The Pen Addict 449/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	449
Title:	Retail 9-9-5
Release Date:	February 17th, 2021
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 449
Audio File:	Audio Episode 449
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 449
Length:	5555 min <br />0.917 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addicts, episode 449. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad Dowdy. I am very happy, Myke, that this is not episode 450 because I completely freaked out last night. You've been making big promises about 450. I have, I have. And, you know, we had Adina on last week and it was a wonderful episode. And so I didn't really make like, you know, air quote show notes like we would traditionally do, like we were talking to Adina. So we had Adina specific stuff. So I kind of got out of that little practice there of having like a log of notes to build on a show when you don't have to do it for a week. And so I had waited until Tuesdays when I normally do prep, show prep and collect all my notes, write it all in the document. And before I started yesterday, I went, oh, is it 450? Have I not been working on the Kickstarter? Because that's going to take me more than a Tuesday afternoon to put together. That's going to take days. And I went and clicked on the link and I went, oh, that was 448 last week. So I'm good. I can get this done for 450 because or I at least have another week to let people down publicly. But no, I will get it done for next week. But boy, did I have a freak out session last week. So it's good because I want to get that to you early, too. So you can not that you need to do anything for the show, but you need to know. Well, but you need to look at it to say, oh, here's where I need to expand on. And here's some of the things we need to talk about and point. But I need to like normally I need to like outline the things.

Brad Dowdy: So, yeah, I would want to see that maybe day or two before as well. So, yeah, add anything I want to add and think about it because it seems like it's going to be more of an involved episode than typical.

Myke Hurley: Yes, yes, yes. So it's a it's a happy episode 449 day for me.

Kickstarter Update

Myke Hurley: Speaking of Kickstarter, I wanted to give an update. I think I've been given updates decently on the not Kickstarter. But when there's not a lot going on, there's just not a lot going on. I have about 300 of each case in, which is more than enough for me to start shipping. So I'm going to look at doing that this weekend. I've put an update out for Kickstarter backers, so I'm not saying anything out of turn. But it's about that time to start getting that fulfilled. There'll be rolling off this weekend. I hope I get to go through the the thing that delays it the most. First is me dedicating. A fight time with a CSV import into the shipping platform. OK, like once I get past that, I can I'm cooking, you know, but it's it's like usually like a dedicated to our boxing match.

Brad Dowdy: Because I guess you're tidying it up, right?

Myke Hurley: Right. Yeah. So the Kickstarter export fields are massive and matching that up to what the shipping platform wants to see is a mess. And every time you do an import, it's like a new store. And no one wants to hear this, but it's it's a fight to get the correct information in. In so I will work on that hopefully before the weekend.

Brad Dowdy: So this weekend I can spend some time shipping with you would think that Kickstarter would be able to natively talk to these platforms.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I don't know why they don't do that. Like they are a technology company. Why can't they integrate with the ship's biggest platforms?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, like ship station. Like they run commercials on TV. They're a big platform. Yeah. You know, they should have some type of like one to one communication, but it doesn't happen that way.

Brad Dowdy: That seems silly to me. Especially because Kickstarter is moving. I've noticed this with things that I've been backing because usually you would always get like, hey, this is backer kit. I hate backer kit. Yeah, I don't use that. As a customer. And it seems like Kickstarter is actually moving more into that space. It feels like like I've been getting more like, hey, update your shipping information. And it takes you to Kickstarter, which seems new.

Brad Dowdy: So, you know, I kind of always find it peculiar when a company does a certain thing and then other companies can be created on the back of what company A does. And company A doesn't offer these things themselves. Right. Right. Or as Cobbathor was saying in the chat room, just an API. Right. Like choose. Right. If you don't want to build all of it, make it an API so people can actually truly connect with your services.

Purpose of Kickstarter

Myke Hurley: Right. Because we can get the whole Kickstarter talk is like, why does Kickstarter exist? It's well for people to like, you know, start companies or, you know, build things and have a frictionless transaction with supporters. And there's like a huge amount of friction for, I don't know, the decade that they've been in service now. And there still is. There's no, I'm surprised that this hasn't come along sooner to where there's been more of that back end integration to other services. Like, why aren't they their own backer kit? Why can't I fulfill, why can't I hook in my shipping from the Kickstarter platform? Yeah. You know, so anyway. Hey, look at that. Good show. I did a thing, Myke.

Brad Dowdy: Okay.

Myke Hurley: I know you're excited about this next topic, but I finally bought, acquired myself for my personal use, a platinum 3776 pen with an ultra extra fine nib. So we've talked about this nib many, many times over the years, just because it's a real outlier for fountain pen nibs, right? Ultra extra fine. It's designed to be around a 0.1 millimeter tip size, right? Your line width may vary, right? Obviously paper varies that, ink varies that, but the tip size should be around one millimeter. The finest of the fine stock fountain pen nibs. This gets into your needle tip sizes.

Brad Dowdy: What is like a typical fine in size?

Myke Hurley: So a Japanese fine is like around 0.2, or a Japanese extra fine, excuse me, Japanese extra fine is around 0.2. Japanese fine, I think it's around 0.3 to 4, and then on up from there. And then the European sizes, the extra fine, they probably start at like 0.5 would be my guess.

