The Pen Addict 400/Transcript
Mike Hurley
From Relay FM. This is the pen addict episode 400 and it is our pen addict 101 episode. Today show is brought to you by Warby Parker and express VPN here on the pen addict. We discuss pens, paper and the analog tools we love so dearly. My name is Mike Hurley and I am joined by donaca whole knowledge that is Brad Dowdy.
Brad Dowdy
Wow, that was wonderful Mike. Thank you for doing that.
Mike Hurley
Can you believe it's been 400 episodes?
Mike Hurley
I cannot. This is quite a day for us over here as we've gone into episode 400 we recording this show for just over 8 years now we're going to talk about that over the course of this episode. Now what we're actually planning on doing today. Well, this episode is is without any podcast as amassed. The amount of episodes that we have.
Mike Hurley
That actually has lots of information in it, like it's not just a news podcast, right? You can you can listen back to this show. You can go back three years and find something that is of interest from people that are coming into the show that are knew listeners. We get asked quite a lot. Where should we start? And so we have decided that for episode 400 we're going to give a jumping off point to new people. So hello.
Mike Hurley
If you are new to the pen addict, this is this is indeed as you have guessed from the name, a podcast. All about pens, mostly fountain pens, some other stuff. We're going to talk about exactly all of that throughout this episode. We will also reintroduce ourselves, allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Mike Hurley. I am a podcaster. I've been podcasting since 2010.
Mike Hurley
So actually going to be a decade coming up real soon. Yeah, this podcast is a part of currently the relay FM Podcast Network which I founded in August 2014, and I have been podcasting full time since November 2014 and more recently in 2019. I Co founded a company called Cortex brand.
Mike Hurley
Which produces and the reason that is of interest to that listen to this show is because we produce products. Physical products like the theme system Journal. So I am now in the business of making notebooks with a purpose, so I'll include some links to those in the show notes. But the most important person here is Brad Dowdy. The this show is named.
Mike Hurley
After Brad Dowdy, it's not called the Brad doubt is called the pen addict. Brad daddy is the pen addict and has been doing this stuff for a very long time. So Brad Dowdy. Please take it away.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, it has been quite awhile Mike. I started for all of our new listeners. I am the pen addict. I go online by the pen addict pretty much anywhere I can get ahold of that name and my blog is pinout at penaddict.com which I started.
Brad Dowdy
All the way back in the year 2007 November 29th, I believe, is the exact date and it has been a wonderful journey that is LED into the awesomeness part of what you hear today in episode 400 of this podcast I've had.
Brad Dowdy
Various dalliances throughout the years as the pin actors become more than a blog, it just become part of my life and eventually my job which you know they never. They always say you know, never turn your hobby into a job well. Mike. For me, They're kind of one in the same an I'm super glad.
Brad Dowdy
That it's that way you have a.
Mike Hurley
Jobby like me I.
Brad Dowdy
I have a jobby so um, part of my.
Brad Dowdy
My history takes me through.
Brad Dowdy
A little bit of an employment bump in 2011 I worked for a company called Jetpens you if you're new to the show. They're my favorite Japanese pen retailer in here in the US, which is where I'm based. Mike failed to mention he is in London. We do this podcast via Skype across many time zones.
Brad Dowdy
For your listening pleasure, at one point I worked for jetpens when I was doing the blog.
Brad Dowdy
And you know, I still always had a day job, but I did some marketing work for them back in 2011 and 2012. Mike, we started this podcast.
Mike Hurley
After a guest episode so I was doing a podcast which is now defunct, called the enough podcast of our friend Patrick grown and we had Brad as a guest on that show and I got on with Brad so well and thought he was so interesting and such a great.
Mike Hurley
Explainer
Mike Hurley
I was like I wanna recorded that show with that guy. I want to make sure with him about pens because I have, you know we both been interested in pencil paper for a long time. Brad kept that interest up longer than I did and kind of with more passion than I did. But I wanted to get back into it and thought that Brad will be the perfect person to host a show with and so.
Mike Hurley
Asked him and then convinced him overtime.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, so you asked me and I told you know yeah?
Mike Hurley
I said no one would listen to that.
Brad Dowdy
No one will listen to this and then MM saw something there and he kept pressing me and.
Brad Dowdy
Twisted my arm enough to where I said, OK, let's give this a shot. It took about A.
Mike Hurley
Year I think to convince you.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, I'm not sure that long, but yeah, it I think it took awhile and then once you finally convinced me, I figured we had about 10 episodes in us like and then we'd be done there. That would be all the pen stuff we could talk about right? Who knew? Who knew?
Brad Dowdy
What we were actually getting into at the time. So, um, it's been an awesome run an there were some other highlights during this time. I started a company with my friend Jeff Brook wiki called knock. We make pin cases an we went through a Kickstarter project that we.
Brad Dowdy
Discuss many times throughout the panic's history.
Brad Dowdy
And then kind of the big turning point for me personally and professionally. In 2016 January 1st, I quit my day job to do the pen addict and all the other work I do related to the pen attic full time. So that was a big deal and we'll have a few links in the show notes to some of these.
Brad Dowdy
Historical landmark times. During of our our podcasting and our existence, at least on the stationary Internet and then most recently, I've partnered with another friend, Brian Conti, to launch a product called spoke pen, which we did just last year so.
Brad Dowdy
In the 12 years since I've started.
Brad Dowdy
The pen addict. I have done lots of things and I'm just.
Brad Dowdy
Passionate about pens and stationary and all the things that go along with it, and I think it's shown. I think it's worked out like what do you think?
Mike Hurley
You would like to think so Yeah, 'cause we're still here.
Brad Dowdy
We're still here and we're still getting new listeners all of the time, right? So that's why we wanted to do this episode to give you a little bit of history and give you a little back.
Brad Dowdy
Ground about who we are.
Brad Dowdy
What we do?
Brad Dowdy
And we're going to, you know, continue on with that today and giving you kind of the 101 breakdown of a few of the things.
Brad Dowdy
That we have discussed over these 400 episodes like Yeah, the podcast history. Mike yeah, why don't you help me out with this? This section, our our podcast history is is generally compact, but it has some good stories contained within right yeah.
Mike Hurley
So the pen addict has.
Mike Hurley
Long surpassed any other project that I have done this. I often say this, but my relationship with Brad is one of the longest relationships of my life outside of family. Because we've been working together for longer than I've known my wife. We have been looking at working together for longer than any.
Mike Hurley
Of my other working relationships, this is the only podcast that I am doing that I have been doing since basically the beginning of my career. We started on a network that I created in like 2011 called 70 DB. That was where the podcasts began. We then moved the podcast a 5 by 5 when we started working there.
Mike Hurley
And then when me and Stephen Hackett, my co-founder, had decided to create our own company relay FM. It moved again. So it's moved three times. So if you go, if you are going back through the course of history of this show, you will hear references to companies even don't exist anymore or that this podcast is not a part of anymore, but that kind of explains his life one.
Mike Hurley
There's a couple of interesting moments in the show's history which is just good for posterity sake. In August 2012, Brad decided to take a break from the show and from everything you took a break from the pen addict completely because you were going through. I believe a pretty difficult time in your working career.
Mike Hurley
And we weren't sure with the kind of at the time. We say like the show is done, but not over. You know, we weren't sure what was going to happen, and then Brad returned in November of that year, which is always funny to Maine. That it was only like 4 months or something because it feels like when I think back that it was a very long time.
Mike Hurley
But it wasn't actually that long.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, it's number one, just the.
Brad Dowdy
Time that it happened seems like forever ago, which I guess in the Internet Internet timing. I guess you know eight years ago is is forever ago, but.
Brad Dowdy
It was definitely weird. I went back and listened to that entire episode know this weekend as I was preparing for this show and.
Brad Dowdy
You know, I could definitely hear it in my voice, and I think at the time I don't know if you thought I was ever coming back. I didn't know if I was coming back. I had stopped basically stopped writing the blog.
Brad Dowdy
Um, it it became, you know, too much work with.
Brad Dowdy
The mix of real work you know my day job in life and all these things, it just it just became too much at the time. So I just I. I'm not a person that can do less. I'll either do it all or I'll do nothing. So I had to turn it off completely. Especially during that time.
Brad Dowdy
An. That's when I figured out that I really love doing it and I miss the pen addict and I miss writing and I missed the podcast at the time, even though we're only 28 episodes into it.
Mike Hurley
Which is also so wild to consider that it was so early on in the show's life.
Brad Dowdy
It could have ended right there. Like could you imagine like I.
Brad Dowdy
I don't. I don't like to think about it in that in those terms, right so?
Brad Dowdy
Luckily I.
Brad Dowdy
And built for this like I'm built to love stationary and talk about it like that's what I want to do. So it was an easy choice. Once I had a little bit of a break. Came back and we've been flying ever since. I'd say wouldn't you say?
Mike Hurley
I would one of the important things in this show's history is our Kickstarter campaigns. So we had a wild idea.
Mike Hurley
As we are approaching episode 150 at the show back in 2015 that me and Brad you know we were becoming increasingly increasingly saddened by the fact that we had never met in person because at that point, like we, I was traveling with lots of conferences and stuff, but they were never think that Brad was attending. They were more technology focused because my other podcasts I do a more technology focused.
Mike Hurley
So all the way back then we decided purpose of 150 that we would get together at the Atlanta pen show, which is Brad's home pen show. And we would record an episode of the show in person in the Kickstarter campaign was an incredible success. We fund it very quickly. There are many episodes. Basically, every time the Kickstarter, you'll get me and Brad crying on the show.
Mike Hurley
This very possible will cry before the entity episode today. 'cause That's just what we do. And then the Kickstarter campaigns have continued to be a thing that we do every single year. We're approaching our six campaign this year. We always visit Atlanta as part of this, but we've also been able to go to the DC pen shoulder Toronto pen shell, the SF pen Shell and we went to Chicago as well to record an episode with the crew over field notes.
Mike Hurley
And, uh, we may be going to Dallas this year for our 6th episode for our 6th Kickstarter campaign.
Brad Dowdy
Do you remember back in episode 150 the room we recorded the podcast in? Because we that was our first time recording, we did not have a studio audience. I remember that episode vividly. Oh yeah.
Mike Hurley
Yeah, it's like I.
Brad Dowdy
Can't remember some of the some of the podcasts that we had in front of an audience, but during that time we just got basically like the shell of a hotel ballroom and set up some tables, an cameras an you know are the Hackett Brothers audio AV team and that was it. Me, you and honor. So that was pretty crazy.
