The Pen Addict 333/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	333
Title:	Top Five Pens 2018
Release Date:	November 7th, 2018
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 333
Audio File:	Audio Episode 333
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 333
Length:	9292 min <br />1.533 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 333. Today's show is brought to you by Away, Casper, and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley, I'm joined by Brad Dowdy, and Brad, this is the most magical episode. Do you know why? Why? Because three is a magic number.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, all the threes, episode 333. I thought it was just because I'm here.

Myke Hurley: Well, you know, yes, sure.

Brad Dowdy: And I've been here 333 times, Myke, so that's super magical.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, you really have, haven't you? You work on that.

Brad Dowdy: It's a little scary when you say it out loud.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. Well, we've been going for a long time, so it's fine.

Brad Dowdy: Well, and it's actually weird to be here today, because this is the first time we've been in these specific, normal chairs for, what, three weeks now? Something like that. Yeah, for about three weeks. Because we recorded early, and then we traveled, and then we released podcasts that we had previously recorded, and now we're back to what would be considered our normal set, I guess.

Myke Hurley: A regularly scheduled programming.

Brad Dowdy: Mm, yes. Regularly scheduled. So, yeah, it's good. It's good to be back talking about pens, following up on all of our goodness that we've done over the past couple of weeks, and then getting into some new stuff, which is what we do, right? Mm-hmm. So, let's wrap up this Kickstarter project. It's sad that it's come to an end, right? Is it done? It's... Ugh, done. Like, it's right there! Pretty much there! Okay. Okay. So, the vlog has been sent for the NYC Toronto portion of the show. So, that's been sent out to backers. The Tallulahs, Myke, have shipped. Tallulahs and pensets have shipped, but there are some outstanding ones that have yet to ship just because of address conflicts or follow-ups. So, there's a small batch that we still have to fulfill, but essentially...

Myke Hurley: It's nothing's our fault now.

Brad Dowdy: So, you say, I rarely go that far. It's usually my fault a lot of times, but yes, we are... Rick, we're in the clear now.

Myke Hurley: We're, what, 98% there? No, but, like, address conflicts and stuff like that, you know, typically, that's not something that me or you did wrong. You know, there's just, like, there's an issue that isn't our fault as such, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Sure, but it's just those people are taking an extra couple of days to process. So, we're cleaning all that up. So, we're in the cleanup phase of Kickstarter backers shipping. That's wonderful. Majority has shipped. So, yeah, we're there. Like, I feel like we're there. So, we'll do the shipping cleanup over there. That'll probably take a couple of weeks. We got the majority of it replied to yesterday. So, those will ship out tomorrow. And then the rest is just one-off cleanups. You know, did we miss a pin set here? Did we have a package not arrive there? So, we're pretty much there. Feel good about it. I'm glad. I'm sorry for the delays. That was just a terrible, terrible, annoying delay. But we're there. So, we wrapped it all up about at the same time. And I hope everyone enjoys their cases. That should be on their way to them. One other thing was last week's podcast, Myke. I re-listened to it this morning. I really enjoyed that show. I wanted to go relive it again before we talked today. Because we don't have much follow-up from that. Since we kind of did it for two weeks in a row. So, we're not going to belabor the point. But we had a couple points we wanted to discuss in this show. But just overall, I just wanted to say thanks again to everyone who made it happen. It was really, really fun. And I enjoyed re-listening to the podcast and listening to how tired I sounded. And we all sounded. We were exhausted. My wife walked by this morning. She goes, is that you talking? She says, you sound terrible. I said, yeah, I was really tired. And we all were. So, it definitely sounded like we were tired in that episode. But it was worth every bit of tiredness, right?

Myke Hurley: Most definitely. You mentioned some follow-up. I have some great follow-up. In the episode, you and Anna were talking about where the name McNally Jackson comes from. The company that owns Goods for the Study. And you were both talking about an association with Ram McNally, the map company. McNally Jackson actually weighed in on this. Yeah, that was fun. This has nothing to do with them. So, this is from McNally Jackson. They said, we opened in 2004. We were called McNally Robinson after an excellent bookstore in Canada. We have no affiliation to Ram McNally.

Brad Dowdy: Just more reasons to love Canada. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: So, it was cool to see them chime in. So, someone who mentioned that and was questioning that. And they chimed in, cleared us all up. So, I appreciate that. That was very cool.

Myke Hurley: It's great. It's a lot of follow-up like that. Straight from the source.

Myke Hurley: The best way, right?

Myke Hurley: So, today, I received the new Apple Pencil. So, I took delivery of an iPad Pro. And with it came the new Apple Pencil. And I don't have an absolute ton to say about it right now. But I wanted to talk about a couple of things that relate to my original review and things that I was looking for then that I feel I have now in the new Apple Pencil. So, one of the biggest things for me was the fact that the Apple Pencil was completely cylindrical at the original. Apple said that they put weights in it to stop it from rolling off a desk. I ultimately feel that that didn't really do much of anything. Right. It would still roll away. But now the Apple Pencil has one flat side to it, which, as you can imagine, significantly helps it stop gaining momentum if it rolls. But also, more than anything, when you put it down, it will come to a stop really easily, which is great. I'm very happy that they added the flat side. I also think that it's comfortable to put your thumb on as stability when you're writing with the thing. It feels nicer to have that flat side. The reason they added the flat side was so they could do two things. One, magnetically attach the Apple Pencil to the side of the iPad, which is awesome. It's a very strong magnetic attachment. You kind of have to get it just in the right place, but it's easy to feel because the pencil will kind of guide you to it. But you can kind of put it slightly off the magnet, and it's only got like one of the magnets in, so it's not as strong. But it's not difficult to put it in the right place, honestly. And it's a very strong magnet. You know, like it doesn't come off with being jostled. Of course, if it hits something or like you're putting it in a bag, if it catches on the bag, it will come off. But I think that that's perfectly fine. Like what I was doing with using a pen loop, that would happen as well. You know, I'll put it in my backpack, and sometimes the Apple Pencil will pop out of the pen loop. Like it's just going to happen. I think that this is the best solution that they could have kind of come up with without making something pretty ungainly in some way, right? Whether it's putting it inside the iPad, which would be a nightmare, or inside of the case, which would make a big bump on the case or whatever. So it works great for that. But also with the flat side and the magnetic attachment comes inductive charging to the Apple Pencil, which is fantastic. It means that the Apple Pencil is always charged. It means that you don't have a cap to lose anymore. But really, like I never had much of a problem with the charging method of the iPad Pro. It was often used as a joke. But I maintain that I think Apple did the right thing because it meant that it was easy to charge. You could charge it with the device. You didn't have to plug it in somewhere else to charge it, you know? So I maintain that it was a little bit unseemly, but it did the job, I think. But what they've done now is perfect, right? Because it's not just that it's a simple way to charge. It is the fact that it was always charged, which is a big deal. Because I would frequently grab my Apple Pencil and the battery was dead. Because if the Apple Pencil and the iPad were close together, it would slowly drain the battery away because the connection was maintained. But now that doesn't matter, which I think is fantastic. There is a textured finish now. It's more of a matte textured finish, which I'm a big fan of. Oh, really? Yeah. So that feels a lot nicer. Plus, it is shorter and more balanced. So the new Apple Pencil, it is about as long, just a few millimeters taller than up to the point where the little metal ring was before the lightning port. So overall, it's a little shorter. And it feels much more nicely weighted and evenly weighted now where it didn't before. And I think that's come down to the size difference. And also just, I assume, something else going on in the internals. Because maybe the magnets are helping it. Maybe it's got a little bit more heft to it anyway. But I will say that this is a superior product to the original Apple Pencil in just about every way. And of course, it now has the ability to double tap to do a tool change. So for example, Notes has this. Third-party apps are adding it too. But Notes has this where if you double tap it, you can switch back to the eraser and erase and double tap and go back to the tool and start writing again. And third-party developers can assign absolutely anything they want to that, which is really exciting. There was a beta of Procreate. I think it was Procreate. Where you would double tap it and a little menu will pop up with tools that you could select. Now that is friggin' awesome. And I'm very excited to see what creative applications implement.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and I've seen some GIFs already this morning Federico putting out of just basically some cut and paste. Not like text, but grabbing an image, cutting it, moving it around just from the double tap menu. So it's really, really interesting. So I've got one coming too. It has not arrived yet. And the biggest hang-up I had, which you already covered of the old one, wasn't actually the charging method. It was just actually remembering to charge it in the first place. There were, I'd say the majority of the time, I'd go to want to use the pencil and it would have no charge. So having it attached and have the inductive charging is just going to make it that much more convenient for me to use to actually really absorb myself into that type of workflow. Which I could never really grasp before. I didn't commit to it all the way. But I'm going to commit to this one just because I think the functionality is just so much improved just from ease of use and portability. And I kind of look forward to seeing what I can do. I enjoy sketching with the Apple Pencil a lot, even though I use my notebooks more. I enjoy that style because I can create little, you know, in the different programs I use like Linea or Paper. You can create specific journals or documents that hold certain things and can organize them more than like my notebook. You know, my notebook might be scattered where I can just move things around easier digitally. So I look forward to using it. I am wondering if you're a little sad you won't get to use your little Leuchtturm Penloop anymore. Or are you just going to throw it on there for old times sake? You know, we're all so used to seeing that.

