The Pen Addict 46/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	46
Title:	The Trifecta
Release Date:	March 19th, 2013
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 46
Audio File:	Audio Episode 46
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 46
Length:	3636 min <br />0.6 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to episode number 46 of The Pen Addict podcast, a weekly show dedicated to discussing pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we all love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined today by the secret agent of pens, the top agent at MIPen5 or something, 00.4, Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: That was awesome. Thanks. Yeah, that's going to the top of the list. I like that. Yeah, 00.4. Agent 00.4 millimeter.

Myke Hurley: That's pretty good. Thank you. So what's going on, man? Not much. Well, say not much. All of the stuff.

Network News

Brad Dowdy: What's going on is everything, pretty much.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, yeah. It's funny, isn't it? So I guess we should, you know, regular listeners to the network are going to hear this on every single show this week, but I want to make sure that everybody knows just in case they don't listen to the other shows or follow us on Twitter and stuff. So the 70 Decibels network, of which this show is a part of, has been acquired by the 5x5 podcasting network, which is extremely exciting news. We're very, very pleased about this. And there will be a link in the show notes to the blog post that I wrote announcing this. And it's at 70decibels.com forward slash blog. So over the coming weeks, we're going to be moving all of the network and all the shows over to the 5x5 network. This shouldn't mean too much of change at all for you, dear listener, but we will keep you updated with everything. I want you to be well aware of anything you might want to do or not need to do and all that sort of stuff. We're hoping that the transition should actually be seamless and your feed should move over perfectly so you won't need to worry. But if there was anything, we would let you know. But I have actually changed feeds and stuff before, so I know it's not too much of a task, in all honesty.

Myke Hurley: So, yes, that will be all fine. But we'll let you know about that over the coming weeks. But we're very, very excited because it gives us a new home. It gives us some infrastructure and stuff like that that we desperately need. And this move will ensure that the pen addict will be around for a very, very long time to come.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, this is really great news. It's really exciting news. And, you know, it's been, you know, Myke's been talking to us hosts at 70 Decibels behind the scenes for a while. And we've all just been totally excited for this opportunity. And we're all very, very proud of what Myke has done and how he has grown the 70 Decibels network. And it could not have happened to a better guy. And I'm really proud of you, Myke. And I'm very happy for you. And this is 100% all good things are going to come out of this.

Myke Hurley: Thank you, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. I'm pumped. I mean, I'm really excited about it. And, you know, and like you said, you know, it's really not going to change anything for us. It's going to give us, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of help on the back end stuff. And, you know, we'll be, maybe we'll, you know, for our podcast in particular, we may get to do a few different cool things. But, you know, we'll sort that out as those details come. We'll definitely let, you know, everyone know, you know, Myke or myself will keep everyone abreast of it if anything has to change with the details surrounding the podcast. Right now, it doesn't look like anything's going to change for us. But, you know, as far as scheduling and goes, everything goes, people will notice that today's a Tuesday recording. We talked about recording on Thursday. My plan came to fruition. I didn't think we were going to be on Thursdays for too long. It just happened sooner than I thought it would. So, yeah, we're back on Tuesdays. But anything like that, we'll definitely let everyone know. But this is good. I mean, I'm excited now. I'm a huge, I was a huge 5x5 fan before even, you know, before 70 decibels existed, like I think a lot of the podcast hosts are. So this is a pretty cool deal.

Myke Hurley: Very, very excited.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: We're very excited. So, yeah, it's going to be exciting times, I'm sure. And, yeah, really, really pleased.

Brad Dowdy: Good deal. Good deal. So you're finally being able to get some sleep after last week. I know it was a busy, busy week for you at the end of last week. Lots going on.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I've been extremely busy the last few days.

Brad Dowdy: Well, cool. Let's get into this podcast and we'll get you in bed and get you fed and tucked in tonight, Myke. How's that sound?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, that sounds great.