Mike Hurley
Yeah, I remember the one one of the things I remember 'cause these are shot on video. As for the Kickstarter campaign, we we we give out video versions to the back. 'cause I remember how bright the lights were never recorded in front of lights before.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, 'cause they were so close to us 'cause we didn't have a crowd to deal with a couple of other podcasts, you know?
Brad Dowdy
With 400 episodes you could point out a million different things in the history of the podcast, but two things I wanted to point out one our very first guest. Did you know this before I put it in the showed up? No.
Mike Hurley
And I would. I don't know if I would have guessed it either.
Brad Dowdy
I don't know that I guess it either it was Mike Rohde, our good friend from sketchnote fame episode 17.
Brad Dowdy
Very first guest of the pen addict. I think he's been a return guest since then, but we've had. We've just had tons and tons of guests since then, which is fantastic. And then.
Brad Dowdy
The person who is our most recurring guest, Anne could be official third host of the kinetic podcast on a reinard from the well appointed desk. Her first appearance was all the way in episode 54. I was thinking it might have been sooner, but just since then I mean she's been on the show, I don't know.
Brad Dowdy
1215 times I didn't even bother to count. It's a lot so we love honor. She's our bestie and she always travels with us on our Kickstarter campaigns and she's just awesome. And that is one of those friendships that comes from this podcast, which is such a valuable thing, you know. 400 episodes in.
Brad Dowdy
You know, that's certainly the thing I remember the most is the friends we made along the way.
Mike Hurley
That's so beautiful. Alright, this episode is not all just about the pen addict like I hope that now we have given you kind of like a primer as to who we are and what we do. But now after this break, what we're going to do is talk about the products themselves and give a kind of a Glossary and overall like.
Mike Hurley
Set of terms and basics that you might want to know if you are starting to get involved in this hobby, but today's episode is brought to you by Warby Parker. Warby Parker was founded by four friends that were rebellious spirit and a lofty goal to create boutique quality eyewear and a revolutionary price point by allowing you to buy your glasses.
Mike Hurley
Online that freihung trial program makes it so easy. You order five pairs and you try them on for five days with no obligation to buy. Shipping is also free. An includes a prepaid return shipping label, so Super Simple. Just go to warbyparker.com/pen addict and you can take that quiz right now and order your free home tryons today. Warby Parker glasses start at $95.
Mike Hurley
That includes prescription lenses and an anti glare coating and Anti scratch coatings all included as well.
Mike Hurley
I've been wearing will be pocket losses for about a year now and I absolutely love them. I couldn't find I was looking for like a specific look and I could only find them were Parker and I was super happy but this whole system, the home trial system is fantastic because you're able to try on glasses, show them to your loved ones at your own home, you know.
Mike Hurley
Kind of being looked at or judged by any source distance, and you could also try those glasses on with your own clothes as well. Maybe mix them up a little bit so you get to see like how are these gonna look on a daily basis? Super important and now they have scout by Warby Parker which are comfortable, breathable, an affordable daily contact lenses made from a super moist material that resists drying for lasting hydration and comfort.
Mike Hurley
You can order a trial pack that includes six days worth of Contacts, which is $5 and then also receive $5 off your next warby Parker order. And this is great for every pair of glasses that are sold will be. Parking distributes appear to somebody in need. You can learn more about Warby Parker at warbyparker.com/pen addictthatswarbyparker.com/pen. I'd like to. Thanks to Warby Parker for their support of this show.
Mike Hurley
Every lay FM.
Brad Dowdy
We're going back to the beginning, Mike. This is the new episode. One of the pen addict podcast where we explain to people who are just learning about the panic podcast who are just learning about good pins and good stationary. What are the things that they're looking at?
Brad Dowdy
And looking for when they're trying to make a decision on what pen or pencil or paper or fountain pen ink they like. So consider it. Consider this the Glossary. I think we're going to go through several basic topics. Now. I want to say we're going to cover a lot. We're not going to cover everything.
Brad Dowdy
But these, as you know, many of the people who have listened to all 400 episodes will have learned already. These are the. These are the topics that come up the most, and these are kind of the general buckets of pens or paper or what have you that we mentioned the most.
Brad Dowdy
An we want to take this time to explain just the very very basic stuff. Once again, how does that sound?
Mike Hurley
I think that is absolutely perfect. Alright, Alright, So what we're going to do here? I'm going to fire out some phrases to you and you can help explain them to our audience. How does that sound?
Brad Dowdy
Sounds great, so let's.
Mike Hurley
Start off with like your typical pants. Depends that you're going to have the most access to the stuff that you're going to find in your local staples. Your local WHMS. Let's start with like Ballpoints and rollerballs. Actually, let's let's talk about these together because I think it's important because a lot of people, including me, gets these two confused all the time.
Mike Hurley
What is a bullet point? What is a rollable? What makes them different will make some similar.
Brad Dowdy
To this day these terms get interchanged sometimes.
Brad Dowdy
Accurately, sometimes inaccurately, the overarching.
Brad Dowdy
Issue is that nearly all standard pens have a ball in the tip of the pen, which is how the ink transfers from the ink cartridge within the pin to the page. There's a little ball on the tip, so people will refer to this type of pen as a ball point, but that doesn't mean it's a.
Brad Dowdy
Ballpoint pen ballpoint pen refers to an ink type. A ballpoint ink is an oil based ink. It's This is your most basic, most common type of ink you find in the pins you find at the bank at the school. The most basic. It's a very dry ink. It's usually just in blue or black. Sometimes you'll get a red in there.
Brad Dowdy
An sometimes, if they're not a good quality ballpoint, they'll be sticky or a little bit messy when you write, but.
Brad Dowdy
The good thing about him is that they can cut. They write anywhere on all types of paper, like paper type doesn't matter. The ballpoint pens gonna write, you know, the situation you're writing in. The ballpoint pen is going to write. Think of your standard BIC Cristal Ballpoint or your paper mate click ballpoint or your paper made stickball points. I should say this is the most basic.
Brad Dowdy
Standard generic pen usually has a ballpoint ink in it.
Brad Dowdy
These days the ballpoints have improved in their ink technology. You know, back in the day you used to be able to smell ballpoint ink. When you wrote with it, it had this weird kind of not really attractive smell and nowadays you don't really get that anymore. You get lines that are a little bit cleaner.
Brad Dowdy
You get, you get fancier types of inks and ballpoint pens. You can get him a new colors, but that's at its most basic, the ballpoint pen. The difference between that and a roller ball is nothing physical, it's just the ink. It's still a ball tip pen, but roller ball inks are a liquid.
Brad Dowdy
Ink. It's not an oil based based ink, so rollerball inks tend to go on a little bit thicker. They're generally darker, especially like colors like black and blue. They're going to be darker in color than your ballpoint ink, but being a liquid ink, they're also prone to performing.
Brad Dowdy
Worse, so take your standard office paper. Whether it's your copy paper, your legal pad, this is the black ink that soaks into the page. That's what the roller ball ink does. It has to be done right like the most famous, the most popular roller ball, I think, is the pilot precise V5.
Brad Dowdy
It's also the Uniball Vision is also another good quality rollerball.
Brad Dowdy
Um, and we'll get into some more specific.
Brad Dowdy
Roll over all types later as we talk about this, but that's the primary difference between Ballpoint and rollerball is really just ink, and that's what you're going to find in all of these types of categories, so ballpoints are an oil based ink. They're generally pretty dry. They can be pretty messy, they're not very dark. Rollerball inks are wet and dark, but if you find a good one.
Brad Dowdy
And you have good paper to write on people really enjoy writing with rollerball pens.
Mike Hurley
And there are these types of pens. We use them right? Like all the time? Yeah, because they can be really great and useful. And also sometimes fountain pens are not acceptable.
Mike Hurley
Filling out forms that kind of stuff, right?
Brad Dowdy
Right, you can't do right.
Mike Hurley
What so OK? So we've we've established then the rollerballs ballpoints very similar, but just with some slight differences around ink. What is a gel pen then?
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, the gel pens the newcomer to the pin game if you will. I think it started like in the 1980s. Think secure was the first one to make.
Brad Dowdy
A gel ink pen, an what it tried to do was make a better roller ball type ink. So this is a pigment. The refill is is a pigment in a gel suspension.
Brad Dowdy
So what this does is, it thickens the ink. It makes it not as Liquidy. It makes it even darker than roller ball inks an when you write with a gel pen on that same office paper, the ink generally sits on top of the page. It doesn't get into the fibers.
Brad Dowdy
Of the paper, like a roller ball, so therefore it doesn't bleed or feather or spread out on your page. It takes a little bit longer to dry because of that, but in general it's the smoothest.
Brad Dowdy
Most color accurate, you know. Deepest, richest colors that you'll find in ink pens, and probably the most variety of colors because of the way the gel ink is manufactured, they are able to process, you know dozens and dozens of different color types, which is something that I enjoy.
Mike Hurley
You know packing also get sparkly ones too.
Brad Dowdy
You can get sparkly ones. You can get a really neat white gel pen that you know you can use for artwork. The gel pens.
Brad Dowdy
I don't think you know worldwide they sell the most, but they are the most enjoyable pens to use. They're just more expensive than ballpoints generally, so ballpoints are always going to sell the most. Just because you can buy them in bulk for cheap. For you know different office type situations in bulk situations, but the gel pen is the pen that once people discover.
Brad Dowdy
That's the one that usually says, Oh, I like how this one right? So I will keep this one.
Mike Hurley
Uh, yeah, I was just about to say that like when somebody you know, if you use a gel pen and you really like it like a gel pen can be a thing that helps you discover that you like pens.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, I should say like the great example of this is the pilot G2 right? That's the world's most popular Jelly.
Brad Dowdy
Pen and if you've ever used the G2 people who have never used a good pen when they pick up a G2, they go.
Mike Hurley
Oh, they know something's different and like you go back far enough in this show and you will find like our conversations about the pilot G2 because it was the my pen that I was using when we started this show.
Mike Hurley
Because I, I mean 'cause it was like, oh I love this pen like it's a great pen and it is a great pen. It's one of my favourites of all time. I don't use it anymore but I love it. But the refill is well used fantastic and people use these refills in pens with that are made of like different materials so you can sort the refill out and put it in something that maybe has a fancier looking.
Mike Hurley
Body right, but there are other refills right that are very frequently used and preferred to on this show.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, so we use one of the ones we refer to is a Parker type refill and that's from the Parker pen company. They made a very popular pen called the Parker Jotter which was their retractable ballpoint pen and the refill had a particular shape and they just made you know hundreds of thousands if not millions of these pens since like the 50s sixties I don't know. They might even been before them.