Brad Dowdy: So we're looking at like needlepoint territory of an ultra extra fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, and the key is stock, right? This is a platinum off nib offering, right? Which is not a lot of, most of the companies stop at extra fine. And this is not, this is discounting specialty nibs, right? Pilot has a whole range of specialty nibs. Sailor has a whole range of specialty nibs. This is like your normal stock offerings. Like just like a, a TWSBI would offer a 1.5 millimeter stub, right? That would be a stock nib. So the ultra extra fine nib, I had one in my hands like seven years ago, I think is when I pulled up this review that I did from Thomas Hall loaning me his ultra extra fine. And of course I loved it at the time. And then just never acquired one for myself. That's when, you know, after that I was like, oh, I can get a nib modified into something like this, right? And that was also at the time seven years ago. So I think you were having to order ultra extra fines from Japan, right? These weren't normally in the U.S. distributor pipeline, right? So that's been a newer thing here in the past couple of years. So I finally broke down and got one. It's great. Like it's really what I, what I like in a pen from a writing perspective. It really is ultra extra fine. It's not too fine for me, which is interesting to say. Not that I expected it to be, but as soon as I inked it up, I started writing with it and I was like, yeah, perfect. I wasn't like, OMG, this is fine. I was like, yeah, this is right on the money from, for how I like to have a pen right. Now, this is not a nib that you go into purchasing blindly, right? This is the conversation around nibs like this. And like when I had the posting nib conversation, you don't just say, you like to write really tiny? Yeah, just go buy this nib. You don't do that with this nib or the posting nib, in my opinion. They're very, very particular. The paper like that you write with for this ultra extra fine, it matters, right? I'm on this bank paper kick, which I don't know that you've ever particularly used yourself, but it has a little bit of tooth to it, right? It's good for fountain pens. It shows color. It shows shading. It doesn't bleed. It doesn't feather, but it's toothy. Well, an ultra extra fine is not a great platform for that nib. Like it's fine. It's doable. But it is scratchy scratchy, if you will, on there. Like you want to use something like Rhodia, you know, for there where you get a little bit of smoothness on there. So you can't go into just like buying ultra extra fine nibs and posting nibs without testing them before. So I'm glad I have one now that I can carry around with me if we ever get to travel again, bring the people, let them test it. It takes a very, very light hand to use, which is good for me because I have a heavy hand. So I have to practice using it.

Myke Hurley: You know, I wonder, like, I know you wouldn't like this nib, but I also wonder what the left-handed experience is with the more needly types of nibs, the way they angle into the page. I mean, I'm sure plenty of left-handers use needle point nibs, but I'm wondering, like, just seeing the scratchiness of this nib on some pages, I wonder if it would be even worse for left-handers. I don't know. So you're going to get this nib or no?

Platinum Pen Acquisition

Brad Dowdy: No, man.

Myke Hurley: That's a heck no.

Brad Dowdy: I imagine this being one of those nibs that I would, like, immediately recoil from, which I've had that experience before, where, like, I've tried moving it on a paper, and I feel like I've gone four, like, nanomicrons deep into the paper, and at this point, I'm not writing on top of the paper. I'm, like, making a hole in the paper. You know what I'm saying? Like, I feel like I'm cutting it now, and it's just, yeah, it doesn't work. For me.

Myke Hurley: And I even do that as a right-hander, right? When you get a nib this tiny, this tip, there's no tipping material on the front. There's no, like, accident zone. You can't have a bad angle of handwriting and expect this pen to work, right? Where, like, take a Lamy Safari extra fine nib. There's plenty of room to kind of roll around the nib into the angle you want. This is, nibs like this are very, very particular writing angles, particular with paper. We'll see how particular they are with ink. The first thing I used, that I'm using right now, is Sailor Mano Akibi, which is, you know, nothing special. It's just a standard Sailor Magenta E ink, which is going into the Chartres Blue barrel and rhodium trim that I bought in the 3776. That's the other thing, is the UEF, when you could get it, it was usually gold and then in the black barrel with the gold trim. And I just didn't want that. So they finally have it in rhodium trim and a rhodium trim barrel. So it's, like, exactly the setup I've been waiting for. They've had it for a little while. I just haven't jumped on it. But, yeah, this is going to be a heavy usage pen for me.

Brad Dowdy: Would this be something that you would take the nib out and put it in a different platinum pen, do you think?

Myke Hurley: I've thought about that. It is definitely an option. I just don't have that platinum pen that I would switch it into. Like, if I can ever find my Shungyu, which is the red one, I might do it with that pen.

Brad Dowdy: When you say fine, do you mean you have it and you don't know where it is? Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's in the closet of doom, huh?

Myke Hurley: No, it's not. That's the problem. I have four, yeah, I think four pens that are missing. One of them being a very, very important pen that were used for photography purposes. And they have been put away somewhere that I cannot locate.

Myke Hurley: And I've looked a lot because...

Brad Dowdy: What are you missing? I want to know now. What do you want to say?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, the orange Arushi Brooks gave us the first pen addict one.

Brad Dowdy: Oh!

Myke Hurley: And the box. That's why I know it's missing because I don't have the box either, right? Okay. So that has been put somewhere, right? It's not lost.

Brad Dowdy: Was it like in the move from Noc to...