Listener Feedback

Brad Dowdy: So, you know, I – one of the things I get concerned about from time to time with the podcast, and Myke and I have not talked about this specifically recently, but we've talked about it in the past, is, you know, Myke and I kind of get off on tangents that kind of become a running theme for, you know, five, six, seven shows. Like we've gotten into the retro 51 and vanishing point where it seemed like that's all we talked about. And recently it's been the field notes that we've been talking about all the time. And, you know, I've had some – you know, I've had a couple followers like on Twitter saying, hey, this is – I'm really enjoying your field notes podcast. And, you know, they're being sarcastic and, you know, like get back to talking to the pins kind of thing. And I definitely hear you guys, you know, when we talk about that. We try not to go overboard too much, but also on the other hand, it's also a lot – I get, you know, exponentially more comments and emails about those topics that we are talking about. So it's – we do try to balance, you know, the topic. But sometimes, you know, we kind of get in a role and there's – we start talking about a topic, then people have more questions about that topic. And it just kind of leads into a recurring theme kind of deal. So I don't want people to get – go ahead.

Myke Hurley: I think that our show more than any other show that I do or that I've ever heard really, it follows our obsessions. So as the things that we enjoy change and continue to go through, the same will the show. Like so as you say that we spoke about two pens, you know, the vanishing point of the Retro 51 for a long time. And then recently it's been Twisby and Field Notes. It's just as our – because this show is about obsessions. And as they have changed and as they move over time, so does the show's topics. But they follow a similar path like that. So in a couple of months' time, we'll be talking about something else. But right now, especially me, I'm really caught up with Field Notes.

Brad Dowdy: Right, and a lot of our listeners are too. So I get a lot of that feedback during the week that, hey, what about this? What about this? Did you see this? So those are still things people want answers to these questions. So we still do talk about it from time to time. But don't worry. It's never going to – I just don't want listeners to worry that it's ever going to be something just full bore, you know, one topic all the time. So, you know, that being said, the things we're going to talk about on this podcast are Field Notes, Vanishing Points, and Retro 51s. Yep. Because that's everything I have in the notes for today, which is – it's kind of ironic that I'm mentioning that. But it's some very –

Myke Hurley: Yeah, this episode is basically the amalgamation of everything that we've ever spoken about into one.

Brad Dowdy: But what it is, it's some really – you know, part of it – you say it's obsession, and it is. And part of that – the thing that goes along with obsession is discovery. So we're discovering all these new things and things that we didn't know exist related to those obsessions that we've had already. So those topics just keep coming up from time to time and time again. So anyway, it's pretty cool. So one of the things I wanted to mention about the recent Field Notes that I've gotten a lot of tweets on and a lot of people mentioned was how crazy the prices have gotten on eBay. And they were crazy, you know, a few months ago where they were going for like $50, $60 for all the old out-of-print versions. Well, someone – the same eBay seller has been loading a bunch of really old versions like Just Below Zero and Mackinac Autumn, and they're still in the – still sealed up in the wrappers and everything. And I got tweets because the prices on these went – they just – they closed out yesterday or today or something. They both – each of those three packs went for $127.

Myke Hurley: Yep, both bought by the same person.

Brad Dowdy: Both bought by the same person. So a three-pack of Just Below Zero and a three-pack of Mackinac Autumn, both of them sealed, went for $127.53 each.

Myke Hurley: Did you put any bids in?

Brad Dowdy: Hell no. I did. That's insane. I mean, there's no way. I put some bids in. Oh, yeah? On both of those? On both of them, yeah. Yeah. I mean, like I said, I'm comfortable around for ones that I need that are old, especially those are really old ones. I mean, those are some of the, what, first four, first five editions released. So they're very low print and it's hard to come by. But I still can't imagine paying more than $50 or $60. I mean, that's, you know, $250. I mean, that's some pretty sweet pins I could buy with that money. Totally. I mean, but I'm also speaking from the aspect where I have both of those, right? So, I mean, I don't have a sealed three-pack of Mackinac Autumn. Mine aren't loose, but I do have a sealed pack of Just Below Zero. But that's crazy. And it seemed to be my followers on Twitter felt that that was pretty crazy, too.

Myke Hurley: I put in a bit of $50 for the Just Below Zero and $70 for Mackinac Autumn, bearing in mind that, you know, with exchange rates, I actually come out much better than that, you know? Sure. Sure. But I gave it a go. They were my maximums. And after that, I was not going to put a penny more.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Would you even consider going, like, $127.53?