Brad Dowdy
And that refill just became kind of the refill you used and therefore a lot of other companies built products around that shape of refill the pilot G2.
Brad Dowdy
Became the modern version of that Parker refill. It's a different shape. It's a different size and it's a different ink type, but it is so good and so popular that people started making things for just that. Refill. Those two refills are not the same shape, and to confuse things.
Brad Dowdy
The international refill market refers to the Parker sized refill as the G2 so.
Brad Dowdy
We'll save that conversation for another day, but those are two completely different refills, but those are probably the two most popular refills on the market. The third one, at least in our world, the one that we talk about a lot is a roller ball refill so that this is interesting. These three refill types. The Parker.
Brad Dowdy
Refill is generally a ballpoint. They do make gel, but it's generally a ballpoint refill. The pilot G2 refill is a gel and then the Schmidt P 8127 and the P 8126 is a roller ball. It's a liquid ink refill, but.
Brad Dowdy
It is, it has become famous at least in our world because it's a quality ink that does not bleed like most lower end roller ball types of pens do so.
Mike Hurley
These are basically the three best in their class, and that's why you will see these pens. These refills I should say.
Mike Hurley
Used a lot in Kickstarter campaigns so people that are like creating a fancy pen body. They want people to buy. They will typically gravitate around one of these three as kind of like this is what we're going to base our pen on, because then we know people are going to be able to easily get their hands on the refill. We don't have to go like go straight back to the drawing board.
Mike Hurley
Um, an and then they you know. They also basing around some kind of standard which people can get their hands on.
Brad Dowdy
Yes, and also these are the types of refills that other companies will make and mimic an you know, copy and and so there's just tons of options in these three refill types.
Mike Hurley
But once you've got your pen sorted out, you need something to write on.
Mike Hurley
And that's paper one of.
Mike Hurley
So you know you've got a few different things around. Paper one is like the type of paper that you're using, and then you also have the size or the format.
Mike Hurley
Format can be, you know like do you want ring bound? Do you want it to be?
Mike Hurley
My favorite is stitched, which means stay hold, which is one of the funniest things to me. Because stitches and Staples. But then you can actually get books that are stitched together with thread and it's like a whole different thing. So it's very funny. But the sizes are also really important, so you've got a four or A5.
Mike Hurley
A3, that kind of thing? Um, what's the deal there, Brad?
Brad Dowdy
Out of all the things we discuss in as technical as something like a fountain pen can be, I think paper is the single hardest thing to discuss clearly and give people a great idea of what we're talking about because there's so much variance. One of the things that I have talked about in these past 399 episodes is, I believe, in paper standards.
Brad Dowdy
I want to know what size paper I'm getting based on international standards an will have link in the show notes and the best thing I can tell you for paper is go look at some of the links we put in the show notes The A size paper is based on a one gigantic sheet of paper from the printing world that is.
Brad Dowdy
1189 millimeters by 841 millimeters. That's a zero. That's the big piece of paper that comes shipped into a printing factory on a pallet, right? It's a big huge piece of paper every a size. After a zero is exactly half of the previous size.
Brad Dowdy
Before it, so you taken a 0 sheet, you fold it in half. You now have an A1 Dimension. You take an A1 Dimension folded in half. You know have a 2.
Brad Dowdy
So this gets down into the reasonable usage size, which for most people who would listen to a podcast about pins. The biggest size they generally will go with is called a four. That's if you're not familiar with paper sizes. This is going to be ballpark around your copy paper size, like the eight and a half by 11 inch.
Mike Hurley
Is the type of paper that most people have had the most experience with? Yes, because it's also incredibly close to not exactly 2, but close to both letter an legal pretty much they look the same when you look at them, even if there are some slight differences, but those are kind of that is like your standard paper format.
Brad Dowdy
Size yeah, so I think everything well. I won't say everything. The majority of things that most people use in the stationary world revolve around the A4 size and then half of that which is the A5 size, right? So the A4 is your full pad size and there a 5 is kind of your half pad size that you see.
Mike Hurley
Hey, five is basically the sweet spot.
Brad Dowdy
Yes, I think a spot 85 a spot that's a new. It's a new term that's not in the Glossary 8585 is kind of your desk pad, but it's not too big to where you just can't throw it in your bag or backpack to have on the go. Journals Diaries typically around this size your hardback.
Brad Dowdy
Journals that you see like if you see a Lloyds term at Barnes and Noble that's in A5 size.
Mike Hurley
So, or a moleskin.
Brad Dowdy
Or most games, but it's probably.
Mike Hurley
Better I know. So this is the problem.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, this is where we find.
Mike Hurley
Becomes A5 and a four. We've already mentioned letter and legal at a certain point, they become referred to as just like a rough format.
Mike Hurley
Size like like most games are about A5 size and not exactly. There are, but I have five sides.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, and this is where Brad gets upset, right? Because you it is. Most skiing is not a 5, but if you look at it just, you know, in the world it looks like Oh it's a 5.
Brad Dowdy
Dish, and that's where I start to have have problems. So I I'm a believer in the true A5 sizes in moleskin is not that.
Brad Dowdy
So this is a. It's a tough thing to discuss. We're not even going to touch. We're not going to attempt paperweights because they're measured in what's called pounds, which is not a physical. You know, like a weight measurement. I mean, it's technically it's a paperweight measurement. But you don't think of it in like, OK, Brad Ways.
Brad Dowdy
A lot of pounds. It's not the same type of measurement. It's also measured in grams per square inch. So paper is extremely difficult to explain the details. What we focus on is more the size, the general size is like the a size is. There's a lot of B sizes. You can go all the way C sizes or somewhat common. There's F sizes out there now that are more square, so.
Brad Dowdy
There's all kinds of things, but we mostly focus on the features of the paper, like what is the paper feel? What? How does it perform with certain pen types?
Brad Dowdy
An honestly, it's one of the most important things to consider if you're getting into stationary as good as your favorite pen is, it's going to perform.
Brad Dowdy
Only as good as the paper you're using, right? If you're using even a a gel pen. If you're using a pilot G2 gel pen on your office copy paper, it's going to be fine. It's going to work well.
Brad Dowdy
If you use that on a different type of paper, say a rhodia pad, which I'll explain more in a minute, it's going to perform differently so.
Brad Dowdy
Every little decision you make in your stationary guide, it's kind of like a chain reaction with the rest of it. You know you take 1 pin from one page. It's going to perform completely differently, so the Main.
Brad Dowdy
Topics that I like to discuss when we talk about the features of paper has I want to know if the paper is coated or uncoated and there's all kinds of terminology in the printer world on how the paper is finished. You know whether it's hot pressed or cold press and all these technical details, but basically.
Brad Dowdy
Coated and uncoated. You can feel it to the touch. Is it kind of smooth and glossy or is it a little bit rougher like these are honestly pretty close in feel, but you can tell a difference when they're side-by-side.
Brad Dowdy
And what a coded page does is it prevents the ink from seeping into.
Brad Dowdy
The fibers of the paper as quickly now you can get in there with a like a. You know a lot of ink on the page. It will soak it in like it's not rejecting the ink. Don't think that I'm when I'm saying it's coded. This is like your writing on linoleum or something. It's just a smoother type that's good for your liquid inks, right? Anything that bleeds into standard basic.
Brad Dowdy
Uncoated paper you're going to use coated paper for now. The downside to that is going to take a while to dry, right?
Brad Dowdy
Ink dries.
Brad Dowdy
On a page based on how fast it's absorbed into the page, right?
Brad Dowdy
So there's a balance you're trying to find with the pin types you like with the paper type that works the best for that, so you know a popular example of a coded page is a brand called Rhodia. They make probably some of the best notepads in the world. I would certainly vouch for that. I don't think that's an unfair statement, and I think a lot of people will agree.
Brad Dowdy
In general.
Mike Hurley
Supergood Stata right? Like if you are currently using.
Mike Hurley
Moskenes or something like that or something and you want to improve. You want to like take the next level up. I really, really recommend Rhodia Paper they come in so many different formats. They have books that look like moleskin books, but they also have pads that you can just use and you just tear a page out or whatever, and then once you start it down, that.
Mike Hurley
World you will be able to move into other areas, but I think that Rhodia have excellent paper quality, good pricing, an in every conceivable format that you're looking for.
Brad Dowdy
And they're widely available like this area worldwide everywhere, yeah.
Mike Hurley
Like I've walked into stores in the UK, and have found Rhodia pads like you typically have to find like a.
Mike Hurley
Stationary store, like one that carries stuff, but I found like if you can find somewhere that that carries Lamy pens, you'll find some. You'll find the same place will probably carry a rodeo paper, which in those two are like and we'll get into those later on. Depends stuff, but that was like really good. Let's get this that's let's get an upgrade on my BIC.
Mike Hurley
Annmulle Skeen Lifestyle Yeah.
Brad Dowdy
The the uncoded popular pages are like lutch term mole skine. Those types they work well with fountain pens, but they're generally going to work better with your ballpoints rollerballs gels. Things like that for the most part you can use fountain pens with him. I have good success with fountain pens with them it's just.
Brad Dowdy
A little bit different dry time, a little bit different if you're using a lot of fountain pens and bright colored inks. The ankle look different, right? The ink might be brighter on a coded page than an uncoded page because it's think is sitting up on top of the page. The other thing to think about when you're buying a notebook is is the format. Now, this is probably the easiest.
Brad Dowdy
Thing for you to get you either look at.
Brad Dowdy
You look at the page and decide, oh, I like that it's blank. Oh, I like the lines that are going across it. Or you can have like a grid or a graph. Or you can have a dot. So the format is the most obvious thing. You know it's not even something we need to explain, but those are kind of the four basic formats. There's a million other formats out there.
Mike Hurley
I would be super surprised if everybody listening to this does not already know exactly what they want with blank lined grid or dot like. Yes, you don't even have to really have experience them to know what you want, right? Like I am a dot or grid person, but preferably dot person because I like a little structure but I like.
Mike Hurley
The page to to a glance look like it's blank. That's my my feeling on these.
Brad Dowdy
Things yeah, so for what's a very very simple thing. A piece of paper. I think it's one of the most complex things to fully explain, but the good thing is you don't really have to go deep into that rabbit hole. There's a big rabbit hole there.