Myke Hurley: No, no, no, no, no. It was photography here.

Brad Dowdy: Right.

Myke Hurley: Like, you know, my wife was doing Noc product shots and like I just got a bunch of cool stuff to use as props. And there is a set. It's the red Shungyo. The orange Arushi.

Myke Hurley: The Sailor Lighthouse, which is the gray with the clear finials.

Brad Dowdy: The North American one. The good North American one.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, yeah. And then like a Kaweco from like the shop in Singapore. It's like this blue lemon edition. I only know that because I put all my like fun, colorful Kaweco sports together and that one's not there. Like these are not lost, right? I didn't lose a pin case like out on the street with these pins. They are misplaced somewhere that I cannot find. It's brutal.

Brad Dowdy: It's killing me. I hate that feeling.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's killing me. Like, and I know that because of the Arushi pin and box, right? It's got that cool lacquer box that he put the orange Penatic logo on the top, right? That box is gone too, right? So all these things are together somewhere.

Brad Dowdy: One day you're just going to be doing something, right? And then just all of a sudden you're going to come across them.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Do you know how I realized they were missing? I did a Penatic members giveaway for the Sailor Lighthouse.

Brad Dowdy: Uh-huh.

Vintage Writing Paper Pad

Myke Hurley: And then the box is sitting where I thought the box was. So I went to get the box and to pack it up, I'd already given it away. And I opened the box to check it before I shipped it, you know, make sure it was like locked down tight and the pin wasn't in there. And then that's when I realized that I was missing several pins. So then I had to go buy one. Luckily, they were still available. I had to go buy one. I actually asked the person. I told the person who won. I was like, look, here's the deal. Like, I can buy you the exact same one or whatever money I'm going to spend. If you want to pick out a different Sailor or whatever, you can do that too because, like, I'm paying for it anyway. It's like, it doesn't matter at this point.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, my God.

Myke Hurley: That's so good. Oh, yeah. It was great. Let me tell you. It was awesome.

Brad Dowdy: That's so funny. Good day. I hope you've learned a valuable lesson about giveaways.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Locate the products. Yeah. Well, the box was sitting right there. I had no reason to think that the pin wasn't in it, but there you go.

Brad Dowdy: Unbelievable.

Myke Hurley: All right. Let's get back on track here. I want to talk about the vintage writing paper pad from the Well Appointed Desk. Anna made this really cool product. And I wanted to give a shout out, even though it's probably sold out as we're recording this. She is working on, you know, making some more, getting some new inventory in. And the reason why I pointed it out is not just because she's one of my very best friends. It's that these are the types of products that I love to see come into existence. So basically, the short version is Anna and her husband, Bob, located this really cool vintage paper. Like it was like a typewriter paper and discovered that, hey, fountain pens work really well on this. So let's make a thing from this stock of paper that we have. And then that's how the, I'm calling it the Well Appointed Desk Pad right now or the Well Appointed Writing Paper. I can't help but do it. And it's these 50 sheets, vintage style, you know, glue bound A5-ish notepads. And like I just want to support people that create cool stuff like this. And I think this is super cool. So I bought some. I'm going to give some away on the blog too. And they're sold out right now. But like, you know, keep an eye on it because this is another cool thing because they won't be around forever. Right. And it's not necessarily purposely, hey, we're making this limited edition thing. And that's what we're doing. It's like, look, we found this old paper. We can only make so much. We can't get more of this paper. This is how we're going to do it. And then it'll eventually be gone. And it's like super fairly priced. It's really, really cool stuff. I'm writing on it as we're talking right now. It feels, again, I need to order you some bank paper so you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I don't really know what that is, honestly. Yeah, this is what it feels like to me. It's hard to explain. It's basically, it's just a paper that has some texture on it but does not absorb ink like, you know, like a copy paper would, right? You're not getting into the fibers of the paper with the fountain pen ink, which is pretty cool. So, but, you know, it's not going to get like the high shade and sheening of Tomoe River. But it's going to get a lot of good aspects of the ink and it's just really good for fountain pens. So, that's what this is. I'm using it right now.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it tainted ink well. I like the little lines they printed on them for, you know, to give it that vintage look. It comes with like the little backing card so you can have some format, you know, they're blank pages, right? But she has the cards like the grid and the dot grid card so you can put it behind the page and help you line up your lines if that's a thing for you if you write crookedly. So, yeah, I just think it's a good product and I'm not just saying that because, you know, Anna is one of my friends. I'm saying it because these are the type of products that I love. Like if I was walking into a shop, I would end up with a fistful of these, right, just because they're cool. So, that's my kind of product. So, really, really good job by Anna. And a special shout out to her in our very first interview on the Panatic podcast. We had Myke Rohde from Mr. Sketch Note himself. Anna was on Myke's podcast, Sketch Note Army podcast. So, we'll have that link in the show notes if y'all are interested in hearing about Anna's process in sketch noting work.

Brad Dowdy: That's awesome. Does she talk about the new product on the show or is it separate from that?

Myke Hurley: Separate.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. It's worth checking them both out because Anna's the best.

Myke Hurley: For sure.

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Myke Hurley: I don't think we have talked about this on the podcast. I think this is a strange thing. And I cannot wait.

