The Pen Addict 321/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	321
Title:	Ciaowdy!
Release Date:	August 15th, 2018
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 321
Audio File:	Audio Episode 321
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 321
Length:	5757 min <br />0.95 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Episode Introduction

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 321, and today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet, Mac Walden, and listeners like you. And we'll talk about that a little bit later on in today's show. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Ciao, Brad, how are you?

Brad Dowdy: Chat ciao, Myke, how are you?

Myke Hurley: Well, because I was weirdly going to say chowdy, right? Like chow and howdy and dowdy? And I tried to bail, and then my brain was just like, no, no, no, just half do what you said you were going to do. It was a real time for me.

Brad Dowdy: Okay, okay. So, yeah, good job. I don't even have a comeback for that. It was terrible, but good job anyway. I'm a professional. So, being the professional that you are, and the professional that I am, we want to talk about the professional question mark that Lamy is. Our good buddies over at Lamy. They have new inks, Myke, they're going to release to the world. And guess what color they don't have out of these 10 new colors.

Myke Hurley: Well, I'm going to assume it's orange.

Brad Dowdy: You assume correctly, Myke. So, why are they doing new inks? I have no idea. Okay. I thought they would expand their ink lineup at some point, right? They just have their base lineup of inks, and then they do the one or two special editions per year. And, you know, we've been talking about this whole orange thing, which we're actually going to continue to follow up on, because we have even more follow up on the-

New Ink Line Discussion Begins

Myke Hurley: It's the topic that will never die, but finally a good one. Usually our topics that never die are just, like, upsetting angry ones, but this is a fun one.

Myke Hurley: But, yeah, so what do they got? Like, they've got, like, three pinks, right? They've got, like, two different pinks and a purple. Well, actually, they've got two purples.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Gray. They're jewel-based. They're gem-based, right? So, that's the theory. So, ruby, rolandite, beryl, azurite, benitoite, emazonite, topaz, obsidian. That's all right. Someone will record an audio track and send it in to us. That's why I do it, because we're so bad at it.

Myke Hurley: Maybe the problem is, are there any orange jewels? Is that the issue here?

Brad Dowdy: You know what? We can call it, we can, you know, make it up or write or something. I don't know. Yeah. Make me an orange ink. Figure it out. There's got to be, there's an orange gem, certainly. Somewhere. Someone will find that. I mean- The colors do look nice, though. They can just call it. I will say that. I mean, okay. Now we're getting, we're going to get into it now.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: They look fine. They look completely fine. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Why would you buy any of these colors?

Myke Hurley: Oh, I wouldn't, but, you know.

Myke Hurley: But they look nice, at least. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, they look fine. You know, it's a gemstone line. They have a country neighbor by the name of Pelican that has a standard ink lineup and a gemstone ink lineup. It's awfully similar to what they're doing. These are, this lineup is called the Crystal Ink lineup. They're coming in a 30 milliliter bottle. One of the things that I've always liked about Lamy's inks, besides the fact that they're good, like Lamy Turquoise is a legitimately great ink. You know, I like Lamy Blue Black. Not everyone does. It's a little bit dry. Understandable. Lamy Black is a very popular ink. For a 50 milliliter bottle, they're $10.50. Even when they do, they're special edition inks like Dark Lilac and Petrol. $10.50. Absolute steal of a deal. I can't believe they haven't raised the prices of their base lineup inks, which has me worried about what they're going to do here. So, this is a new bottle shape, a smaller ink capacity, all new lines. Guess the price that you think these are going to sell for.

Myke Hurley: $25 a bottle.

Brad Dowdy: You think? I was thinking lower. I was thinking $15, $20 at the most. I don't know the answer. I don't see a price on them yet. We haven't been able to find it.

Myke Hurley: Maybe the size would make more sense for $20, right? Right. Right? Like, maybe that would be a thing.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. I think that's going to be a problem in relation to their existing lineup. So, what are they? But, I mean, their existing lineup is underpriced, in my opinion. But, I mean, I'm glad it's that price, but it's really, really inexpensive. So, my first thought was $15, and then the more I thought about it, I think it might be more like $18 to $20. And we'll see. We'll see how they're going to be. You know, you can't tell the ink samples. These are digital recreations of the colors, right? These are not, like, inked, like, samples. It doesn't look like to me. So, I don't know. It's boring to me.

Myke Hurley: Here's the thing. Here's the thing.

Brad Dowdy: It's interesting to talk about to me, but I'm coming from a personal level. I'm just saying that personally.

Myke Hurley: I kind of were a little bit frustrated about the colors or whatever, right? Like, you'd want an orange or whatever. But here's the deal, though. Would you really use that, though, do you think?

Brad Dowdy: Like, an orange, limey ink? Oh, I'm not complaining, really, because they don't have an orange. That's just a joke. I'm just saying, what out of this color range would I choose to use on purpose out of the other inks that I have?

Myke Hurley: I would say the top four, Ruby, Rodenite, Beryl, and Azurite, I would be interested in seeing how they look on paper. Because I like that color range, right? Like, I like the pinks and purples. Like, I have a couple of inks that I like that. And I think that those colors, maybe the barrel specifically, I reckon I could really like that color. Like, I would want to try those. And honestly, like, if they looked how they do in this image, I would seriously use them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I'm with you. Like, I'm saying, like, it doesn't, you know, get my motor running.

Myke Hurley: They're not knocking anybody's socks off, right?