Brad Dowdy
But you can stay up on top ground and be just fine with paper as long as you're considering what you're using and how it works with the certain pen type that you.
Mike Hurley
Choose personally, I think that lined paper is like a crime, but you know you do you. I just lines just seems so strange to Maine really like I I don't really understand why people buy lined paper but.
Mike Hurley
You know, if that's your thing, go for it.
Brad Dowdy
I think we're just all scarred from our school days it.
Mike Hurley
Just feels like a prison to main right. Like you can only write in this One Direction an in this space and enjoy it. Thank you. OK thank you Mr Line Paper.
Mike Hurley
So we've spoken about regular standard pens, right? We we have yet to get to, should we do pencil's now?
Brad Dowdy
We can. Pencil's is pretty.
Mike Hurley
Straight pencils now? Yeah, that's what? Because after this we're going to talk about fountain pens an there's a lot in fountain pens, so why don't we talk about pencil's?
Brad Dowdy
So you have two basic types of pencils, your wooden pencils, which are the traditional pencil that you've asked the pencil enough for your entire life. The you know the yellow number two with the pink eraser, you know that's your basic wooden pencil and then you have your mechanical pencil which has, you know, separate LED that you have to put into.
Brad Dowdy
The pencil that is extended by knocking mechanism on the back of the pen or a shaker mechanism within the mechanical pencil mechanical pencil's can get fancy and complex. Or they can be very simple, straightforward LED delivery and writing mechanism. So the primary differences between the.
Brad Dowdy
Two is the wooden pencils are are much more inexpensive because they're essentially.
Brad Dowdy
I guess is disposable the right term. I don't want to say that in a negative way, but you you use the entire T of the pen pencil, and then it's gone and then you pick up the next one and you use the entire T of that pencil. Then it's gone where mechanical pencil you keep one single pencil an you continue to refill it with LED. Wooden pencils have seen a resurgence in the past decade.
Brad Dowdy
I love a really good quality wooden pencil. The popular brands out there now black wing makes beautiful pencil's karandash. Makes beautiful pencil's viarco. There's a whole industry out there, Musgrave that makes wonderful wooden pencils that are way better than anything you've used back in your childhood.
Brad Dowdy
Or in school.
Brad Dowdy
And they there is a huge range with wooden pencils that you can kind of get in mechanical pencils, but there's a huge range of LED great within the pencils, and I say lead. It's not technically lead. It's graphite, but I like saying lead just seems to flow better when you're talking about pencil's. You can get a really, really.
Brad Dowdy
Firm and light LED grade. Or you can get it really really soft and dark lead grade and you can get about. I don't know 20 different grades in between even more on some brands too too. Depending on how light, dark, smooth, firm, soft you want to write. So wooden pencils have great variety.
Brad Dowdy
Um, they're very.
Brad Dowdy
They're fun to use, right? They just bring back these memories like this. It's like the purest analog writing experience I believe with wooden pencils. Mechanical pencils, you can get very technical. You can get mechanisms that retract into themselves, so you're not poking yourself with the lead pipe that sticks out of them. You can get a lead that.
Brad Dowdy
Rotates within the berrell like the year New Balkara Toga is a famous mechanical pencil because it rotates the lead from a design and technical perspective. The Rotering 600 is kind of the the cream of the crop as far as engineering type pencil's go. This is what a lot of architects, engineers and design students used. You know back in the.
Mike Hurley
Classic look of a mechanical pencil.
Mike Hurley
Well, like if you think of a mechanical pencil you were thinking of this one. All those colored barrel ones that like bikas it back made those like the plastic color bar with the black erasers.
Brad Dowdy
Big made the one that actually looks like a wooden pencil. The yellow or paper made made the one with the with the that looked like a pencil. Then BIC made the one with like the colored clips like black barrels and colored clips yeah.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, so um, I love pencil's. Um, I use them quite frequently. They live on my desk again like this is the This is the top level discussion. The things you can get into with pencil's like.
Brad Dowdy
People devote entire blogs on all of these topics that we're talking about, whether it's notebooks or ballpoint pens or wooden pencils. All of these things have their own specific categories and niche markets. An all kinds of things you can get into so you know this is.
Brad Dowdy
A way for us to say Hey, there's a lot of awesome stuff out there that you can explore and hopefully this will make you ask more questions about hey, what's a good wooden pencil? And that's when you you know, reach out to someone like micro myself. Well, in wooden pencils case may not Mike but I love. I love pencil so they are a wonderful thing.
Mike Hurley
I'll say at this stage we're throwing out a lot of brands and a lot of products, and there's probably too many to keep an actual list in the show notes we. I'm putting some stuff in there as well as we're going through today, but one link that I will point people to right now is your top lists. Your top five lists. Oh sure, because if you think to yourself, oh, you know what I want to try out. Mechanical pencil.
Mike Hurley
Brad is compiled on on the pen addict website, a selection of lists of different categories like you're looking at different. You got some ink, stuff, wooden stuff, mechanical pencil stuff, ballpoint pens, multi pens, fountain pens. Under certain value levels, an A little bit. Explanation about the mall. It's like a really great resource to go in.
Mike Hurley
And take a look at like if there's a certain category that you're interested in Brad's already. Put together some some recommended lists, and by and large like me and him agree on pretty much all of them. Some numbers would swap around, but you know, I, I feel like that that the the list that you put together a really great consensus is of.
Mike Hurley
Of what pens should people should buy into certain categories?
Brad Dowdy
Yep, and it's currently being updated.
Mike Hurley
Always updated Alright dated so I will give a little stretch now. Well, more limber up. Let's talk about fountain pens.
Mike Hurley
Alright, what I think we should do, yeah?
Mike Hurley
Is go end to end.
Mike Hurley
And explain each part of a fountain pen, because they're much more complicated. They have a lot more going on.
Mike Hurley
So I think we should do that. I think. First we should start talking about the materials that they're made from and then kind of explain each part and what it does. How does that sound?
Brad Dowdy
That sounds good to me and I would like to have a little bit of introduction to this as we still get so many new listeners that have only explored wooden pencil's.
Brad Dowdy
Or gel pens that are interested in learning more about fountain pens. Don't let any of this intimidate you. No, it is actually very, very much more simple than what we're about to layout in these next several minutes.
Mike Hurley
But there is just more. There is more choice in this in this part of the pen world.
Mike Hurley
So there seems to, so there are just more permutations of what you can go for is worth noting. If you go back to the beginning of this show, neither me nor Brad were using fountain pens at all. In fact, there is a quote I don't remember exactly, but Brad Dowdy said that he didn't care about fountain pens. That was, you know, you can go back a long enough in the show.
Mike Hurley
And you will come to that and that. Now we both use fountain pens predominantly virma almost exclusively.
Mike Hurley
And we have lots of different types of fountain pen, and that's the majority of the discussion on episodes these days will focus around fountain pens. Becausw there is a lot of really exciting stuff that you can get into there, so will, and as you hear us talk about these, you'll understand maybe a little bit more way, because this hobby, the pen hobby.
Mike Hurley
Ultimately it becomes.
Mike Hurley
An idea of choice about you getting what you want and there is no greater Rome in this hobby than in fountain pens of being able to get exactly what you want.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, I refer to the fountain pen market as the most customizable pen for you.
Brad Dowdy
Right, it's just there's so many options an you can dial it right into the most perfect running experience for you in particular.
Mike Hurley
So there are choices in mechanics era choices in wooden pencils, but but you will run out of those choices quickly compared to fountain pens, where you can just go forever. So let's start talking about what are the typical materials used.
Mike Hurley
To make a fountain pen.
Brad Dowdy
The most common far and away huge percentage of the market is either plastic or acrylic. You know those terms are interchangeable?
Mike Hurley
Easy to work with, easy to shape, easy to make in bulk and also easy to make in. Lots of really interesting and fun colors.
Brad Dowdy
Right, so that's the thing you'll see at the very inexpensive. Like less than $10 into the market you'll just see.
Brad Dowdy
Like your basic clear or, you know, smoke Gray tube? You know essentially for the barrel of the pen an then it can go all the way up into just rainbows and swirls and wild acrylic materials that people are customizing and hand making pins from. But really, that's just the most common. It's the most you know.
Brad Dowdy
Affordable type of material that is is made in bulk, right? There's always caveats to everything. We're about to say, but in the general sense of things you know far and away you're going to see more fountain pens made out of plastics and acrylics by anything else.
Mike Hurley
Cheapest and my most expensive fountain pens above made of plastic.
Brad Dowdy
Yep.
Mike Hurley
And I'll tell you right now, the difference in price between my cheapest is like it's many hundreds X right? Like it's yeah, it's it's a big difference.
Brad Dowdy
It's a lot of X. Yeah, you'll also find fountain pens in various metals, so there's.
Brad Dowdy
Metal is another.
Brad Dowdy
Um material that I won't call it easy to work with, but there's a lot of machine shops in large factories that work with metal barrel pens. They're a little bit more expensive, obviously just because of metal types like the the low end of the metal pins are going to be more expensive than the low end of the fountain pens. Everything above a certain price point at all.
Brad Dowdy
It gets mixed up into other other things, but you'll find you know. Brass, aluminum, titanium, all kinds of pretty much any type of metal that is, you know, easilly work with able by machinist or factories is going to end up in a fountain pen. One of the classic styles of fountain pen.
Brad Dowdy
Beryls are made from wood. There's all kinds of wood types I'm sure. Probably some of the early fountain pens were made with a nib, you know, stuck on the end of a piece of wood and that you could use as like a dip in right so would has seen a rise over the years as we get more and more makers into.
Brad Dowdy
This type of Industry you'll see less would in the large brands, even though they still do make pins with wood parts like lommy doesn't know pilot has on occasion things like that. Some of the brands will talk about later, but you'll see that more in individual smaller shops, smaller makers.
Brad Dowdy
Ebonite is a classic.
Brad Dowdy
Fountain pen material because it's easilly shaped um, it can come in different dyes and patterns. It has it's you know. Basically, I guess the term is vulcanized rubber, but it doesn't feel like that. It's a very firm material, but it lends itself to fountain pens because it.
Brad Dowdy
Hold its shape well. It's easier to work with. It's not as easy as an acrylic to color right. You can't get the most bright ebonite pens materials. But ebonite is also used as a base for a base material for, let's say, lacquer artwork to go over the top of which we'll explore.
Brad Dowdy
A little bit later, um, and the last one I wanted to mention is celluloid, which is a different. It's in that kind of acrylic ebonite category, but it's just a little bit different consistency and feel in the pin barrel out of this list. That's probably the the lowest use, and it's more expensive because I think it's just harder to manufacture.