Brad Dowdy: Because you put this link in the show notes and it says that the title is Drillog is live. D-R-I-L-L-O-G. As if I was supposed to know what these are. And it's a Japanese website with a bunch of, I'm assuming, mechanical pencils of varying madness in design.

Myke Hurley: No, they're not mechanical pencils. Those are dip nibs. What? Does that blow your mind even more?

Brad Dowdy: Why?

Myke Hurley: Because why not? All right. So, when I was writing this in, I was like, so our friend, I first learned about these from Jacob and CY at Tokyo Inklings. And they had talked about them several episodes ago, like a while back. And I brought them up on stream because I wanted to get people's quick take opinions on them. So, I had them on stream, pulled up the website, and I was like, look at these things. Like, look, what is happening here?

Brad Dowdy: Because the thing that made me think they were pencils, not only just because they look like them, is their .5, .8 millimeters, it says on them. Right. But now, see, I just looked at the kind of full body designs. But when you look at the first two entries, you can see the dip nib part. And it's kind of genius.

Myke Hurley: Right? Like, this is a highly engineered dip nib for pens. So, like, the tip is more traditional looking. Just like your immediate thought was that looks like a mechanical pencil nib. Because it does. Like, and you normally don't see, you know, you're used to either the glass nib, dip nibs, or the, like, the comic nibs, right? Like, the zebra, like, the steel dip nibs that look like a traditional fountain pen nib. So, the front ends of these look like, like you say, a mechanical pencil. And they have different patterns, different shapes. I'm guessing, I don't know if they hold the ink differently. Or maybe are all the shapes the same. But anyway, I'm fascinated by this. Right? Like, someone decided that, hey, we're going to do this. And they did it. And I'm kind of, like, I'm going to have to get one of these. Like, I'm legit going to get one of these.

Brad Dowdy: Honestly, I would like to try one. But I assume not easy to get my hands on.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, they have a shopping cart. And I haven't tried to, like, do the thing yet where you go in and order it. They're not cheap. You know, it's like.

Brad Dowdy: I'm using it in Safari, too. And it's just all in Japanese.

Drillog Dip Nibs

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. So, something to work on there. But what I'm not quite sure about is, are you just buying the front end? Is the barrel piece separate? Like, you have to buy the nib part. And then you buy the barrel part. I think so, Brad. Because the price is. $300 in.

Brad Dowdy: The prices don't make sense otherwise. Right. Right. It seems like the nibs cost 16,000 yen. And the body. And, like, the whole thing cost 16,000 yen. Well, that doesn't make any sense. Because that would mean that the body of the pen was free.

Myke Hurley: Right. So, I think, like, all in, you're, like, over $300 for a highly engineered dip nib pen. And I'm in. Like, I mean, I think it's insane. But there's something about this that's just captivating to me. And I don't know. It's like one of those things. I want to see if it works. But that's an expensive risk. Like, you take, like, hey, I want to see if this works, you know, $300 later. Right. I don't know that I want to do that. But I don't know. Yeah. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: So, I'm using Google Chrome now. And on all the product pages, it says the price is for the pen shaft only. The pen tip is sold separately.

Myke Hurley: So, when you go to the site, the first, your tip sizes, you have two tip sizes, 0.5 and 0.8. Yeah. Then everything else is the barrel. So, you have, like, a classic, just, like, a straight metal barrel. You have these, you know, wild aluminum barrels, these anodized barrels, things like that. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Well, a bunch of them are what they call twins. You have both. You have two. Two nibs.

Myke Hurley: Oh, so, like, a 0.5 on one side and a 0.8 on the other. This is going to be an expensive, expensive visit.

Brad Dowdy: You screw and unscrew things and, you know, hide them together. It's kind of clever. That's all the twins ones.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I'm surprised you're, like, as positive on this as I am.

Brad Dowdy: The designs of some of them, I would hate to use. Like, the ones that are called Mirage and they seem to. Yes. They look so uncomfortable to hold. But the one that's called Spiral and Classic, they look really nice. I'm super into the design of the nib itself because it's quite novel to me. I've never seen something like this before where it's storing ink in the, like, the nib itself. In, like, those little grooves. Mm-hmm. So, my expectation would be you would actually get more ink out of this than maybe a typical dip nib. Maybe. I don't know. But it looks cool, though. It just looks cool.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. It's the same, like, general idea of a glass nib pen. That's why they have that swirl. Yeah. I'm thinking of the metal ones that just look like fan pen nibs. Yeah, the metal ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: They're not as good. But, yeah, the glass ones. This is like a metal version of the glass one.

Myke Hurley: Exactly. I don't know. I'm fascinated by it. I don't know if I'll get one. Like, I'm not in a hurry to get one. Like, because I've just got my first glass dip nib pen, and I enjoy it. I don't need to go from the $30 to the $300 one. Although, that's a move I've done before. I'm just not, it's, like, super excited to do it, even though I'm kind of fascinated by this. This might be a product, Myke. Tokyo Pen Show 2022. There you go. Yeah, okay. Okay. We'll put that, well, I'm going to start building the shopping list now. Okay. So, there you go.