Brad Dowdy: Right. I can say that much. But if the price comes out right and the colors are good in reality, like, Amazonite would be the first one I try, followed by probably Azurite. You know, I like the blues and purples. So, those look good. So, I don't know. It's more of a topic of conversation. I'm sure they're going to be fine. I'm very curious about the price, right? Because this is how, this is the way the market seems to be going. Smaller bottles charge more per ounce, you know. And this isn't the only market that is doing this. I was on Twitch yesterday when we were talking about this. Every consumer good is making things smaller and charging you more for it, right? It's the common practice. So, are 30-milliliter ink bottles now going to become the norm? We'll see. So, and, you know, it'll be probably twice as much per ounce, if you will, per milliliter. So, we'll see. We'll see how it goes. I'll be interested to follow this. Because the only thing I do hope is that I am glad that they're doing this. This is, Lamy hasn't done this in I don't know when, you know, aside from special editions. This is an entirely new lineup of inks. That's a huge positive, I think. And hopefully, if this goes well, that will implore them to make more inks. Not that we need more inks on the market. You know, the next 10 colors that come out, you know, will be some summertime colors or flowers. And they'll all be bright and happy. And, you know, we'll see if they're any good as well. But, I don't know. I like it on one hand that they're doing it, right? On that aspect, like, I'm really good with it. But I just have a, it brings a lot of questions. At least up until we see the price and performance and quality of the inks. So, we'll see. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was a very interesting topic. I was, the joke was that, you know, we were hoping they were going to make an orange if they were going to be making new inks. We heard through the grapevine that new inks were in the works. New inks were in the works. But no one had any idea.

Myke Hurley: So, we just naturally assumed, right? That orange would be one of them.

Brad Dowdy: We did more than assume.

Myke Hurley: We're like, oh, yeah, no, definitely.

Brad Dowdy: Without a shadow over there. Gotta be orange. Gotta be orange. So, speaking of orange, the podcast meme that would never die. Is it correct to call it a meme now? Or is it just a discussion? Is it just a recurring topic of the Lamy orange ink cartridges?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, this continues.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, two things happened this week.

Brad Dowdy: One, we actually think we might have found the real 10-pack getter. Ducati Steve on Twitter sent us a picture of his 10-packs of the Lamy orange cartridges that he received from said store that did not fulfill your order, which I find completely hilarious that this continues to be a thing, right? So, that was funny. That could be your order that did not get filled. It's highly likely that it is since the quantities match.

Myke Hurley: I wonder, I mean, this hasn't been answered. Did Ducati Steve actually make that order? Right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, because the way the email was posed to you, it was like they posed it as accidentally, right? Yeah. They didn't say, we ran out inventory-wise, like we did a bad inventory, which happens all the time. And I forgot to ask that. We sent it by accident. Like, I should have asked Steve that. Well, he'll follow up with us, or we'll shoot him a tweet. But he's got nothing on our friend Diana of the Nib Section podcast. I can't even explain the laughter that took place in my household when I received the tweet with her discovery of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I think I'm going to go with eight boxes of 20 cartridges each with the promotional stamps on the outside of the boxes. So this looks like an old Lamy shipment where she received, or this isn't her. She found it somewhere. I'm not supposed to say where she got it from. And y'all leave Diana alone. Don't go bothering Diana for these cartridges. They're using them for something else. But this was basically a backstock discovery, right? And all of these boxes are stamped promotion on the outside. So that answers a lot of the questions, right? We had not for sale on all these boxes of orange ink cartridges. And we also found out that they're from 2008. So these are 10 years old, which makes sense when you see the amount of ink that's evaporated from the cartridges. So lots of answers were solved on this particular tweet. And I just loved it.

Myke Hurley: I think we can put this to bed now, because we now have the answer we didn't have, right? Which is, where did these come from? Right. So we now know this isn't a thing that Lamy's getting ready to do. It's a thing that they did 10 years ago.

Lamy Cartridge Conclusion

Brad Dowdy: Which we had kind of sussed that out, but we were never like for sure. Yep. But it's all, I think we've come full circle now. And the fact that there's still this many of these things floating around, I think is what amazes me the most, right? It wasn't like a one-off, like this store had a few extra packs that they were trying to sell. These things are popping up all over the world from a promotional perspective. People finding them in backstocks and in all kinds of strange areas. But I love this post. This is like post of the year for me. Just seeing that picture with the box full of boxes that say promotion with the orange ink. So good. That was the best. So thank you, Diana, for sending of that. This has been just the most amazing topic. And I'm sure it won't be the last time we talk about it, Myke. Um, because one day, Myke, I'm sure Lamy is going to make an orange ink. Yeah, we'll see about that. We will.

Myke Hurley: I wanted to get a little bit of follow-up. And on the, I think it was on last week's episode, I spoke about the Peak Designs Travel bag, the Kickstarter campaign that they're doing for that. Um, well, my friend, uh, Chase Reeves has gotten an early unit and has reviewed it on his bag review channel. Um, it is a 50 minute video.

Myke Hurley: Uh, but every second of it is entertaining because that is what Chase is good at. If you've never watched one of Chase's bag reviews, you are losing out in life. Like he is incredibly entertaining. I love that guy. And it's brilliant. Um, he goes into a ton of detail about every millimeter of the bag. Um, and I still like, so he, you know, one of the things he shares is like, it is big, like it is a big bag. And that is the one thing that's making me hum and ha over it. But everything else that he said about it has made me think I was right in wanting it. Um, they are currently at $2.6 million with 36 days left to go in their campaign. And they have now put, uh, limits on the amounts that they have for each tier. And they put an up, they put, well, they put an update on this. And the reason is these are the limits that they know they can ship in December. And if they max those limits out, they will add in more tiers of a later ship date. Gotcha. So they are sticking to their December. They're very confident that they can do these for December. So my expectation is they've begun production a while ago. Yeah. Because, you know, they knew it was going to be a success.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, they, they are someone that can afford to do that, which is great. That's the, the kind of, that's the right way to handle a lot of Kickstarter launches. If you know, ahead of time, you could, if you can get out in front of it a little bit, because you know, you're going to be covered, it'll make it so much, uh, so much nicer. And then I haven't watched this video yet, but the thing about Chase's videos is that's him in real life too. Yeah. Yeah. This is, this is not an act. That's Chase.