Brad Dowdy
But celluloid is popular because you can get beautiful colors and patterns out of that when you're starting to get into higher end or some vintage fountain pens. It's just a beautiful, beautiful material.
Mike Hurley
Alright, so these are what you'll find your pens to be made of. Typically they'll be some some mixtures you know, like a plastic pan may have some metal pieces to it.
Mike Hurley
So you're looking at, like? You know, maybe it's a cap. Or maybe it's just a clip, or maybe some bands. Now when you have that stuff when when you have parts of the pen made out of a different material to the rest of the pens, referred to as the furniture of the pen, which is a wonderful phrase that I love so much. But if you have like a plastic pen.
Mike Hurley
And it has a silver clip and maybe a silver. We'll get into what this means in a moment. Finial, that is known as the furniture is silver furniture, which is wonderful. So let's start with that. Then one is in finial. Where does it go?
Brad Dowdy
On the top of the top of the pin an the bottom of the bottom of the pen, so the bottom of the barrel and the top of the cap are generally areas where manufacturers will do extra things right. Whether it's having some type of Etching or having some type of.
Brad Dowdy
Insert. It's just generally a place where extra artwork goes to make the pen look special. It could be just a simple like.
Brad Dowdy
I don't know a simple shape like the tip. The top of the cap could be pointed like you know, or it could have a little medallion insert and you know that can go on the top of the pin or the bottom of an an. It's generally referred to as a finial.
Mike Hurley
So you already mentioned it, but the majority of the pen is called the barrel. So what is what is what do we need to know about that?
Brad Dowdy
The barrel is pretty much what you're going to hold in your hand, right? It's kind of the important handwriting, or it's the the important comfort place for your handwriting. You want to have a barrel. The barrel can be wide. It can be narrow. It can have different different etchings on it. It can have different shapes built in. It can be a little bit WAVY.
Brad Dowdy
But that's the part that's gonna hit your hand and you want to. You're going to want to make sure that the barrel is comfortable when you're holding it.
Brad Dowdy
And then for example, the cap will generally go cover up the nib of the fountain pen. We're going to talk about all these things. It's hard to. It's hard to do this without do talk about the cap without talking about the other things that that isn't are involved with the cap, but I think the cap is pretty self explanatory as well as the clip, so the clip is usually attached to the cap.
Brad Dowdy
Of a fountain pen and some fountain pens don't have a clip and the clips, like Mike said, they can be made of all different kinds of materials. And some people like clips. Some people don't like clips. Some companies make really fancy clips. Some people. Some companies make very plain and nondescript clips, so it's just a place where.
Brad Dowdy
Manufacturers can take as many liberties as they want with the pen design.
Brad Dowdy
The most important part, many people will argue with the fountain pen is the nib. Yeah, so that is where all of the glorious writing that you see on Instagram comes from.
Mike Hurley
Whereas the money is is taken up as well.
Brad Dowdy
Right, so there is all kinds of.
Brad Dowdy
Different types of nibs. You can get the primary.
Brad Dowdy
Primary categories of nibs are steel nibs, which are the least expensive.
Brad Dowdy
An I'll go over the properties of each of these after I list them out. Then there's gold nibs, which is your main upgrade point. An huge price jump point, and then there's titanium nibs. So there's nibs made of other materials. Of course, there's.
Brad Dowdy
Things like glass nibs an other categories, but for 90% of your pens you're going to either have a steel, Nope, a gold nib or titanium nib, so let me explain a little bit of the difference. So steel is definitely the most cost efficient nib.
Brad Dowdy
It is generally firmer than gold and titanium. You know it's just a stiffer material. It's a very consistent line that you get because of that stiffness. It's not as pliable or as flexible, or is moldable as gold and titanium.
Brad Dowdy
And it's probably, you know, the number one universal type of nib. You know a lot of pins are just going to come with a steel nib option just because of cost.
Brad Dowdy
Steel nibs can be glorious. They can be some of the best writing nibs you'll ever have.
Brad Dowdy
One of the things we're going to talk about in the future in future episodes, and maybe the the secondary episode to this is, you know steel versus gold and why you would make a choice between the two. But in general it's a cost thing, but it's not a performance thing. To be perfectly honest, you can feel the difference between steel and a gold nib.
Brad Dowdy
But based on your writing style, it may not make your writing look that much different for the increasing cost that you're going to have to take on to afford gold nib. Now, gold nibs are fantastic in their own right. They generally start with a 14 karat gold nib and then go up to the 21 karat gold nib.
Brad Dowdy
So there so 1418 and 21 karat or the main stops in the gold quantity of the nibs. The 14 karat being more of a mix of gold an other materials and then 21 being more gold in the nib. And that just means it's a softer nib.
Brad Dowdy
Um, little bit more flexibel.
Brad Dowdy
A little bit more feel and bounce in the nib when you're writing, also at a much greater price point. So 14 karat gold is going to be, you know, 10 times as much as a steel nib in a 21 karat gold is probably going to be 15 or more times expensive than a steel nib. You know it's just whatever the market rate for gold and how these companies.
Brad Dowdy
Are are handling their gold stockpile to make this? I mean it's a rare material and they're making they're making these parts out of it and you will see the price jump.
Brad Dowdy
Greatly from a steel nib in the same berrell as a gold nib, it's it's it can be, you know, hundreds of dollars worth of difference.
Brad Dowdy
Titanium kind of falls in between steel and gold, and it's also not used that much, but it's common enough to wear. I think we should mention it. Um, it's an interesting material. It generally has some flex and some give to the nib. It has a price point that is interesting enough for people to test it out.
Brad Dowdy
And it's just for some reason, whatever that reason is, it's never become as popular as steel or gold. I think it's just a little bit of a feel issue for a lot of people. Gorky, yeah, it can get squeaky or a look at a looks issue, right? It's not as good looking to be perfectly.
Mike Hurley
Honest another goulish metal basically.
Mike Hurley
So that's you know, kind of what it is. A lot of time, right? And it doesn't.
Mike Hurley
It can be. It's more expensive than steel, typically less expensive than gold.
Mike Hurley
But doesn't offer the sex appeal that gold nib has, right, right, right? And there's still nib in a lot of circumstances can actually look nicer than the titanium nib as well.
Brad Dowdy
Absolutely, and just to give people who are considering fountain pens for the first time, I'm going to give you just a ballpark price just to have in your head when we're talking about this.
Brad Dowdy
For just a nib, let's say a steel nib would be $20. A titanium nib would be $50, and a gold nib would be $120.00, right? That's just just to give you a picture in your head of kind of what we're talking about. Just for a strict net price. You know, there's obviously a million different things that can go into those costs and.
Brad Dowdy
And change those costs drastically. But just to give you a ballpark of and something to work with when we're talking about pricing for those.
Mike Hurley
Yeah, 'cause you. Also you know as well as the actual nib and what it's made of. There are lots of different quality aspects to consider about how they're made and customized, and that kind of stuff, yeah?
Brad Dowdy
Now, if the materials weren't confusing enough, nib sizing.
Brad Dowdy
Can get very confusing because not all medium sized nibs write the same, so there's a thing. An R industry where there's two groups of nib sizes and their measured on a different baseline.
Brad Dowdy
European fountain pen nibs are probably what most people are introduced to 1st. What most people's fountain pen is sized with and or what most people's first fountain pen experiences. So let's just say they range from an extra fine nib, which would be the finest line.
Brad Dowdy
Then they'll have a fine nib, a medium nib, and a broad nib for their line width. Great of writing. OK, so your extra fine would be the finest line up to your broad would be the widest and Wetest Line, so there's a difference in how the ink flows too.
Brad Dowdy
Japanese nibs will have the same extra fine, fine, medium and broad, but every single one of them will write a finer line than their European counterparts, so you have to know this if you want a medium line and you're used to say a brand called La me, which will talk about all these brands later.
Brad Dowdy
An you've used lammys medium nib and you like a brand called pilot which is made in Japan.
Brad Dowdy
An you go to buy a pilot medium nib. That line is going to write about half the width of your lommy line, so that's something you have to be aware of. If you're buying a Japanese nib and manufactured by Japanese manufacturer, or you know, in the case of Lumia German made in in Europe, those things are different and that's one of the questions will get to this day.
Brad Dowdy
Of what nib should I like to write like this? What nib is the best for me? That's a super common question that we get, so it's a matter of trial and error and testing and unfortunately not all nib sizes are created equally.
Mike Hurley
The nib itself rests in what is known as the grip section and the name of this section of the pen is pretty self explanatory. It's the place that you hold.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, and we mentioned that because there are a lot of different things that go into the grip section. They can be straight and they can be tapered. They could be concave.
Brad Dowdy
They could be molded in the case of law, meaning there's a Ridge in the middle that will help you theoretically have better a better grip on the pen to give you better penmanship. So there's all kinds of different considerations that go into the grip itself just from a shape and comfort perspective, right?
Brad Dowdy
It's depending on. Again, this goes back to the most custom custom writing experience you can get is with a fountain pen and write down to where you're holding the pen is going to feel different from person to person based on their grip. For example, I'm.
Brad Dowdy
Right handed I write with a traditional what's called a tripod grip like any, it's a pretty normal basic grip. Mike is left handed, he would feel his fingers would feel the same grip that I'm using in the same pen differently than I do. And is it comfortable for him. So these are things you have to consider when you're making fountain pen purchases.
Mike Hurley
Yeah, 'cause there are many pens that.
Mike Hurley
This differs from me and Brad B. I'm what's known as an overhook are a kind of hold the pen.
Mike Hurley
I kind of suck on my arm around the page and append kind of faces back down towards me, which is a very peculiar thing, but it's a. It's a pretty standard left handed grip and so yeah, but it results in a very, very different experience with two of us from a exactly the same pen and this can come down to not just a grip section, but the performance of the nib from and also, it also helps equate to somebody's own preferences as to what they enjoy as well.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah.
Mike Hurley
Alright, so there are filling systems so every fountain pen so you will probably be aware that fountain pen requires ink, right? I think people know that it's a pretty standard thing that people are aware of and there are two broad ideas, like two major ideas as to how you get in kind of fountain pen. And then one of them has lots of offshoots to it.
Mike Hurley
The two basic ideas are do you put a cartridge in? It's like a typically little plastic thing that you buy from a pen company that's already filled with ink, and you buy like a box of them, and then you just refill them whenever the whenever it runs out, right? So you're just refilling it. That is a cartridge. Nice and simple. That's typically again how most people will experience their first fountain pens in most instances, because it is.