Myke Hurley: Well, I mean, I assume this person's got that money, right? So. Sure, sure. Yeah, I mean, that's fair. You know, if I was sitting on a massive cash pile, then, yeah, sure I would, you know? It's all relative to a point, I guess. Yeah, that's true. It would have restricted me from buying anything else. So I've got another couple of packs, so I've got my first pack of American Tradesmen. Nice. And do you remember the Balsam Fur pack that got lost in the post? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Turns out they were craft green, but such is life. I got them for very cheap, and we did kind of expect that, didn't we?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. It wasn't adding up at the time, so.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. But at least I've got that pack, which I'm happy with. Yep. Cool. And hopefully I'm going to be coming into quite a haul of books soon, so I'll talk about that in a few weeks' time. Nice. I've got something interesting happening.

Brad Dowdy: Very cool. Very cool.

Brad Dowdy: Very cool. So that concludes our field notes segment of the podcast. You can unmute us now.

Fountain Pens

Brad Dowdy: But I've been, for the past few months, I've been working with a guy named Thomas on the blog who's been sending me a bunch of fountain pens. And, you know, just for testing, you know, he knew I was really getting into them, and he sent me all kinds of different brands that I didn't own, different nib sizes that I didn't own, all kinds of crazy stuff. So I keep in quite constant contact with Thomas because I always have a lot of questions about the pens that he sent me. For one example, I just did a post on the Edison Pearl on the pen addict on Monday, which is a lovely pen. So Thomas is always sending me – I've learned more from this guy this year than my whole time with fountain pens on all these different things that you can do, different products that I've never heard of in my life. And this one he sent me really intrigued me. And I don't even know the correct pronunciation, but I'm going to go with Binds, B-I-N-D-E-S. So there's a website called custom-binds.com, and I've never used them. He just sent me this link, and I looked at it. And what it is essentially is a company that takes your existing fountain pen, say in this case a vanishing point, like I mentioned. We were talking about that before. And they can essentially rework the barrel material into a completely different barrel material. Like, for example, I could take my black matte vanishing point, and he could – this custom-binds – I guess the guy's name is Chris. He can basically reapply like – oh, God, all kinds of – like an acrylic or celluloid or different metal. I think the picture I linked to you was a metal casing around a vanishing point. It's beautiful. It looks really cool.

Myke Hurley: It's an acetate.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. So I – this is like one of those things that goes along the lines of I had no clue something like this existed. And it looks fantastic, all the pictures, and we'll have all the links in the show notes. But I'd be curious because I've never had any other users mention that they've done anything like this. But it looks like a pretty – I don't want to say common thing, but it looks like it's a pretty decent option for someone who's got an existing pen. Maybe it's just basic black with gold trim, even like a Mont Blanc. And you can really add a lot of style, a lot of color, a lot of different feel. I mean, I actually like – going through the website, I actually like some of the hard rubber coatings that he's done, like some of the solid colors, like a red on a Mont Blanc and things like that or an orange.

Brad Dowdy: I didn't know anything like this existed. So I'd be curious to know if anyone has ever done this. And if they have, definitely send me a picture of it because I kind of want to see it in person. I don't – at first blush, I don't know if this is something that I would ever do. Probably not. And this is – I don't even know what the prices are. I can't imagine it's cheap. But I don't know. One of the reasons why I buy a pen is because I like how the barrel looks. And I could see if I came into possession of some vintage fountain pens that were kind of rough looking. I think this would actually improve their looks. And I think that's probably a lot of the work that he does. But I think just on a standard purchase of a pen, I don't know if I would do that with any of the pens I currently own or any new pens I would purchase. I wouldn't be purchasing a pen right now to say, hey, I'm going to get a bind to put on it.

Myke Hurley: Are you familiar with the Pelican M800?

Brad Dowdy: Generally, yeah. I mean I have an idea of what it looks like, yeah.

Myke Hurley: So do you know how much they cost?

Brad Dowdy: Not offhand.

Myke Hurley: Because he's selling –

Brad Dowdy: I think they're pretty expensive.