Myke Hurley: Next topic, I failed to mention when we were talking about all of Kaweco's changes for 2021, which I was very positive on, you know, the new colors, the new descriptors, how they were handling custom and limited editions. The next version of the Perkyo, which is their entry-level pen, skipped by me. And I found two things interesting. One, they went to a solid color barrel, which I think I like better. As much as I love the first versions, like the multicolor barrels, some of them three colors, most of them two-tone. I love these solid colors because they chose some cool colors, like this kind of, like, light. It's not really a minty green. And a pink. And I don't know, maybe it's just because they chose colors that I like. So, Breezy Teal, Peony, Peony, Blossom, Jungle Green, and All Black. I think they look great. And then on top of that, they have rollerball versions of these. I don't think they had those last year. So, now I'm even more interested in trying them. And these are, like, the rollerball pen's $13. You know, the Perkyo, the standard Perkyo's $17. Like, these are their, you know, Pilot Metropolitan, Pilot Kakuno is really kind of the competitor in there. You know, it's a very cool-looking entry-level pen. It's something I would enjoy using. And I'm going to have to try these. I never, I always liked the Perkyo, but I always chose the Sport because that's just one of my all-time favorite pens, right? They're completely different pen shapes. And, like, you know, the portability is obviously very different on the two. But I don't know. I'm kind of liking these solid colors. I'm going to get a couple to test them out, especially the rollerball.

Brad Dowdy: Solid colors are nice. The pen, the models that have, like, varying colors, they've made some very bold choices with some of them that I don't think work.

Myke Hurley: The only one I like is actually, like, the red, white, and blue one or red, gray, and blue one.

Brad Dowdy: Maybe the white and blue one is fine. Yeah. Yellow and, the yellow and black one, it's like yellow and dark gray, which is wrong. It should have been black and then it would have looked cool. Pink and gray, not good. The pink and black, not good. The yellow and white and gray, like light gray, also not good. Yeah, they made some weird choices here. It reminds me of that 70s soul. Yeah. Right? Like, that was a cool look. So, like, they're clearly trying some stuff with color. But I'm actually more into the rollerballs because the rollerballs, they've had, just have more solid color, solid color versions. I don't think that they've knocked out of the park with the color choices for some of these in the fountain pen.

Myke Hurley: So, you can get the same solids in the fountain pen as well. Yeah, but then they also have all the other ones too. Yeah, because those, obviously, those were from last year and they haven't done that well. I don't think. I honestly think it was the color choices, right? Yeah. It was a little bit try-hardy on the colors. Too much. And it just didn't hit. Like, it's fine, right? It's fine. But it didn't go gangbusters. The one we're missing, Myke, is they have an all clear one now as well, which is very Kakuno-esque. The picture is in there. It's just clear. You can't see it. So, like, I was never completely inspired by last year's colors.

Brad Dowdy: Every part is clear. The feed's clear. The nib's clear. Like, completely 100% clear.

Myke Hurley: It is. It's hard to see. It's on a white background. So, yeah. So, yeah. I don't know. I am. I want this pen to do well, even though they're not far off from their standard sport model pricing. I just think this is kind of the right pen and the right price point for broader use, right? Like, a new fountain pen user is not going to pick up a sport, right? The pocketable sport is not really going to – people aren't really going to understand what that is if they have never been into fountain pens. But, like, something like this is at least interesting. Like, it would get my hands on it and make me, like, consider it a little bit. So, anyway, I thought that was fun to point out. I like the colors better this year than last year. And I really like the direction Kafeco is going right now. They're doing a really, really good job, in my opinion.

Brad Dowdy: Talk about direction. Let's talk about Leonardo. They are on a kick, baby. What are these things?

Leonardo Pura Collection

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So, I wrote in the document, the header of this segment in the document is Leonardo is on a heater, right?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, my word.

Myke Hurley: I want what they're drinking or what they're eating. So, this is the new Pura collection. It's three colors of a satiny, translucent blue. One model is blue. One model is black. One model is orange, gold trim, and silver trim. It's just another really nice job from Leonardo. And I'm shocked at the pace that they're on right now is really pretty intense, right? Like, it's good. Like, I mean, I'm for it. Like, I'm not going to buy any of this new stuff. Like, that's one of the things that I wanted to talk about. It was like, I have my Leonardo's, right? Like, I am well invested in Leonardo's. And like, every two, three months, they come out with these insane new materials, insane new looks. And they're all really, really good. So, how do you manage that as like a consumer and as a pen user, pen hobbyist? So, you know, like that's a whole different conversation. But I can't help but be fascinated by what they're doing. So, I even put in the link to, so we have the link in the show notes to Instagram, Leonardo's Instagram page. But they didn't show, Myke. Like, I happen to see the all black model with the rhodium trim on Insta Emmys Instagram, which is a very popular, beautiful Instagram page. It's got the full barrel with it uncapped. I mean, they're doing a really good job. That is the murder version. Yeah, this is the murdered out version. This is, and these are the piston filler models. So, these are the Grandes. So, they're like 500 bucks. 14K nibs, 500 bucks, piston fillers. I mean, yeah. Like, and like, we've even probably skipped over some of their new releases. Like, they're coming fast and furious. So, they are on a heater right now. Is this the one?

Brad Dowdy: None of any Leonardo's.