Mike Hurley
The easiest, the less meant least messy way to deal with fountain pen. But then it's also the least fun. The most fun is to refill it, to have ink from a bottle. Typically that you are going to refill your pen from, but then when you get into the ink refilling world, there are then a bunch of different filling systems.
Mike Hurley
That you may come across.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, so like Mike said, cartridges the basic if you're starting and you're just buying the most entry level fountain pen, it's probably going to come in a package with a single ink ink cartridge. You unscrew where the grip section meets the barrel. You take that cartridge out of the packaging and you pop it right into the pin.
Brad Dowdy
Screw the barrel back together and start writing, so that's your your your basic filling system. Everything else is going to require a bottle of ink, so the converter essentially looks like a glorified cartridge with a little twist mechanism on the back to where you unscrew the barrel. You put in the The Converter just as you would the cartridge, but it's empty.
Brad Dowdy
So you twist this little nob and the piston filler goes down and you dip the front end of your pen. You know where the nib is and the grip section starts into a bottle of ink, and then you twist it back, pulling the ink up into the Converter. That's how people are getting all of these cool colors.
Brad Dowdy
In their fountain pens that are not available in cartridges, right? That's the limitation that Mike was mentioning with cartridges. You know, you can get some wild cool color cartridges, but some of them are also specific to brands, and that's a whole, you know, that's that's the 201 level we'll get to that. But for the basics, the Converter just helps draw ink.
Brad Dowdy
Into the pen from the bottom. The advanced version of a converter is when it's actually built into the pin, and that's called a piston filler. It's you know, expanding on the converter design to where the mechanics are actually physically built into the pin where you're just screwing the back end.
Brad Dowdy
Of the pin barrel has the twist mechanism built in it and the piston is built into the pin barrel an it moves up and down the barrel as you're filling an that's kind of considered. I don't know one of the best filling mechanisms, right? Some people will only buy piston mechanisms. You know it's as you can imagine.
Brad Dowdy
It can be much more costly, much more expensive than filling than using a cartridge or converter. There is a cost consideration when you're talking about a piston filler. Same with a vacuum type filler. It's similar to a piston, but it's more of a plunging mechanism. You unscrew it from the back and then you kind of snap down.
Brad Dowdy
The piston rod that is in there and it sucks up the ink in a more aggressive fashion than a piston. This is a very interesting conversation, Mike.
Brad Dowdy
Once you get into.
Brad Dowdy
More advanced levels of fountain pens. People will will use what's called an eyedropper filling.
Brad Dowdy
Um, and it's not even a mechanism. It's really when you have a certain barrel type that is sealed off by silicone grease and you just fill the barrel in its entirity with ink. So it's the.
Mike Hurley
Most experienced this this really is like you've got to feel very comfortable with yourself and your abilities to pull this off. I think 'cause It's yeah.
Mike Hurley
It is also the most prone to make a huge mess.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, and it's really in an old type of mechanism. Old type of filling that you know was probably around late 1800s, definitely early 1900s. This type of filling eyedropper filling system was in Vogue at the time, and it kind of went away because it is.
Brad Dowdy
It can be very messy and at the time you know the consistency's built in fountain pens weren't as great as they are now.
Brad Dowdy
From a manufacturing perspective, so eyedroppers give you basically the largest in capacity, and for some people that's a very important consideration, so that is a lot of your consideration in the filling system is 1, you know, do I want to use an ink that's not available in a cartridge and then #2 how much of that?
Brad Dowdy
Ink do I want to put into the pen so it converter is going to be a smaller capacity than a piston filler which is going to be smaller capacity than an eyedrop filled fountain pen in general terms?
Mike Hurley
What else do we want to talk? Anything more on fountain pens today?
Brad Dowdy
I think we want to clean 'em Mike. I know you're not interested in A.
Mike Hurley
Single point, I'm not not interested in it, I just don't do it as much as you do.
Brad Dowdy
So cleaning your fountain pens is important. You don't have to overly obsess about it. What I always say about fountain pen cleaning is you have to be considerate of when your pen needs cleaning, right? So this is clearly the hyest maintenance form of pen writing that you're going to do.
Brad Dowdy
Above you know your ballpoints, rollerballs and gehling pins. There is maintenance involved and I think that's more.
Brad Dowdy
That's the biggest roadblock for people testing fountain pens, yes.
Mike Hurley
More than just refilling them, right? You do occasionally if you want. If you want to maintain the life of your pen, you do have to clean it as well. You have to give it some tender loving care.
Brad Dowdy
Right, it is not difficult to clean a fountain pen just for your basic use.
Brad Dowdy
All you have to do is unscrew the barrel, you know, hold the the nib section one hand, remove the cartridge or converter.
Brad Dowdy
An run it underwater until it runs clear, right? If you have a blue ink in it when it's no longer running blue so you can shake out the nib, you know in a paper towel you just want to have some idea of how to clean a fountain pen? Because what happens is the nib.
Brad Dowdy
In the feed will tend to get dry. That's the exposed part of the fountain pen. So where that liquid is, it will tend to dry up a little bit overtime and that will cause the ink flow not to flow as well, so it just won't be as nice for writing experience. But if you clean it.
Brad Dowdy
It's like getting a brand new pen again. I use a couple of tools aside from just running the fountain, pen nibs and grip section under the water. I use. Oddly enough, a nasal aspirator, which is a little syringe bulb that you use an it just pressure, pushes water through the.
Brad Dowdy
Through the nib and it just cleans it out faster and more forcefully and I find that to be well worth any investment, even if you only have 1 fountain pen and one bottle of ink. Spending $1.50 on a nasal aspirator to shoot water through the nib when it's time to clean it is worth every penny, an will just make your writing experience more enjoyable.
Brad Dowdy
You can also use blunt nose syringes to kind of shoot water into a pen. Sometimes that's good for piston fillers, right? Because you'll clean out the.
Brad Dowdy
The nib section and then you still have like a barral that you know you normally can just run water through the piston. Just fill it back and forth, but a syringe. You can kind of pop in there and pressure wash it a little bit if you will. And then there are ultrasonic cleaners, which is a really that's your advanced move. They're not necessary unless.
Brad Dowdy
You're a very avid fountain pen cleaner into vintage pins that need extensive cleaning. It's not something you should really consider buying if you're a beginner, but I wanted to mention it because it does come up enough to where people ask about. Do I need an ultrasonic cleaner to clean a fountain pen? Well, the answer is no, but there are extreme situations where people.
Brad Dowdy
Who have extensive pen collections collections? Do you find them useful?
Mike Hurley
Did we do it?
Mike Hurley
We did it. We did it. We got through it. That's fine for hands. Now we want to talk about a couple of other things to round out today's episode. Like some brands that we love and and also some things that come up frequently on the show as well. Before we do, let me thank our second sponsor of this episode and that is expressed VPN. I think it is fair to say.
Mike Hurley
That we all want to browse the Internet without the rest of the world knowing what we're doing. We all know about Incognito Windows, but did you know that even in Incognito mode, your online activity could actually still be traced? Even if you clear your browsing history, your Internet service provider could see every single website you've ever visited, and that's why you want ixpress VPN. They make sure that your ISP.
Mike Hurley
Or anybody else can't see what sites you're visiting? Instead, your Internet connection is re routed through secure servers that express VPN offering to you, though they're looking after them. Each server has an IP address that shared among thousands of users, which means that everything that you do is anonymized and can't be traced back to you. It also encrypts 100% of your data.
Mike Hurley
With the best in class encryption, so your information is always protected even when you're using public Wi-Fi, like at a cafe or hotel. That's where I use expressed VPN the most is when I'm traveling, but The thing is, The thing is great about this.
Mike Hurley
It's not just like if you are up to something you shouldn't be right. That's not what we're talking about here, but you deserve privacy in your life, right? Like where humans were in this modern world, people deserve privacy. We that's something that is like a fundamental human right. And so you can get that for yourself. Express VPN. It is rated the number one by TechRadar.
Mike Hurley
Wired version more and you can use the Internet in confidence from your computer, tablet or smartphone. Just tap one button and you are protected. Protect yourself online today and protect your online activity as well and find out more about how you can get three months for free at Expressvpn.com/penaddict's Exp res vpn.com/pen addict for three months free.
Mike Hurley
Volunteer package, I'll give that URL one more time. Expressvpn.com/penaddict, Thanks to express VPN for their support of this show and relay FM.
Brad Dowdy
Right this next section, Mike I included it just to talk about some of the brands that come up repeatedly in our first 399 episodes. Now we're just going to give a little bit of highlight, a little bit of little bit of commentary on a few of these brands. This won't take too long, but I want to tell all of our.
Brad Dowdy
Old time listeners, I promise. I left your favorite brand off this list.
Mike Hurley
Yeah, so don't email it. We did it purposefully to annoy you, so we'll start. Will break these down some of these brands into like the pen Browns will breakdown geographically and then we'll talk about.
Mike Hurley
Some popular paper and ink brands and we don't say these are the best. We don't say they're necessarily our favourites, but there are companies that come up a lot on the show and we think are important to know about. So in Europe we have Pelican.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, so Pelican is one of the biggest pin companies in the world. They are for me, one of the pin companies that I measure other things against because they're really good at what they do. For example, in the fountain pen world they have what I think is the best piston filler for a lot of people. They have what's considered the best nibs, and they're just a classic.
Brad Dowdy
Design that is just world renowned and well respected.
Mike Hurley
Aurora.
Brad Dowdy
Aurora gets into the Italian market and there's, um, I also have will include montegrappa in that as well.
Brad Dowdy
They both make.
Brad Dowdy
Very Italian pens. They can sometimes be like very loud, very unique materials. In the case of Monte Grappa, very unique designs in their companies that as a pin addict, I watch a lot for what they're creating because they do a lot of interesting things they may not always be for you. You know they just like a Visconti's, another brand there.
Brad Dowdy
As Well, you know.
Mike Hurley
Long expensive side these days ones as well these.
Brad Dowdy
Are these are all very pricey pens in general? They have lower end pins, but their Forte is in, you know, the expensive midrange too. Very expensive types of pens on the opposite end of the Ledger Ledger is another German brand called La me.
Brad Dowdy
We talk about la me a lot because they do very interesting things at a more normal price point for the vast majority of us in our listeners an they have been around for a long time. They make really unique designs that have withstood the test of time. The Lamic 2000 is one of the most famous fountain pens ever made.