Myke Hurley: Let me see. It's difficult for me to find one on a U.S. site. I keep finding links on U.K. sites, which is frustrating. Because he's selling one for like $405 that has been custom-binded.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Interesting. Would you ever consider doing that to your pens or –

Myke Hurley: I haven't got a pen that I think I love enough to be customized. Yeah. Like I don't even think – I think it would have to be – I don't know. It would have to be an expensive pen to start with. So maybe something like the Vanishing Point. And then I would have to – I don't know how I would choose. But yeah, I mean it would be something that I would consider if there was something that I wanted to do that with. But there are so many different parameters. Like why would I want to – I mean it looks great, but why would I want to do that? And then what would I want on it that wasn't already on it?

Brad Dowdy: Right. And that was kind of my point. If I'm going to – say I'm going to the pen show in a month and I have a list of pens that I want to buy. Well, I'm buying them because I like how they look now and how they're going to write obviously and things like that. But I could see this becoming useful if I did come into something vintage that needed a little pick-me-up kind of thing and would really make a difference in how the pen looks. Otherwise, I probably – I wouldn't do that like on any like current purchases, especially of new pens. I don't see me doing it. But I was pretty surprised and I was mostly surprised about how good it actually looks. I'm a little bit shocked actually. This guy does good work. He pulls it off. I mean it looks like it just – it could come from the manufacturer. So definitely check out that Vanishing Point link because I think that is one of the coolest ones on the whole site.

Myke Hurley: It's in the show notes.

Brad Dowdy: Cool.

Retro 51

Brad Dowdy: Cool. We have a topic I want to dig into a little bit and it might go on a little long. So you want to go ahead and do our sponsor now and then we'll get into that next topic.

Myke Hurley: That sounds great. So should I talk about Squarespace? Yes, sir. So squarespace.com, they are sponsoring this episode and they give you absolutely everything you need to make an amazing website. Squarespace provides you with all of the tools it takes to putting your site online. It doesn't matter how experienced you are with building websites. You can build something amazing in minutes without having to worry about hosting, scaling or integration with social services like Twitter and Facebook. If you need to build a website, blog, portfolio or business site, they can give you everything you need. They have beautiful, fantastic templates. You can create your pages using the intuitive drag and drop interface which makes it really easy and fun to use. We spoke about that when we were talking about building our custom field notes pages on mine and Brad's blogs. So you can go check those out on our blogs. So you can see how a Squarespace site can look and it didn't take us very long to add at all. They have real-time analytics, a blog importer to bring your site over. They have fantastic and beautiful apps as well which show you all of your stats and allow you to post on the go and all of that fun stuff. And Squarespace have just launched Squarespace Commerce. It's never been easier to start selling things online because Squarespace Commerce gives you all of the tools to do that and they integrate a fantastic store right into your websites. You can instantly start accepting payments and they partner with Stripe for that. And if you have any physical or digital goods, you have fantastic tools to help manage that. So inventory management, order processing, you can print things like packing slips, coupons and that sort of stuff. You can create customized emails. You can host digital files and they can have download codes sent to your purchasers and all of that fantastic stuff. So you should go and check that out. And you can do that by going to squarespace.com forward slash 70 decibels where you can find out more and sign up for a free trial. Squarespace starts at $10 a month for their standard plan. If you sign up for a year for any of their plans, you'll automatically get 20% off that price. And if you sign up for two years up front, you'll get 25% off that price. And you will want to use the code 70 decibels free at checkout. So help them know that you found out about them through us and it will give you an additional 10% off your first order. So go check out Squarespace, everything you need to make an amazing website.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Awesome. So we've covered field notes. We've covered the vanishing point. So let's talk about Retro 51.

Pin Testing

Brad Dowdy: Myke and I had the opportunity. I want to say it was late summer into the fall last year. Would you say that's accurate timeline? Sounds about right. Sounds about right. Where Retro 51 included Myke and I in a product testing of a new product they were releasing.

Brad Dowdy: And they sent us each a pin to use. Basically, the premise was, here's this pin we're considering bringing to market. And Myke and I weren't the only ones in this, obviously. But there was, I don't know how many people were involved in it. But I liken it to like a focus group. It wasn't necessarily a product review. It was basically a product focus group where they're wanting legitimate feedback. Use the product. Give us feedback on this product. And we're going to decide how we're going to bring this to market.

Brad Dowdy: So they sent Myke and I each a pin. Asked us to use it for a month.