Myke Hurley: When I was putting this in the show notes, I found one that I hadn't seen. So, they did, and this is going to be a surprise coming from me. They do a primary manipulation with gold trim that I couldn't believe how good looking it was. And I had never seen it before researching this pin, the Pura pin this morning. I hadn't seen that setup before. I'm scrolling through their Instagram page. It's not even on their Instagram page. Where did you find it? I found it on the StilaGraphica.it shop where I used to buy some of my Montagrappas from recently. So, I don't know the name of it.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, this is Manipulation 4.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: This is a completely different type of color.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Oh, wow. It's got some depth. It's got gold trim, which is normally not my thing. It's like rose gold, though, right? But that really kind of... That one made me stop in my tracks, to be perfectly honest with you. Yeah. Like, I love these Puras, right? Like, I think these are cool. But that one, I was like, number one, where did this come from? Because I haven't seen it before.

Brad Dowdy: Well, it says coming soon, so...

Myke Hurley: Okay. Yeah, it's pretty fascinating. We'll put that in the show notes since we're talking about it. Save that link to that. Does it have a full name? That's the other thing, is it's in that Grande Primary Manipulation genre that they have. I mean, they're kind of specific.

Brad Dowdy: Memento Zero Grande Primary Manipulation 4.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So, I don't know what's different about this one, but this one stood out to me in a way that I didn't think it would. Like, this one, like, stopped me in my tracks.

Brad Dowdy: This is really beautiful.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So, that might be the one. I don't know. And, like I said, I hadn't seen any details on that before, and it was really cool. Related to this, Myke, I wanted to bring up Visconti's new, similar, thought-out pens. These actually released first, and this kind of came out in the, you know, a couple weeks ago, after, two weeks ago, showing. And, you know, didn't have any time to bring them up with Adina last week. So, Visconti made a Homo sapiens model that's also, like, a demonstrator. And I'm bringing this up because I actually got people, like, freaking out on the prices on these. And it's like, I don't want to, like, compare. Like, the Leonardo's, like, 500. These Visconti's are, like, 800.

Brad Dowdy: I can't believe this is $800. Yeah. I'm sorry. It's too much. You know what this looks like to me? Visconti's entry.

Brad Dowdy: This looks like their entry-level pen.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. With the jewel. The stone. The stone thing. Right? The finial.

Brad Dowdy: It's the coloring of the name and the clip.

Brad Dowdy: It kind of has a vibe to me of, like, hey, you know, we're Visconti. Here's your 1, 2, 3 starter version. Yeah, this should be the Visconti. By the way, it's retail 995.

Myke Hurley: This should be, like, the Van Gogh collection level. Like, the 200 to, like, the idea behind this pen is that this material, I don't, there was, it's some story about this material. Like, this way these are handmade from, like, a single, I don't know. Like, it's a whole, it's a whole thing. Like, it's a whole marketing thing, right? Which is a lot of Visconti's prices. Prices. Because I look at the Homo sapiens that I want to get. The Lava, you know, the new white, red, and brown ones. They're, like, $180 less than this. And then that's where Visconti loses me, right? That's where I get confused about what are we doing with these new demo stones ones when you have this killer one that's, like, $620. Which is obviously crazy expensive. But then, like, we're at least talking then. We can have a conversation then. And then we do this. It's, like, $800. I was, like, is this the same company? It's, like, I try to, like, line these things up in my head. And I really shouldn't, right? But I do. And, like, I just wonder about this one as much. And someone, we had an ask TPA about this. Actually, I had multiple ask TPAs just questioning the price point of this pen. And it's, like, there's nothing I can say. I have no idea. Like, it seems like a lot. It's too much money. It seems like a lot. It's too much. But, like, on the same token, I'm sitting here going, boy, I would really, thinking about that $620 one, like, does that make me a hypocrite? Right? So who knows? Who knows? So good times. But it was funny. Leonardo and Visconti both came out with a not similar looking pen, but similar concepts of these solid, bright colors. And I think they both look good. The Visconti, I'm with you. I know you don't like the Visconti clip. I do like the Visconti clip. But the...

Brad Dowdy: This is one of the better interpretations of it. I think this is one of the nicer looks of it. I like the enamel fill that they're doing. I actually think that it makes it more attractive. But just the overall look of the pen, I can't believe that they're saying, like, hey, the suggested retail price of this pen is $1,000. Like, I'm sorry. I just can't get on board with that. Like, when the Leonardo's are half that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I think it's, you know, like the chat room is saying, there's a lot of additional work to fully polish the interior. That's why the Leonardo's are the satin finish, right? Because it's a lot of work. Like, I get it. It's marketing. I know.

Brad Dowdy: But this is clear acrylic. Like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? It's like, yes, you can continue to work on something until it costs $20,000. But it doesn't mean I want to pay for it. Like, these are decisions you make, not me. Right? I haven't decided that you're going to continue polishing it until I can see clearly through it. And I don't think I need that. Right.

