The Pen Addict 382/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	382
Title:	You May Have Missed Tokyo
Release Date:	October 23rd, 2019
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 382
Audio File:	Audio Episode 382
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 382
Length:	6464 min <br />1.067 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 382. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and Moo. My name is Myke Hurley, I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Hello Myke Hurley, how are you?

Myke Hurley: I'm very fine and dandy, my friend. How are you?

Brad Dowdy: Good, good. I was a little delayed coming in there because you said 382 and it hits me every now and then. Wow, that's a big number. But also like 400 isn't that far away and does that mean we need to do something special for 400? And I haven't thought about these things and now my mind is broken. I'm totally broken now.

Myke Hurley: We're so far into this at this point that like celebrating every milestone seems pointless, right? Because like we have, you know, like we have a couple of big ones on the more like on the horizon. That's a far out horizon, but like... Yeah, yeah. 2022 really is going to be the big year.

Myke Hurley: Because we'll be doing this for 10 years and I assume we will hit episode 500.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's going to be nuts. Yeah, I haven't done that math, but yeah. But that is 10 years. Let's face it, let's face it, every week is a big week for this show just because I have so much fun doing it and I'm glad we get to do this together, Michael.

Myke Hurley: Me too. Let me see if I can Google 118 weeks from now.

Myke Hurley: That's Wednesday the 26th of January.

Brad Dowdy: God, it's a Wednesday too.

Myke Hurley: I know, right? Wednesday the 26th of January 2022 is episode 500.

Brad Dowdy: That's not going to work because we take the last week of the year off.

Myke Hurley: Well, so let's say it would be like sometime in February.

Brad Dowdy: Sometime in February of 2022.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Is there anywhere we can go in February 2022?

Myke Hurley: Well, I have big plans for 2022.

Brad Dowdy: Okay, okay. Big plans. I have huge plans for 2022. You're going to let me in on them someday.

Myke Hurley: I've told you what I want to do. I mean, I'll say it now. I don't care. I know. But also as well, February 9th is when we started. So if we do take like one, if we just take one week off, we could match it all up. Like 500 and the 10th anniversary.

Brad Dowdy: We could make that happen. Like we, like knowing us, we can adjust to make that happen. No problem whatsoever.

Myke Hurley: As we start to close in on it, if it looks, if like I would do an extra episode, right? Like just randomly to make sure that we try and hit those two things at the same time.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right. So about six months out, we need to start planning.

Myke Hurley: Well, it's going to be more than that. What I want to do. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That, I'm talking about the... 119 weeks away is February 2nd. So 120 weeks away. Oh, my God, Brad, if we just take two weeks off, our 500th episode will go out on our exact five year and a 10 year anniversary.

Myke Hurley: This is 120 weeks from now, which is like two weeks off. And all the rest of the episodes that we would do is the 9th of February 2022.

Brad Dowdy: That's scary.

Myke Hurley: Which would be exactly 10 years. That's easy to do. So, I mean, I'll say it. I don't care. I want to go to Japan that year.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Like we will plan on going to Tokyo that year. We might have to do... We've already talked about it. I was like, we'll have to do things differently probably for that type of thing. But like that would be our big 10 year anniversary trip. Yep. It's got to happen. Got to happen.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Wow. So everyone should start... Everyone should start planning for 2022 to join us. Yeah. In Tokyo. Start saving now. Yeah. Start saving now.

Myke Hurley: This is your advance morning. Because we're going to have to. Yeah.

Travel Plans

Brad Dowdy: I don't know. You're already a world traveler. I was watching you this past week. And, you know, you were gallivanting and traipsing. Yeah. Across the continent.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. Copenhagen for a little bit.

Brad Dowdy: Is that city as pretty in person as it looks in pictures?

Myke Hurley: I can't even describe it. It, I think, is maybe the most picturesque place that I've... Like for my own tastes that I've ever been. Mm-hmm. You know, like I've been to places like Paris and Rome and, you know, like these beautiful cities. But for my own personal aesthetic, Copenhagen might be my favorite city visually. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Had you ever been before? No.

Myke Hurley: It was my first time.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So you were getting it fresh this time.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. We're actually going back. Our trip got cut short and we had to just rearrange some stuff. So we're going back in a couple of weeks to finish what we'd started.

Brad Dowdy: Nice. Well, I caught one random picture. I didn't like follow every step of the way. But Adina had this great shot of you kind of trying not to browse the windows at this, I'm assuming a fountain pen store had had this great kind of neon fountain pen. It was a pen store.

Myke Hurley: I will say. Okay. Yeah. It had all sorts. From fountain pens, it's had some watches in too, but lots of paper, lots of notebooks, lots of drawing pens, you know, lots of brush pens. It had a really good selection of everything. It's called Stelling. S-T-E-L-L-I-N-G. That was the name of the store. It seems like they're pretty big in Denmark. Like I think they have more than one store. And they're a high-end retailer as well, right? Like they are the Montblanc retailer. They had, what is that super fancy Faber-Castell? Was it Graf von Faber-Castell? Yeah. Graf von. They had all of those. Yes, that's the high-end. It's the Graf von. Yeah. That crazy thing that you bought, right? Just mega expensive.

Myke Hurley: Oh, the perfect pencil. Yeah.

Stationery Items

Brad Dowdy: Oh, the Caran d'Ache. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which one was that? No, the perfect pencil. The perfect pencil was Faber-Castell.

Myke Hurley: Okay. So they had all that sort of stuff, right? Yeah. They had all of that. Makes sense. Sure. In some beautiful cases. And they had some interesting things, I would say. Mm-hmm. And I, you know, I was browsing around. I didn't actually buy anything at this store. Mm-hmm. Because there was only one thing that I was really interested in, and it was more money than I was willing to spend. They had a Montblanc that I'd never seen before called the Bohème. Bohème, not Bohème, Bohème du Moongarden.

Myke Hurley: And I'd never seen this pen before, and I thought it was really beautiful, but it was like, I don't know, like $600 or $700, and I just didn't want to, you know, just didn't want to buy that. But it was, have you ever seen this pen before? It's like a kind of like a grayish blue with these copper flowers on it.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. So I have the basic black Bohème. It's a little short cartridge filling pen. It's got this really neat kind of safety mechanism for the nib. You kind of wheel the, like you're screwing the, like the back end of the pen. You can, you know, retract the nib into the barrel. Mm-hmm. And then that's how you like replace the cartridge. It's this really cool system that Montblanc has done for these short pens, but never in my life have I seen this model. It's really pretty. Like, I, yeah, I've never laid eyes on this. Yeah, it was already taken by.