Myke Hurley: This was never, you know, that was always a convenience. It was never a desire. You know, it's the same with the Kaweco PenGrip, right? Like all of the reasons that I use the PenGrip, I don't really need them anymore. It feels nicer to hold. It's got more grippiness to it. And it has a flat side. So like all of those things were great, but they were always trying to solve issues. Now, of course, in a couple of weeks time, I may find some new issues that didn't exist before. I need to find some solutions to them. But initially, it solved most of the problems, if not all the problems that I had with the original version.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep, I think so. So, you know, this isn't necessarily our topic area, but it's so adjacent to it. And so many of our listeners are definitely, you know, users of these types of devices that you might hear us talk about this from time to time. Especially if I get on the full bandwagon like I'm purporting to do, Myke. So we might have some more Apple Pencil talk as we go through this. Good.

Myke Hurley: Yep. I wanted to kind of also just mention something that I got on the tour during the pen show. So, you know, I got a couple of little items that were really nice, but one that I just wanted to spend a minute talking about was the Aurora Optima Flex that was gifted to us from our friends at the Phantom Pen Hospital. I'm surprised how much I enjoy this pen. I didn't think I was going to like it just because all of the experiences that I've had of Aurora pens in the past, I wasn't super keen on. But this one, it works really, really great for me. I'm very happy with it. It's a wonderful nib. The color is lovely. I really enjoy the ink window that's by the grip section. This is a great pen. I'm very, very happy with it.

Brad Dowdy: So as I use mine that they gifted me, the gray one, all I can think about is how much I think Myke would like this pen by the way that the nib writes. For me, it's not fine enough. I'm actually, I love the nib. I love the feel of it. I love the style of it. I love the barrel. Everything about it, it's just a little bit wide from the basic line, not the flex line. I'm just talking about my standard writing. So I'm going to get this mine modified to either like a stub or italic or maybe a little bit finer and then still have a little bit of that flex. But from your perspective, I can see it being just like a great daily writer. Like it's just got this, the right width of line, the right feel. Like it feels awesome to write with, right? Like it's, you can feel the flex, but you know, you can moderate that, you know, by how you write.

Myke Hurley: It reminds me of the King of Pen in that regard where it's just like the flex isn't like in your face, but you can do it if you want to.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and it adds that little extra little bit of something to your line. So I love it. And I'm going to get mine tweaked a little bit. I want to see what I can do with this nib because I think I would like it even more if I could get the base level writing experience finer and not mess up the flex. So I'll be having some talks about this nib, what I can do with it to make it more of an enjoyable base writing experience. And believe me, it's perfectly fine, but it's like I'm writing with a Pelican medium nib and you know I don't write with Pelican medium nibs. It's just too wide for my daily writing, but it feels so good and the flex is so killer that I'm going to make this into something I will use on a regular basis because it's that nice of a pen.

Myke Hurley: I will say sometimes it gives me a little bit of trouble with the way that I write. Sometimes it can take a minute to start up. Like if I change from like, because I change quite a lot the way that I'm holding the pen from like over to underwriting and sometimes I'm writing like my lines start left to right. Sometimes they start up to down. It's a bit peculiar. And I find that sometimes if I change, it can take a minute for the pen to kind of catch up to me, which is kind of weird. But it's a minor issue, but it is there.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And just for new listeners, Myke is left-handed. So especially when you're writing with something like a flex pen, it's a different feel and a different movement than maybe some right-handers are used to. So that's what you're referring to there. So yeah, I can see that for sure. But I mean, it's a wonderful pen. And I'm glad I have it. And I actually want to play around with this more. So I think I'm going to get some work done on it because I enjoy using that so much.

Myke Hurley: Good.

Brad Dowdy: So you put down kind of the most interesting product that you picked up on the tour. And let's be honest, we got a lot of products on this trip. But I wanted to put down my most unique favorite product so far. And it's the superior labor goods that I ended up with. So I bought the A5 size portfolio is what they call it. And then Liz gifted us all the wallet case. The pen and wallet case, I should say.

Brad Dowdy: I think the pen and wallet case might be more functional than the A5 case. Like, it's a real interesting format. It reminds me, it's essentially kind of like the leather version of the Tallulah. You know, it's a little bit white. It's a three pen slot width instead of two. But the format is, you know, narrow and small and pocketable. Not like, I don't want to carry it in my back pocket. Like, I actually saw one of the WonderPens employees carrying it in their back pocket. Like, but it's going to fit in so many small places. And I've been able to figure out how to use it more than my big one so far. I think I'll end up in the long run enjoying the A5 size one more. But I feel like I've figured out the pen and wallet size one for now. Because it has three defined pen slots on the inside. It's got two, like, credit card pockets on the inside, which I put, like, my business cards in. Then it's got another little pocket behind it, which I put index cards in. Then the front pocket holds a three and a half by five and a half notebook in it. So I can put that in there. And it's kind of an all-in-one pen and wallet combo. It's really well designed. The A5 one doesn't have any pen storage on the interior. These are the zippers of the cases, by the way, if you can hear that on the podcast. I just wanted to clear that up. But on the outside, they have, like, a pen slot and either a larger pen slot or a paper notebook slot. It holds an A5 notebook on the interior. Then it has a large pocket in the back for more thinner paper goods or looser materials, things like that. I want to use this as kind of my journaling setup. But I can't fit everything in it. So I'm trying to figure out what I want to carry in this case. Like I said, I'm actually having a harder time. And this is the product I really wanted to try first. Now that I have both of them together, I'm having an easier time with the smaller product than the bigger product. But the bigger product is more like a clutch size or a satchel size that you'll just carry in your hand. And it's really, I mean, they're obviously really well built. So, yeah, you will be hearing me talk about these more because they're kind of outliers for how I use things and how I carry things. So I just wanted to throw that out there that I've been really pleased with what I see so far. And I'm still trying to figure it out. That's the way it kind of got me right now. So working on it, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I find myself very taken by the quality of the product. But I just haven't worked out what I want to do with it yet. Like the superior labor stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So it's expensive. Like this is not a purchase you want to go in probably blindly. It's because it is expensive and it's a little bit of a unique carrying system. So think about how you're going to use it. Think about it if it fits your style. Just because, you know, I'd hate you to pay for you to spend all that money and go, I can't really use it. So I'll be talking about how I've used mine and how they've kind of gotten in the workflow as we go through the years.

Myke Hurley: Sounds good to me.