Brad Dowdy
The Lamy Safari is right up there with it, I would argue.
Mike Hurley
You've probably seen the Lamy Safari in your stationary store.
Brad Dowdy
Yes, it's a very common, very easy, very accessible pin. The last one in the European section is Mont Blanc, which I mentioned them because even though they're not.
Brad Dowdy
Talked about in this show a lot in the public fountain pen space they're talked about often with reverence, and there's good reason for that. It is a luxury brand, so they're very expensive, but a lot of people's first fountain pen is a gift in a lot of times. It's a Mont Blanc. Yeah, and people want.
Brad Dowdy
People want to know about that brand, so it is a brand that comes up from time to time. I'm into Mont Blanc inks, they're very very good Inc maker. I don't I have one or two Montblanc pens. It's not a very common thing for me, but they do come up a lot. In is a very very good pen company.
Mike Hurley
They make some really beautiful stuff and every now and then both of us lost over.
Mike Hurley
A Mont Blanc product with some description? Absolutely. But they are.
Mike Hurley
When, when looking at our overall market, their overpriced compared to a lot of their competitors.
Brad Dowdy
Right, that's another reason why in the in the Canon of the of the kinetic podcast like we'll discuss them in as they relate to other similar brands.
Mike Hurley
Because they don't necessarily do.
Mike Hurley
A lot of stuff that other companies don't do for cheaper, but they are and I get it. Let's fashion there that you are paying more for the Mont Blanc Bryant brand, which is in certain circles very important.
Brad Dowdy
Yes, yes the USA market. You'll notice when I list off a few of these companies. That is a very different type of list than the European market. the European market has a very historical brands in the US.
Brad Dowdy
We could talk about Parkers and Esterbrooks and cross and other things that were founded in the US, but those pens don't really rank in our world right now. They're good pens, they're perfectly fine, but they're not as interesting as some of the other brands we have in the USA, this is more of a makers list, wouldn't you say?
Mike Hurley
I would yeah. I mean as the worker back you know, sure they were gone for awhile and we're kind of just vintage only, but that brand is seeing a resurgence, but especially the brands that we talk about on this show, the most that are American tend to have seen their life born on Kickstarter.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, Franklin Christoph is the exception to that. An it gets Edison is to Franklin. Christoph has been around for awhile. Edison, an Carolina pen company. All three of those brands make beautiful acrylic pens. They are pushing the envelope on pen design and what can be made with you know, CNC machines, an.
Brad Dowdy
Interesting materials and different things like that that really kind of. They really lean into the customization of what a fountain pen can be. I believe. And then I also included kehres customs on here. They weren't the first ones to make metal pens, but they kind of took off in that market and there's been a bunch of other companies.
Brad Dowdy
That have come since then, they.
Mike Hurley
Wanted the real early successes.
Brad Dowdy
They're one of the early Kickstarter successes, too. That was actually a Kickstarter Success, an that they've made a business model out of making unique metal pens and not of different materials. So I think it's the USA market is definitely more of a makerspace than a historical market like.
Brad Dowdy
The next one we have coming up.
Mike Hurley
Japan, Japan. This is where the real history is, baby.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, well the Germany companies are older, right? You know they have some time. They have some years on them, but Japan will often refer to as the Big Three manufacturers in Japan, which is pilot platinum and sailor they all have.
Brad Dowdy
100 plus years behind them in manufacturing manufacturing every part of their pens head to toe an have really high quality, great standards. Japan is still to this day one of the stationary capitals of the world and they just make really high quality goods. I've also included nekaya in this list, which is an offshoot of platinum.
Brad Dowdy
It's essentially platinum's luxury brand lineup where you get a lot of handmade pins and it comes up a lot in this show because I have a fascination with them as a brand and as a writing instrument an it's one of my favorite brands so.
Mike Hurley
We both do, I just don't own 1 yet.
Brad Dowdy
Yes yes yes yeah. One of these years. Yeah I'm.
Mike Hurley
I've definitely come around to platinum because I was kind of a platinum hold off for a bit, so I believe in the key areas. Again, back in my future.
Brad Dowdy
Gotcha, gotcha and like I said, We're listing these because these are a lot of the brands you're going to hear the most if you start. If you start today listening to the pathetic with this episode.
Brad Dowdy
And you start to dig into the back episodes. All the brands we were mentioning now are just the repeating themes that you'll hear, so hopefully this gives you a good baseline of what we're talking about.
Mike Hurley
I mean saying that when we look at paper, two companies have already mentioned a couple of times in this episode Rhodia and Lunchtime. Lunchtime 1917 is the actual.
Mike Hurley
Full name of the brand. These are the best products that you're going to be able to replace your moleskin with.
Brad Dowdy
Correct, correct? And then we'll also talk about a product called Tamale River Paper, which isn't necessarily a brand but more of a paper that other printers use, such as hobonichi, which we refer to a lot. That's one of the best.
Brad Dowdy
Calendar agenda planner companies out there and they use a paper called Tomorrow River Paper which is very fountain pen friendly. It's a very unique design so they come up a lot during the show, as Do Midori and the travelers notebook system. So these are hugely stationary, friendly notebooks in Midori and travelers you'll see them.
Brad Dowdy
Just all over Instagram all over different different different blogs and things like that so you know the paper goods list could be could take up this entire show if we named off all the brands you know. Like my good friend Chad Donut had done paper makes a wonderful paper and like we could go on and on and on about all the awesome paper makers.
Brad Dowdy
Right and story supply and things like that. Um, you know, maybe that's a future paper only episode where we explore all the paper goods. But these are the brands you will hear coming up a lot in our talks.
Mike Hurley
And then we have inks as well.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, so I made this little category as.
Brad Dowdy
Ink's home as ink only right. These are companies that generally just make ink not pins, so Robert Oster is one of my favorite ink makers out of Australia. Dia mine out of the UK, acraman out of the Netherlands, noodler's out of the US manga box. Who makes in collaboration with sailor added Japan?
Brad Dowdy
I think probably those brands are kind of ink is kind of like paper where we could make this list and it would be infinitely long right? It would just keep going and going and going, but as far as the conversation around these brands in the podcast, these are the ones that come up the most because they're good.
Brad Dowdy
Like we talk about these products because they make interesting products and they've proven overtime to be of a good quality so.
Brad Dowdy
That's why these names make these very short lists. Is is for those very, very good reasons I think.
Mike Hurley
Mongo Bucks are probably the outlier there because they make customized pens, but ink is that business and I also wanted to just make sure that we mentioned them because we do talk about them an awful lot on the show.
Brad Dowdy
Correct, and that's how we got it.
Brad Dowdy
Started talking about them was the ink in the beginning? Yeah, that's how I know that does comes up a lot more. Mikey ready for.
Mike Hurley
An there's some themes and memes that occur on this show. There are pens and companies that we will refer to very frequently. Sometimes seriously, sometimes is jokes an it's.
Mike Hurley
Probably worth knowing at least a handful of these frequently referred to terms so we will start with three famous kickstarters. Two infamous, I would say an one famous, the two infamous Kickstarters. One is called the Visionaire.
Brad Dowdy
Oh my God so we don't have time to go into all the history of all these projects. These are these are basically individual episodes themselves. If we ever decide to recap all the drama that went on with these various projects, but the Visionaire was a pen that came out of at a very strange time on Kickstarter where there.
Brad Dowdy
The pin.
Brad Dowdy
Pin Kickstarter was a thing and fountain pens were starting to become popular on Kickstarter and then this project appeared out of the blue from no one.
Brad Dowdy
Had had any.
Brad Dowdy
You know knowledge of before, which is OK. That's kind of what kickstarters for. But the problem with the Visionaire is. It was this very basic looking pen.
Brad Dowdy
And they were charging a very reasonable price. I think it was less than $40. If I, if memory serves, and by the time we got note of it, it had already crossed like 100,000 or 200,000 and went all the way up over 300,000.
Brad Dowdy
An it was very quickly realized by anyone who knew anything about fountain pens that this person had no idea what they were doing, right? So we found the pen was just a basic generic pen that they were essentially buying off of one of the Asian market places like Ali **** or Rakuten or whatever.
Brad Dowdy
Um, their product videos were shown filling the pen with India ink which is not compatible with fountain pens. It will not flow correctly and then the marketing around it.
Brad Dowdy
Has prompted one of the most famous phrases or common common sayings that we use.
Brad Dowdy
In kinetic history is this pen was important enough to sign your wedding certificate with or your birth certificate with right? So I got in touch at the time with the creator and we started talking because I was questioning like everything about this project.
Brad Dowdy
And so there's several podcasts. The first one will link is episode 64, where we first mentioned the Visionaire. And then there's several subsequent podcasts where I've talked to.
Brad Dowdy
The creator of the project trying to understand what's going on and in the end.
Brad Dowdy
Mike took one for the team and back the Visionaire. So won't you, won't you talk about the pen itself real quick?
Mike Hurley
I think I have nothing to say. It's the most basic them.
Brad Dowdy
It's, you know it's a $2. It's a $2 fountain pen this.
Mike Hurley
Game it was not that it was not. You know, like that there are scams and Kickstarter as many scams.
Brad Dowdy
So we're getting to that one we.
Mike Hurley
Talk about the most scammy scam the whole time in a second, but.
Mike Hurley
The Visionaire was just a very, very basic product, very, very well marketed.
Brad Dowdy
Yes, so when you hear us mention, would you sign your your? Would you sign your child's birth certificate? With that it's referring back to this whole visionaire debackle that really I mean just lined line the line, the creators pockets with basically a resell.
Brad Dowdy
Of a fountain pen. So it was a.
Brad Dowdy
It was a travesty, but it wasn't a scam, Mike.
Brad Dowdy
This next one was a scam and it was scribble.
Mike Hurley
Pen, this was a pen exploded onto the Internet because the video is so good because what it promised is you could touch a sensor on the end of the pen onto any surface. It would replicate the color and you could start drawing with that color.
Mike Hurley
That there was like an ink mixing mechanism inside of the pen. It could mix the inks together for you and you could start writing and believe it or not, this was a pen. Basically the size of a dry erase marker. Absolute 100% fakery. We spent a lot of time on the show look because this pen kept coming back.
Mike Hurley
As well, which is one of the funny things about it. It would launch on two different crowdfunding platforms. It would launch under different names. One of my very favorite things about Kickstarter platform is that all of this stuff remains, so I will have links in the show notes you can go and look at the page even though they cancelled the funding because it exploded into.
