. I thought, oh, this is cool. This is interesting. I like where this is headed. That's very good.

Brian Anderson: It's definitely an interesting class. And I think, you know, if anybody is seriously interested, it's definitely a must, a must do. You know, it's not inexpensive, but it's three days sitting right next to Richard. And in learning how to grind nibs and straighten nibs. And, you know, it's already paid off in just the ability to tune and straighten nibs. It's a fantastic experience. That's great. That's great. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. So I want to wrap this up unless you have anything, you know, other news you want to break for the shop or online or anything. What I basically want to know is, you know, what you guys are using. Like, people want to know what pen does Lisa have, what ink is in it, and what paper does she write on? You know, this is what the people want to know, Lisa.

Ink Swapping

Brian Anderson: Well, actually, we just are finishing up an ink swapping, what do you call it? It's not a contest, but an ink swapping challenge at the store. So I'm not quite sure what's in my pen. We all picked names. It's the same ink challenge Brian and I did a few months ago. So everybody in the company, we put our names in a hat and sort of like a secret Santa and all drew a different name. And we had to fill that person's pen. So I have this purple ink in my pen. I think Dave told me what it was, but I don't remember.

Brad Dowdy: I don't remember. Okay. Now, that's an awesome idea.

Brian Anderson: It's fun. It forces you to try inks you wouldn't necessarily try. The first time Brian and I did it just for each other, I gave Brian kind of a…

Brian Anderson: Old Cold Grim. Or an cleaner Old Cold Grim. Yeah, that's a great ink.

Brian Anderson: Green ink he wouldn't have chosen. And Brian gave me a Diamine Shimmer Tastic, one of the gray colors. And I don't do shimmer and I don't do gray. I used it for a week.

Myke Hurley: The gray I can get behind.

Brian Anderson: Yeah, it was fun. It was fun. Generally, I use a Vanishing Point or two. I have a couple sailors that are always with me. I will freely confess that I have a couple Retro 51 roller balls that I love.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, exactly. That's the good stuff.

Brian Anderson: There are sometimes, some occasions when you need something other than a fountain pen.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I think that's perfect. Addison pens are my top tip to find the weird and wonderful Retro 51s. Yes. It's something that happens at Atlanta every year. I just kind of saunter over to the table and see what's there. And there's always something I've never seen before. Like that rose gold one. The brown and rose gold one that I got a few in Atlanta last time.

Brian Anderson: Yep.

Brian Anderson: You know, one of the reasons we have Retro 51 is because I remember hearing it on the podcast. You guys are talking about Retro all the time. And I'm like, we got to check this out.

Brad Dowdy: I actually remember, I think you might have asked me a question once. I think when the brick and mortar was starting and you just wanted to be fountain pens. When Lisa said that, that reminded me, I think you might even ask me, should we really carry the Retro 51? I was like, yeah, I think it would probably do pretty well. It's at a really good price point and it's a cool pen. And yeah, good. So yeah, we love that pen.

Brian Anderson: Oh yeah, I do. I actually have a Retro 51 in my bag just in case. Today I've got a Montblanc 149 90th anniversary with, I really do love the Montblanc Irish green. It's a great color. And I've been swapping in between since August. It's probably the longest time I've gone consistently using a pen. The Sailor King of pen, green mosaic. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to, okay.

Brad Dowdy: I'm going to delete this podcast now.

Brad Dowdy: You know, that's the one pen that I want. That is the most beautiful pen. I love that pen. You, you show it to me every time I come by. You have had it in your pocket. Yeah. Ever since you got it right. That was not an easy pen to, to come across and it's a stunner.

Brian Anderson: Well, we, we knew the man who had it and he'd actually offered it to us earlier and it was, it was not inexpensive. And we waited and he brought it to DC. Brian said, no, I knew that he wanted it. And Brian's like, no, that's, that's a lot of money. Let's see how we do at the show, et cetera. And I just, we, we had a couple of sales. I just took the money, ran over and bought it. And, um, you better use it every day. Yeah.

Brian Anderson: Well, you know, the thing about it is, is when we first became Sailor dealers, it was actually in the catalog. I could have ordered it. Wow. You know, and, and when you get used to paying wholesale for your pens and you can't get that pen anymore and somebody says, here it is. And you're thinking, man, I could have got that cheaper if I had just pulled the trigger. Um, it's, it's kind of a tough nut to swallow. And I actually told her not to buy it. I said, that's just too much money, you know? Yeah. Um, but I'm glad, I'm glad she did.

Brian Anderson: And, um, I just didn't want to hear him whine about how he lost out. Oh, I wish we'd bought that pen. And so kind of at some shows, that's our, um, deciding factor. It's like, okay, he's, he's deciding between two pens. Which one are you going to whine about more on the way? You know, lament the fact that you didn't buy it. Um, go buy that one. And, and that way we're both happy.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And he's so humble about it too. Like when I go over there, he's like, right, let me, let me show you what I got. And he's like, he like points to his pocket and he gets this little grin on his face. If it, if it was me, you know, I'd be like jumping around. I'm like, Brian, look what I got. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: But, um, but it's so great. I, I, I love that pen and, uh, uh, yeah. You guys, um, I don't know how you do it. Uh, I'll be perfect, perfectly honest. I look at like how busy I am like on a daily basis and I feel like it's nothing compared to you guys. So I'm super impressed with everything that you do. Everything you do is wonderful. Um, the best of luck and everything going forward. And I'm sure you'll be getting lots of June, 2017 questions now starting in about a week, you know, they'll, they'll start coming out. Um, you know, that thing you said, uh, what's, what's really going on. So, uh, hopefully that won't, uh, give you too much, but, uh, we'll be keeping our, our eyes peeled and, uh, we really, really appreciate the time y'all took out of your busy, busy day to, uh, to come on the show this morning. We have to do it, uh, sooner than in another 229 episodes, right? That'd be great.

Brian Anderson: Thank you so much for having us. It's, um, it was great.

Brad Dowdy: Y'all are awesome. Um, you, you, you make it easy. Y'all are a great company, great story, great people. You can't really ask for more. So, uh, if you're listening to this and you have not visited Anderson pens, do it. And, uh, if you have visited Anderson pens, do it again and, uh, and go say, Hey, at any pen shows, uh, around the country, definitely check the schedule for where Brian and Lisa are bringing, uh, their many, many tables of wonderment.

Myke Hurley: It's worth seeing. You can find the links to all of this stuff in our show notes today, which are at relay.fm slash pen addict slash 229. If you want to find Brad online, you go to penaddict.com. He is dowdyism on Twitter and penaddict on Instagram. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thanks again to our sponsors for this week's episode. That is Capto from Global Delight and Ares. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, everybody. Bye, everybody. Bye.