New Pen Topic

Brad Dowdy: Yep. I had another line item in here. This one caught me not off guard, but it's more of a reboot of an old pen. The Muji .25 Black Gel Ink Pen. So at Muji, when they have all these gel pens on display, they have groupings of barrel types. And within those groupings of barrel types are the types of pens that they relate to for us pen addicts. So there's one style of pen that has the Uni Gel refill. And there's another style of pen that has a Zebra Clip refill. The only .25 gel ink pens they have there are actually the Pentel Sleechy refills in these barrels. And I forgot how good that .25 Sleechy is. It's the most consistent, finest micro gel ink pen out there. And the reason why it never got a lot of love ever since it's been launched is because those stock barrel, like Pentel sells it in, is not good. It's like really skinny. The ridges on the barrel are not very comfortable, like in the grip section. But everyone loved the refill. I remember when they came out, how much people said that they loved the refill. Is there another barrel they can go into? And there really wasn't many options at the time. The one that was good was called the Pentel Hybrid Technica, which was hard to find. And, you know, it just came in a couple colors. But it was a more normal size barrel refill. So this Muji pen has a great size refill. It's like essentially a hex barrel, kind of a matte satiny finish. It's really comfortable to hold. And it made me just fall in love with that .25 Sleechy refill again. It's just pitch black. It's very consistent, way more consistent than like the Hitec C, way less scratchy than the Signo DX. So it's kind of the best. If you're looking for a really, really micro gel ink pen, that's going to be, that's going to perform up to kind of what you expect, as opposed to something dry and scratchy, like a lot of these are. This Muji .25, it improves everything that the Pentel Sleechy is. And Pentel should be sad that they didn't do this first. It's a sick bun. I don't mean it. I mean, I do mean it. I've gotten in trouble about it before. But I mean, it just is. It's a superior refill. It just comes in a bad format. Not anymore, Michael.

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Brad Dowdy: Let me just say, I put the strength and durability of the large Away suitcase to the test on this trip. So even on the way home, I was over the limit, but they let me slide. It was 51 and a half pounds on the way home. And she said, I'll let it go. I'll just put the heavy tag on there. I'm not going to charge you. I was like, thank you very much. But man, I put that thing through the New York, Toronto, Atlanta round trip ringer, and it held up like a champ.

Myke Hurley: It's very, very good stuff. All right. So it is that time again. Top five pens of 2018. You just published the update to your list. I will ask you, is there a specific time of the year that you are targeting, or is it just kind of like some point around the end of the year that you go for the update?

Brad Dowdy: No, it's usually been around September. And then I started getting, when I didn't publish it in September, all the emails started coming. It's like, where's the update? So a couple of years ago, I used to update it twice a year. And then I realized there were a lot fewer changes over the years than I expected. So I moved it to once a year and try to do it around that September timeframe. No particular reason other than that seemed like to be a good time to bring it out. And I was just a little bit further behind this year. But I think probably a lot of it is because there wasn't a lot that changed. So, you know, and I think that's what we'll talk about today.

Top Five Pens Discussion

Myke Hurley: Yeah, definitely. So I want to actually do something this time where we run through each category and we run through the awarded stationary items.

Myke Hurley: And then we can kind of stop to talk about any of them in more detail where it feels necessary. But I wanted to understand what the kind of high level changes are. So are there any kind of new areas that you focused on this time?

Brad Dowdy: The biggest change was probably like the fountain pens in the $100 to $200 range. Like all the low end stuff is pretty locked in. Like your basic gel ink pens, your pens at the store shelf, your pencils, you know, all the inexpensive stuff. There hasn't been a very much change in that realm, I think. But I did make a stand in the fountain pen $100 to $200 range by putting the Platinum 3776 at the top of the list. So, you know, one of the things that I said about this list is it didn't change a lot year over year. And I'm not just going to change for change sake, right? If it's been, you know, I've been doing this, it'll be 11 years this month. And you get a feel for the products, you get a feel for the product category. You understand what the landscape is in each of those categories. And sometimes it just is what it is. Like things don't change every year. Like gel ink pens don't necessarily change each year. Uniball or Pilot are not coming out with something every year that's going to shake up the list. Like the most recent one would be something like the Pilot Juice. You know, that was a new pen like three years ago and it made the list. Pilot hasn't done anything interesting since then. Uniball hasn't done anything interesting since then. But that doesn't mean that the pens that they currently have on the market aren't still the best. So I'm not going to do a top five, what's the new hype train pen or pencil just to change it around. I'm going to just go with what I think are the most solid pens. I also had a change in the top five fountain pens under $50, which we'll talk about too. So, and these are based around things I would recommend. You know, I made it clear that this is not necessarily my personal top five list. Like my personal list would look different than this. So, and it's hard to like cover every category despite, I don't even know how many categories I have. It's got to be at least a dozen or 15 even. And there's still like categories we could mix in there and do things like that. But, you know, it gets easier and harder every year because I think people would like to see more change in it.

Brad Dowdy: But sometimes it just is. Like there's no better pen than the Jetstream for someone who doesn't know anything about pens to walk in a store, buy a pen and have an enjoyable writing experience. Like those kind of things kind of stay the same. So there's definitely a little bit more movement in the fountain pen categories than like the stock basic pen category. So it's hard in that I actually, I would love to see like huge shakeups in the ballpoint pen category. It's just not going to happen really. It's like I, yeah, it's an interesting position where I feel like it's kind of locked in for the most part. So, and no one's coming out with anything crazy innovative that's going to change a lot of these lists.

Myke Hurley: So, all right, so let's jump into it. We're going to start with the top five micro gel ink pens. I'm going to go with all of these from five to one. And Brad, if you want to stop me to talk about any of them and break it out a little bit more, we can do that. It's probably worth at least we touch on each number one pick. So like why is the number one pick? And we can kind of go on from there. So top five micro gel ink pens. And at five is the Pilot Hitec C 0.3 millimeter. Is a 0.3 millimeter the most micro or is it just the one that you feel is best to get that?

Brad Dowdy: They have a 0.25. That's the most micro. It's not very good. Okay. The 0.4s and 0.5s don't write as well as their competition higher in the list. But the 0.3 writes better than anyone else's 0.3.

Myke Hurley: Okay. Makes sense. The Pilot Juice 0.38 millimeter. The Uniball Signo 307. The Zebra Saraciclip 0.4 millimeter in at number two. And the number one micro gel ink pen is the Uniball Signo DX 0.38 millimeter. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So a lot of the I'd say these top four are almost interchangeable. People will have their favorites from those four pens. And I wouldn't argue against any of them. Right. They're all really, really good options for something that's sub 0.5 millimeter. And that's what the this category is. This is like your 0.4 millimeters and lower gel ink pens, which was kind of what this blog was built on way back in the day. This is what I focused on. And for years, the DX has been at the top of the list. The Pilot Hitec C has been up there before, but it's never been consistent enough for me to recommend it to most people. You know, you have to recommend that pen with a caveat that it might be a little bit finicky. The DX, you never have to. The Saracic is only second because it's a little bit scratchier than the DX. And that's just the style of tip that Zebra uses. It's a little bit more scratchier. Some people like that. Some people don't. And then the Signo 307 is kind of the main line of the DX. That's kind of more available. And they have them in 0.38. And then the Juice. I mean, the Juice is just a fantastic pen. It's way better style than the G2. And it's been more consistent over the years, the past few years than the G2. So I use that and recommend it a lot.

Store Pens Discussion

Myke Hurley: So we'll move on to top five pens in the store. And I'm assuming this means like big box retailers, office retailers, that sort of stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. You know, walk into a store and this is what you're going to see on the shelf, like a grocery store, office supply store. Just like you said, big box store. Yep.

Myke Hurley: So this starts with the Sharpie pen. And you note that it would be number one if it was more durable. Sharpie pen is a great pen. It's a really fun pen. What about the aluminum one, though?

Brad Dowdy: You just can't make it number one. It's just not going to be. I'm never going to recommend it more than some of these other pens because it's going to get destroyed quicker than any of these. Right? Right. Right.