Myke Hurley: I kind of love it. Yeah, I was very, very taken by it. But it was just, it was more minded than I was willing to drop on that. Yeah. You know, because it, whilst I like it a lot, it's not really my style at the same time. Right. Like, I don't know how much I would actually want to use this pen. So that, but that was just something weird that I'd seen that I kind of liked. Yeah. It was a really nice store, actually. They had a, really, Akadina bought a bunch of like different brush pens and stuff like that, that she was interested in. So she went kind of wild there and got a bunch of colors because she's wanting to play around with that sort of stuff a little bit more too. But it was, it was, I always find those types of excursions nice when you find like a, like a cool store to go and poke around in for a bit. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So we'll have the link in the show notes to all of these, you know, pictures and things. And I love that little last picture of the, of the Mont Blanc all capped. It's a really small pen, but of course that is right up my alley, especially the way this one works. I recommend everyone check out a Bohème if they ever get the chance to. It's a, you don't run across them often, but they're not super uncommon. At least the basic ones are. So you can, you can find them.

Myke Hurley: I'm not the only traveler.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So my, this is pre-travel for me. I'm leaving Friday. I will be at Drom Ghouls in Houston, Texas on the 25th and 26th of October, depending on when you're listening to this. That's 2019 for those who are still in episode 70 right now. You'll catch this one later. You'll miss this event, but I'll be there. You may have missed Tokyo. You may have, you may have, depending on your, your listening speed to, to the show. I'm not sure if 2X would get you there, but yeah, I, this will be a second trip to Drom Ghouls. They're super nice. They have me out, just do like an in-store thing. Usually when they're having a bigger event. And this time they do, they do a lot of, bring a lot of vendors or distributors and manufacturers in and makers. So this time it will be Pilot USA will be there. So I'll get to hang out with Pilot, talk to them. I'll also, David Oscarson will be there with his crazy artistically designed pens. And me all there on Saturday from 10 to 4. Just hanging out. I'll just be hanging out. I'm not doing anything special. Just other than visiting, talking, chatting with their, their staff, their customers, and just helping out. And then on the, the night before we're having a World Series watch party. Hopefully the Astros will be in better shape than they are after last night's loss. So hopefully we're looking at a 1-1, not an 0-2 situation by Friday night. But I'm looking forward to it. It'd be a quick trip, but it should be packed with fun and awesomeness.

Myke Hurley: So we can go and hang out, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. Anyone can just come hang out. Like the store was packed. That place gets like crazy packed on Saturdays. It's, it's like an event of itself. They basically just, people just come and hang out there all day. It's, it's wild. Love it. Love going there. So I'm glad to be going back.

Myke Hurley: That's all going to Sailor Corner, everyone. Set sail, sailor time. I guess there should be like some kind of steam whistle that we should be playing, right? It's like just to let everybody know it's sailor time. 19.11, 4 a.m.

Myke Hurley: You go first. What is this one? This is another North American exclusive. Uh, it is a, uh, light blue-ish demonstrator pen. The whole body of the pen is demonstrator with, uh, what have we got? Like, um, what, what color are we calling the trim?

Brad Dowdy: Um, ruthenium trim. Okay. Rhodium plated nib.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Which is a shame. They don't match. Um, that's going to be doing this a lot.

Brad Dowdy: It's going to be a large part of, of, of my piece of this. Yeah.

Sailor Pens

Myke Hurley: Okay. Uh, but we have another North American exclusive, which is the more important part, I think.

Brad Dowdy: Eh, I don't know. So, it looks great, right? Like, the color's great. It's not that far off. I want to see this in person. I don't think they're going to be out in time for me to see one this weekend. Um, the color looks close to my big, um, sky, you know, demonstrator, my Pro Gear Sky demonstrator, which is a blue, um, clear barrel pen. And they did that in standard Pro Gear large and King of Pen size, which I have the King of Pen size. Um, and this one's in the 1911. The color looks a little bit brighter than Sky. Um, and it looks really good with the plating on the exterior. But yeah, the, the nib's a letdown. It just is. Like, I don't like to, it doesn't make sense, right? So, this was the conversation that we had. Um, when this came out, we were discussing it on Twitch. And so, we just kind of got to have a free flowing conversation, um, with myself and with the chat. And, you know, Dan Smith was in there and he was talking about how, you know, it's, it's Sailor's, um, you know, decision, Sailor USA, um, strictly 100% their decision on, you know, what to make of this pen. Um, and you know, how to design it. And he was basically saying, well, it would be 50 to $60 more to upgrade the nib to match the rest of the hardware of the pen. And I'm like, you know what? If I'm in the market for a $315 pen, I'm in the market for a $375 pen if it's going to look better. Right? You're not making, I think the buying choice, you're not looking at this pen to begin with at $312 if you're not interested in it. Right? And then if you're in the market to spend $300 on a pen, that upgrade is not really going to affect you if this pen is up your alley. Right? I, that's my opinion. I mean, it makes it crazy expensive, but is it the right choice or the wrong choice? I mean, I don't know. That's my opinion. And, you know, I would pay, I would rather pay, you know, $380 for a large size full ruthenium. Is that, they're calling this ion plated. I don't, I'm using the wrong terminology. I get all those terminologies wrong. They're calling this black ion plated trim. The problem they run into, aside from the cost, is when you do platings on nibs, they end up looking bad over time. Right? Right? So when you have a dark nib, when you clean it and use it all the time, it ends up losing its luster a little bit and it changes a little bit of color. Like I have one of the Imperial blacks where I've cleaned it so many times, like where the tines are is a little bit lighter shade than the rest of the nib, but I don't care. Like that's, that's, you know, part of the deal with that pen. I just think it would look better. And I don't really think the price is, the price is already a roadblock. If you're not interested, I don't think the added cost is an additional roadblock. I was like, Oh no, I was going to spend 320. It's 380. Forget it. You can go jump in a lake. It's not like that. Right? So just give me, give me all the same color.

Myke Hurley: Go jump in a lake. I like that. It's a new frame.

Brad Dowdy: Well, well, I mean, what else are you going to do at 4am, Myke? That's the other thing I want to talk about.

Myke Hurley: I don't get it.

Brad Dowdy: What is, what good happens at 4am, Myke?

Myke Hurley: Is it?

Brad Dowdy: Can you tell me?

