The Pen Addict 276/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	276
Title:	I Bought Seven Nakayas
Release Date:	September 27th, 2017
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 276
Audio File:	Audio Episode 276
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 276
Length:	6161 min <br />1.017 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 276. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and Harry's. My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined by Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Hello, Myke Hurley. I am Brad Dowdy. Hello, Brad Dowdy. I'm good. How are you? I'm very good, I think. Lots of good stuff to talk about. No, no reason not to be good. I haven't thought if I was good or not yet. So, I took a moment.

Myke Hurley: I had a look at myself, and now, yes, I'm good. I'm good.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. I think the giggle tells it all. If I'm giggling, I'm certainly good. So, let's go with that. So, did you go to your Pelican Hub last week? I did not go to my Pelican Hub last week. I know. I was a failure in all aspects of life. My daughter was so upset. She was so mad at me. She kept on me for like hours and hours and hours, and I felt bad, and I really wanted to go. They looked like they had a good time in Atlanta, but I did get to share all of the Pelican Hub joy, especially on Instagram. The hashtag Pelican Hubs 2017 was super, super busy, and I love seeing, I mean, there was stuff worldwide, and you know, all over the world, you know, Australia, Japan, a bunch of European countries all across America, really. Pelican, they put a lot of effort into this event. When you look at these pictures, you see like banners for all of these hubs, and then all the ink samples that they sent out. And I think it pays off for them, at least I'm assuming it does. It certainly feels like that from a consumer. It's like, wow, they're getting a lot of run out of this, and it's because they put a lot into it, I think, right? Yeah. So, I think, you know, that effort on Pelican's part has shown, and it continues to grow every year, and you know, one of these years, I'm actually going to make it to them. And, you know, NOC is glad to support, you know, a couple of the hubs. You know, we send out some products to different hubs for them to give away or to use, you know, for ink testing, things like that. So, we're glad to do it. And I really enjoyed going through those Instagram tags and seeing all the smiling faces and all the Pelican Hub banners from all across the world. So, yeah, I thought that was very cool.

London Writing Equipment Show

Myke Hurley: So, the London Pen Show is this weekend. I am going to be at London Pen Show, or as I was being corrected, the London Writing Equipment Show. That's right, because they don't own the domain. They don't own the domain. We've got that one on lock. Like, I don't know when I'm going to be there. Squatter's rules. I'm not going to arrange, like, a time that I'm going to be there, because I honestly don't know when it's going to be. So, like, I don't want to be like, hey, come meet me in a bit, and, like, don't hang around if you're going to be there. Like, I might, because it's all like, you know, I have no idea about my plans, but I know that I'm going to be in town that day. So, once I've got everything else taken care of that I'm doing that day, I'm going to be heading over to the Pen Show for a little bit. So, if you're there, hopefully I will see you. If not, then next time I'll try and be a little bit more organized. And then next week on the show, I can talk about my London Pen Show experience. London Writing Equipment Show experience. It's on Sunday between 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. I reckon we're going to be there around lunch-ish time or something like that, but no guarantees. After lunch, after lunch. So, did you go last year? Yeah, I did go last year. Do you remember I popped in and was, well, not really expecting much, and we had a great time? Like, there were a bunch of Pen Addict listeners there and stuff like that.

Brad Dowdy: That's where you got that twist pen, right? That's where I got the twist pen, yeah. Okay, okay. I couldn't remember if you skipped last year or was it the year before, so very cool.

Myke Hurley: I also don't have much of a budget for a pen show right now.

Brad Dowdy: Well, you're kind of busy with the whole wedding and everything.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, yeah. So, we'll see how that pans out. Yeah. Well, that's cool. Flash forward to next week. I bought seven Nakayas!

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, because, you know, you do have a little bit of a partner in crime there. Your fiancé is supportive of this habit of yours, so, you know, I have a feeling there could be some breaking of the budget this weekend, so we'll see.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, she gets involved.

Machine Pencil

Brad Dowdy: So, I broke my budget this morning, although not really, although it's kind of pricey for a pencil, but I've been on this machine pencil kick. I've ordered several recently, and this is the second round on Kickstarter for a company called Modern Fuel, and a gentleman named Andrew, and he sent me the version one pencil that he released. I'm thinking it was last year. I think it's been about a year. He sent it to me to check out, and I did not like it. Okay. And I told him, you know, Andrew and I had a really good conversation, right? I was like, here are my thoughts on, you know, what I feel about this pencil. And, you know, he agreed. I mean, you know, it was really good to have that conversation. Like, you know, he said, you know, he explained why he designed these things, and here's the reason, and I said, you know, from my user's perspective, here's my reason. And obviously, it doesn't matter really what I say, because that project did like $130,000. So, but he redesigned it and implemented something that I wanted, which I didn't like the first time, which was the weight of the pen. It was a, oh, excuse me, pencil. It was an air, light feeling mechanical pencil, which didn't do it any favors last time, I thought. Well, this time he's changed materials. He's changed so many things about the pencil. And I got a prototype in, and I have to say, it's so good. It's so much better for me than the first version. And he's done cool things like where you can just, you know, you can choose the mechanism in the campaign, you know, depending on what kind of lead size you want, you know, 0.5, 0.7, 0.9.

Brad Dowdy: It's in, you know, copper, brass, titanium, stainless steel instead of aluminum, which it was the first time. So I've backed this project. I'm going to go for the stainless steel one. I prefer that for, if I have a choice over copper or bronze and the titanium is like twice as much, which I don't need a $120 mechanical pencil, but I've been enjoying metal mechanical pencils recently. It's, it's something I've always liked, something I've always enjoyed. I tend, if I sit down at my desk, I tend to pick up a woodcase pencil. But if I'm thinking about what I'm doing and planning for a day ahead, I'll usually grab a mechanical pencil. So I'm going to try to check out a few other different styles of these because they've become a little bit popular as well. They've always been a thing, but I, it's something I do enjoy. It's not never going to beat a retro, a Rotring 600, right, Myke? I mean, these are never going to beat that, but this is a different market, right? So it's, uh, Andrew's put a lot of work into this and it just, the campaign just started yesterday and he's already done $35,000. So he clearly has the backers for this project and, uh, it looks very good.