Myke Hurley: So, like... I think your point was valid about, like, this is in the... This would do better, in my opinion, and this is piggybacking off your point, this would do better as a $350 steel nib, my first fancy Visconti pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I agree. I just... Again, it's like... I'm trying to think of how to describe this. Like, if you... I'm really going to boil this down to a point that I think is not intended to be disrespectful to Visconti, but it's kind of trying to make the point. Like, you take, like, a plastic carrier bag that you get from a store, right? Mm-hmm. If you made some kind of, like, artisan version of this, which is, like, handmade in some way, but still looks like a plastic carrier bag, and tell me it costs 15 grand, like, it doesn't mean that it's going to look expensive. Like, this... I don't think I've made a very good metaphor here. I understand, like... It looks... It just has a look of a pen I've seen many of. Maybe in person, I'll be like, wow, the clarity of this thing, right?

Myke Hurley: But... It's funny you said that. I really want to try the blue one and see it in person. I think I would super enjoy it, but would never want to own it. I think it would look really cool, but I could never justify buying it, which is... I mean, that's Visconti's move, right? Like, that's why I don't own one, because I haven't quite justified the cost for what they're selling me. And, you know, this one's in there.

Brad Dowdy: And I get luxury goods, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you know, I understand a lot of that stuff. Oh, yeah, totally. But this just... For me, it just... It really isn't it.

Myke Hurley: Yep. So, anyway. So, we had some comments on that. I just wanted to touch base. Real quick, and a little bit of follow-up from some issues I was having with my Nakaya mic, and then we'll get into some Ask TPA. Yay. So, my first Nakaya, the black and green one, the Nakaya Portable Ayo Tamanuri is the finish. My first, my favorite, still the best for me. I generally, a lot of times, just pop in Platinum's ink cartridges into there, because I love their blue-black ink cartridges. And I have the Mount Fuji water ones, right? The Mountain Runoff blue-black cartridges, which are my favorite, because they make me giggle, and the color is a little bit better than standard. Pop that in there, and it wouldn't flow. And Platinum's one of those cartridges that, when you pop it in, it's usually engineered to get down through the feed, out the nib, in a reasonable time frame, right? I've had some ink cartridges, like, say, a short International Ink cartridge that may not always, depending on what pen you're using, may not always flow immediately. But the idea of cartridges is it should be a quick change, and you're ready to write pretty soon. You might have to scroll a little bit, get it flowing. I worked on this, I let it sit, you know, I was swirling it, I was shaking it, couldn't get it to write for, like, a day or two, so I let it sit, tip down, see if I could get the ink flowing, would never flow.

Brad Dowdy: Did you just not use it for a while?

Myke Hurley: Well, I mean, yeah, but that doesn't have anything to do with it. Because, I mean, it was cleaned out, like, pristinely before, so it's, like, basically like picking up a new pen, popping in an ink cartridge. So, like, the matter of not using it is irrelevant in this case. And then I even, like, after, like, two days, I was very confused. I was like, I want to see what happens here. Like, I've carried it around in my pocket, nibbed down. I've done, like, everything I think I should do normally for this pen to just work. And it wouldn't. So, like, by day three, I had taken it into the kitchen and disassembled it, like, completely. Pulled the nib, pulled the feed, pulled everything out, cleaned it, you know, flossed the tines, did everything. Put the ink cartridge back in, nothing. So then I was just like, forget it. I'm just going to go and grab a paper towel, and I'm going to shake it, like, really, really hard and see what happens. Like, I really didn't want to do that. And boom, that was it. Like, the ink started flowing then. Like, I could have done that the first day, the first minute, but I, like, I really shouldn't have had to.

Myke Hurley: So I don't know. It's not that big a deal, but I was making a big deal about it on Instagram because it was annoying me. And I don't know. It was just, like, one of those little frustration things. So now if I get an ink cartridge and it doesn't write, like, in the first, like, five minutes or so, I'm just going to go toss it around a little bit. And make sure it goes. You know, this, I've never had an issue with the ink flowing in this pen. I use this pen a lot. I've used it with converters and ink bottles. I've used it with cartridges. I was just a little flummoxed, but it's writing now. So I can stand down from, you know, throwing my Nikai across the room, which I would never do.

Brad Dowdy: Let's finish out today's episode with some hashtag Ask TPA questions. O-S-A-U-T-S says, My favorite pen brand is firmly Aurora, and my best writing pen is arguably the Pilot Custom 823. So why, then, is my favorite pen I own, the Estabrook SD Rocky Top with the journal and nib? The material and the writing experience are perfect, but the dollar doesn't equal best.

Myke Hurley: So my comment that I wrote in this, and I very much believe, is the money spent doesn't equal the best, and it never has, and it never will.

Brad Dowdy: I firmly believe, a lot of people don't like this kind of thing, but, like, how something could be favorite and best, and they're different. Yes. You can have something that is your favorite. Like, so you can have your favorite film, but you can also have a film that you think is the best film that you've seen, you know? It doesn't mean that they're the same thing, because your personal tastes and your appreciation of art can and should be different.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I mean, this falls in my realm that I love the Sailor King of Pen, you know, just for what it is, how it feels when I use it, but, like, the Nakaya that I use is, well, they're about the same price, but, like, I use the 1911 more, right? Like, it's a better all-around pen, it writes wonderfully, it's half the price. That doesn't mean it's any less of a pen than, you know, a pen twice at its cost. It's what you,

Myke Hurley: it's what the product does to meet your own personal expectations. Like, the price doesn't matter, right? That's why I love, like, a Jetstream or a Hitec C, because it fulfills this expectation that I have of what I want to experience, right? And then the dollar figure doesn't matter. But the more you spend is never going to, like, change, like, whether it's necessarily good or not. It's going to change a little bit more about how you feel about the product, not how it functions. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Instantiate, this says, if you were a pen, what pen would you be? I think I would be the more pen from the 1920s. Not that impressive from the outside, but my insides are kind of a mess. But when I flex, oh boy,

Myke Hurley: why flex?