Myke Hurley: No, I don't know. Is it the light? Like, are they trying to say that it's like.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, if you're in Copenhagen in the spring, maybe. Right? I mean, what I, where is the, where is the ad copy for this? They're just, the 4am standard fountain pen depicts the state of mind at 4 in the morning with its transparent twilight blue cap and barrel. What does that mean? I mean, you're either, you're either completely drunk or you're completely hung over. None of that is blue, is transparent blue in my mind at 4am. If I'm awake at 4am, there's nothing good that's happening at that time. You know, like one of my kids is sick at 4am. That's what 4am is for. If I'm up at 4am, I'm going sweet two more hours till I have to get up. So I'm going back to bed. Like, it's a funny name. Like, I, like, it's a real try hard name, right? Yeah. Like, you're really trying hard. I mean, if they would have tied it into like the sunrise at somewhere, you know, near the Arctic circle where it's light all year round and 4am is like the golden hour of that area. Fine. But there's nowhere in North America. This is the North America exclusive. You know, I, I'm a little confused by that. But it's, it's more funny than like anything because it makes it, it literally makes no sense.

Myke Hurley: No, that's not, it's not the greatest.

Brad Dowdy: So I think it's a very pretty pen. Like, I, you know, it's not something I need. I have one so close to it. Um, if I own this pen or choose to buy this pen, the nib actually wouldn't bother me. I would prefer a black ion matching plated nib. Um, but like if I was buying this pen, it wouldn't faze me if I was using this pen on a daily basis at all. I think it's really good looking. Um, and it'll do well. So, you know, that's that. It's, uh, it's just a lot of interesting decisions go into this. And that's where I look at this. Maybe too hard, right? Like I, maybe I overthink all of this as all the minutiae parts, but like, that's what I do. Like, that's my thing. So I'm, I'm fine with that. It's, it's very interesting. It'll do well though, because it's a pretty pen.

Myke Hurley: I have some other sailor related. Speaking of pretty pens. Speaking of pretty pens. So my multiple pen, my multiple person, uh, pen handoff was successful. Multiple country. Multiple country was successful. And I now have the, uh, bung box magic of Alice. Um, I have it. Yay. It is. I was surprised. Um, I really, really love this pen a lot. The colors are wonderful. The white and the blue, uh, there is glitter in the body and cap of the pen. Just didn't really show up for me in the images that I saw, but it just adds something a little extra to it. Uh, yeah. Look, I knew I was going to love it because I love the colors and I love the rodden and the finial. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful little pro gear. I just wanted to follow that one up to say that it half arrived. And, uh, oh, one other little detail that I like, um, the cap, like the band on the cap, it says magic of Alice on it, but then it has the like, uh, clubs, hearts, diamonds and spades. Nice. Around it too. So very cool. That's just like a nice little nod to Alice in Wonderland. So it's a beautiful pen.

Brad Dowdy: So, yeah. So this is something like if I was interested in, I would jump through every hoop and pay that much more premium over something like the 4am, right? It's, you know, mentally and physically worth that much more to me personally. Right. And then when you're placing these side by side and you start to have that conversation, you know, that's where, you know, you're trying to make a buying decision, right? Where do you want to spend like your hard earned dollars on? And those, when you see something like the magic of Alice and your mind is just blown, at least mine is. Yep. Um, at the beauty of this pen, you, it makes me argue for or against the 4am differently.

Myke Hurley: It did make me realize that I have vastly more pro gear slims in my collection than regular pro gears.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, me too.

Myke Hurley: Because most of the weird and wonderful colors are slim. I'm not sure why that is.

Brad Dowdy: I just, it's cost because they, the larger ones have 21 carat nibs. So not, I'm not, I don't even mean the physical large size of it, um, is bigger, but it's because it's a 21 carat gold nib instead of 14.

Myke Hurley: I didn't know that.

Brad Dowdy: So yeah, that's, that's 90% of your premium.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: In my, my crooked math.

Myke Hurley: I got an email from, uh, from Pensachi.

Brad Dowdy: Uh, are you not burnt out of all this sailor stuff? Shush. No.

Myke Hurley: It's like asking like, I love you. Am I burnt out on pens? The answer is no.

Brad Dowdy: I'm just joking.

Myke Hurley: Right? Like, no, I'm not.

Brad Dowdy: Neither am I. I just think it's funny. So the reason why we talk about this so much is because sailor does it better than anyone else. And it's nonstop and it's interesting and it's cool and it's fun. You know, I get like, I am not interested in owning any of these pens whatsoever, but what sailors doing on a large scale is what fascinates me the most, right? They're doing it right, in my opinion, by doing all this crazy stuff. Like, this is what people want these days. And this is what I wish other companies would kind of latch on to. And we'll, we'll talk about that a little bit later, but yeah. So what, what landed in your, in your email?

Myke Hurley: So I, I am a person who by and large does not like, uh, email newsletters, right? Or like not, not newsletters as such, more like marketing campaign email stuff, right? That's kind of what I'm going for more. So I'm mostly unsubscribed because I have so much email that I have to go through on a daily basis that is work related. I don't like my inbox to be full of marketing messages, right? It's just, I just unsubscribe from most. Never unsubscribed from Pensachi's, uh, email newsletter email. Remember Pensachi is a company that they somehow seem to get their hands on limited edition products that are in Japan and they sell them. I have had mixed success with them so far in actually getting what I've ordered, but my customer service experience with them has always been very good, right? So like, I think the first time I bought from them, the pen that I wanted sold out, but they were like really responsive and they refunded me and everything. They're somehow getting their hands on this stuff. But I think since that first experience, my other experiences with them is like, it seemed to have gotten things a little bit more on lock. I got an email from them, uh, showing off the sailor, uh, limited edition sparkling Royale, uh, in purple. Have you seen this pen? Yeah, I've seen this pen. It is a full size pro gear. Uh, the cap, the grip and the fin, like the, the end finial on the, on the body of the pen, they are like a white acrylic. Then the body and the finial on the cap are a translucent purple with multicolored glitter all through the body. And it has gold accents, like gold furniture. This pen is stunning. And I bought it. So I have ordered one, uh, I ordered it in a medium nib because I don't have a lot of medium nibs. And I have to leave it on my entire collection. I have two medium nibs from sailor.

Brad Dowdy: Um, that's sailor's best nib probably. And in my extra fine opinion, I think the medium is their best nib.

Myke Hurley: It ticked all my boxes. Right. And Jesse is agreeing with me in the, in the chat room here as we're recording live. Uh, sparkles purple. Perfect.

Brad Dowdy: Um, so I need to let you in on something. Um, when we were discussing this on Twitch, um, you know, around sailor, this particular pin came up, this exact pin, uh, sparkling royal purple, and it's beautiful and it's stunning. And I specifically said, I am not talking about this pin and I'm not putting in the show notes this week because we're going to talk about enough other sailor stuff. And lo and behold, Myke goes and puts it in the show notes and I find it absolutely hilarious. Like I am trying, I am trying listeners like to meter some of the sailor talk, but at the same time, like I said, just a minute ago, they do it better than almost anyone else.