Myke Hurley: So it looks great. It looks really, really great.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I appreciate someone who like really, what I think is funny when you do your first Kickstarter project and you say, I'm making you the pencil that's going to last a lifetime. And then a year later, here's version two of the pencil that's going to last you a lifetime. What about the last one? The last one should have lasted me a lifetime, right?

Myke Hurley: So why do I need a second one? I don't, I mean, I see what you're saying there, but I don't agree with that. Like there being an other version doesn't mean that the other one explodes.

Brad Dowdy: I agree. I agree. I just find it funny. I know. But he, like the emails he would exchange with me were like super detailed. And like, I can tell this is someone who like really cares about his product and his feedback. So I'm happy to support him. So I just wanted to give a shout out to him and this project, which I have now backed as of this morning. So yeah, I was, it launched yesterday. I was back row number 310 or something. So it's going well, the opposite end of the spectrum. I got the black wing volumes, number one edition.

Brad Dowdy: You know, unfortunately it wasn't about me. I thought it would, with it being number one, it was going to be a version about me.

Myke Hurley: Number one pen user in Japan or something. What are you? Yes. Number one Japanese pen owner.

Brad Dowdy: Ichiban. Yeah. So yeah, but it's actually about Guy Clark, musician in Nashville. Bill, but the pencil as a whole is just kind of average. Like I don't love it. I don't hate it. It's somewhere kind of right in the middle. Like it's a round barrel. I really, really prefer a hex barrel. I don't hate the round barrels. There's just something about a round barrel pencil that I don't like. I like that little bit of extra grip security with the hex, you know, those flat size sides.

Brad Dowdy: This is an unfair statement, but I'm always prone to say it. I'm round in my mind and a pencil equals cheap, right? But I know that's not the case in this because it's a choice, right? This isn't Blackwing's like low end pencil, right? They made a design choice for this. Other companies might go with a round barrel pencil because it's more expensive to make a hex based pencil, right? So I don't want to pin that on them, but that's the feeling I get. I also like the color of the coating, but I don't like the feel of the coating. It's more slick. Like it's like a gray matte finish, which actually on a pencil makes it more slick than the lacquered finishes. The more glossy finishes tend to have more stickiness to them. So your grip feels a little bit more solid. And it's the pearl core, which is the medium core. So it's a little bit softer than normal. So good, not great. Don't love it. Don't hate it. It's just kind of there. You know, it definitely looks sharp and I like the silver ferrules. Those are some of my favorite. They give you an extra pack of erasers, which are this graphite color, which are nice. I just don't think this is going to be one I reach for. It's kind of in the middle of the pack of the whole Blackwing's volumes release right now. So yeah, it's good. But that's kind of it.

Myke Hurley: I find volume one a weird name. Yeah. Because it's not the first one. I mean, their volume names are weird anyway. They just seem to be like, I mean, obviously not random numbers, but they look like random numbers, you know? Right. And volume one, I was like, hang on a second. Did they start it again? Like when you started talking about it, I was like, I don't understand. Where did the volume numbers come from? Like why do they label them in such a way? Do you know?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, not specifically other than just it was started off to be numbers based and then that number meant something.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, like it means something to the idea, right? Like there is a thing that like, so for example, volume 73. So number 73 references Lake Tahoe's last measured setchy depth of 73 feet. So I get it, but it's like, it's like, I don't, it just seems strange, right? Like I understand it when you tell the story, but when you look at them kind of in a list, it's like, what makes this one number one?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Right. And there's only, there's actually only a couple of them that people refer to by the number. Most of them refer to by who the pencil was about. That makes more sense. Like the Steinbeck edition. Like 211, the 211 gets called the 211 because it's the most popular and it's just stuck, even though it's the John Muir edition. Yeah. The 24 is the John Steinbeck edition, but I hear more people calling it the 24. But then there's editions like the Jade edition, which I couldn't tell you what that number is. That's my least favorite edition. I've never even used one of those, but I just call it the Jade edition because it was this marbled edition. So, you know, the names kind of get whatever sticks, I guess, with the name and numbering. So we'll see. But yeah, it was weird to see number one come in, you know, two years into the game. But also number related, Myke Plumbago issue number three. This is now the pencil addict podcast. Nope. Nope. No, that's never going to happen. But I did want to mention because Andy's such a good friend of ours and the whole erasable podcast crew, Tim and Johnny as well. That Plumbago issue number three is coming out and they're accepting submissions for that. So we'll have a link in the show notes. I got the email the other day. It's a fiction and poetry issue. So if you want to write for Plumbago and get your article published in what was a really exceptional issue, last issue, I'm sure number three will be even better. So we'll have that link in the show notes for you to check out and you can submit your writing to Andy and the gang over there and see about getting published. So that'll be very cool.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, go check it out. I love that. I love Andy. I love those guys. They're great guys.

Brad Dowdy: I like to get them. They're really great. They're awesome. Oh, well, I mean, that's what we do. That's what they do. Yeah, we're definitely like the anchorman fight when, you know, throwing tridents and things like that. But it's all in good fun. We all love each other.