Myke Hurley: Chase Reeves is the, is the guy you're seeing, which is why they're so good because they're real. It's him being him. Uh, his videos are incredible. I've watched so many of them and it's why I bought the peak design, uh, camera bag, like the, the, the, whatever they call it, the everyday.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So that's, I would, I'm way more interested in that than this bag. Like I have a 0% interest in this bag, but at the same time I would watch what peak does because of how they do it and what they produce is really, really good. So I'm a huge peak fan without owning a bag.

Myke Hurley: I think this bag is probably going to be too much for me, but I'm willing to try it out.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I already have a 45 liter, uh, bag that I can travel with. I don't need, I think this one's 35, which is really, really large as well.

Myke Hurley: So, oh, it goes all the way up to like 50. They have like a bunch of, does it really? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. This thing is mega. Like, yeah, you need to, you need to watch it just to see how it expands. Cause that is fascinating on its own. Okay. Like it goes from 35 to 50. Gotcha. Gotcha. It's madness. It is a really, it's a very interesting bag.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. My 45 aeronaut can get me a week's worth of stuff in it. I don't, yeah, I'm good.

Myke Hurley: All right. Today's show is brought to you in part by our friends at Pen Chalet. Pen Chalet have all of your favorite brands, all the companies that you like to own. They have their stuff. You say, look, a Vaco, Pilot Lamy, and so many more. They sell all authentic products, of course, because that's why would they not? I mean, this is Pen Chalet we're talking about. This is a company that offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Pen Chalet has low prices on high quality pens, but it's not just pens. They have everything, right? Whether you're looking for carrying cases or pen holders, whether you want refills or converters, they've got it all. They have great and reliable customer service, great deals, and they do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the United States. They sell internationally as well, and they have great shipping rates for that too. So go to PenChalet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com, and click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password PenAddict, and you'll get your hands on one of two things. Well, two things. Maybe you should get your hands on all things. You'll get the code that you want to save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet. So always go there no matter what you want to do. Enter the password PenAddict, and you'll get the current code that you can apply to any purchase at Pen Chalet. But you'll also get to see some special offers, including this week's special offer, which is the Pilot Vanishing Point in a selection of metallic colors at an incredible price that I can't tell you.

Brad Dowdy: It's pretty incredible. So I saw you mentioned early on that you saw this deal, and it was fantastic. I don't have any of these colors. Like, I skipped this one, but at that price point, it's pretty nuts. They are... Pilot has... I don't know if they... They never positioned this as a special or limited offer, so it was kind of a standard item, but they're no longer continuing it. So these are going to go away at some point. It looks like the green one already has. There was a green one, and there was one other color, and a purple one. So those are gone.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we have a red, copper red, desert orange, mountain blue are the colors available.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. And yeah, that's a really, really amazing price.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, this is good. This is very, very good. I would recommend you go and check it out. And you do that by going to PenChalet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Our thanks to Pen Chalet for their continued support of this show, and all of us are really FM.

Brad Dowdy: There's also a wooden Platinum 3776 in there that I've never seen before. Well, I mean. If that is wooden. It could be ebonite. I don't know what it is. You're ebonite. But it's like half off. So, interesting. I have to read about that one.

Kickstarter Update Begins

Myke Hurley: Hey, Brad. It's kind of cool looking. Let's give our listeners an update on the Kickstarter campaign. What's going on? Are we shipping those to Lulu's out? No, we're not. Oh, of course.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, let's make Brad lose hair this week somehow.

Brad Dowdy: It's, I think the first 50 have finally left the dock. Right. This week. Although, I didn't get the, to me. This is to me, not two backers.

Brad Dowdy: But I don't have the shipping confirmation yet. So, every day we've had a talk with them and we still don't have them leaving the house yet. So, I mean, they're like right there. They're finishing them up. If they're not already finished, you know, they're inspecting them and packing them. So, soon, like, it's driving me insane. You know, it's close enough. I did send out the backer surveys yet, yesterday or Monday. Okay. And we already have like 75% of people's addresses filled in. So, if you haven't seen that yet, check your email, check your spam folder. We need your shipping address to ship these. But it's close enough to where Anna's got the pin sets headed to me this week. The Tallulahs, I expect, are shipping this week. I don't, the thing I can't find out, they've never given me a good answer why they can't give me a good answer. That's what drives me personally crazy. So, you know what? Delays happen, but we're like already delayed. So, like, I'm done with delays. You keep telling me something that doesn't happen. So, anyway, we're pretty much there. It's really, really close. But I've been saying that for a couple weeks now. This is the story of my life. If you've listened to the past couple of years of this podcast, you'll hear me say how close yet so far we are with pretty much every product we make. Right? So, we're still looking at hitting an August ship date. You know, depends on how many we get at once to get everything out to everyone. But we'll let you know as soon as we do. And, man, I hope it's next week we can start shipping these out. But you never know. But we're right there. About to cross that finish line.