Myke Hurley: I understand. I just think it's hilarious. Right. Like I understand the thinking of trying to talk about sailor stuff less, but this is just one of those things that I want to talk about their products all the time. Yeah. I do too. I do too. They are my favorite, right? Like when I, sailors pens get me more excited than any other like mainstream company because I can get, I mean, I've said this a million times, right? But like I can get exactly what I want and then I see something like this and I'm like, I want to talk to Brad about it because I think it's amazing. And also because I think it's hilarious because it's just seemingly can't stop buying.

Field Notes

Brad Dowdy: And this is what the podcast is about, right? It's about stuff that we like and are into. It's not, we're not like dictating the news on the podcast and having equal coverage for all the things. We're talking about things that are fun.

Myke Hurley: Over time, right? Like for a while, we only spoke about field notes as we were both like hunting on like finals to complete our collections and then it became all about retro 51s and we just, you know, we just, we just move through as we do.

Brad Dowdy: The funniest part of this whole thing is we purposefully left out the single best link of the week in this show and I'm going to leave it at that.

Myke Hurley: Did we? Oh, right. Yeah. There was some weird set of pens that I just can't even talk about. It's too much. But there was one thing that I just want to note. We do need to talk. Hesse on Twitter.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. We need to talk about this one.

Myke Hurley: Who I believe Hesse was involved in the Rotofaden Taschenberg Leiter from many moons ago. Wow. That was the thing that we were interested in. That brings back memories. This is the first time I have ever seen, I've ever noted, a UK exclusive Sailor pen. It's on Colt pens. It is the Sailor 1911 ringless. You may remember this, the ringless Epanard, the gold 1911 with no, it has no like gold adornments or like, yeah. But this is the black, the blackout, which is, we were just talking about that black ion, right? This is a black ion plated. So the, this, but what's interesting about this is the nib and the clip above plated with the same process, the black ion making it match. And so this is a ringless 1911 in all black. This is like the murder pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I'm going to read a note in here and this goes back to what we were talking about. It says note, and this is bolded. The nib along with the trim has a black ion plating. Sailor recommend only using their own inks with this pen as other inks could damage the nib's coating. So that's what we were talking about. I, I mean, sure, maybe the inks are going to damage the nib's coating. I honestly think it's more aggressive cleaning, like, you know, using cloths and things, you know.

Myke Hurley: And also like, this feels like, and I get this, they've tested with their own inks. They're not going to test with the world's inks.

Brad Dowdy: Any company is going to say that, right? Like this, this note, honestly, to me doesn't mean anything, right? It's, what it means to me is your nib is going to look different over time and you better accept the fact. And this is our, our catch all to say, no, we're not going to replace it or fix it for you.

Myke Hurley: Yep. I, uh, I really liked the look of this, but this is a pen I would want to see.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I was disappointed in the Epinard.

Myke Hurley: I really liked the shape, not the color.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. And actually I didn't like the missing cat band more than I thought I would. I thought I would be okay with it. In the end, I didn't care for that design. I think I might like the black better. So I kind of want to see it too, but I don't know that I will.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I, I think the only reason that I felt like I liked it was because it was different. Right. So like when I saw it, I was like, oh, okay. Like that is different to other 1911s. But I, I like you, like I wouldn't, I don't think I'd want to throw like 300 or 360 pounds at this without, without seeing it. Because again, like as is evidenced by what I would typically go for a black on black pen is also not necessarily my style.

Brad Dowdy: Right. I need to take a picture of the one I've used the most and I can show the difference in how the plating looks when you, this is the Imperial black pro gear, right?

Myke Hurley: Is what you're talking about? Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Or I have two, I have two with the, with the black nibs. Well, I have more than that, but two stock items that the Imperial black and the, I don't know. I'll think of the name in a minute. One's a pro gear. One's a 1911.

Myke Hurley: Oh, okay.

Brad Dowdy: We don't miss out. You can see. Yeah. Yeah. Are we? I don't know. You never know. Honestly. Uh, I am. Okay. For today. I pretty much am too. There might be some ass, ass TPA black luster. Yes. Thank you, Chad. Uh, the black luster. So wonderful pens, wonderful pens. So, all right, let's, uh, let's flip that switch, Myke, and I'll talk about one of our good friends.

Myke Hurley: Moo, the online print and design company that specializes in customizable business cards, postcards, stickers, and more for your business. I love Moo and have been using their products for years. My business cards have been printed on move cart, like move stock for as long as I can remember. Their tools are easy to use and they produce, I think, just the most beautiful business cards that I could ever wish for. If you are new to Moo, you can order a free sample pack on their website at moo.com so you can get a feel for what their products look like and how they will feel in your hand and then how they would feel maybe with your own printing on them. Moo only offer a full suite of products as well as business cards. You can have postcards, invitations, letterhead, stickers, flyers, and so much more to help you seamlessly promote yourself or your brand. And you can count on their quality. Everything is wonderfully made and they have special finishes as well. There's little extra touches, gold or silver foil, ray spot gloss, and letterpress. These are all things. The little touches that Moo can offer to help you stand out from the crowd. And if you're not sure about designing your own card, Moo have recently rolled out some wonderful new templates for their business cards. They're inspired by their most creative customers. So you're going to really get something that looks fantastic. Moo also have wonderful notebooks. I love their hardcover notebook. It features a Swiss binding. Every page will lay flat that way. There may be premium paper and protected by a tough tactile cover. So go right now to Moo.com, M-O-O.com. And if you use the promo code PRINTMOO, P-R-I-N-T-M-O-O, one word, PRINTMOO at checkout, you will get 15% off any order of over $50. That is Moo.com and the code PRINTMOO for 15% off any order of $50 or more. Our thanks to Moo for their support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, Moo makes it easy for you. Go check them out. They're awesome stuff.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Pilot, Michael, has decided to play catch up. This is what I've been screaming for years. So I got a link and a lot of people have seen this, you know, through the social medias that they are introducing or launching a collection of the Capless Decimo in 20, Michael, 20 colors released in groups of five over the next year. So every quarter they will release five more. Now I understand.

Myke Hurley: I've got the images in the show notes. I was very confused.

Pilot Decimo

Brad Dowdy: Now I get it. So we'll have these images in the show notes. The first batch is what the primary set of images is. It has, you know, like a navy blue, a gray, like a chartreusey green.