Myke Hurley: Yep. All right. Today's episode is brought to you by our friends over at Pen Chalet. They have all of your favorite brands and all of the writing tools that you're looking for. Whether you want a fountain pen, whether you want a pen holder, a mechanical pencil, a refill, a fountain pen converter, roller balls, no matter what it is, Pen Chalet have got it. They do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the US and they sell internationally with great shipping rates. They have low prices on high quality pens of a 100% satisfaction guarantee. They're always running specials. They have discounts twice a month, closeout specials every two weeks as well. And they have very fast and reliable customer service. As always, Pen Chalet has something special for pen addict listeners. If you go to penchalet.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website, enter the password pen addict and you will be able to get a code for 10% off of anything at Pen Chalet. And it's a special one this time. If you spend over $200 on anything at Pen Chalet, you get a free bottle of Robert Oster ink, which is amazing. We love those inks. So if you're looking to make a big purchase, head on over to Pen Chalet. And once you enter the pen addict password, you'll see a special coupon code there that will give you the discount link that you need. So you just add the ink to your cart. You enter the special code. You get your 10% off and you get your bottle of Robert Oster ink for free with any purchase of $200 or more. Thank you so much to Pen Chalet for their support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: And can I talk about the standalone Robert Oster offer or is that a top secret you need to click over? I'm going to say that's a standalone offer as well. Okay. That's a top secret. So go over there. Yeah. Yeah. There's a nice standalone offer for the Robert Oster ink as well that you should go check out if you're just looking for some ink. So, yeah, that's it. We're going to talk about my top five pens update here in a minute. And, of course, that list contains things like inks and pencils and other things like that. And Robert Oster went from off the list to on the list in this past year. That's how good they've done. They went from not even listed to my number three ink. So, yeah, we'll talk about that here in a minute. A few more things we wanted to touch on. Have you gotten your dime novel field notes yet?

Brad Dowdy: Ah, nice.

Myke Hurley: So what do you think? Yeah, I think they're fantastic. Yeah. It's exactly what I wanted from them. I'm really happy with them. They feel really interesting to hold because they have a completely different shape and they have sharp corners. Right. Like it's it's interesting to have a field notes that has actual corners on the binding. Like it's a very peculiar feeling. But I really, really like it. The paper feels great. I was using like a broad nib on it today and it was perfectly fine.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I really like this edition a lot. It was exactly what I wanted it to be. It's really good looking. And I'm a big fan of it, even though I just dropped it on my keyboard. Yeah, I really, really like it. It's great.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I'm liking it as well. I started using it with pencil like we're talking about. Actually, I got the Blackwing number one and the dime novel right around the same time. So I've been using them together just to jot some notes. The paper has a little bit of tooth, but it handles fountain pen ink really well, like you said. I did find something that I don't like with this edition, and that's the page numbers.

Brad Dowdy: I'm not opposed to page numbers. I prefer them on the bottom, on the bottom right. I think they get in the way on the top right, especially on a blank, and especially because I don't write on the backside of the page. So every time I turn the page, I'm reminded that I just skipped a page. You know, that's a me problem, not a real thing. But I was like, well, that's kind of annoying for me. I didn't care for the page numbers at the top of the page. But I understand that, you know, if that's the original dime novel style, that's why they chose to do it. It's just not something that, you know, doesn't really work for me. But it's nothing that's going to keep me from using it. But it would be, you know, I'd rather have something different or not at all from the page numbers.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I would say that, like, I was using it today for some stuff, and I kept bumping up against the page number. Like, when I was on the right-hand side, when I was on the right page, I kept bumping up against the page number.

Brad Dowdy: Yep, yep. So I definitely prefer, if you're going to have page numbers, to have them on the bottom right corner for a writing notebook as opposed to a reading book. But the question in the chat room is, how does the feel compare to a Rhodia dot pad? The Rhodia is a coated paper, so it's much smoother. This is an uncoated paper, so it has a little bit of tooth to it. But the output is very nice. The finer nib or pen you use, the worse it's going to perform. But it still works. You just feel it more, as opposed to with a smooth Rhodia.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, and that can be good or bad for you, depending on your own personal tastes.

Pencil Use

Brad Dowdy: Yep. That's why I've enjoyed using pencil on it. It's very, very receptive to pencil, so it's good. Yep. What do you think about, they put out a tweet this morning where they slotted it in between their, I call it the arts and sciences size, and their standard size, where it's kind of right in the middle. Do you think this is an addition that they will stock as a stock offering in the future?

Myke Hurley: Right now, I would say probably not. Yep, I agree. Because it doesn't feel like something of continual use. Like, this is a really nice notebook, and it's a really cool idea, and it's a really cool theme. But I can't think of why I'd be like, oh, this has to join the line, though. Agreed. You know what I mean? Like, it doesn't have that feel to it like arts and sciences did, and also a byline, right? Like, they were... Yes, yes, yes, yes. Forgot about that one. They're super useful in their specific use cases. This doesn't have like a, oh, I must have this one because of X. Right. It's like in the same way that I don't think that something like the... What was the agenda one?

Brad Dowdy: The agenda one, the ambition? Yeah. Had an agenda in it. It's like... It had the three styles, I think.

Myke Hurley: They didn't make that into an addition. Do you know what I mean? Even though it was like a specific thing that had a use to it. But it's not so desired that you would want to have it all the time. That's my feeling on it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I guess we'll ask them in a couple of weeks.

Myke Hurley: We can ask them in a couple of weeks.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And if our listeners have any questions, I got a really excellent question in my email this weekend for Jim and Brian. So if you have questions that you'd like us to ask Jim and Brian in the coming weeks, definitely email them to me, hello at penaddict.com. So we would like to pepper them with all of your questions. And we won't take it easy on them if there's actually... But they're so good. There's really nothing to question them on except, you know, I'll probably make fun of them for Sweet Tooth or something like that.

Nock Product

Brad Dowdy: All right. Before we get to the top five pens update, one product announcement from Nock. The Seed A6 case, the steel cover one, it's steel and silver dust is its official color, is now live on the site, Myke. It is up for sale. I know people have been wanting and waiting for these to come online. We finally got the inventory we needed to put them online. So those are live as of Wednesday morning. You can go take a look at them. The purple edition, which is called Iris in Electric Blue. We affectionately call it purple because that's what it is. Hopefully that's going to be in next week to go online. So if you're waiting for that one, don't worry. It's coming. You know, just hang out another week or so. But the production quantities are coming in fast and furious. That's how it tends to happen. It's like nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing loaded. So we're good on the steel and silver dust stock of the A6 case, the purple editions coming after that. And then we'll start getting into the bigger A5 and A5 Slim cases.