Myke Hurley: Right. I understand that. The Pentel Energel is in at number four. Then we go with the Uniball Sino DX.38 millimeter and the Uniball Sino 307. So they're both making another appearance. And then at number one, as you mentioned earlier, the Uniball Jetstream. And whilst the Jetstream isn't for me specifically, I understand why it's at that list. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's my most recommended pen overall from emails I get about people who just want a basic pen to help them in their daily lives. And that's going to work well. And it's always the Jetstream. The Signo 307 used to not have the DX as competition. And I flip-flopped them in this category because they're more available in the stores. The 307 is. The DX just started. I didn't have it on the list last year. But now that they've started to show up on store shelves and they've stayed there over a year now, I felt comfortable putting them in there. That if you can run across them, they're a great buy. But the weird thing about what Uniball has done for the U.S. market is they put this DX out in like an 8-pack of non-standard color. So you just can't go get black or red or blue like you can in the Signo 307. So that's why there's a little bit of difference in that category. But it's equally as nice.

Myke Hurley: So we move on to the top five fountain pens under $50. It starts at the Platinum Prappy. Then at number four is the Kaweco Sport. Number three is the Lamy Safari. Number two is the Pilot Metropolitan. Number one is the TWSBI Eco. So I will ask you, what about the TWSBI Go?

Brad Dowdy: It's too soon. Okay. It needs more time. I need more time with that. And I actually put that in the notes section at the bottom. And actually the notes section for this one is very important. So I'm going to read that real quick. If this were the top fountain pens for beginners list, the Pilot Metropolitan would have held the top spot. The Eco is a better pen. Give me another year with the TWSBI Go and it may crack the list too. For fun times or your child's first fountain pen, don't sleep on the Pilot Cocoon. So this is an awesome category. It's a controversial category.

Myke Hurley: I think a lot of people have a lot of opinions about this, including me. I would slightly rearrange what you've got here. I mean, I would put the Go in. I probably will put it in at number five. Maybe we keep the Kaweco at four. Metropolitan three, Safari two, Eco one is where I would go with this one.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. So last year I had the Metropolitan at the top of the list.

Brad Dowdy: And I've spent pretty much all year using a TWSBI Eco and just love how that pen performs and how it feels. And it's been a durable performer all year.

Brad Dowdy: And if I was telling someone who wasn't using their first fountain pen, if I'm just recommending, if someone says, you know, I've started in fountain pens, I like fountain pens, I want to try something and my price point is under $50, I'm going to tell them the Eco every time. Like the Metropolitan's an option there, but I really think the Metropolitan is kind of like the beginner fountain pen. And there's nothing wrong with that. And you might buy the Metropolitan and love it and never buy another fountain pen in your life. That's why, I mean, it's number two on the list. It was number one last year. I think the Eco's just a better pen. It has the piston filling system. It feels good. It looks good. The nibs are amazing. I had a tough time not putting it at number one. I think it's one of my most recommended pens, like outside of the jet stream for people looking for like their first kind of step up pen. Like they might have tried the Platinum Preppity or the Pilot Varsity or have some other, you know, random fountain pen they've found and they enjoy fountain pens. I would choose the Eco over the Metropolitan for that category.

Myke Hurley: All right. So next up, we have the top five fountain pens in the $50 to $100 range. We start at number five with the Lamy Ion, which is a pen that I've mostly slept on. I think I have no real opinion about the Ion. The Faber-Castell Ambition, which is something I'm not sure I'd ever heard of until right now. So I'm clicking the link. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it was on the list last year. Okay. This is a really good pen.

Myke Hurley: It's styled in a way that I don't enjoy. Like it's not for me. Like I look at that and it doesn't work for me.

Brad Dowdy: It has a weird grip section.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. The Lamy Studio, the Kaweco AL Sport, and the Twisby 580 AL.

Fountain Pen Price Category Shift

Brad Dowdy: This is my least favorite category on the page.

Myke Hurley: I was going to say like this one does nothing for me. I prefer cheap fountain pens or expensive fountain pens. Like, you know, like over 100. The 50 to 100 doesn't really do it for me anymore.

Brad Dowdy: I'm going to read my note here for this category. If I had my druthers, this category wouldn't exist. The only pen even remotely interesting to me is the Kaweco AL Sport. I'd be fine spending down or spending up and skipping this range completely.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. This category exists as the graduation gift category.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. That's why it exists because I need a recommendation in this range a lot of times. more than even the next category, which is the next step up in price.

Myke Hurley: Because it's like the exciting stuff is happening over 100. The fun stuff is happening below 50. Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So that's exactly what this is. This is the graduation gift category, which usually ends up being the Lamy Studio. Yes. So even though that's not my number one, like to answer the people who lay out the questions about what they want, it ends up pointing to like the Lamy Studio. Out of this list regularly, I only use the AL Sport because I love that pen. So that's where like the personal recommendation doesn't really jive with the list, right? So for me personally, it's Kaweco AL Sport in this range and probably nothing else. But, you know, truth is the TWSBI 580 is a good option depending on your style and the graduation gift. You know, you want to look at the Lamy Studio, the Fabric Castle Ambition, and then maybe the Lamy Ion, which isn't for everybody. Like I'd recommend the Studio over the Lion probably to most people who are going into this category. Like you said, it's the gift category. It's my least favorite category on this page. It's not enjoyable to discuss even.

Myke Hurley: Top five fountain pens, $100 to $200. We start in at number five with the Pelican M205. We go to the Lamy 2000. The Pilot Vanishing Point. They're interesting to put back and back. I assume kind of, funnily enough, like the Lamy Safari and Pilot Metropolitan, people would interchange those. I mean, I would put the 2000 above the Vanishing Point. The Sailor 1911 standard. And I'm going to read your note here. You say, I'm calling on Audible. The 1911 standard is better than the Pro Gear Slim. I think I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. And my reasoning is, not in form factor, but in design, like you can get way more fun Pro Gear Slims than you can 1911 standards. Right.

Brad Dowdy: So you want to read the last one and then I'll go through it all?

Myke Hurley: Yep. Platinum 3776 at number one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So this is, this is the main fountain pen category, I think, for my recommendations.

Brad Dowdy: I had the Sailor Pro Gear, number one last year. And I love that pen. I think the 1911 is a better pen to recommend to people. Do you mean the Slim? You said the Pro Gear, you meant the Slim? I meant the Pro Gear Slim. Yep. So the 1911 standard is, I think, fitting more people's hand and style and feel. Completely agree with you. Of what they, expectation. So that's what this list is. This is a recommendation. This is not Brad's favorite fountain pens in the $100 to $200 category. I don't think a single one of these would be on my personal list. You know, maybe the first two, maybe the first two, the next, the vanishing point, the 2000 and the M205 would not make my personal list, right? But I'm also a more experienced shopper. Yeah. I know where to go, look for things that fit my needs. I know what custom makers make cool stuff in this range. But if I'm telling someone who's emailing me what to buy or someone who's reading the blog what to buy, that they're going to have the best experience with, be able to locate and purchase the pen that most fits their needs, these are the ones I'm going with.

Myke Hurley: Let me ask you though, right? I mean, I understand that like you've kind of changed your mind on that distinction between the 1911 and the slim, but why would the slim still not stay on the list even at a lower position?

Brad Dowdy: I think they're close enough to have to make a stand on one.

Myke Hurley: I understand that. That makes sense.

Brad Dowdy: They're practically the same thing. If you say, well, I like the flat ends on the slim better, you're going to get a great pen.

Myke Hurley: Right. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: But if I'm telling someone like what I, what might fit their needs based on their questions to me, I'm going to say, look at the 1911 first.