Brad Dowdy: Some of these pictures are hard to see because it looks like a brushed metal. Like it's a little bit hard to tell exactly in the colors. So yeah, it's like a grayish blue, a brown, a turquoise, a chartreuse, and a pink. So those are the first set of colors. But then we have another picture that I, it could probably use some better lighting. And this was just, I don't even know where this came from. Reddit maybe. That has the layout of all the releases. So even these pictures look different from the one. It's the same general colors, but like all these colors look darker than the pictures I'm seeing on like Rakuten or Bung Box or any of those. Regardless of the pictures, cool. I'm happy for this. Like I don't need any of these. I don't really want any of these. I'd probably pick one up if I had the opportunity just to see what it's about. But at least it's something. And I don't need every company to make everything a special edition. But when you look at Sailor, like we were just talking about, how they have kind of pushed the envelope of creativity. And you see a huge competitor like Pilot just sitting there with their black and gold and black and silver pens and their one vanishing point a year special edition. And I know they make lots of like store brands and individual, like super low volume stuff like in Japan. I get that. But I'm talking about like the main lineup. So why doesn't the 91 or the 912 have more color choices in them? And this is what I want to see. So I don't know. Maybe this is something along those lines. I mean, 20 is a lot. They've kind of like pushed their chips in on this one a little bit.

Myke Hurley: They've really like gone from like zero to 100 on this one. Right, right. Just chill out, guys. It's fine. But sure, go for it.

Brad Dowdy: Right. But, you know, it'll do well. It's like do they need all these colors? When you look at the full palette and you see like, you know, three colors that are pretty close to each other, like three times over. Right. They're not that much differentiation. But I appreciate that they're doing this. And I want to see more of it from someone like Pilot, who is just sitting on these pen designs that are great. And they could just really do a better job ramping them up. So, you know, it's this is not something like I want to chase or hunt down. I just like seeing this type of thing from a company that I love, but who is honestly, I think they've just they've just fallen behind, not in like quality or style or anything, but just in like the pen addict consciousness, which they don't care about. Like they don't care like what we say on this show. So their customers, you know, in Japan and all around the world that, you know, want these types of things. But like for the things that we're into, like I'm like, yes, let's see the needle move a little bit, Pilot. I like seeing this. So you're not a vanishing point guy. But what do you just think in the general terms of this?

Myke Hurley: Let me ask you just for clarity's sake, the Decimo and the vanishing point, are they the same? There's like some slight differences.

Brad Dowdy: So the Decimo is generally a thinner barrel. These pictures call them like some of the links call them capless, which is the standard vanishing point. And the Decimo is a thinner one. These look like the standard size vanishing point to me. So I'm just I am. I will admit to not being fully clear because I'm seeing mixed information in various links. So the link to the Rakuten page calls them the capless. So the capless is what we know as the vanishing point. Right. The Decimo is the thinner version. It's not that much thinner version, which is equally as nice. Uses the same nib unit anything. It's just a little bit of a thinner pin. And I cannot for the life of me. The pictures look like a regular vanishing point, but I'm not going to I'm not going to swear one way or the other, which which it is because it's a little confusing to me.

Myke Hurley: OK. Yeah, they don't work for me so much because.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And actually, I don't own a Decimo. I would actually prefer them to be a Decimo so I can try to buy one and see what it's all about. I don't have a Decimo. They just haven't released any like great colors. It's the Decimo in the U.S. market is like the second class citizen behind the vanishing point. Right. The vanishing point gets all the love in the U.S. market. Then they'll release like a couple of Decimos every few years and change the colors up a little bit.

Myke Hurley: OK.

Brad Dowdy: So I've never I've never latched onto one, but I'll get one eventually. And if it's a Decimo of these, I would like to get one. Who knows what color? Something bright.

Robert Oster Inks

Brad Dowdy: All right. We're going from bright to muddy, Myke. And I wanted to bring this up. This is the Robert Oster mud pack, which the my friends on Twitch sent me this link and said, hey, what do you think about this? I'm like, oh, I didn't know this. And I don't necessarily want to talk about the inks as much as much as the idea of the Robert Oster shop. So this is a new thing. Y'all know I love Robert Oster inks. And, you know, full disclosure, you know, I have my own ink through the pen addict, you know, that I've made with Robert Oster. And, you know, so we've done business together. But he's pretty well loved as an ink manufacturer. I think a lot of people love Robert Oster inks and they're fun. They're good color. So he has decided to make or launch his own shop for Robert Oster exclusive inks. So I wanted to talk more about that than necessarily the inks, which we will cover the mud pack. I mean, come on, Myke. You know, you need seven bottles of ink in the mud pack series, right? But I'm just wanting to... Seven brown inks. No. So it's a little bit hard on the site to see. So if you click on the inks and you keep scrolling right, you will actually get to these swatches of the color. It took me a while to discover.

Myke Hurley: Because I had a complaint about this website that there were no colors. But I feel like they still need to do a better job because, like... Definitely. There's just a bunch of swatches. I would like... Like, just like a bunch of, like, splodges. Like, I want to see them labored properly. Yep. But it's like a bunch of really interesting shimmery inks, obviously, because it's Robert Oster. And I do like the name. Now I see that it's not seven brown inks, which is what I thought it was. I'm a little bit more intrigued.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And they're not all shimmer inks. They're sheeny inks. And, you know, it's Muddy Crown, Muddy Wine, Muddy Swamp, Muddy Water, Muddy Swamp. Muddy Sand, Muddy Bucket, Myke, and Muddy Dragon. So these are the colors. But I think... So there's only 100 of these seven packs. So there's not a lot of inks. And it's fairly priced. Like, it's not much more than his normal retail price. Or it actually might even be less. Because you can only buy it in this seven pack. But the idea that he's opened his own direct-to-consumer shop for his madness-type creations, I think is pretty cool. Like, I don't know. Retailers may not like it. But... Because they can't get them. It looks like he's just selling them directly to his shop. But I like it. So he has this little about section. In there, there's three little things. And I'm not going to read all of them. But I like what he says. Especially his... He has a section called In the Beginning. Talks about his background. He has a section called Dastardly and Creative. Which, you know, if you've seen his inks, that is very accurate. And then the last one, he has Guarantee. And this really hit home for me. I think this is, like, the most important thing in what I do. And you may feel the same way. My name is important to me. It appears on things in which I take pride. Therefore, your satisfaction is paramount. Original quality products and service. My name is important to me. I think that really hits home. It's like, we have these online businesses. But if I don't have my name or the reputation that comes with that, I don't have anything. And to put that in writing like that, I think that's pretty cool. So I really appreciated that he just laid it out there like that.

Myke Hurley: Well, it's even more so to somebody like Robert Oster. Because his name is...

Brad Dowdy: His name is the brand.