Myke Hurley: So when do you, what do you think the, I'm sorry, but like the rough ETA is on the entire product line being available. Oh God.

Brad Dowdy: Probably by the end of October. Okay. We have new, we have new Sinclairs and Brasstowns coming around that time to trying to get all this, trying to get all this stuff done for the holidays. So it just depends.

Myke Hurley: Because I feel like we've spoken a lot kind of about seed cases, but mostly around them. And I really want to do an episode with me, you and Jeff, where we talk about this because it's an extension of the company. But I think it will be good to wait until the product line is available. Not necessarily widely available because, you know, these things, they do sell out and everybody should go buy them. So it sells out immediately just for funsies. I hope they don't sell out because I got a lot of them.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, eventually, but not today. Like, I don't want them to sell out today because I want people to be able to get them.

Myke Hurley: But yeah, there are worse problems than the entire product selling out.

Brad Dowdy: If for some reason it sells out, there's a lot more coming.

Myke Hurley: Don't worry. So I want to dig into this and talk about the product in more detail. But I think it would be good to wait until the three sizes are all available for people to buy. And then we can talk about that. But if you have been waiting for the A6, and I do love that A6, then go and check it out. I mean, I'm waiting for the Traveler's size.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think that's going to be mine. That's the one I've been carrying for, what, a year now, maybe? Something like that.

Myke Hurley: And for me, it's because I don't have anything else in that format. I don't have notebooks in that format. So that makes the most sense to me to add this and make it its own thing and to get notebooks for it and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, and actually use it as a traveling thing. So that's what I'm excited about. But you can go get it now if you want it. It's right there, the A6. They are fantastic. So yeah, go check it out and go buy them and make Brad happy.

Brad Dowdy: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So yes, thank you for allowing me to launch that here. And we'll keep everyone updated. Twitter's the best way to follow all the NOC news. I don't want to... I don't like to inundate people's email inboxes because we get enough email all the time. So yeah.

Myke Hurley: What are you on Twitter? Is it NotCo?

Top Five Pins Update

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. N-O-C-K-C-O. Great. Yep. All right. So let's get in this top five pins update, Myke. Yeah. It's been a year since the last update, which actually seems about right because, you know, I've never counted the total amount of lists I have on there. It's got to be at least 10 or 12 or so. And a lot of them didn't change. So over the span of a year, there were groupings of top fives that either had no new products or had new products that were not any good or that didn't, you know, crack the list. But there were a handful of products where there was either an important minor type change or kind of a bigger change throughout the entire top five. So let's, before I get into it, do you have anything you want to say? But I want to get into some of the changes first.

Myke Hurley: I think one of the things for me is realizing every single time I go to this page that there's more top five lists than I think there's going to be. I only added one this year. No, but it's like, I'm thinking in my mind, this is Brad's top five pens. Yeah. But it's actually top five in all of these different categories. Which is a better way to do it, but it always surprises me. I always forget that there's all this stuff. But I don't disagree with anything that I see. I mean, there's stuff that I can't attest to. Like the $200 to $500 fountain pen list is one that I struggle with because I've only really used in depth like one of these pens. And there are a couple of them that I just flat out don't like. But I think that's what happens when you get into that bracket. Like everything else is mostly standard. And like, I'm like, yeah, okay. I agree with basically everything. You know, I might move one around here or two around here, or I don't have opinions on this entire category. Like the machined pens. I mostly don't have a lot of feelings about those pens because there's a bunch of them that are just not my type of pen in that list.

Myke Hurley: But it is the expensive fountain pen line, especially when you get $200 plus, where I think it becomes a lot more personal taste than the other lines.

Brad Dowdy: Totally. So the list, the top five page as it's set up is a recommendations page. So it's not necessarily what Brad would use, although it's mostly what Brad uses, even though like the best example of recommendation versus my usage is always going to be in the micro gel pen category where I love the Pilot Hitec C. I rarely recommend that pen to someone looking for a micro gel pen, right? So that's kind of like the perfect summation of recommendations versus personal taste. And then, like you say, when you get into the more expensive products, it really starts leaning more towards personal stuff. And there's just some really good kind of baseline options on the more expensive pens. We'll talk about in a second, but let me start at the top with the micro gel ink pens. It really didn't change other than the Uniball Signo 307 is now part of that list. It's such a good pen. And they finally got it in the micro tip size. I think they call it ultra micro because in the store they call 0.5 micro, which drives me insane. The 0.38, I believe, is called ultra micro, which, okay, whatever. I'm just glad that they're available now. And even though it is available in the store and that's a completely separate list than just micro gel ink pens, it's good enough pens to warrant inclusion in both lists. So the top five micro gel ink pens, Uniball Signo DX is, I don't see that thing getting beaten anytime soon. It hasn't for years. The four pens behind them and even the Just Mist are all really good pens. And, you know, I just kind of move them around sometimes as I find myself using them more. Like I've used the Zebra Sarasa clip more than the Uniball Signo RT1, which the RT1 is a great pen. And, you know, it's very useful in its own right. I just kind of fell back in love with the Sarasa clip. So I tend to recommend it more. And the Pilot Juice, I tend to only use their refills. So it's a really, really good refill, but I use it for pens that take a G2 refill, not the juice on its own because the barrel is not good. And the Pilot Hi-Tech C, which is my favorite, is number five on the list. And I probably use that more than all of those other ones combined. So, you know, it's actually not a lot of change other than the 307 getting added into there and maybe a little bit of shuffling of the deck in those. Another one that had a decent amount of changes were the top five pens from $100 to $200. I added the Sailor Progreer Slim and the Platinum 3776 and moved the Pilot Vanishing Point up all ahead of the Lamy 2000. I haven't been using the Lamy 2000. I still recommend it a lot. It's really good. But there's so many interesting options in that range, depending on what you want to do and what you're looking for in a pen, you know, any of the top four, I think, are valid first purchase in that price range. I think the Pilot Custom 92 is a great pen. I would pick one of the either number one, two, three, or four, probably ahead of the 92. But any of the first four, I think, on their own could be your first foray into that category. They all offer something very different. Like the Sailor has much more variety in barrel styles and colors than the Platinum 3776. But the 3776 has a nib that might be better than the Sailor. It's different. And then the Pilot Vanishing Point on its own is just such a unique pen with its retractable mechanism. It's super useful. So where does that put the Lamy 2000? I had a hard time keeping the Lamy 2000 ahead of those other three just because of the usability and differences and the choice that those other pens offer you where the Lamy 2000 is it.