Myke Hurley: Hmm. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: So, and then see what you like if you don't like that style. Hey, by the way, this is almost exactly the same pen, which it really is, right? It's just a shape difference. But platinum wasn't first until this year, but their nibs are so consistent. Their price points are extremely reasonable for a gold nib pen. I, I almost think like it's like for my recommendations in this category, it's like I start with platinum as much as I love sailor and use my sailors more. I think platinum gives the writing experience that's the best in this category. So that's ends up being the one I want to recommend. So, you know, you get into, this is, this area has like the biggest variance in it too. Right. So once you're, once you're past, like whatever pens I would recommend to you, you're now into a whole world of pens that you can customize to your liking in this price point. Right. That's a, that's a, that's a whole another topic. You know, when you get into like Edison pens or Franklin Kristoff or, you know, Jonathan Brooks, like these don't play into any of the recommendation stuff just because they're not widely available to many of my readers. You know, if someone says they're looking for something specific, you know, I recommend those pens all the time, but just for your average user or people who are just getting into this, you know, that's what I look at these lists from. So something like the 3776 is going to get just a ton of recommendations from me.

Myke Hurley: All right. So we move into the top five fountain pens in the $200 to $500 range. We start with the Pelican Suveron 600, which is a, okay. Like, that's interesting. So I don't, again, it's like, it's not really something I don't think we touch on very much, but there it is. The Aurora Optima, the Pilot Custom 912, the Sailor Pro Gear, the regular Pro Gear, and the Pilot Custom 823. Now, I would say this is a very difficult category, Brad, because that $200 to $500 price range has a lot of options that are extremely varied.

Fountain Pen Spending

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. it's like, I almost don't want to put this on here because it's kind of pointless. Because if you're spending this much money,

Brad Dowdy: you know, it's, you kind of know what you're looking for, and there's so many different fits for your style. There's so many different places you can shop for different pricing. you know, there's just so much variance in this. I almost felt like I kind of had to put it, but I rarely use this range for anything. Like, I don't get asked much about this category, to be honest. And, you know, people, I would get asked, like, like, $300 seems, $300 seems to be kind of like a hard barrier for 95% of the people that are looking for recommendations. That's where something like the 823 and the Pro Gear and the 912 come in. It's like, there's a line after that where almost no one's asking me, hey, can you recommend a $500 fountain pen to me? Because at that point, they don't need my recommendation. They figured out what they want.

Brad Dowdy: So, they're going to buy things that fit their style and needs, right? People maybe that want to spend $300 and get something nice maybe still need help trying to figure those things out. Once you get past that, it's like, all bets are off. It's like, you know what you want past that. That's why I don't get asked a lot about this category because, you know, it should really, I should probably just make it a $200 to $300 category to be honest because after that, I feel like you know what you want.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: If you're spending that much money, you've put in the time, you've put in the research, you know, you've asked around, you know, you've gotten feedback from a lot of people and you kind of know what you want. Anything after, like that $300 price point, it's super personal. Like, my recommendation is going to hold a lot less weight than it does for something on a lower price tier, I believe.

Break from Fountain Pens

Myke Hurley: All right, so shall we, we should move on the next, we start to take a break from fountain pens now. So should we take an actual break? What about that?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, let's take a break. We have fountain pen inks to cover, but yeah, fountain pens, I think we're done. Let's take a break.

Myke Hurley: So let's talk about a place that you could buy a bunch of this stuff if you wanted to and that is over at Pen Chalet. They have so many of these options in stock because they sell all of their favorite brands and they do fountain pens and ball points and mechanical pencils and roller balls. They do ink, they do carrying cases, they do refills and converters and pen holders and just everything. They're always running great discounts, they have close out specials every two weeks and Pen Chalet believe in super fast and reliable customer service. They have free shipping on orders of over $50 in the United States, but they also sell internationally with very reasonable shipping rates too. Pen Chalet has low prices on high quality pens and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So, go to penchalet.com P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com and click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password penaddict for this week's special offer and to get yourself a code that you'll be able to then use to save on 10% on anything. You'll be able to get a 10% discount on anything at Pen Chalet with that code that's available to you. Now Brad, there's a bunch of exciting things over at Pen Chalet this week that Ron has put up for us.

Brad Dowdy: So, first off are the Leuchtturm A6 softcover and hardcover notebooks which are super high quality paper. They're on my list here later on. The Platinum 3776 is on this list. There's a bunch of Lamy ballpoints and the Scribble which is a really cool pen I should probably get one day. I've had the pencil variety. The Lamy 2000 is on here, Myke. All of the all of the pens on the list are over at PenChalet.com.

Myke Hurley: They have so much wonderful stuff as they always do and they really do believe in getting you the best service that they can. They do free shipping as I say in orders of $50 in the US. They have great shipping rates. 100% satisfaction guarantee. Go to PenChalet.com click the podcast link at the top of the website enter the password PenAddict and you can get your hands on these wonderful deals. Our thanks to PenChalet for their continued support of this show and RelayFM. Alright, so should we move on? We're moving into inks now with the top five fountain pen ink brands which is a big this is a big one. Number five Montblanc Number four PW Ackerman Ackerman Number three Robert Oster Number two Pilot Iroh Shizuku and number one Sailor Oster's got a pretty high ranking on this. I still maintain that. Yeah. With the amount of time that Oster's been around I think that that is even to keep that ranking I think is very very strong. I think it shows a good strength there.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I just the variety that Oster offers over someone like Ackerman who is kind of they did expand the lineup last year with the Dutch Masters editions but the variety Oster has I just think puts them a tick above but this this is I don't want to say it's an impossible list but this is a particular list right this could be I could name 15 brands that are amazing that I love practically equally so Sailor's my favorite it's my go-to for all kinds of inks and all kinds of colors I just enjoy the performance it might change the more I see what they're going to do with this price point it might not be my most recommended ink anymore that might that's another point in Robert Oster's favor right they could be the number one ink brand in this list in a year's time um Orochizuku actually went the other way on price that's why they've kind of held strong at number two even though they don't have a lot of new stuff in their product lineup their colors kind of hit every color you want across the board and their prices actually went down

Myke Hurley: the properties of those inks so good like the dry time and all that kind of stuff yeah they behave yeah very very good ink

Brad Dowdy: yeah and that's where ink recommendations come in I'm pretty safe on ink recommendations you know I don't recommend a lot of wild wild stuff just because a lot of people are wanting you know they've just bought you know a basic black ink from Lamy and want to try something else so I generally go pretty safe that's why you're not seeing you know like Noodlers or you're not seeing Iron Gall inks or you're not seeing all these other things that I use regularly on a list like this Oster at number three I just think the quality the price and the colors the options that you have are that being endless I just think that I think it's a deserved position Akramon is actually looking better and better the way ink prices have changed recently with Sailor I could see Akramon with their 60 milliliter bottles and the fancy bottles at their price point which has not risen compared to Sailor even moving up this list so it's kind of like Orochizuku where you have approximately 30 ink colors that are really good and that's just where they are and then Montblanc continues to do well because the quality is extraordinarily high and the price point is shockingly good so Sailor is going to have some competition for this over the next year I'm interested to see what this next year holds for Sailor in if their price point holds to where I can continue to recommend them because we're about at that point where some of their previous inks that I've loved so much are not so available anymore so they're about to have a tipping point in them but like I said this list could be endless like Diamine could be on this list Deatrimentis could be on this list some of the smaller ink makers could be on this list so it's the ink world is pretty good right now there's a million good makers of ink ink and nine times out of ten if something catches your eye and you buy it you're going to have a good experience with it so there's a few that are off the list that I never recommend like private reserve because they tend to have some sketchy performance issues and issues with the pen that outside of that there's just a ton of good inks right now even the basic inks you know your basic blues and blacks just your store brand inks or your waterman inks like waterman mysterious blue is one of my favorite inks like I don't recommend waterman because the variety is not there but man it's such a good ink

Myke Hurley: top five plastic tip pens now if that doesn't make sense to

Myke Hurley: copic multi liner sp and number one is the kuretake zig cartoonist mangaka I think it wins purely on name alone but you can tell me why it's better than the others