Mike Hurley
And I really do think that we were partly responsible and like exposing this product for what it was because it, you know, it became very bloggy. You know it very blog worthy to show this right?
Brad Dowdy
Because I was involved in a lot of articles around discussing this and the Visionaire before that.
Mike Hurley
But this one was like when we took a real stand on this pen because.
Mike Hurley
We knew it was a. It was physically impossible to produce, right that like it could not be made in the guys that they were showing it, but this pen kept coming back and the story kept getting weirder and weirder overtime. But this was one that was is just. It's just fake, but you can go and watch the video and it's still fun to see today.
Mike Hurley
But there is just no world in which this pen could be made right now.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, I did get threatened with a lawsuit on this one that I posted on the blog, so it was just it. It continues to exist is this is a very much what is dead, will never die thing. I mean, we're years and years on and they continued to take peoples money for pre orders and.
Brad Dowdy
And never deliver anything and I'm just shocked at the people who continued to believe that this product exists and will actually work as intended. And they've they keep changing like what it is now. It's practically down to like it's a color picker with an app type of thing now. But man, what a mess that project was.
Brad Dowdy
At the time, um, all of the like the product imagery was photoshopped like it was, just it was just.
Mike Hurley
Videos from head to toe. Yeah, like.
Mike Hurley
And it was super fun overtime to breakdown those videos frame by frame. Yeah and then and workout exactly what they were doing to fake them.
Brad Dowdy
Good times, the square wilpen that one continues to live in infamy. The next one was infamous for awhile and now has just become famous. The CW&T pen Type A which was append that I fully supported and fully, you know loved and everything but it turned into one of the biggest Kickstarter stories ever just because of the catastrophe.
Brad Dowdy
Catastrophe that the manufacturing process became and then which led into like all kinds of bad things happening in all kinds of.
Brad Dowdy
I guess product theft, an idea theft and things like that in the. In the end, like we all got our pins and it all shook out fine, but it was one of the craziest, wildest rides I've ever had on any Kickstarter Project. An in in the beginning and in the end, like I became friends with say way and Taylor who are CWT and to this day I'm.
Brad Dowdy
I continue to be friends with them and support all their projects, but at the time this was like their first big Kickstarter an it just ran amok and talk about articles written about it. There's articles about this like on big, you know, websites and blogs or just about how like the madness of producing a Kickstarter Project and all the things that can go wrong and in the end they came out better.
Brad Dowdy
Forward in the end, but man, that's.
Brad Dowdy
That was a crazy project and it it continues to come up to this day, um.
Brad Dowdy
In CWT does because they've they've made some really interesting product since then, but it's worth mentioning the pin type a if you're into this type of thing and want to research it, but we actually mentioned this, Mike, I had to go back and look it up. I was shocked when I saw this. We mentioned the pin type a an episode #2 I. I couldn't believe that when I looked it up.
Mike Hurley
Yeah, that's Wild, Yeah.
Brad Dowdy
Speaking of wild.
Brad Dowdy
Another recurring theme. We're off the kickstarters now and we're just into some common themes that we talked about.
Brad Dowdy
Do you want to describe this?
Mike Hurley
The Kaos pen is a collaboration between Monte Grappa and Sylvester Stallone.
Mike Hurley
Monte Grappa are known for making some very, very very expensive 10s of thousands of dollars worth of expensive pens that.
Mike Hurley
Um, themed in some way and the chaos pen is one of these. It's not really available anymore, but comes up every now and again I think and it just is this pen which is got full of snakes and skulls and like just wildness, but it's referenced because it's so crazy.
Mike Hurley
To see and is also so very, very expensive.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, this is the first pin wild pin that I recall.
Brad Dowdy
Getting press outside of our normal sphere an it was really because of the marketing of the pin with Sylvester Stallone being internationally famous actor past his prime and just doing this really there was. I think there was a watch component to it like I think there was like uh there's like a full brand thing going on with it.
Brad Dowdy
But this pen.
Brad Dowdy
Has lived on throughout. Like every I think about every year a new media outlet would discover the pen.
Brad Dowdy
And we'd get a new influx of articles about the chaos pen, right? And then we ended up discussing it. Yeah? And then one day, Mike and I.
Brad Dowdy
Got to see this pin in person an I think our our opinions changed fully about this pen.
Mike Hurley
Yeah, we turned on. It was like, Oh, I notice isn't for me, but I can totally see how it's for someone.
Brad Dowdy
Yep like yeah.
Mike Hurley
'cause it was just quite a sight to behold. It's incredibly well made like as it should be for this price, but it's easy to laugh at it because it is so absurd.
Mike Hurley
And then when you see it and you hold it, it's like oh OK.
Brad Dowdy
Like Yeah, it's like I get it. Yeah, I get it now but that was a really, uh, a marketing story more than anything which is as proven by its its re emergence every year or two by someone discovering Oh my gosh what happened back then?
Brad Dowdy
Speaking of marketing.
Brad Dowdy
I gotta say Mike, we were. We were the leaders of the bullet Journal Train. I'm just gonna go ahead and take that now. I mean, I know writer Carol invented it.
Brad Dowdy
But we were.
Brad Dowdy
On the bullet Journal bandwagon. Way back in the day, but before it became hashtag bujo, right?
Mike Hurley
Yes, basically like the bullet Journal. The idea of the bullet Journal that the original website that was created where it was just the system that writer had made it made waves in our community and also the tech community which we both kind of straddles. It's really beautiful website.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, the productivity community. Yeah as a whole.
Mike Hurley
So we we we interviewed writer in like 2013. We had him on the show and then had him back when he launched a Kickstarter campaign to create a book and now like bullet journaling.
Brad Dowdy
Back a third time when.
Mike Hurley
He released his book about it right.
Mike Hurley
And and it was, uh, and these are three episodes that are super interesting because you get to hear someone who's going through this change this like transition. Yeah, right? I like had an idea. Thought it was interesting too. Wow, this is starting to catch on and now I want to try and make a career out of this idea that I created because people seem to so excited about it, to the point where this is.
Mike Hurley
Would an expanded way past main to the point that I have had to now like legally claim ownership? My idea again and I don't endorse any of what's happening I have, but I have my thing which is the core part and it's super intriguing to watch him kind of go through this and it is one of these like successes that we do claim a little bit.
Mike Hurley
Of you know, writer said himself that looks like we really did help get the word out for bullet journaling when it began so.
Brad Dowdy
We also told him which notebook to use. We did. Yes, we told him so. He has a partnership with Leuchtturm now and that has has turned out hopefully pretty well. But yeah, I like I'm not.
Brad Dowdy
I'm just I'm joking about taking credit, but I think.
Brad Dowdy
Writer is one of the more interesting characters we've had on the show repeatedly just because of exactly what she said. Listen to the three episodes that we did. If you're a bulletjournal fan, and I think it, it tells a good story just like Mike was alluding to. And again, I just I. I think what he's done is pretty amazing and I just find it.
Brad Dowdy
So interesting, like it's still like I could go back and listen to those episodes today.
Mike Hurley
And then Lastly two companies that are referenced a lot because both me and Brad care about them greatly, and we've formed collections over the years of Fieldnotes an retro 51.
Brad Dowdy
Yeah, the they both started really early. I think retro 51 might have been mentioned before field notes. I think you were.
Brad Dowdy
Early to the retro 51 game. Just as hey, this is a really good pen and I like this pen and what is it recommended from you?
Brad Dowdy
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. And um. But I'm just saying like I, that surprised me when I was looking back at some of the episodes I thought field notes would have been just like the thing from the beginning, but they both kind of do the same thing right? So even though Fieldnotes has a subscription retro 51, doesn't they both do something they both do what they do?
Brad Dowdy
Very well, they have great marketing. They have great products which they wouldn't be in business if they didn't have great products and they were able to tell stories that we were able to latch onto. You know whether it's a specific field note, limited edition release or a specific pattern.
Brad Dowdy
Or, you know, design on a retro 51 an they did it well and they did it frequently enough to where they became full-time topics on our show. Sometimes multiple episodes in a row. They've certainly become popular enough that I would get emails saying You talk about them too much and like that. I'm OK with that. It's because they're doing interesting things and we like the.
Brad Dowdy
We like the product so.
Brad Dowdy
Um, you will hear if this is your first pin attic podcast and if you go back and listen to the previous 399, you're going to hear field notes in Richard 51. Talk a lot.
Brad Dowdy
And that's not going to stop either.
Mike Hurley
Well, there's going to be less retro 51 talk about, but I guess that's closing down Tech.
Brad Dowdy
Technically, that one is gonna stop, but not this year. It's not gonna stop us from talking about him, right?
Mike Hurley
Now, is it alright so?
Brad Dowdy
That is going to stop us from talking today.
Mike Hurley
Yeah, we have. We have completed the pen addict 101.
Mike Hurley
The next episode, episode 401 at this show is going to be pen addict 201 where we get into more detail on some pretty important elements that you may want to also consume. So we're going to make this a two parter becausw. When we started putting this together, we asked for our audience so our wonderful pen addict audience.
Mike Hurley
Phone so thankful this this community in its absolute pleasure to be a part of. But I will always. I think at this moment Brad Dowdy Brad puts in an absolutely immense amount of work into this show, including this episode. Most of the time I'm just showing up and I'm talking with him. And then I add it and post it. Brad's the one who's like moving this show forward.
Mike Hurley
Always and you know, I couldn't do this without you. Plus there will be no panel having to about the panoramic themselves. So as we are finishing our 400th episode. Thank you, Brad Dowdy.
Brad Dowdy
Well, thank you Mike. I am glad that Mike does all the editing and all the posting and all the back end work because I hate all that stuff. So thank you buddy for doing for.
Brad Dowdy
You're putting in, Uh, I'm putting in the the production work you're putting in the The technology, technological work on the back end to make this show exists to all of our amazing listeners an it really is about the community we've built around all the things that we do an we wouldn't be here without all of you all listening and everything that Mike said I I second at all completely so.
Brad Dowdy
Thanks to all of you. An especially thanks to Mike for being a wonderful friend for all of these years, and I know we have a lot more years in front of us.
Mike Hurley
We most certainly do so that is episode 400. If you're listening to this in real time, keep an eye out for our Kickstarter campaign. We're days away from launching the Kickstarter campaign for the 2020.
Mike Hurley
Penn show circuit. So keep your eye out, for that will be back next time. Thank you so much to Warby Parker and express VPN for the support of this show say goodbye, Brad, Goodbye, Brad.