Myke Hurley: Okay. Should we talk about RelayFM membership?

Brad Dowdy: We should because I'm getting anxious to release our episode, Myke. I'm very anxious.

Myke Hurley: All right. So, we'll talk about that in a second. But first off, here's some of the deets. We talk about membership once a year, which is during the time of kind of like late August to mid-September, because that is the celebration of RelayFM's birthday. We turn four years old on the 18th. Happy birthday, mate. Thank you so much. So, RelayFM membership. They start at $5 a month. If you become a member of RelayFM, you get access to a bunch of members-only content, including a monthly behind-the-scenes newsletter, 5K desktop wallpapers of RelayFM show artwork, and a monthly RelayFM host crossover show where Stephen Hackett brings together two RelayFM hosts that typically are not on the same show and talk to them about something. And you also get access to a feed full of bonus episodes of RelayFM shows throughout August and September. So, what this means is there are a bunch of RelayFM shows put on specials that are typically different to the type of show that they do. There are a bunch of crossovers between hosts of different shows, and they put on something you can only get if you're a RelayFM member. However, the Pen Addict members bonus show this year publishes on August the 24th. It is three hours long.

Myke Hurley: Now, here is the thing. We were struggling to come up with something for this year. We wanted to do something different, and then Jeff Brookwicky came up with an idea. Here is the idea. I buy a Lego set. Brad has the instructions. Brad has to help me, instruct me, on how to build the Lego set. That is it. What you will hear is the unedited audio of us putting together the London Lego architectural set. So, it's a little kind of Landmarks of London set. I also had a microphone that is angled to pick up the sounds of the Lego, which is good for ASMR if that's your deal. And you get to hear the trials and tribulations of what it takes for somebody to guide somebody else through building a Lego set. It is weird and wonderful. Wonderful. You can maybe build along with us or just put it on and listen to us laugh and shout at each other for three hours. So, that's available to you along with many other bonuses, including all of the bonuses that have happened across many years. So, if you sign up now, you get access to every bonus of every show across multiple years. So, you can show your support for this show by going to relay.fm slash penaddict. And there's buttons right there to sign up. Or if you'd like to learn more or support other shows or every show, you can go to relay.fm slash membership. No matter what show you give money to, you still get all of the bonuses for everything. Now, here's an important note. We changed the URL this year of the feed. And if you're an active member, you will have gotten an email about that. So, there's a new feed to subscribe to to get these bonuses. If you've previously cancelled your membership, you will need to sign up again to get access to the new feed. So, it's as simple as that. If you have any problems, just get in touch. So, yeah. Go to relay.fm slash membership. Find out more and become a RelayFM member. If you are a member or become a member during this period of time, I just want you to know that we cannot thank you enough for that. Obviously, we are advertising supporters. As a network. But the membership money really helps us know that no matter what happens, we have some money coming in for the work that we do. Which is really important because many of us, including me and Brad, are significant. Well, I am completely supported by podcasting. Brad is significantly supported by the show here. So, anything that you do to give us money here always really helps. So, thank you so much for your support.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, thank you all very much. I am anxious for this to come out. When we teased it earlier, we said this is either the best idea we have ever had or the worst idea we have ever had. And we will probably get responses in both camps, right?

Myke Hurley: Because I think, honestly, it oscillates between them during the episode at multiple times. Oh, yeah. For sure. For sure. But I think that this is really weird. I mean, and that's kind of what I like about these bonuses, that they are weird and wonderful. And I think that's the fun of it. Everyone tries to do something that's a little bit out of the norm. So, it's kind of you're not missing out. But if you can't afford it or you don't want to pay, you're not like missing a regular episode of the show, right? Right. That's why we do these weird things. They're extras.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, in the past, we've done two music-related episodes because I'm a big music fan. I think last year's was probably my favorite thing I've ever created. It was really good. We spoke about Joy Division. Yeah. We'll have to share that one. One of these years, we'll set it free to the world or I'll just do it behind your back. But this was... Thanks. I did not know how this was... Yeah. I didn't know how this one was going to work out, but I think it turned out pretty fun. And we got... We laughed. We got... We cried. We definitely got angry. We cried. Excuse me. And we joked, but it was fun.

Myke Hurley: It is probably the best encapsulation of our relationship together. So, I think it is very, very good to listen to for that. If you like the show, if you enjoy me and Brad as people, I think that you'll get a real kick out of this one.

Stationery Wiki Focus

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. All right. So, I wanted to shine the light on something else this episode, Myke, and we haven't been talking about them much, and we should, and that's the Stationery Wiki. Mm-hmm. Have you checked this page recently? Have you checked the website recently?

Myke Hurley: I pop in every now and then and have a little poke around to see how... It's just to check that there's still signs of life.

Brad Dowdy: It's astonishing the work that they're doing over there on the Stationery Wiki. So, if you're not familiar with it, you can just go to stationary.wiki. And what Matthias and the team over there... I know Alex, he's in the chat room. He's been working some on it. There's tons of contributors that are listeners to the Pen Outic Podcast. It started kind of as an idea to track some of our show notes, but it's really a stationary as a whole type of information page. There's brand pages, and there's the one I found today or yesterday when I was looking at this. I didn't know there was a Kickstarter page that has tracked a bunch of stationary Kickstarters. That's a fascinating thing. That's such a good resource for all of us. So, I implore all of y'all to go to the Stationery Wiki. If you're not just reading it... I mean, that's great if you're just reading it and visiting it, but if you want to contribute to it, it's super easy to do. You can help build out the pages. It's a resource for everyone to use, and Mattias just put on a contest for new mechanical pencil articles that I helped judge the winners of. They were like, gosh, I forget how many posts he gave me. 20 or so posts that people wrote for mechanical pencils. So, we just went through, picked out some winners on the fun posts for the mechanical pencil subsection of the wiki, and it's just fascinating. So, I am really impressed with what they do, and I implore everyone to make that a regular resource that they check out, and if you have time, contribute as well. So, I just wanted to bring that up. So, thanks, Mattias and team for doing such an amazing job. It's fantastic.