Brad Dowdy: it's a standout tip performance so that's one of the biggest drivers of quality in this category because these are your artist pens your drawing pens that people see with like felt tips or plastic tips what these are they're generally plastic tip pens some have metal inserts around in the inside of those tips to make them more durable some don't but this is a category along with micro gel pens that are my two favorite categories and there's really no change in here I don't want to say this is solved because there's actually more variety in this category than in the gel pens that they you know continually other companies are trying new things in this market none of

Brad Dowdy: these are the core standbys of this market but there are competitors out there that are trying to do things around here but this is one of my most used categories so I have pretty strong opinions about these plastic tip pens so these are all great you can't go wrong with any of these

Top Five Paper Brands

Myke Hurley: all right so we move now into the top five paper brands we start at number five with Leuchton 19 17 which is the upgrade to the Moleskine number four is Maruman then number three is Midori two is Apika Apika

Brad Dowdy: I call it Apika but I mean it's Apika paper oh I know these

Myke Hurley: ones I had to click through on the link to see the design and number one is Rodea

Brad Dowdy: yeah it's this is a category I'd like to see change I thought about just mixing it up just because but Rodea is such quality and what really sets them apart are the options that they have and the availability that they have so it's hard not to put them at number one the Apica and Midori and Mormon so like two three and four those are interchangeable really they're they're in the Japanese paper category right that we talked about like my paper tiers you know a month or so ago all of these are in that Japanese high quality consistent paper category good styles good performance lots of different formats and you can just kind of get a good paper there if you're looking for something not rhodia and then loit's term after that it's just so good and consistent it works for a huge variety of pens it may not be the perfect fountain pen paper for your big wet fountain pens but for majority of people it's going to be a really good option so you know these are these are I don't know this is a category that could expand or contract in all kinds of weird ways so yeah it's an interesting category because it's endless like you know some brands you can't even put in there you know that because they don't have as many options some you know there's all these Tomoe river paper options that there's no one specific brand that you know you could recommend and and what I even recommend because it's all kinds of different

Myke Hurley: type pens this feels like a tougher category honestly number five is the uniball jet stream number four is the lami 2000 number three is the zebra shabo x number two is the unistyle fit number one is the pilot high-tech c colito this is

Brad Dowdy: actually a pretty easy category because there's kind of only two choices it's the colito or the style fit and that's just taste preference you know do you like the style of one barrel do you like the style of one refill do you like a different color that one of them maybe have it's like those two are essentially interchangeable and then everything else is an afterthought in this category the zebra shabo x is extraordinarily expensive the lami 2000 is very expensive and the jet stream is a ball point multi pin that most people like gel multi ! It's a weird category that there's almost not five great options I'm super comfortable with one or two in any order and after that is a question mark of what you're trying to accomplish with your multi pin purchase do you want something nicer do you want to use a particular D1 refill that the charbo or lami fits in a multi pin do you need the properties of the jet stream but if you're just looking for a good quality gel ink multi pen the khaledo and the style fit are no brainers they're fantastic

Myke Hurley: so we move into the top five ball point pens the Bic crystal in at number five that is yeah buddy big surprise to me number four the fish of space pen number three is the lami 2000 number two is the pilot aqua ball 0.7 millimeter and the uniball jet stream 0.7 millimeter is in at number one why does the bit crystal find its way onto this list is it purely because of proliferation

Brad Dowdy: no because it's good

Myke Hurley: okay

Brad Dowdy: it's a it's a good writer when you when I use a bit crystal I enjoy it I think it's a quality writing experience and it's not just because of you know history or aura about it you know like I said in the notes I could put the cron dash 849 there I could put I mean ball point pens are infinitely available again it's a weird recommendation category because it's kind of the jet stream I think you're either buying the jet stream or you don't really need me you know because you know you're just getting into something that's a style preference for a lot of these things you know the acroball has kind of gone down in availability it's been a very popular store shelf pen and I'm not seeing it as much so I'm wondering what's happening there it's definitely the same quality as the jet stream but I don't ever recommend it because it's not as readily available Lamy 2000 is where you get to if you enjoy ballpoint pins and want something nicer to put them in I was really impressed with the Lamy 2000 ballpoint I didn't think I would be I thoroughly enjoy it same with the Fisher space pen I enjoy that pen more than I ever thought I would and the big crystal I just want to have because it's good like I like it I like it better than the Parker Jotter you know but there's all kinds of oddities and one offs that can go in this category because it's so prolific in the marketplace so it's kind of jet streamer bust really but there are some cool options and I use ballpoint pens more than probably people think I use ballpoint pens like the cron dash 849 I use all the time

Myke Hurley: okay

Brad Dowdy: which doesn't make the list which probably should make the list probably ahead of the Lamy 2000 to be perfectly honest so something to think about as I relook at this

Myke Hurley: all right so should we move on yep top five liquid pen liquid ink aka rollerball pens number five is the autographic liner number four is the morning glory mark three number three is the uniball vision elite number two is the pilot precise v5 number one is the retro 51 tornado

Brad Dowdy: it's weird to put retro 51 at the top of this but a lot of times people are looking for something in the price range that retros hit that's what we've always talked about them like they can find the precise v5 or the uniball vision elite on their own at the store but if they like those pins and want something more then I point them to the retro 51 the last two on the list the morning glory and the autographic liner shows that there's a dearth of available products to fill up this list like the precise v5 and the vision elite are the kings of this list because there's not a lot of good liquid ink rollerball type pins the tornado is just different than those and so it's kind of a weird category to put those all in there together like that but that's kind of how this category works out because there's not a lot of options this isn't just this isn't the most popular ink style anymore where 20 and 30 years ago it used to be more popular

Myke Hurley: okay yeah I it's interesting to me liquid ink like why would you refer to it that way is it just because like the vision and the precise they're not rollables right they're like those needle points

Brad Dowdy: yeah but it's still a roller ball tip it's the ink manufacturer so gel ink ballpoint ink and liquid ink pens are all different so if you use a pilot precise v5 on bad paper it's going to bleed everywhere whereas if you use a pilot juice 0.5 millimeter it's going to look awesome so when I'm recommending things I have to explain that here's why you choose or don't choose one of these inks and if you're okay with that whichever style you choose you you're aware of this now like that's why this is not a popular category at all that's why there's not a lot of great choices these are the pens that a lot of people will buy and put them on just any random sheet of paper and go oh this is terrible because they don't necessarily know what they're getting

Myke Hurley: okay that makes sense

Brad Dowdy: but there's some that like the pilot v series is one of the greatest pens ever made it's extraordinarily popular

Myke Hurley: it's a great pen I love it yeah like yeah the v5 is like one of those pens that you can give to someone who doesn't really like pens and they're like oh this is really nice or it is a pen that people that like pens but don't know how much they like pens tend to buy yep exactly they're the kind of people that you give them a little push and they'll be a pen addict right like yeah where it goes all right so now the top five machined pens this is basically kickstarter land yeah in the ajoto pen or ajoto the pen it's just the ajoto it's what we know as the ajoto

Myke Hurley: the sunderland mk1 the shown design 01a and the ti2 tech liner these are typically interestingly why are all the names so difficult i find that kind of

Brad Dowdy: funny yeah that is funny i don't know i just look at this list and go i don't know if i should even have this list like i almost feel i don't want to discount this list but i also feel like it's meaningless as far as a recommendation goes because there's they one pin could just be diametrically opposite from the next pin just like the one and two in this list the ti2 tech liner and the shown design pin could not be more different so this is almost more of a guideline of hey you may want to look at these pins if you're looking for a different barrel for a certain refill but i don't know that i could have like is it fair to rank them one through five because they really don't compare against each other at all like i had when i stared at this list i almost ripped it right out the sheet just because i don't it's almost pointless because everything is so different and so style based and construction based and materials based and price point based there's no relating one to two or two to three in an efficient manner so it's almost not worthwhile to continue with this list and i may just end up breaking it off i recommend pins like this all the time but usually someone's coming with a very specific question and these are very specific pins and you can recommend something so i don't know i i don't get a lot of use out of making this top five list