Myke Hurley: I love that. This is really funny. I, like, I had to think about this. And I picked a Nakaya, but I actually picked one I don't own, but I picked the one I want to own. And it's the most basic. I'm the best pen in the world. No, it's the most basic. It's the single most basic Nakaya. Right. It's the black with the red, which is the Kuro Tamanuri. So it's the Piccolo, which is the small one.

Myke Hurley: And it's black with, like, the red underlying color. And I just think it's the epitome of Japanese design, right? It's extremely simple, but it's highly complex. I wrote down subtle, but deadly. Like, that's the kind of pen, like, I want to be. I don't want to be showy. You know, I don't want to be flashy, unlike some people who are about to talk.

Myke Hurley: But I like, I like the subtleness. I like the craftsmanship. I like the idea. I like the history. I like the looks. I don't know. It's, it's subtle, but deadly, Myke. I'm gonna have to go with, like, the very, very basic Nakaya, Piccolo, Kuro Tamanuri.

Brad Dowdy: I was looking around my office and trying to come up with something and I didn't feel like I could really come up with a good answer. But I saw a pen that made me chuckle to think about, and it's the Retro 51 Chiopino. Yeah. And it's like, because, it's super regular on the inside, right? This is the same as every other Retro 51 Tornado you can buy. The refill is the refill. But on the outside, it's trying so hard, maybe even a little bit too hard to be fancy. So, I feel like maybe that, maybe that's me.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. If I had to think of what you have, like, I obviously don't know everything you had. If I was thinking of a pen, the one that came in mind, it kind of falls in the line of this one, is the Alice in Wonderland Sailor. Like, that pen's got a lot going on. It seems like a, it seems like a very, like, like, Myke could be that pen. Like, it's got a lot going on. It's very cool. It's got some neat, neat things going on, you know. I don't know. So, I don't know. That was my, my thought while you were, while you were thinking about this.

Brad Dowdy: And the last question today comes from Brooklyn Baker. Hey guys, I feel like I should know the answer to this considering how often Retro, Retro 51s come up. But is there a difference in between the models, like the Tornado's and whatever the limited editions are? And what is your preferred refill?

Myke Hurley: This is, it's surprisingly a hard question. Well,

Brad Dowdy: because there is some nuance to this question. Yes. Because, so, for as much as I can tell, they used to be. But I actually, now, can only find, like on Retro 51's website, they seem to only have Tornado's there. Yeah. Where they used to make, like, Tornado's slim for a while, and they had one.

Myke Hurley: They used to have some retractables as well. Yeah, it's so,

Brad Dowdy: I can never remember the name of the retractable because they call the Tornado's poppers. Right. And that should have been what they called the retractable one, but they didn't. Right. But basically, every Tornado. They did,

Myke Hurley: actually, sometimes call them poppers. I swear they had a retractable that was a popper, but yes.

Brad Dowdy: But, so, the Tornado's are technically called poppers, and they are all the same on the inside. The refills are all the same.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. But, do they not have any with the ballpoints in there anymore? I guess that's the question, right? Like, figuring out, I'm with you, I 100% agree with what you said, but I, I'm remembering, like, they've had some ballpoint refills, maybe it was the slims that had to fit a different refill size, you know, things like that. But right now, as far as I can tell, it's just the Tornado, which is the shape of the pen, right? It's designed to look like a Tornado, so, you know, small, small tip, and then it widens out just a little bit as you go up to the top of the pen. Uh, favorite refill for them, I use the P8126, which is the one millimeter smaller than the ones that the Reftro 51 ships with by Schmidt. And then I use the,

Brad Dowdy: P8127.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. And then I switch some of them out to a refill called the Oto Flash Dry, which is a 0.5 millimeter gel needle tip. So, it's not necessarily aesthetically as perfect as the Schmidt refill is, because it's a needle tip, right? So, it kind of, uh, it's a little bit jarring in the taper in the front end, but I, it works for me. Like, um, those are, those are my favorites, so.

Brad Dowdy: All right, I think that wraps it up, uh, for this episode, right? Yes. If you would like to send in a question for us to answer on a future episode of the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag RSTPA, or use question mark RSTPA in the RelayFM members' Discord. You can also email them to Brad at hello at penaddict.com. Penaddict.com is where you can find Brad's writing. Also, knock.co and spokedesign.com for Brad's products that he works on. All very, very good stuff. Uh, you can find Brad on Instagram. He is penaddict. On Twitter, he is dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. Brad streams on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 a.m. Eastern over on twitch.tv slash penaddict. You can find me online. I'm imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Uh, this show is a part of RelayFM. If you would like to find a new show for yourself, why don't you go to relay.fm slash shows, and I'm sure there'll be a new podcast there that you can add to your queue. Thank you to Squarespace for their support of this week's episode, and thank you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.