Myke Hurley: All right. Thank you so much to everybody that contributes, and you should go and check it out. Everyone should go and check it out always.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, I need to look if there's a highlighter section so we can add the double color highlighters in. This is a follow-up from last week's episode.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So, last week, in RSTPA, Lucy wrote in to ask about double color highlighters. Lucy needed a highlighter that was pink and green, and we made a bunch of suggestions, but we couldn't completely answer possibly what was being looked for, which was one pen that has green on one side, pink on the other. But Ginny, over at Three Staples, has helped out. There is a company called Livework who make a 10-color highlighter twin pen set. It's five pens with two different colors on each side, and one of them is a pink and green. So, it exists, and you can go and get it, right? That was what we were looking for, pink and green, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, pink and green. And I think Lucy was in the UK as well, if I'm not mistaken. So, and the Fox & Star is a British company, so hopefully it'll be easier to get a hold of, or maybe she can contact them, see if they sell them as singles. I don't know, you know, how important it is to get that one pen out of a five-pack. But I figured that had to be out there somewhere, because so many other companies were so close to making that setup. So, thank you, Ginny, for sending that along. That was really cool.

Brad Dowdy: Another frequent contributor to our show notes, my good buddy Glenn HK, sent me a link, not to a traditional stationary product yesterday, Myke, but a digital stationary product. It's called Slowly. I don't know if you had seen this or heard of this before I added it to the show notes. Any idea?

Myke Hurley: No.

Brad Dowdy: So, what this tries to do is...

Brad Dowdy: I'm having a hard time explaining it, because it sounds like email when I explain it. But it's to write people letters digitally, and they will send them to your recipient in a time-gated fashion, depending on where they are in the world. So, like, if I was writing a letter to Myke, it might take three days to digitally to arrive to him. And once I do, I get to collect stamps that are now, like, my gamification piece of this app. I'm having trouble not laughing, because... This sounds like one of the worst... I don't understand why this exists. It's blowing my mind right now.

Myke Hurley: I get the cuteness of this, but, like... Yeah. This would drive me mad. Right? Right? It would totally drive me insane. I get it. Like, I totally get it. Right? Like, if you want to feel like you have, like, a pen friend, but it have more weight to it, right? That, like, you wouldn't just give a one-word reply. You would really think about the replies, because they take so many days. Like, I understand the kind of why people would want this. For me, personally, as someone who doesn't like email, this is, like, worse than email.

Brad Dowdy: So, like, I see the positives here. Yes. Like, I think it's kind of cool. I think it's cute. I like that. But, like, for anyone who's, like, regularly, like, a pen and paper user would probably choose a letter with a real stamp and real paper and real ink. But this could be just kind of a fun thing you do with a friend, kind of like your little in-joke or secret conversation that you have, but as a platform for, like, letter writing and communicating around the world. I don't know. I guess if it picks you up with strangers, you know, maybe it could be interesting or a very opposite of interesting. Yes. Yeah. And then maybe it could lead you to writing real letters, right? Mm-hmm. You know, maybe it's a gateway. So, I don't know. I just had, like, I really had a hard time wrapping my head around what they were trying to do here. It's, like, I get it on one hand. Like, it's cool and cute and it's part of the collection and you find people all over the world to write to. But it's soon, it's just so easily replaced by text and email. It's, like, why would you do it? I don't know. It's, I think it's going to be, like, it's one of those things that'll be hot for a minute and then just, you know, die in a poof of smoke, I guess. But hopefully it leads people to writing real letters in their spare time. I think that would be kind of a cool outcome for this. So, anyway, I found that interesting and wanted to share that.

Ink Discussion Shift

Myke Hurley: All right, let's take our second break and thank Mack Weldon for their support of this show. Mack Weldon make the most comfortable underwear, socks, shirts, undershirts, hoodies, and sweat pants you're ever going to wear. Mack Weldon is better than whatever you're wearing right now. They are so confident of this. They have a no-questions-asked return policy. Mack Weldon are so sure that you're going to be super comfortable in whatever it is you buy from them. If you don't like your first pair for any reason, you just keep it and they will refund you. No questions asked. Mack Weldon pair premium fabrics with meticulous attention to detail and wrap it all up in a simple shopping experience to deliver you a new level of daily comfort straight to your door. They make undershirts that stay tucked, socks that stay up, and waistbands that don't roll. Everything they make is made of premium cotton blended with natural fibers and their website is built to get you in and out as quickly as possible so they don't waste your time. I am such a fan of Mack Weldon's products and I recently, for my vacation, I bought some of their shorts. They have wonderful, wonderful shorts. I bought the, I think, what are they called? The four-way? Yeah, and I bought some of those. I really love those a lot. They're really, really nice. And I bought some of their swim shorts too. I'm actually wearing their board shorts right now. I have a pair of them and the Royal Palm Tropic, which is like these, like, palm pattern. I love these shorts. They are so comfortable. I was wearing them on the beach. I was wearing them in the ocean and I now wear them at home because they're great for everywhere. I really love my Mack Weldon products and I really seriously recommend that you go and try them out. They have a bunch of cool science stuff like their silver underwear and undershirts that are naturally antimicrobial, which means they eliminate odor. Their stuff is great for all kinds of uses, no matter where you are, what you're doing. And listeners of this show can get 20% off their first order at MackWeldon.com just with the code PENADDICT at checkout. That is 20% off at MackWeldon.com, M-A-C-K-W-E-L-D-O-N.com with the code PENADDICT at checkout. Thank you so much to Mack Weldon for their support of this show and Relay FM.