Myke Hurley: this specific one

Brad Dowdy: this specific one

Myke Hurley: yeah yeah it's almost unnecessary it's a really tricky one this feels even more personal preference than some of the others exactly which is why i don't like it yeah

Brad Dowdy: yeah and like my favorite one's not even on here right and i would never recommend it the pin type b

Myke Hurley: yeah yes yes

Brad Dowdy: like i never i never recommend that pin but it's my favorite like i carry that pin i mean it's sitting here right now you want to hear it i'm gonna do it mike thank you ready ! ready

Machined Pens Discussion

Myke Hurley: no that was that actually is very good all right i have a quick question for you all right you have like a top five machined pens why don't you do like a top five acrylics like you know like the crazy acrylic pens yeah because really this category should just be renamed to kickstarter pens you know what i mean like it is that close so there should also be a companies that make friggin wild colors list

Brad Dowdy: yeah that's been that's been one of the challenges to have on this list like should franklin christoph edison jonathan brooks have their own list but when people kind of don't need a recommendation for that like that's out kind of almost outside of the scope of this list like there comes a point where people do not need this list right when they've started to figure out their tastes and their likes and their dislikes and they can kind of forge their own way and that's when you're getting into those types of things i mean how would i say franklin christoph is better than edison and both of those are better than brooks and like how would i put a number on those things that's saying one two three they're so particular i mean it's just it's just a group of all great things right and you will pick based on your tastes because the varieties are huge i it's i don't feel comfortable doing that type of recommendation i don't know if i'm making sense saying that and i don't know that i have the right words to explain it but it's almost like if you're at that level of shopping you don't need me necessarily to say one is better than the other but we can have a discussion about here's what you like in a pen and let me tell you about these things and then you can find one that fits you right

Myke Hurley: yeah always

Brad Dowdy: so it's it's kind of i've always found that to be pointless to rank those types of pens and i say this as those are my most used pens

Myke Hurley: so yeah i feel like i mean i kind of feel like you know that that category does deserve as much as the machined pens category but it is verging way too much into the my personal favorites list because the actual utility of those pens tends not to change from one to the other where at least with the machine pens there might be some difference in the utility but effectively all of the pens in that like i don't even know the wonderful acrylics category they're all much and much the same right you know like in they don't they're all pens of caps you know and there can be differences to them and the body shapes can be slightly different but they're all pretty much using the same nibs right with maybe some tweaking so like there isn't i see the problem it is way more a personal taste category which is not what this list is all about right

Brad Dowdy: right yeah that's definitely a blog post here are my favorites you should do it you should do it

Myke Hurley: yeah because i think people i'm not

Brad Dowdy: opposed to that at all i'm not opposed to that at all i just don't know that that category is a good fit for i will also say i do

Myke Hurley: think i do think that this page should include your personal top five because you are a tastemaker right in the world of pens and i think a lot of people would value what does the guy behind the pen addict value in his pen experiences like i think that it would be perfectly valid to even at the very bottom put like these are my personal top five favorite pens right now like irrespective of price irrespective of anything could be pens pencils the whole bag but i think that you should put that in this list i think it would be valuable to a lot of people if anything to help try and frame the rest of the list as well

Brad Dowdy: sure i that's an entire podcast of what of what i have to say on that how long are we we're like an hour and a half now hour and 15 i have a lot to say about that topic just yeah i i i mean we either in now and i go on a rant or we we continue with this list and pick that up next week because i have a lot to say about that

Myke Hurley: all right you make a note about us doing no no no because it's interesting you make a note about us doing it this week and next week and while you do that let me talk about casper casper of a company focused on sleep dedicated to making you exceptionally comfortable one night at a time you spent a third of your life sleeping if you spent a third of your life doing anything you'd want to make sure that it is the very best that it can possibly be and that is why you need a casper mattress in your home their mattresses are designed perfectly for humans they engineer them to soothe and support your natural geometry giving you all of the right support in all of the right places caspers combine multiple supportive memory phones to create a quality mattress with just the right sink and bounce that is why they are so comfortable their mattresses are designed and developed in the US and their breathable design helps to regulate your body temperature throughout the night they have over 20,000 reviews online with an average rating of 4.8 stars casper is becoming very quickly the internet's favorite mattress brand you can be sure of your purchase of casper's 100 night risk-free sleep on each trial they will deliver a mattress to your door the mattress of choosing will deliver to your door in a one few small box you can try it out on your bed with your own sheets in your own pajamas and you have 100 nights to do this and if for any reason after that time and during that time you don't like it they have a hassle-free return policy as well they really want you to be comfortable with the purchase so they make it as risk-free as they possibly can brad tell me something about your casper mattress

Brad Dowdy: my casper mattress got a makeover oh yeah casper yeah casper got new sheets got new bedding got new pillows got all the things because our casper mattress plays a big part in our life and it's getting ready to be holiday season here so the casper needs to be ready for all the guests that we're gonna have over the house so casper got a makeover it's queen-size mattress so all your your normal queen-size bedding and and all the accoutrements that go with that so casper's feeling pretty good right

Myke Hurley: now in the guest room very very nice indeed you can get $50 towards select mattresses by going to casper.com slash pen addict and using pen addict to check out terms and conditions apply that is casper.com slash pen addict and the offer code pen addict $50 towards select mattress purchases our thanks to casper for their support of this show and relay FM I think

Brad Dowdy: we have next week's entire episode in my head already you've messed with me so much right there with that with that statement so I love that I have so much to say about this like that we should just we should just lay it all out there so stay tuned

Myke Hurley: I hope that they do top five mechanical pencils we start with the zebra del guard no idea what that is the uni shift pipe lock which is a really weird name for a cool mechanical pencil the pentel graph gear 1000 the uniball curatoga and the rotaring 600

Brad Dowdy: I think I am going to focus on this category a lot in the next year because I love this category and it needs some love to be honest with you I think the rotaring is number one and I don't think there's any competition I think I can adjust a lot of this list with some more testing I think there are some options I'd like to consider these are pretty safe right the the curatoga is just widely available it works great and they have some different styles you can pick from the graph gear 1000 is kind of a classic in the rotaring sense like if you're not a rotaring 600 person you're usually a graph gear person they kind of live in the same category the uni shift pipe lock is kind of my little pet pencil that I tend to recommend a lot to people because it's fun and different and about half the price of the rotaring even though it's got different metals and the delgards kind of a new lead protection mechanism that zebra's done in the past year which is really good quality I think there's even more that I could explore in here I think the ones I put in the notes section like the pintel sharp and the pintel carry are both fantastic mechanical pencils that maybe deserve a spot in this list more so than some of the other ones so I'm going to work on this category a little bit more and Myke maybe even the next category

Myke Hurley: too I wanted to touch on the mechanical pencils for a second I mean because me and you was so you know steadfast on the Kuru Toga for so many years and the reason being right it's it's wonderful system of the the lead turning inside of the barrel keeping the line consistent just genius genius it all changes when you use a Rotary 600 and I can't even tell you why it doesn't do anything different to what mechanical pencil should do but everything it does is better than anybody else yes I cannot explain it any better than that but it is the standard bearer it is what as you say the mechanical pencil all others are measured by like I can't tell you why it's so good but it is the best top five wooden pencils the Mitsubishi Office 9850 HB the Camel pencil HB the Caran d'Ache Swiss wood the Tombow mono 100 and the black wing 602 I

Brad Dowdy: went into this top five list thinking that oh I've used a lot more wooden pencils in the past year I'm going to have some changes in this list and I didn't have a single one because I went through this list and looked at all the new pencils that I've tried over the past year and none of them are better than any of these that I picked here there's a lot that are close there's a lot that are good there's a lot that I could make a case for these are really the best that I use and have been able to recommend them because they're very consistent in the way they perform and they're very consistent in their feel and the quality of all these so this is one of those lists that is my recommendations and is also my personal preferences like this list is everything I use and I went to go like I've tried I don't know three dozen different pencils over the past year and if I take one and say okay I'm going to compare this pencil that I've used to this top five list and is it better than any of these and none of them were so I feel really good about this list it doesn't mean it's not going to change over the next year you know maybe something I've missed that I haven't tried that I can recommend but this is one of those lists that is 100% my taste is 100% my recommendations as well so this is a good list I'm very happy with this list the