Myke Hurley: The choice is a big point, especially when you're looking at the Pro Gear and the Vanishing Point. Like, I think that they are really good choices because you can get a ton of different colors. And that's a big deal, especially when you're getting into that range. Like a lot of people that are getting into the $100 to $200 range, like it's really nice to have something that visually speaks to you when you're getting into that. And the problem with the Lamy 2000 is you've basically got one real choice, you know. Because aren't the silver ones more expensive?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, they're a stainless steel model. They're upper $200s, maybe.

Myke Hurley: So you can get the black one, which I will say is one of the most beautiful pens ever made, in my opinion.

Brad Dowdy: Absolutely. Like, it's the Hall of Fame level pen, you know, for its design and performance and longevity. Yeah. But it's tricky. It's a very personal thing, right, that we do this. So, you know, you may want a pink pen and want to spend $150. Well, you're going to have to go to Sailor, maybe Platinum, maybe Pilot for that. And I feel that elevates those brands to a higher placing on my recommendations because of the choice, regardless of how good the Lamy 2000 is. It's really good. But I think I tend to lean to these other ones.

Brad Dowdy: I alluded to it when we were talking about inks for pen chalet that Robert Oster – I switched between Oster and Oster.

Brad Dowdy: You know, so I don't know which one is right. Just like I do Sino and Signo on a whim.

Myke Hurley: Robert Oster earlier because it's like it's so many different – the Robo Oster. That's what we're going for. Yeah. Yeah, because there's so many ways to say his surname that I then put that into the first name, too. So, Robert Oster.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, Robert Oster. So, I feel like its place is warranted in this list. I've said it before. I don't know if I said it on the podcast or in the newsletter or whatever. I wonder, are we in some like 365-day experiment from Robert Oster where he releases ink a day for 365 days in a year? He has so many ink releases, but what I found with all of his ink releases is they're such high quality and great colors. It's hard to not buy several of them at a time. I absolutely love those inks. They jumped in. I don't understand him.

Myke Hurley: I don't get it. I don't know where he came from. I don't know why there's so much and I don't know why they're so good. And, yeah, it's very peculiar to me how someone can come out of nowhere and produce at such an incredible pace. Right. At such a high quality level. It's very, very confusing to me, but I'm excited about it because, I mean, I think I own two Robert Oster inks now. I have another one on the way and I love them. They're fantastic.

Brad Dowdy: Yep, they are. They are. So, they slot in at number three on the list from being off the list last year. That's a pretty good entry. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: From zero to third place when you're sitting behind, like, absolute just mega brands like Pilot and Sailor. Like, yeah. To jump in in front of Ackerman as well. That's huge. And I assume knocked J. Urban off the list, did they? Did he?

Brad Dowdy: No, it was because I never had J. Urban up there. So, I pulled up my old list here. So, let me find that real quick. I apologize. Because Mont Blanc's in at number five. Mont Blanc stays. I think that's just a good quality ink. So, they knocked off Pelican Edelstein. That's, wow. Okay. Yeah. So, Edelstein is great inks, great color. Not much change, not much variety. They add the one ink a year. And I say that knowing that Aroshizuku doesn't add anything. But they're still, they had so much more variety. It's undeniable. Than Edelstein. Yeah. They have so much more variety. But I still have Sailor. I have Sailor at number one. Aroshizuku was one previously. Sailor is far and away my favorite ink. And it's an ink I recommend the most for the colors. Well, so, we're going to have a conversation at the end about a lot of things like that. Okay. The what about conversation. I have comments or I have unfinalized thoughts on sub brands and custom pen makers and things like that. I need to try to figure out what to do because there's definitely some changes around there. But Sailor in general, because of the colors and the price and the performance, I have them at number one. Aroshizuku. I mean, if you say that's the best, you're not going to get an argument out of me. And then Oster. Then Ackerman number four. Because I don't know why. I've just been using Oster more. And it's a much better price and a lot easier to recommend. And you can get the similar colors as you can in Ackerman. And you're not getting any, you know, you're still getting good quality ink. So, I think it's more of a price thing between Oster and Ackerman. And Montblanc is just a really nice, high quality ink that's very underrated, which I mentioned in last week's show about some underrated stationery and things like that. So, ink's kind of hard to, you know, give. Again, there's so much variance even within brands that it's hard to give the perfect recommendation. But I usually start with Sailor and Aroshizuku. And then we'll go from there if we're trying to nail it down even further. So, the next list that changed considerably was paper. Rhodia stayed at number one. I think because they just have everything and it's all good. Right? No matter what style, format, shape, size, color, cover. The only thing they're not great at is for pencils. So, Rhodia, it's availability, it's price, it's format, style. Everything like that is just, I mean, it's hard to beat what they've done as a brand in this space. So, to me, like, they're number one. And, you know, it's kind of hard to argue with. They're just everywhere and so good. It kind of sets itself apart from everyone else in that manner. Then I think the entire rest of the list changed. Although, Morriman stayed on the list. Morriman's a great brand. Apica is number two. That's another paper brand I love. Leuchtturm was not on the list. They were in the just missed list. Leuchtturm could be number one one of these years. You know, I think they're getting in that Rhodia type of level. Their paper is fantastic. Their formats are great. The options they have are huge. They're available everywhere. So, yeah, I think that's a list that's kind of always going to be changing. There's lots of paper manufacturers that come in into the market. And there's always something new and neat. So, I try to balance it between styles, formats, and availability and price. And, yeah, so that's kind of how that list shakes out. And then the last big change list was the wooden pencils list, which I'm going to have some news coming out on that soon related to this list. So, we'll just run it down real quick. The Blackwing 602, still my favorite. Tombow Mono 100. Cron d'Ache Swiss Stinkwood. That's the smelly pen pencil. The Camel Pencil. And then the Mitsubishi Office 9850. So, hopefully in a week or two, I'll have some news to share with you about this list of wooden pencils. You can probably take a wild stab at what's going on with that. But we'll save the news until then. So, lists that didn't change were the top five pens in the store, the top five fountain pens under $50, and the top five fountain pens between $200 and $500. I want to tackle the store one first. I actually went and visited an office depot to see what else I could find in the store. And I came away with nothing because there's nothing that I wanted that would move the needle in any significant way in the store. You know, I did see the Sino DX, which I think will, if they keep that in the store, I'd be interested to see if it'll crack the list if they continue to promote that brand. So, you know, that could definitely be an improvement to the top pens in the store list. But it's really kind of boring otherwise. If Zebra could bring their Zebra Japan pens instead of their Zebra USA pens here, which I hate to say, the Japanese pens are different and they're better. So, you know, I would appreciate if they could bring some of those cool ones over there to the store, like Unibraw brought the DX over. So maybe we'll start to see more companies do that. But, yeah, it's kind of boring. The top five pens under $50, Myke, is something we talk about all the time. Right. The entry level fountain pen issue or not issue the conversation.