Brad Dowdy: I think I saw some of your fancy shorts in your Instagram pictures, at least on your honeymoon pictures. Very, very handsome. Yes. I very much noticed them. All right. We got a bunch of Ask TPA. I think I actually even cut this short this week when we were putting these together. You put a bunch in here. I had a few others to add and I think there were still some extra ones. So we got some good ones this week and this first one's from Todd. He says, the Pelican M805 has been a recent game-changing pin for me. What was your most game-changing pin from five plus years ago and or more recently? Do you have something back in the day that kind of clicked or made you think differently about fountain pens?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, man. Pilot Pereira. That's more than five years. I have to go back more than five years for that. But the Pilot Pereira was like a real game-changer for me. Like I'd use like Lamy Safaris and stuff like that. But to my memory, it was my first Japanese fountain pen and it was super cheap and really amazing. Like I was super, super excited about it. It really made a big change for me, a big difference to the way that I think about this stuff. And it opened my mind a little bit and ended up taking me to like the vanishing point and then onwards. So it was very good. Very, very good. But then more recently, my Sky at Night pen from Jonathan Brooks. It, you know, seeing that pen from Jonathan and it being this like beautiful thing from someone who was kind of new to me really changed a lot of my habits now about the pens that I buy because now I really go for material and color and body more than in some cases brand or nib or performance. Right. So like it just opened me up to a different world of pens where like I now really care a lot more about who's making it. And I really care a lot more about how it looks and that look being unique. So yeah, that really changed me.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I thought this might take me a longer time to come up with an answer for, but the answer is really the Pilot Custom 912 with the posting nib. That's that pen turned a corner for me in two ways. One, the size of the pen was the perfect size for me to hold and write with comfortably. You know, I've been in the past, I'd used smaller pens, you know, not small pens like the prayer is a small pen, right? But it's considered a full size pen. Like when you post it and it's great, but it's a smaller pen, you know, the Pelican M205s, that's a smaller pen. And, you know, the Sailor Pro Gear slims are smaller pens. The 912 was the first pen that had a larger body size and a larger nib that really felt good in my hand. On top of that, it showed me that there's a nib that's perfect for my style of handwriting, that you can get something that a fountain pen exists that can be that fine and that firm and that smooth all at the same time. So, so much when you look at that pen in pictures, it looks like the most basic pen. It's black with rhodium trim. And everything about that pen changed how I think about so many other pens for me personally, just in the way it feels and the way it writes and the way it performs, the way it's different, the way that it's made in Japan. You know, all of these things is, are what I like personally in a pen. And that was the first pen that made me realize that, oh, I can get something that's really specific for my own use and not settle for something generic that can be used by everybody. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I can find something very specific for me. So, I felt that the 912 with the PO nib was kind of my game changer back in the day. Currently, I think the Sailor King of Pen has kind of ruined me a little bit. The Pro Gear model, I'm having a hard time wanting to use the smaller Sailors because I enjoy writing that one so much, writing with it. And I've bought plenty more Sailors since the King of Pen. But that one's kind of ruined things for me because it's so good for what I enjoy in a pen. Just aesthetically and feel and nib quality. And, you know, I still genuinely think it's overpriced for what it is. But I enjoy it as much or more than any pen I own. Just for the other things, like I was just mentioning. So, that one's been kind of a game changer in the way I shop now. Even though, you know, I still, you know, pick up some of the other Sailors in the smaller sizes that I like, like the Tangerine and the Ocean recently. But they'll never compare to, like, my one and only King of Pen. And I don't even need another one. Like, I don't, like, I don't know. If they come out with other colors, I'll certainly, you know, pick one up. But, like, they did the Ocean, but I didn't have any interest in that. You know, maybe down the line I'll get another one. But I kind of like it. It's kind of ruined me for some of the other Sailor pens. So, we'll see if that holds up. The Pelican M805 has also been kind of an interesting pen just because of the way it fits and feels. It's really, really cool. So, those are kind of my choices there. It's a good question to think about, like, what pens have driven, you know, your future or past purchases. That was a good question. So, we have a question here that the crowd can help us out with. I poked around a little bit. Not sure if I got a great answer, but we'll try. So, man wants to know, the very first ink I bought was the Edelstein Tourmaline, and it's my favorite. So, of course, it's no longer available. I think it was a 2012 special edition. Is there anything out there close to that ink? So, it's a pink ink, but it's dark. It's not quite magenta-y. It's a little bit hard to explain, but it looks like I've seen that color. So, I poked around at some of the colors. The first thing that popped into my head was Noodler's Black Swan in Australian Roses, I think it's called. It's kind of got that darkish pink. You want a little bit of black in it, just a little. That shows up, but kind of keeps the pink. The Monteverdi Garnet ink might be kind of the closest one.