Brad Dowdy: And then they would send us out an online survey where Myke and I, you know, I can't even remember the questions now. Myke and I were talking about it. It was an online survey. So we don't have documentation of what the specific questions were and, you know, what our exact feedback was. Because it's been six or eight months at this point since we've done it. But what they sent us ended up being released here recently. And they're calling it the Retro 51 Snapper Tornado.

Brad Dowdy: They actually, they did. I don't think they gave us the name at the time. No, they did give us the name at the time. They did call it the Snapper. It's basically the Retro 51 Tornado that we've talked about.

Brad Dowdy: You know, the standard Tornado with the rollerball ink cartridge. They've made essentially a retractable Tornado with the ballpark ink cartridge. That's the nuts and bolts of the Snapper. It's generally the same body shape, body style, body dimensions as the regular 51 Tornado. But it's retractable. And it's ballpoint instead of rollerball.

Myke Hurley: See, this is the thing. On their website, it says at the bottom they have the refills like they always do. And they have rollable conversion. And they have the refills on there. But I think that that's incorrect. Because when, or at least when we spoke to them, they said that it wasn't going to be available in the rollable version. And I had a tweet from Retro 51 the other day confirming that. Well, that I said, somebody asked me, are they available in the rollerball? And I said I believed it was the ballpoint. And they said yes. Now, this was my initial issue. And this is what I told them. Do you mind if I jump in first?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Well, yeah. So let's each give our feedback. And we have never discussed this pin amongst each other other than the pin arrived. And we're going to do our submission for Retro 51. We never discussed the pin until right now. So you go first. And then I'll go.

Myke Hurley: So they are as beautiful as you would expect. They look just like the Tornadoes. And the colors that are on offer. So they have a chrome, a blue, a very bright yellow, and a confetti, like a multicolored one. They look fantastic. Me and Brad had a version which hasn't actually been released. It was like a yellow striped, right?

Brad Dowdy: No. Mine's different. Mine was solid white. So the ones that we got, neither of them have been released in the color.

Myke Hurley: I have a two-tone yellow striped version. I wish I had it here. I actually have it at work with the rest of my collection. So I haven't got a picture for people. So I apologize.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I didn't break mine out either. Mine's sitting in the other room. I don't have it in front of me. But, yeah, mine's a solid white lacquer.

Tornado Design

Myke Hurley: So I love the mechanism of it, actually. It lends itself to – the way that the tornado looks, I mean, it has the twist end on it, right? But actually kind of that design lends itself to a knocker style. So, you know, you push down on the top.

Myke Hurley: And so, you know, that was all fine. I found the actual – remember, these were prototypes. So, you know, just please bear that in mind. But the build quality wasn't exactly the same as usual. And that was kind of what I told them. I found the mechanism to be quite rattly.

Myke Hurley: So it didn't really feel like it was put together as well as usual. Now, I would not be surprised if they fixed this. So when I was writing, the mechanism was rattling around in the top of the pen, which was kind of frustrating. And I gave it a go for as long as possible. It was quite funny because the ones that they sent me, the ink had dried out. It probably got to me. So they very – I sort of sent them a note and they got the – it was very, very good the way they did this, actually. They spoke to their Retro 51 UK dealer and they sent me an assortment of different colours. I think it had opened in transit because they didn't come in the usual – it just came in an envelope. It didn't come in the tin. So I think it might have gone pressed and got pressed in transit and the ink dried out.

Myke Hurley: Or, you know, it was just some freak accident, but they fixed that. And my main problem with this, though, is because it's a ballpoint is a reason that I – I'm not inclined to buy one of these to add another one to my collection as it stands. Because what I love, I've always loved about the Retro 51 is the quality of the refill and the Schmidt refill that they use, the rollerball. I've always loved the ink distribution. The line it lays down is just fantastic and it's one of the things to this day why I use Retro 51s nearly daily still. Because of how much I love that refill, this one doesn't have it or at least it doesn't appear to. I mean, if anybody can confirm to me that's different or, you know, or if it is an error on their website, fine. But that is kind of my issue really, Brad, is that the pen looks fantastic. The colours look beautiful. Like I want all of these styles. But I don't think I would use it because of the ballpoint refill. I mean, the fact that it rattled wasn't really that much of an issue, but I just noticed that it did. Again, I don't know if yours is the same, but we'll get to that in a minute. But it's, you know, for me it's about how the pen writes as much as how it looks. And what remains a pen that I want to use every day is one that I actually feel that I get a good consistent writing out of. And I've never, you know, long-time listeners of the show will know I've never liked ballpoints and never really will. Right, right. Yeah. Go ahead.