Brad Dowdy: Metropolitan first, eco second, safari third, then everything else I kind of feel is the general way to go by. So, you know, I could argue, you know, the Kaweco sport and the platinum preppy, the preppy especially because of the price. But I have a feeling if you want to experience a fountain pen for the first time, you want something like the Metropolitan or the Eco, right? I mean, I don't see anything that I would change here. Do you have any ideas on this? No. I mean, there's really nothing, right?

Myke Hurley: No, there's nothing to change.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's good. I mean, I'm okay with that list not changing. I don't love the store pen list not changing. I would like to see some change in that one. That would be nice. The top five fountain pens from 200 to 500, that's a weird category. And we're going to explore this a little bit more in a minute. But I'm really locked in on the Pilot 823, the full-size Sailor Pro gear, the Pilot 912, the Aurora Optima, and the Pelican 600. I mean, there's a lot of choice in here. These seem to be kind of the most straightforward streamlined of the bunch. You know, I really like everything that they do, everything that they offer. There's a wide range of prices. That's a big range of prices in there. But I think those are all solid, solid choices. You know, if I had to make a number one overall fountain pen choice from any price range, it might be the Pilot 823. I just love that pen. One of my favorites.

Brad Dowdy: Sailor Pro gear would probably be second. Okay.

Reader Feedback Lists

Brad Dowdy: One new list I added, which was from Reader Feedback. And I would love to hear anyone else's feedback. What other lists do you want? People are very much asking me for specific ink color lists, like blue, black, and orange, which I've done before. So I might do those again. But I got a really great email that essentially said, all these lists are great, but what pens do you use the most? What pens do you find the most useful? And I thought that was a good way to look at it, like on a daily basis, weekly basis. What pens do you use the most? And how would that differ from one of your recommendations list? So I thought about it for a while and just kind of tracked what I use regularly. And it boiled down to this. So the Fisher Space Pen, number one, and essentially the refill I use, even though the standard Fisher Space Pen bullet is a really great pen on its own. I use that refill in the shown design pen. The Uniball Signo DX, which I love for gel ink pens, I use that more. I would find that pen more useful for that micro gel category than like the Pilot Hi-Tech C. The Securo Pigma Micron, because I always have to have a drawing pencil, and I find that one to be very durable and able to just kind of, you know, take a beating and go anywhere, do pretty much anything until I wear the tip out. The Uniball Jetstream at four, the .7mm specifically, because when you're not using, the Fisher Space Pen doesn't always come in handy for just writing. Like if you're writing notes or journaling or something like that, the Jetstream does. It's a better ballpoint than the Space Pen. So, and it's often found in a retractable barrel, which people like for just pickup and usefulness. And then number five is the Sharpie permanent marker, which is one of those pens. You don't know how much you need it until you don't have one. So, I always try to keep a Sharpie marker handy or within reach. And just, nothing beats like a fresh Sharpie marker. You know, you wear them out pretty quickly because you tend to use them for extreme writing situations. But when you open those Sharpie markers fresh, man, there's nothing, nothing can beat those. So, I find that list of five pens, notice there's no fountain pen in there. Like that's the group of pens that I could just like pick up and go and be happy and not miss out on anything. You can mix and match some colors in there with the Signo and the Micron if you wanted some colors in there. Even the Sharpie permanent marker. But yeah, I thought that was a really, really interesting list.

Myke Hurley: I would maybe rename that list to like practical rather than useful. But because when I hear you talk about it, like that feels more right to me than useful. Yeah. But that is a good addition, right? Like these are just a bunch of pens. You should probably own one of each because you would get a use out of all of them, which is different.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Okay. I do like that practical name. I might change that. So, yeah. So, that was fun reader feedback that I was able to implement in a good way, I think. So, any other lists that, you know, people would like to see, definitely reach out and get in touch. And before we wrap this up, I wanted to talk about things I don't know what to do with. Such as, in the pen realm, I use a ton of pens that I would like to recommend that aren't in these categories. Such as brands like Franklin Kristoff, Edison, custom pens from Newton, and Jonathan Brooks. Like where, like I had a Franklin Kristoff pen in the $100 to $200 range, but I don't know if that's right to have in there. Right to do should individual pen makers be in their own category because they don't have the huge brand exposure. Like all the brands I talked about are things you can get from a lot of different places. Things like Franklin Kristoff and Edison have a much smaller scope, but they're well worth being recommended, right? I recommend them all the time. I just don't know what to do with them. That's a dilemma I'm in. So, I'm not sure how I want to handle that. And then that goes along with what you said about Bung Box Inc. You know, there's a whole list of Inc. sub-brands. Bung Box and Kobe are at the top of the list, but I count those as Sailor. So, you know, there's lots of smaller brands of inks that aren't widely available that are fantastic. So, those are the questions that I have for myself. How to handle those. Should I have different, you know, makers type lists for that? Should I have sub-brand type lists for inks? You know, there's all kinds of things I could do. I just don't want to dilute the page too much with too many offshoots. So, I'm open to suggestions for how to handle those.