Brad Dowdy: You know, it's really... These inks... The pink really kind of pops. It's kind of bright, but in a subtle way. You know, it's not a bright pink. It was definitely a challenge to get something close. But those are the two that I came up with. One place you can go and check out a bunch of pinks on the same page is Kelly at Mountain of Ink. We'll put a link in the show notes. She has her swabs sorted by category. And you can put them all on the same page. So, I found the pink ink page. We'll link that in the show notes. But she's got it for all kinds of colors. And I actually scrolled through that page. There's not much that registers with the tourmaline, which I was surprised. Because I wouldn't think it would be that hard of a color to match. But I felt that it is, Myke. It was a little tough for me.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, the only thing you can say is Califolo and Drenopel, right?

Myke Hurley: Because it's the only thing that I have any real experience with, right? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It's a little brighter.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I took a look at the ones that you recommended. There's a lot of very good inks there. But yeah, matching the exact, that's always a hard thing to do, right? Like, it's always hard to be like, this ink doesn't exist anymore. Can you replace it? And the answer is typically, exactly no.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I actually thought this was going to be easier than it was. Which is why I wanted to put it in there. Because it was not easy at all. Speaking of inks, ATP just ran out of their first bottle of ink. I'm not sure if I should recycle it, wash and reuse, or keep it as a memento. Absolutely keep it as a memento. You can wash and reuse it if you want to put something else in it. Or what you could do is get that bottle engraved. Because it was special. So I've got an engraved ink bottle that Vinesse Pens did for me. It wasn't my first bottle of ink that I've emptied. That would be kind of a cool thing, though, to get engraved. You know, just as a little memento. I totally think you should keep it, though. You know, you can use it for other things. Plus, it's just kind of a good memory thing. And, you know, something maybe neat to have on your desk. You know, that you can tell stories about or something like that. So, absolutely keep it in my book. What about you?

Myke Hurley: I think keep it. Right? Like, find something to do with it. Don't just, like, put it in a drawer would be my feeling. And so, you know, you could use it for something else. Or get it engraved. Or put it on a shelf if you want to. But there's stuff to do. I recommend finding something to do with it.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So, Jim wants to know, if you're going for a small pocket fountain pen, pros and cons between the following three. Koveco Sport, one of their various body materials. So, plastic or one of the metals. Pilot Prera or Twisby Mini. Mainly looking for the best nib straight out of the box. I prefer fine or extra fine and wet. So, we can answer this in lots of ways. Best nib straight out of the box, to me, is Prera. Especially for fine or extra fine. Those Japanese fine lines are going to be the finest you can get. Pilot's fine lines are amazing. Twisby Mini out the box is also good. The lines won't be as fine as Prera. Koveco is eliminated from that question. Because their nibs can be hit or miss. That said, if we stop the conversation before the best nib straight out of the box. That's a caveat. I'm picking the Koveco Sport over the Prera and the Mini. I just think it's the best pocket pen out of the three. The way the cap sits on the pen. It makes it smaller, more compact. The plastic barrels will be as light as or lighter than the Prera. The metal barrels will obviously be heavy. If that's something you want to look into. The kicker is, though, they don't have the best nib straight out of the box. So, that's kind of a hard question to answer. If I'm taking everything you put in here, best nib straight out of the box and fine or extra fine, out of Koveco, Sports, Pilot Preras, or Twisby Minis, I'm picking the Pilot Prera out of the three. It's a pen I actually really enjoy writing with. It's very small, very lightweight. It's one of the few pens I write with that I post the cap because it makes it the perfect writing link. Do you have anything to add to any of these?

Myke Hurley: Any comments? Well, I mean, I've already spoken highly of the Pilot Prera in this episode. So, I really recommend it. I think it's fun. You can get it in a bunch of colors. It's not very expensive. And it's kind of built like a tank.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, if you're going to get down to the fine or extra fine range, that nib is top notch. It's really, really great.

Myke Hurley: And, of course, if you want to go fine or extra fine, you should be going Japanese anyway. Right? Yep. If that's your bag, if you even consider extra fine, then you should be going Japanese.

Bungu Box Explanation

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So, speaking of Japanese, Bobby wants to know, can you please explain Bungu Box to me?

Myke Hurley: This is a great question. It's so good.

Brad Dowdy: I love this question. Is it a brick and mortar and or online store? I hear about it all the time, but it seems like a mystery to me.

Myke Hurley: And or are they just a limited edition company, right? Right.

Brad Dowdy: Right. I just, this was a hilarious question, yet an absolutely perfect question. So, Bungu Box is a brick and mortar store. That's what they started as. As they grew over the years, their online presence grew, still relatively small. Actually, they're still very small these days. And they started to open up to other markets outside of Japan, which a lot of companies weren't doing. And they were doing this in very small ways. Small batch inks, you know, that were made specifically for them by Sailor. Small batch pens that were made for them by Pilot and Sailor. They were doing some very custom stuff on a very small scale for their very niche store. And as it turns out, the things they make were very amazing. So everyone wanted them. And, you know, I think it was three or four years ago, they actually traveled to the Washington DC Pen Show. I got to meet them there. Got to buy some stuff directly from them. They just have the most, some of the most unique and interesting stationary items that you can't get elsewhere. So, you know, it's, that's pretty much it. They started out as a brick and mortar store. They do have an online shop. I have ordered from the online shop. It's not the easiest thing. Usually just an email to them works and they'll, they will take care of you. But it's, it's just a great story of a great company that wanted to do things a little bit different from some of their competition. And I think they've thrived because, because of it. You know, they're just fantastic to work with. They have goods that make us drool. And yeah, they're just fun. Like, they're so nice, so nice to work with. Karu and team, you know, whoever all is working there, they just, they do a fantastic job. So yeah. So think of them as a traditional Japanese brick and mortar store, very tiny, who have expanded into the online world and the worldwide stationary marketplace. So they've done a fantastic job.