Myke Hurley: The brand. Which is even more than, right? Like, a poor relationship or a poor experience with Robert Oster is quite literally a poor experience with the man, Robert Oster. Right. I think this is very clever because it is showing that Oster is aware of his ability. And that people find his products to be exciting or interesting. And he is watching people like yourself capitalize on his ability to create interesting inks that you sell and do well with. So why shouldn't he do it himself?

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. So that's how I thought. It reminded me like of Knock a lot. Like, he's not pulling back, but he's doing something extra. Right. He's like, hey, I'm really good at what I do.

Myke Hurley: And there's also built a name recognition and a brand recognition now, which means that people are not just going to Pen Chalet, Van Ais, Strongholds, etc. And looking for inks and finding this color. And it's like, oh, this is interesting. No, people are paying attention to the next Robert Oster ink. Right. Right. And so, yeah, I think that that's really great.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So I just thought this was all around cool and was worth a mention. And, you know, something to check. Like, if you're really into inks and you want to get all the things, like, this is probably a site you should pay attention to. You know, I don't need, like, every limited edition ink on the market. But I think it's cool to watch and see happen. So, yeah. All right. A couple quick hits before we get into our last break and then some Ask TPA. Myke, I'm a little sad that we're not going to be in Toronto this weekend. It's Scriptus this weekend, Toronto Pen Show this Sunday. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: That was one of the best trips I've ever taken, I think. It was wonderful. I thought that was just a great experience all the way around. And, like, I'm looking at it going, I wish I was there a little bit.

Brad Dowdy: But we have some links. Put some links in the show notes. If you're in and around the Toronto area, you should make the attempt to go. It's a Sunday-only show. It's a fantastic space. It does get crowded. And, like, you want to make, like, open to close, like, your goal if you're going to go. Because if you're going to try to pop in for an hour, you'll probably be disappointed.

Brad Dowdy: There is a pre-show meetup on Saturday. We'll have a link in the show notes to the Writing Pay It Forward Canada group. I think it's at the same place we were at last year. Which is a cool pump. Yeah. Very, very cool. Space is limited. You need to sign up early for that. It was getting mostly full. And then, good friend of the show, Alexander, he's working his vendor map, Magic Myke. Have you seen this? He's done this recently, like, for the San Francisco Pen Show. Made these little interactive maps where you can see all the vendors. So, we'll have a link to that in the show notes. So, I don't know. I just wanted to give them a shout-out because they are super awesome. We had the best time. And that's just, you know, a perfect picture of Pen Show's done right. Even though it's only for six hours on a Sunday, they crush it. So, it's very cool.

Myke Hurley: Well, like, if you want an example of why this is a Pen Show done right, that map that Alexander created is actually on the Scripps website. Not just on the website he made himself.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. Like, they're working together to give you a better experience. Mm-hmm. Right. Like, they are concerned with, hey, let's make the best experience we can. And, you know, doing something like that is really, really great. So, that's cool. Last thing, Myke, it's almost Fountain Pen Day time again. It's an everyday Fountain Pen Day. It's pretty much every day is Fountain Pen Day. But, we like to celebrate thanks to our man, Kerry Yeager, at Fountain Pen Day. The 2019 Fountain Pen Day is November 1st. So, that's a week from Friday. So, if you're a Fountain Pen fan and user, which you're listening to the show, you probably are.

Brad Dowdy: You want to check out your stores, your favorite stores, your favorite vendors, your favorite blogs, and see what everyone's doing for Fountain Pen Day. I'll do a cool giveaway next week for Fountain Pen Day. Try to do something neat. I don't even know what that's going to be yet. Maybe I'll find something special at Drum Ghouls this weekend to give away for Fountain Pen Day. So, yeah, we'll do something cool around that. And, I just wanted everyone to know about Fountain Pen Day. Check the link in the show notes to see who all is participating in various Fountain Pen Day activities. And, enjoy. It's a great thing that Kerry has built for this community.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. All right. Should we take our second break?

Brad Dowdy: We should. I'm pretty sure this next sponsor is participating big time in Fountain Pen Day. What do you think?

Myke Hurley: I have no doubt about that. Because it is our friends over at Pen Chalet. Because Pen Chalet, they sell authentic, amazing rollerballs, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and so much more. And, they have products from your favorite brands. They're always adding new styles of pens every single month. They also sell all of the paraphernalia that you may require for your new pen hobby. I'm talking carrying cases, pen holders, ink, converters for fountain pens, refills, so much more. Pen Chalet believe in fast and reliable customer service and do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the United States. They also sell internationally with great shipping rates. They have low prices on high quality pens. And, they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So, go right now 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 the code you need to save 10% on anything at any time at Pen Chalet. So, we have, I was told that right when we have a pen and some inks on sale this week. That's what he told me.

Brad Dowdy: Am I allowed to talk about it? Sometimes I'm allowed. Sometimes I'm not.

Myke Hurley: He didn't tell me that we couldn't.

Brad Dowdy: So, let me say this. So, I started scrolling at the top. I went, uh-huh. Next one, uh-huh. Next one, uh-huh. Next one, uh-huh. And, it never stopped. It just kept going. I was like, wow, that's cool. Wow, that's cool. Wow, that's cool.

Myke Hurley: This is a great selection this week. We've got some mommy stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Robert Oster that we were just talking about at crazy prices. Lamy at crazy prices. Retro 51 Invader, which is a fountain pen. They did a rollerball. I will say I have the rollerball of this one from, gosh knows when, eight years ago maybe. Something like that. Pilot 100th Anniversary inks. Like, this is a lot of good stuff. So, definitely check out Pen Chalet.

Myke Hurley: Damn, that's a great price in the Pilot inks. Yep. Wow. Okay, you gotta go. Pen Chalet.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password Pen Addict to get your hands on these special offers. Our thanks to Pen Chalet for their support of this show and Relay FM. Should we do some Ask TPA?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. You want to try to hit all of them? I think we maybe can. It's a little reading, but I don't think we have any, like, crazy long answers. Let's see what we got. You go first.

Myke Hurley: All right. So, our first question this week on Hashtag Ask TPA is from Grace, and Grace says, I am a newbie who is looking for a black bottled ink for the first time. I've been doing my research. There's so many options that it is making my head spin. I want one suggestion that can be bought easily and cheaply. Pilot Black. All right. Next question. No, I will expand.

Brad Dowdy: It's a really, so, cheaply and easily and accessible and good quality. Yeah. And a little bit of added features, like, it's kind of waterproof-ish. You know, it's, you know, it's a really great black ink. And you want, if, you know, most black inks, you're just going to want, like, the standard pen brand ink, like, from the pen companies is what I prefer. And Pilot Black is it for me. So, there you go.