Myke Hurley: My feeling on that is that it's probably a difficult thing to rank these pens against each other. Because, again, it's like, what are you choosing? Really, what are you actually choosing? And I think what you're choosing is a specific design that speaks to you and doesn't really necessarily matter in some instances who's made it. Right? So, like, you might choose a Brooks pen because it's got the swirls that you want. But you might choose a Canalea because it's got the colors that you like. And you might choose a Franklin Kristoff because it's a limited edition. But, you know, when a lot of these pens are using the same nibs in some instances, it's like, how do you rank them? Because you would be ranking a personal list. You're not necessarily ranking a specific list unless you set about a bunch of parameters. Like, do it scientifically. But I think that's the wrong way to judge these pens because they should be bought emotionally. So, I think it's too difficult to try and rank this, like, this, like, acrylic nature of these pens.

Brad Dowdy: And I think that's why I took them off originally when I first redid the list to just be kind of more of a pure recommendations list than more of a Brad list. So, that's where a lot of those moved off. You know, maybe I should implement, you know, a Brad-specific list where a lot of these things would fall.

Brad Dowdy: I mean... So, I don't know. It depends on what I want to do with the page. Which, that's why I took that stuff down to begin with because it was confusing people. Yeah, I don't think it should be there. Well, do you recommend that? I was like, I don't. So, yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I don't think it should be there because I think that it's too tricky to try and recommend in that way. Because, I mean, I feel like you could do one or the other, right? You can either do, like, your personal favorites as in, like, the favorites that are the most personal to you. Or you can try and be a here are the pens that I recommend for everybody. Like, they are two extremely different things. And, like, I feel like we cover the favorites lists on the show because that makes more sense. But for the site, I think having what you have, which is like, here is a buying guide, is a way better approach to it.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right. And that's kind of how I took it. So, you know, so we'll see. Always open to change and making it better. But that was my thought process behind having some of those, some of those, some brands on there and some not. So, we'll see. It's always evolving. So, whew. That was a lot. I need a drink. So, you need to talk about Harry's. Our good friends at Harry's real quick. All right.

Myke Hurley: This episode is brought to you by Harry's. You know Harry's. Come on. They're all about giving you a great shave at a fair price. That's what they believe in. And it's why over three million people have switched to Harry's. Because they want a great shave and want a great price for it. So, that's what they set out to do. Harry's founders, Jeff and Andy, decided that they wanted to buy a factory, which is the only way to make sure that you're going to get Fantastic Blades. They were fed up over the price of razors. They didn't want people to be paying over the odds anymore for what they're going to be scratching across their face. They aren't happy with that. So, they went ahead and bought a factory in Germany that has over 100 years of experience to create their five-blade razor that they deliver to you directly. And you just buy from them over the internet. It's very simple. And all of Harry's products are backed by a 100% guarantee. They're so confident you're going to love their blades. They want to give you their free trial set. So, you can just go ahead and get a trial set from Harry's for free. All you need to do is pay the shipping cost. The free trial set includes a weighted ergonomic handle, five precision engineered blades with a lubricating strip and trimmer blade, their rich lathering shave gel, and a travel blade cover. Now, if you weren't a pen addict listener and you just went over to harrys.com and you thought, Oh, I like the look of this trial set, that will cost $13 in value for you. You don't want to do that. You want to get it for free by going to harrys.com slash pen addict right now and you can get started with their free trial straight away. And then you can have a lovely face taking care of Harry's products like Brad has.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so my top five harrys products are number one, the blades, because that's what it's all about. That's what keeps, you know, my face and neck smooth and presentable and lovely. Number two is my orange handle. So that's my number two Harry's product. And this is the original orange handle, not the new, what do they call it, the rubberized handle. Yep. So the grip, I like the OG orange Harry's handle. Number three is the shave cream. So I prefer the lotion over the foaming, uh, shave gel. So the foaming shave gel is just much more messy. The cream is smooth and subtle on my neck. Uh, number four is the post shave balm. That stuff makes you feel and smell wonderful. And number five is my Harry's, um, razor stand. So I keep that propped up on the counter and keeps my orange, uh, razor handle with my fresh blade in it, uh, right there at the ready for when it's shave time. So that is my top five Harry's list.

Myke Hurley: I wasn't expecting that. Thank you very much. Go to harrys.com slash pan addict right now, and you can get started with that free trial set. Thank you so much to Harry's for their support of this show and Relay FM. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I wasn't expecting that either. I just did that on the fly. So you're a professional. Yeah. You're welcome. Harry's not that they ever will listen to that. Of course they will. All right. Love us. I know. I'm just playing. They do love us. Harry's is an awesome sponsor. Thank you all so much. And, uh, you know, well maybe one day I'll have enough razor handles. We'll just do a top five razor handles showdown. I'm up for that. Yeah. All right. So the STPA this week was from Brad's inbox. So I think since we've run long already on this show, I'm going to hit a couple of the shorter ones and then we'll save some more from next week. How does that sound?

Myke Hurley: Sounds fine. Yeah. Cause we've got some, we've got some big, big, big questions.