Brad Dowdy: So when, when we go on our world travels one year, Myke, we're going to make a bongo box.

Myke Hurley: Oh, don't do that. No.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. One, one of these years I am holding out hope.

Brad Dowdy: Related to rare Japanese items, Myke. Andrew says sailors trying to bring back specialty nibs this year. So let me stop right there. Last year, I think, I don't think it was early this year. I think it was at some point last year, all the big fancy sailor nibs, they essentially ran out of stock. They were back ordered to infinity and beyond. So they put a hold on all new orders of, I've linked to you that page where they have, you know, like a dozen of these wild specialty, specialty nibs like King Eagle and Cross Concord and, you know, layered stacked nibs. Very, very expensive items. And they got real popular and their back order became too much to overcome. So Andrew says they're trying to bring them back this year, which I haven't heard yet, but I trust Andrew. In light of the price, in light of their pricing of inks, do you expect them to take this as an opportunity to raise prices? Not just yes, but hell yes. Why wouldn't they? I mean, these are premium items that have a waiting list, essentially. I don't see anything in sailor's mantra that says we're not going to get every last dollar out of these nibs that we can. They seem to me like they're setting themselves up to reboot the price range for these because they were already expensive. There's only X amount of expensive they can go. I mean, at some point they're too expensive. I don't see any reason why they don't raise the prices. I thought the lower, more simple ones, I think, are the most prone to getting their prices raised because I actually thought they were reasonable. Naginata Togi, for example, is one of the more simple ones, probably the one that I would purchase. And I thought the price was reasonable for that. Those are the ones I see. When you get into like the big, fat, emperor, three-time, cross-slit ones, those are priced at such a huge premium anyway. And I think they sell less of them. Those may not see the price range. This is just all speculation for me. But I don't see any reason why they wouldn't raise the price, right?

Myke Hurley: It's the specialty. That is like, that's what specialty means, right? It's expensive.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It would be what the market bears, right? And, you know, so it just seems like that's what they would do. Not in an egregious fashion, you know, not in, you know, I don't know that we'd see a 25% increase, but I could see a 10% increase. And that wouldn't, that wouldn't, you know, especially on the lower end, because there is, even within the specialty nibs, there's a range of prices, right? So like the low end where I would shop, because I don't need one of the big wide nibs, you know, I felt those were fairly priced for what they were. And there's probably room to raise the price on those, unfortunately. So it is what it is. And I don't see why they wouldn't. Like if they have that much demand and they can get it, I mean, that's kind of what businesses do, right? So, all right, Andrew's going to wrap us up in a fight here, because we fought about this before. For the best filling system, Andrew wants to know what the worst filling system is, modern and vintage. I submit for consideration the captured converter. It has none of the advantages of the converter with less capacity than a piston. Looking at you, Visconti. So do you have a least or worst filling system?

Myke Hurley: Um, there are a couple of, I'm looking at what a captured converter is, because I don't even know what that is. What is a captured converter?

Brad Dowdy: I think it's just a fixed type converter. I could be wrong, where you're essentially, it's essentially stuck in place, if you will.

Myke Hurley: Right, right. So the ones where, okay, yeah, I understand that. Is that what the Rialo has?

Brad Dowdy: No, that's a piston on the Rialo.

Myke Hurley: Oh. Oh. Hmm. Yeah, of course it is.

Brad Dowdy: So what is this? So it's, there's not a lot of companies that do that these days, but you basically can't remove the converter, right? It's fixed.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Okay. I don't really, I don't really understand that one, but nevermind. Um, there are a couple of converter types that are just bonkers to me. Um, and funnily enough, they seem to both appear in sailor pens quite a bit. One is the one with a button on it. Sure. Right? Because you barely get any ink in those things. It's ridiculous. Um, the other is the, like the metal one. I actually think it's, I see these in pilot pens, the metal one where you squeeze it at the side. They both just barely have any ink that goes in them. They drive me mad.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So that pilot con 20 is awful. There's one that's worse than that, that I've seen some of the old, I think it was older Bexley's used where it's just a sack with a metal bar, but the bar is what you like press on the sack to, you know, like fill it except the bar's loose. So like if you take apart the pin, that bar can like slide around, fly around anything with like a sack where you just have to put your just, um, you know, letting in air and ink in and out of the sack just by pressing it is terrible. I really, really hate those. So, and I, I particularly did dislike one of the Bexley ones that I had because the bar that you use to actually do the pushing was not stuck in place. Like it was, it moved, like it was removable. It was super annoying. So yeah. So that's, that's my least favorite. Any type of sack where you have to, you know, just push down on the sack to manipulate the ink flow. So that's a pain in the butt. So that's a good question. We have lots of least favorite filling systems going on in the chat room. If you have a least favorites, uh, filling system, you want to let us know about how can they do that?

Listener Engagement Shift

Myke Hurley: Myke, you can send us a tweet with the hashtag ask TPA to get a question in, or you can connect with us over Twitter individually. I'm at I Myke, I M Y K E. Brad is at Dowdyism, D O W D Y I S M. You should check out Brad's Twitch stream, twitch.tv slash pen addict to get a bunch more Brad Dowdy in your life in living color. Um, if you become a Relay FM member, thank you so much for doing that. We really, really, really, really, really, really, really appreciate it. Um, really appreciate it. Really, as Brad said, uh, thanks to our sponsors, Mack Walden and Pen Chalet. And we'll be back next time until then say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad.

Myke Hurley: Bye, Brad. Thank you.