Brad Dowdy: No, I was just going to say, yeah, I'm the same way on the, just in general on ballpoints. I'm not a heavy ballpoint pen user. I just want to reiterate something you said just so we are crystal clear on this because I might have been talking over you while you said it. The pens we got were prototypes. They may not be final production models. So whatever we say were based on these models that we got, it may be completely unrelated to the product that's being sold right now. So I want to make sure we are crystal clear on that. That said, I pretty much eviscerated this pen in my review.

Brad Dowdy: The barrel and body style are fantastic, like you say. It's really just like the regular Tornado 51, the Retro 51 Tornado, the rollerball version in design. The build quality I felt was subpar and it all boils down into the, we'll call it the snapper mechanism. You know, the click, the click action top, the knock. It was unusable for me. It rattled so badly. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I hated every minute of it. It was hard to use. I had to force myself to use it to get a good feel of it because I wanted to give them proper feedback. And I did. I mean, I wish I saved off some of my feedback. But I basically had a lot of the same feelings as you did. But I think I went even harder on the knock mechanism. And I went so far as saying in my review that I felt if they took the product to market in this exact shape, that they're going to get a lot of feedback about that. And it's not going to be positive. So I'm very anxious to get a hold of one of these pins or if one of our readers gets one of these pins and see if that was fixed. Because once we turned in our surveys, we were done, right? We never got any future communication with them. At least I didn't.

Myke Hurley: They said thanks, you know.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But there was never, hey, we got your feedback and we've made some changes kind of thing. So we don't know what's happened in the six months since we've done this, whether they've corrected some of these issues. Because there were clear issues. If I bought this pin in the state that I reviewed it, I would ask for my money back. That's how I felt about the pin at the time. So I hope for them that it's changed.

Brad Dowdy: Because it was a real issue for me. And it was not an enjoyable experience because it rattled so loudly. And, you know, and part of it is it's an all-metal pin. So when you have, and I've had this issue with the Kaweco AL ballpoint, which is the aluminum barrel ballpoint. When you have that metal-on-metal mechanism, it's got no choice but to make noise when you're riding with it. Some companies can handle that better than others. This was not handled very well. The Kaweco AL ballpoint, which is basically aluminum-on-aluminum and the inner knock mechanism. There's a lot more going on with a retractable pin as far as moving parts than a standard pin, you know. It's no wonder you don't see many retractable pins being built on Kickstarter. I mean, it's for a reason. It's not as easy. And there's a lot more things that can go wrong because there's a lot more moving parts.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I actually had the mechanism fail on me a couple of times too. I don't know if you had that. Because I used it for like a week, and there were times where it just got stuck.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, like it wouldn't engage or disengage?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And I had to unscrew it to get it all to go back.

Brad Dowdy: I don't recall having that specifically. I just recall it being so loud, it was annoying me, and I had to stop using it.

Myke Hurley: And you could feel it as well.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, right. There was like, for lack of a better term, it was almost like a vibration feedback. There was like a tic-tac kind of feeling when you're riding and just...

Myke Hurley: I have found the tweet that they sent to me, and they did say it's only a ballpoint. So I put that in the show notes.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, because they do have the rollerball right there on that page.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I think that's just their standard sort of layout to the page, which isn't an excuse. But that's... If you look at all of their pages for the Tornadoes, it has the refills there. But they need to change that.

Snapper Pen

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So we're going to have to do some follow-up. If I can come up with an easy source for the Snapper, I'll get one. Because I would like to see. I mean, this would be a good test. I can take the prototype and see if anything's changed from the release model. And I think these just came out this week. Was it this week or last week that they started promoting these? Do you recall?

Myke Hurley: I think that was Friday.