Myke Hurley: All right. John's question is, I wonder if you have any tips for cleaning out a cartridge converter when the ink gets behind the piston. And I have included in the show notes John's actual tweet so you can see an image in case you're not familiar with what I'm saying.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, I think anyone that's used a converter has run into this where the ink gets a little either on, like, the piston itself or it gets a little bit behind it. And what you can do, and I answered this for John on Twitter already, is you can, a lot of times, you can just unscrew the back end of the piston and clean it out completely. Like, those are, you are able to be disassembled. And you can get behind there, clean it out. I never thought it out before. Just screw it right. Yep. Never thought to try it out. Which I'm surprised because sailors are notoriously prone to falling apart. They twist very easily. So, you can just take apart the back of them, clean out, remove the piston completely, clean it, and then just pop it right back in. No big deal.

Burton Case

Myke Hurley: Nice. All right. Next question comes from Ryan. I received my Burton case. That was our Kickstarter reward. And Ryan loves it. Thank you, Ryan, for your support.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, big love for the Burton.

Myke Hurley: Yes. Oh, I've been using mine on when we're in Copenhagen. It's a great, like, bag for inside of my carry-on. Yep. I love it. It's wonderful.

Brad Dowdy: We'll have some more for sale, like, in a month or so. Ooh.

Myke Hurley: Ooh. Ooh, look at that.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, not many. So, I will make sure everyone knows because everyone's asking. So, I just want to throw that out there.

Myke Hurley: Well, you know, I'll just say there's an easy way to get one. You should have backed a Kickstarter campaign. That's all I'm going to say on that matter. But going back to Ryan's question, I've planned on using it as a writer's kit for NaNoWriMo. I have a list of things that I want to have in the kit and a few ideas. However, I thought I would use this as a chance to get some opinions on the stuff that I have from the two of you. So, time for each of you to build a writer's kit. I need two fountain pens that are the right size and weight to write for long sessions, preferably one piston filler, one cartridge or converter pen. One pen that takes the P8126 refill. So, that's the Retro 51 refill, again, for long writing sessions. An A5 that is lined and does not allow a lot of ghosting. A bold black ink. I need something no smaller than a fine. I need it to be bold enough and dark enough to be able to be read by an OCR reader to try and convert it later. Looking forward to both of your ideas. I would like to tag team this.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Well, it's not as difficult as it seems, which maybe isn't the answer that Ryan wants. But what is your tag team ideas?

Myke Hurley: Well, I'm just thinking we could work together because I don't know how different our answer is going to be. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, I can tell you for the piston filling pen, and you may not even want a cartridge converter, and for a long writing session, and for a fine nib, and to use a black ink, I would use the Lamy 2000.

Myke Hurley: Ooh.

Brad Dowdy: Like, we don't talk about that a lot. Well, it's just a great pen. For this situation, it sounds like the ideal choice to tick off so many boxes in one shot that you would be pretty happy.

Myke Hurley: Because it's a long pen. So if you're writing for a long time, I bet it has a good ink capacity, right? And it's lightweight. Very lightweight. It feels warm to the touch, right? So it's comfortable to hold over long periods of time. The Lamy 2000 is an excellent choice here, but this is something I was saying this to Edina when we were in that store in Copenhagen. Ed is underrated. Like, it is one of the very best fountain pens ever made. It's become underrated. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It has... It was so overrated, it has now become underrated. I agree.

Myke Hurley: It's gotten lost. I agree. But yeah, that is a really great... I don't know why two fountain pens. I don't know the reason for that.

Pilot Custom 91

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, well, you may want a different color, like, for marking. Like, for... I love the Pilot Custom 91, which is an inexpensive gold nib cartridge pen. You can get some different color inks in Pilot if you search for their mixable cartridges. So you can get some fun colors in there as opposed to blue, black, and blue, black.

Myke Hurley: I would throw in the 3776 into this because it is an incredibly light pen. Very light. So could be comfortable. And also has about as good a nib as you could very possibly find.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and same with the 91. It's a lightweight pen, like 3776, which I think is preferable for writing sessions. Now, that kind of throws the rollerball refill for a loop because I would recommend just a standard Retro 51 Tornado. It's not a lightweight pen, but the way it tapers makes me choose it over something like the retractableness of the Mark I. Like, for a long writing session, I prefer a standard Retro 51 and you can get the base tornado. All the other 8126 refills are heavier and metal. So I would prefer just the traditional one for that.

Myke Hurley: Lined A5, probably Rhodia?

Brad Dowdy: Totally Rhodia. Like, I think that's it. I mean, I think that's your kit. I honestly think, like, do we have to pick the ink if you're going to go Lamy? That's Pilot Black again, right? Yeah. I would put Pilot Black in my Lamy 2000, but the Lamy Black is pretty good too. But if you want, like, a special black ink, I'd be looking at the Sailor Nano Black or the Kyo Nyoto Nure Biro, which is my favorite black, but it's an expensive black. But it is very, very black and dark. But I would stick with the basics and go with Pilot or Lamy.

Myke Hurley: All right. Good kit. Yeah, I think that's going to be a great kit. You'd be very happy with that if you end up with all of that. So let us know, Ryan, if you actually are going to take any of our advice on that one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I'll take the next one because I've read this already and I'm kind of fascinated by it, even though I don't know that we have an answer. But I think the listeners will enjoy this question. It's very long. You ready for it?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I'm ready.

Brad Dowdy: This is from Eric. And I've replied, OMG, I'm going to talk about this on the show. And that's all I told him. So your podcast has been an inspiration to me. That's really why I included is he propped us up, Myke. You helped me rediscover an old joy in a new way. Now I'm going to challenge you to think differently. I run chess tournaments for high school teams. It's a really great experience. 300 plus high school age players playing chess simultaneously. High school team will hire me to run a tournament on a Saturday and I show up, run the competition, and the host makes money off registration fees and concessions. Every year I get better and provide more of the tournament experience for the host. Last year I started bringing a box of pens to give players because they often forget theirs back in their Skittles room, which can sometimes be across the building. Rather than walk all the way back to their team's area to get their pen or pencil, which they need to record the moves in their game, they take one from the box. Not a problem at all. Pens and pencils are cheap, right? Well, the problem is scale. For example, yesterday I ran a tournament with 316 players from 26 schools. I had brought with me my usual pencil box filled with 100 pens. It was empty in the middle of round 2 out of 4 rounds. For the rest of the day, player after player kept asking me for a pen or pencil, but I had none to give. This stash of pens was the last of a stockpile that I had purchased from a local office supply store that was selling, on clearance, 10 packs of ballpoints for 10 cents each. At one cent per pen, I bought the entire shelf, $40 worth of pens, 4,000 pens roughly. The store clerk didn't believe that I needed that many and gave me a quizzical, hard stare throughout the checkout interaction. Those pens lasted just over one season, about 12 tournaments from October through February, and they just ran out this October. That's 4,000 pens in five months to careless, forgetful high school chess players. I know you love a good pen and pencil, but I need your help finding not the best pen and pencil, but the absolute cheapest that can be purchased in bulk. Aside from looking for clearance deals, the thought experiment I propose to you is this. Assuming I'd still office this service to host schools, and assuming coaches still won't provide their players with writing utensils, and assuming that chess players will still be irresponsible about their pencils,