Myke Hurley: top five most useful pens so

Brad Dowdy: this before you read it this was a fun list that someone requested last year I was like you know what that's a heck of a good idea for a list so I it's it has no purpose necessarily other than I really enjoyed someone's recommendation Todd shout out to you if you're listening and I still remember who recommended this list I thought that is such a darn good idea that I want to put this on here so it stays Myke it is an

Myke Hurley: interesting one to me because okay let me read it and I'll explain why the Sharpie permanent marker the Uniball Jetstream 0.7 millimeters the Sakura Pigma Micron the Uniball Signo DX 0.38 and the Fisher Space Pen the reason this is interesting to me because when I read useful I was thinking of additional uses was what I was thinking right because you know like I figured it was like I don't know pen with a ruler on the side or like a spirit level or whatever right but so I understand five and one right the Sharpie and the Fisher Space Pen makes perfect sense to me because they are kind of they are fixed purpose pens right where the Sharpie is to write fixed stuff on things permanently and the Fisher Space Pen is to work even when pens shouldn't work but I don't understand the Jetstream the Pigma Micron and the Sino DX in this list where they are and that kind of stuff I don't get it

Brad Dowdy: because it's essentially a kit so this is a almost a one of each type of usefulness so Fisher Space Pen I mean that's the epitome of usefulness right same with Sharpie permanent marker just like you said the DX micro gel ink pen it writes different and then every other pen on this list it has you know the good good ink qualities and and darkness and consistency and fineness the bigger Micron allows you to gives you some drawing and sketching options even though you can draw and sketch with any pen or any pencil it's a good variety to have in there the Jetstream has the most secure ink technology in a pen to where it's basically fraud proof so you know it's just a all around kit of pens that do things different than a lot of other pens that kind of all work together like it's essentially a one of each pen list so no pencil in there but I could throw in a mechanical pencil in there too you know that's that's what this list was built around it was like if you have one of each of these pens you're not really lacking for anything

Myke Hurley: all right that makes sense okay I get it it's like you could put this you could wrap a bow around this stuff and give it to someone and be like you've got everything you need like you're good top five blue black fountain pen inks the Uckerman eight come on deep doing water blow yeah the

Brad Dowdy: we'll have to get out the recordings for

Myke Hurley: this and clinger salix is that isn't that the ink doesn't exist anymore no okay what was the one that doesn't exist anymore you mixed your own or

Brad Dowdy: something oh I mix my own out of this but it still exists yeah

Myke Hurley: pilot blue black pirate iroshizuku shinkai and the sailor blue black

Brad Dowdy: mm-hmm so two new lists which I've held off doing these lists for like super hyper specific colors for lots of reasons but I figured the two colors I have the most experience with are blue black and orange and you know I figured to add something new to this list I've used enough of them to where I feel like I can rank them so sailor blue black and oroshizuku shinkai are the ones I use the most pilot blue black is up there too just for their consistency and ease of use and the way the colors look they have good shading and good characteristics you know they're not too blue they're not too black they don't have other weird colors in them that you sometimes see so I just enjoy a good blue black ink as much as any other color which it sounds like it could be a simple ink if you're not familiar with blue black inks it's like well I've got blue and I've got black I'll just mix them together but they have some interesting characteristics in these colors I think there's some tradition in them that you know also you know plays a little bit of role in why I personally enjoy them so I figured I'd make a list out of them so there it is I don't know what else to say about it it's uh it's just a a quality blue black ink list I feel like

Myke Hurley: you're opening yourself up to a world of hurt

Brad Dowdy: probably I mean I talk about pins on the internet I what else

Myke Hurley: did I get but the pro I say here's the problem so you also do orange inks which we're going to get to in a minute but I think the problem is like you've done two colors so why not all the colors of them you know what

Brad Dowdy: I mean no that's easy that's easy because I don't have enough experience with green to say here's five really great green recommendations like I mean I could but it's like there's so many colors I couldn't do that with that I'm I'm fine not committing to all the colors like green red brown even purple which I use a lot of purple I'm not gonna I don't know that I have five great purple recommendations I mean there's plenty of great purples but I could I could name I could pick two recommendations out of all these colors but not five like you know I've probably got 20 bottles of blue black ink and probably 12 or 15 orange so I feel like I'm pretty well versed in those two colors not so much the not too much the other ones so I'd be fine not doing them I will hold fast on that let's go

Orange Ink Focus

Myke Hurley: the last category we've made it everyone the top five orange fountain pen inks Mont Blanc lucky orange love that ink oh my god here's something crazy right so I'm using the Mont Blanc lucky orange in my orange yellow and it's run out it ran out of me the other day so I need to fill it I just haven't filled it and I picked up my sailor 1911 which has what does that have in it it's not for you gucky it's a brighter orange that I have doesn't matter but whatever because it doesn't matter it was just like a different orange that I have it might be for you gucky in there I don't remember but I was surprised I was like oh this doesn't look bright enough and I thought it was really funny lucky orange is a I'm a big fan of that ink now it is a very bright very very vivid before you

Brad Dowdy: read the rest of this list I actually had struggled putting that on there because it's a special edition I normally don't put special editions on here this has been around for longer than I've seen any special edition so they either made a ton of it or it's not selling or it's just going to be around for a while so I felt okay putting it on there if I have to change it a year from two or a year or two from now that's fine but it's been so prevalent for such a long time I felt okay adding it to the list it's still everywhere

Myke Hurley: pilot iroshizuku yuyake

Brad Dowdy: that's right sit down

Myke Hurley: you're wrong you're wrong but it's fine akaman 16 orange bovin papilla plume sazerac and sailor apricot

Brad Dowdy: yeah sailor apricot is is one with a bullet that's my favorite orange ink it's on the lighter side of things and I'm only able to recommend it because they finally decided to keep it I think so you never know this has gone on and off the market in three different times at least two different times and been renamed or remodeled remodeled it's been kinmakuse twice it's been apricot twice right now it exists as apricot and it is a little different than the kinmakuse it's a little bit lighter but I just think that's just a really bright shiny orange ink sazerac has a little bit more caramelly brownish characteristics which I really enjoy it's much it's a very different ink than apricot and then orange bovin is different from both of those and that is just pure bright orange kind of like lucky orange lucky orange and orange bovin are a little bit similar in that they're just pure straight up orange and then you yucky has a little bit of those shading characteristics you know it's kind of got a little bit of brightness to it a little bit of yellow a little bit of brown and it shades a little bit so I don't know I love I love all those I use every one of these inks very consistently between these 10 inks between blue black and orange I probably have eight of them inked right now maybe not that many because I have a few other blue blacks inked and I've got so you don't have anything else inked I don't have I have lots of blue blacks and orange inked right now in my pen so yeah

Myke Hurley: that's why you put me at the list of bottom that's my list so that was it everyone that is the top five pens list of 2018 I hope you have enjoyed this audio extravaganza as we've gone through and listed these out for you so you could hear some of Brad's thinking a little bit of director's commentary behind the list if you want to find links to that list you can find them in our show notes which you can find in your podcast app of choice or you can go to relay.fm slash pen addict slash three three three thanks to away Casper and pen chalet for their support of this episode you can find Brad's work over at pen addict dot com and knock dot co go to twitch.tv slash pen addict follow and subscribe to Brad there he is pen addict on Instagram dowdyism on Twitter I am I am Myke I am Y K E on Instagram go along give me a follow there and we'll be back next week where Brad will explain why he won't put his own favorites on his top five pens list until then say goodbye Brad goodbye Brad you