Brad Dowdy: Friday.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, Friday of last week. Maybe it could be a good one for a guest review, if any of our listeners have bought one. And they want to contact you, I guess, for that. I mean, I feel like we wouldn't be as harsh if their usual quality wasn't so above par. Right. In this price bracket, I still remain that I've yet to find a better quality pen than the Retro 51 Tornado standard version. But the $25 price bracket, I don't think you can find anything better, personally. Fountain pen, rollerball, ballpoint. I personally think there is no better pen in this bracket, which long-time listeners will know. I still feel that way. But I think maybe if that wasn't the case, we wouldn't be so harsh on it. But this is subpar for them to come out of a product like this, I feel. And it's a shame. And if it is the same, I'm surprised that they did it because I was very honest with mine. And I said to them I didn't feel like the quality was the same.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I said flat out that if they went to market in the shape that it's in, it's going to be a problem for them. That was my exact comment. I mean, I didn't hold anything back on it at all because I felt when there's a product you love and a company you love, when they do something that doesn't live up to what they've been in the past, I mean, you let them know because, I mean, there's no sense in not to.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, they sent it to us for a reason, right? Right. And I guess because they know how much we enjoy their product.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So it's interesting. We did have some of the same comments on it. I've been interested to know what you felt about it all along. But, yeah, it's – I will get one of these pens, a snapper. It's the only fair thing to do.

Myke Hurley: I agree with that, actually.

Brad Dowdy: So I don't want – like I said in the beginning, I just wanted to be clear about the prototypes that we got. And hopefully those issues have been corrected in the production model. And I will work on getting a snapper here pretty quickly so we can have a follow-up discussion to see if something changed or if something's not. And if it's changed, I will probably praise the pen. And I may not use it as much just because I'm not a huge ballpoint fan, but it doesn't – wouldn't mean it wasn't a poor pen just because it was a ballpoint. It would make it a poor pen if they didn't change the bad mechanism that both Myke and I experienced. So I think the only fair thing to do would be for me to purchase this pen and review it and then we can talk about it and have a follow-up on our Retro 51 snapper discussion.

Myke Hurley: Unfortunately, there are no – none of the suppliers that I use have these in stock or even have them listed as going to be in stock any point soon. So I won't be able to get hold of one because I would want to do the same.

Brad Dowdy: Right, and I'm with you. It's the same situation here. They're not – they've just been released. They're not in wide sale yet. So as soon as – if someone finds one for sale in the U.S., send me the link. I'll order it and I'll be keeping an eye out for – they just announced them, so they're going to take a little bit just to get pushed out to the retailers and things like that. And then the retailers, when pins show up at a retailer's door, they don't go on the website that same day. There's a lot that goes into it. So it might be a few weeks to a month before I can get a hold of one of these, but I will definitely do that.

Myke Hurley: Or if Retro 51 are listening and they want to send us to test or send you to test a final one, then please do. Yeah, that too.

Brad Dowdy: They know how to get in touch.

Myke Hurley: We want to give it a fair shake. Yeah, no doubt. I agree with you. That is the right thing to do, I think, is for us to check in and feedback.

Focus Group

Brad Dowdy: And Myke and I didn't talk about this before because doing these type of things, doing a focus group type thing, I mean they ask you not to. This is a product that may not have even seen the light of day. So there was no reason for Myke and I to talk about it. But now that they've been released for sale, we felt that it was open for discussion at this point. And we'll definitely be following up with one of the new ones to see if they've corrected some of the issues.

Myke Hurley: I didn't want to talk about it with you either for that reason. Oh, yeah. I would have never done that. Yeah. Well, I guess because we had strong – I guess we both had strong views on it.

Myke Hurley: I've never used it since the day I sent the feedback. Yeah. But I keep it in my case because it's just – the one that I have looks very nice. But I've not used it since. Correct. Yep. Me neither. So it would be worth seeing.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. But yeah, so it'll be interesting. So I think that's all I got for today, bud. I mean I think there's – I've got loads and loads of things to talk about. But like a lot of our episodes, we could go for two or three hours if we didn't just nip it in the bud and call it an episode and save the fun for next time.

Myke Hurley: Indeed. You can find us on social networks. I am imike, I-M-Y-K-E on both Twitter and app.net. And you can find Brad at penaddict.com and he is at dowdy, D-O-W-D-Y on app.net and dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M on Twitter. So thank you very much for listening to this week's episode of the Pen Addict Podcast. I'm Myke and he's Brad. And until next time, bye-bye. Bye. Bye.