Listener Emails

Brad Dowdy: We've got some lengthy ones. Yeah. This is, this was all email stuff. So a lot of them are big, but I'm gonna hit this first one from Eric. He says, I'm thinking about getting my first shimmer, shimmer ink, like Emerald of Chavor. Is there anything extra I need to think about as far as storage, cleaning more often, et cetera. I tend to be more like Myke and leave the same ink in a pen for a long time and don't want to ruin anything by leaving one of these inks in a pen. Hashtag be like Myke. Yeah. I'm super glad that's a thing. Like, you know, I'm terrible with my pen. So I'm like Myke. That seems fair. Also, also have introductory pens like Lamy Safari Metropolitan and have some Gen How models on order. Are these intro pens okay for the intro level pen? Do I have to worry about clogging or anything? So number one on the pens. Yeah. Perfect. Lamy Safari Metropolitan, some Gen Hows to play with, figure out what you want. Absolutely perfect for entry level pens. Shimmer inks. You absolutely need to think about what you're doing with it. If you load a shimmer ink, let's just take Emerald of Chavor because that's what you brought up. You need to make sure you use it regularly. The longer it sits, the harder it's going to be to clean. The longer it sits, the worse it's going to write because those sparkles will clog. So if you ink a pen with a sparkle ink or shimmer ink, and this goes for any of them, you have to use it regularly. And by regularly, I mean more than once a day, I would imagine. Because as soon as that sits, it's going to start to clog. And if it starts sitting for days, those particles will just be tough to clean out. I don't believe anything is going to ruin your pens or anything like that, but they're going to make your life difficult when it comes to cleaning and maintaining your pens. So you have to be more considered. You have to think about what you're doing. You have to think about how you're going to use it. Unless you're going to use it regularly, I would hesitate to ink it up or even purchase it. But if you're going to commit to it and use it on a regular basis, and then I say go for it. Just be aware of those few extra things.

Myke Hurley: And I would say that you're probably using the right pens. Like putting these inks into less expensive pens, if you just want to kind of try it out and play around, it's the right thing to do. Because if it does start to get clogged up, you can replace the pen for not so much money as if you put it in like a Lamy 2000, which you shouldn't do.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't do that. And like the chat room is reminding us, you know, when you set that pen down and you don't use it for several hours or a day, you want to kind of roll that ink around and get the particles re-spread around.

Myke Hurley: Give it a gentle shake to make sure you get the shimmer coming through.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Because you're buying it for a reason, right? You want that shimmer to come through and it will come through, but you have to make sure it's mixed appropriately. So yeah.

Myke Hurley: The same as when you're filling it, make sure you shake the ink bottle before you fill it. Because otherwise all the shimmer just lays on the bottom of the bottle.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So Nicholas says he really likes sending postcards, but tend to only buy them when I travel. Any suggestions on where to shop for postcards online, specifically with themes that are not geographically focused. So there's lots of places you can get cool postcards. But the coolest I've found, and we've talked about them on the show probably a year or two ago, is from Friends of Type. They sell a 100 postcard box of keep, it's called Keep Fresh, Stay Rad. And it has all of these great categories of postcards. A couple of them are NSFW from their wording. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But that's only like five or 10 of them. But they have just like crazy artwork, neat sayings, some really friendly stuff, some fun stuff, some lovey stuff, some crude stuff. So there's a little bit, there's a section for everyone in this kit of 100. And it runs like 20 bucks. And...

Myke Hurley: It's currently sold out.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, there's other places you can get it though. So shop around. You can pick those up. Just look for them. Postcards are the easiest way to get writing. And they're just kind of a cool thing to have around. And those are really, really nice. I've received several of those postcards from that set. So it's very cool.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Last one. Zach wants to know, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Uniball Airpen, specifically their marketing claim, that it writes like a fountain pen without leaking.

Brad Dowdy: So... I have never heard of this pen before. So we have discussed this pen.

Brad Dowdy: And... Have we? Yeah. Because I've reviewed it. We've talked about it. This was probably over a year ago. It's been around for about a year, maybe a little bit longer. It's kind of like a marker pen. So... So... The very first thought I had with their shot across the bow on fountain pens is that Uniball does not manufacture a fountain pen. So they feel they can take this shot. So the marketing says, this pen writes like a fountain pen without leaking. So... That's crap. Um... That doesn't mean anything. Like, it's so inaccurate. It writes like a marker that spreads all across the page. I mean, is what the marketing should say. Like, it's not a good pen unless you need a marker. That's what it is. So to... For the brand to use marketing like that is just really weird. Because it's inaccurate and just not... It doesn't really tell the tale of what this pen can do. It doesn't really relate anything to fountain pens. It's just strange. So... This is what the kids today, Brad, would call thirsty. Thirsty. That's a new one on me.

Brad Dowdy: Does... Thirsty. Yeah. I don't... It's because they're like...

Marketing Claims

Myke Hurley: They're trying to... They're trying to... They're trying to entice you, right? They're trying to be something that they're not... They're trying to like use some phrase to be like, Oh, hey, look how cool we are. They're being thirsty. It's thirsty with this one, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. I will add that to the lexicon. My kids haven't started on that one. But I have heard plenty of other new words that I had to learn as well. So... Yeah. So this marketing is dumb.

Myke Hurley: Obviously, as you can imagine, has lots of connotations in other ways when you start searching for it. But it's like trying to get something, right? If you've got thirst, you're trying to get something. And this is what they're trying to do here. They're trying to break into the fountain pen world. And I will not accept that.

Brad Dowdy: They did a very, very poor job at it, Myke. They did a poor job. All right. Well, hopefully, we didn't do a poor job on this show today. In fact, I think we did a great job, Myke. So thank you for having me.

Brad Dowdy: I don't understand. Is that what we do now? That worked exactly how I intended it. I thought that would stop you in your tracks cold. And it did.

Myke Hurley: Well, no. It's a pleasure to have you. I look forward to my guest next week. So yeah, that will be a thing. This is just a rotating panel now. I'm the pen addict. And Brad was my guest. That's how this works now. So thanks.

Brad Dowdy: Y'all are stuck with me, unfortunately.

Myke Hurley: Thanks for being on the show today. If you want to find Brad's work online, you can go to knock.co. And you can go to at Dowdyism on Twitter. And he's pen addict on Instagram and pen addict.com as well. I am at iMike. I-M-Y-K-E. You can support this show by supporting our sponsors. Thanks to Pen Chalet and Harry's for being with us this week. And most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.