Brad Dowdy: and assuming that I cannot purchase wholesale because I can't store tens of thousands of pens in my home, what is the best way to purchase a massive number of very cheap pens or pencils? Why I need you is this. I also want these cheap giveaway pens to be of the best quality possible given the above conditions. Anyone can hunt on Google or Amazon to find bulk pens. I need Brad Dowdy to tell me how to ensure that each one of these pens is so wonderful that the player doesn't want to lose it and will remember to bring it with them for the next round. We need the absolute best cheap mass-produced pen on the market.

Myke Hurley: This might be the hardest asked TPA question of all time.

Brad Dowdy: That's why I included it. It is brutal. This is a brutal question. It's an amazing question. I haven't done the homework on it because I'm just blown away by the question. This is why I love doing this show, Myke, and this is why I love this community, and this is why I love being a pen addict. Because this is abnormal, but for Eric, it is perfect, and it's everyday. This is what we do.

Brad Dowdy: I wish I had an easy answer, but I'm going to work on this and figure it out. I don't know what it's going to be. My guess is that it's going to be a BIC of some sort because BIC makes really good, cheap ballpoints. But I don't know because I would be scared to go the generic route for this because I think the quality is going to be poor, and those are just going to be super disposable, and the kids are just going to pitch those. But anything that's good quality is going to have a price attached to it. So, you know, my first thought was golf pencils because they're so cheaper. You can buy them in huge amounts of bulk or a pencil of some sort, even though those might even be more disposable than pens. You might go through more. That may be the better, cheaper answer, but they can get something that is quality. I don't know. I'm open to receiving email and comments and tweets on this. You can email me hello at penaddict.com. If anyone has done anything in huge bulk that has turned out to be very cheap and very high quality, I would love to know so I can help Eric out because Myke needs my stamp of approval on it, and that's the tough part.

Myke Hurley: I have no idea how you answer this question.

Brad Dowdy: I love it. It's amazing. I love this question so much.

Myke Hurley: It's impossible.

Brad Dowdy: It's pretty much there. It's impossible, but we're going to give it a shot.

Myke Hurley: All right. Question from M.A. Wolf. My son bought his car of a Lummi Pico. What is the best thing you bought for a specific pen?

Brad Dowdy: I can't remember. Like when I've signed our house paperwork maybe seven years ago, I was trying to remember what pen I brought with me, and I can't even remember at the time. It was something, you know, ballpoint-ish. You know, I didn't go like fancy fountain pen, crazy ink, just because I'm too obsessive about, well, it's probably going to be crappy paper, and I just want to give me something nice that I know is going to be fine on this. So I haven't totally obsessed over that one pen for that one big document. Do you have that thing?

Myke Hurley: No, because every time that I've been in a situation where I could have used a good pen to buy something like my house or like the house paperwork or whatever, it's ended up being that I've not been in an environment where I could choose.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of times, like I said, it's been seven years since we bought this house, and a lot of it was digital. So, like, they put it up on a projector, and, like, I signed the digital copy, like, on, like, the tablet, and up on the projector is, like, so weird. So, yeah, I haven't had that thing, but I love this. It was a cool picture that they sent, and it was the Blaze Orange Lamy Pico, which I just thought was fantastic. Like, that is the most outrageous orange pen on the market, and I love it so much I ordered me one.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's a cool little pen. And it's a great pen. All right, let's do one more today from R.P. Scott. I have been a fountain pen user for years of a modest collection of Japanese pens. I want to expand my collection and add a stub nib, wondering how does nibsmith work affect manufacturer's warranty? So the question here, like, if I have a pen and I get it ground, what happens to my warranty? I would assume you absolutely void it.

Brad Dowdy: Absolutely 100% has to void the warranty. Like, I haven't looked this up, but there's no way this doesn't void the warranty.

Myke Hurley: There's no way, because you have effectively broken it, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So at this point, so the worst case scenario, let's invoke Myke's platinum here. If Myke had bought his pen and had the nib ground and then started using it for a month, then it cracked your SOL, right? Yeah. Like, you wouldn't have even contacted Pilot at that point because, excuse me, platinum, because you wouldn't have known where the problem lied, even though it was probably sitting dormant and you just didn't notice it, right? Like, it has to void every warranty you have. You know, just like we were talking earlier about the sailors, I guarantee all of these brands have something in their documentation that says if you don't use our ink, you've voided the warranty. And we're not even talking about nib modifications here. So this is just the risk you take as a fountain pen user and you hope that the community is large enough that whatever problem you have, someone else can solve for you outside of the warranty, even though it would cost you.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, you can't. This is the same of all sorts of stuff, right? Like, if you make modifications to a product, you will void its warranty because you were doing things that the manufacturer did not plan for.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right. I mean, they are lawyered up in their documentation so much. Like, I've never even had a situation where I've thought I could use a warranty to fix. Like, your situation is the first I've even run across something like that, which is a clear warranty situation with the Platinum. Yeah, it was immediate. So, yeah. Yep, yep. But, you know.

Myke Hurley: Still weighing on that. It is on its way. Last we knew is that it was being sent to Platinum. They said it should take about six weeks. And so, I don't know. We're looking like mid to late November. I should have it back. Okay. If you're going on what they said.

Brad Dowdy: Cool. Well, we will follow up with that in the future.

Myke Hurley: All right. If you would like to ask a question for a future episode, just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA or you can send it via email to hello at penaddict.com. A few times in this episode, we have mentioned Twitch. Brad streams every week at twitch.tv slash penaddict. What is the schedule, Brad?

Brad Dowdy: 10 a.m. Eastern Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Myke Hurley: So, you've got to go check it out yourself. Twitch.tv slash penaddict. You can do that. You can also follow Brad. He is penaddict on Instagram. You can go to penaddict.com as well. Dowdyism on Twitter. And I am imike, I-M-Y-K-E. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.