The Pen Addict 489/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	489
Title:	The Radiation in This Pen Is Not Harmful
Release Date:	November 24th, 2021
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 489
Audio File:	Audio Episode 489
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 489
Length:	5050 min <br />0.833 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 489. Today's show is brought to you by our friends at Hello. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. Hello, Myke. Hello, Brad.

Brad: How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm very good. I'm very good. Happy to be here. Happy to talk about pens and paper. And what was the old intro you used to say? All the things we... What was the...

Myke: Pen and the analog tools we love so dearly? Something like that?

Brad: Yeah, something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. Classic Myke Hurley intro. We miss those days. We miss the nickname days, but it's good stuff. It's good stuff.

Stationery Correction

Myke: It's still part of the actual show description, which is, The Pen Addict is a weekly fix for all things stationery. Pens, pencils, paper, ink, you name it. And Brad Dowdy and Myke Hurley are into it. That's written weirdly. We should maybe adjust that. Join as they geek out of the analog tools they love so dearly.

Brad: We're into it, Myke.

Myke: We're into it. We're just like the way it's... Pen, pencils, paper, ink, you name it. And Brad Dowdy and Myke Hurley are into it. It should just be like Brad and Myke are into it. That should be what it is.

Brad: Who wrote that trash? You. Yeah, thank you. I'm going to guess. That was like 10 years ago.

Myke: While we're on this, I think it was maybe two weeks ago, I had to correct a stationery that you... You did.

Brad: That's not either of our faults.

Myke: You did stationery with an A.

Brad: No. You did. It was in Google Docs. You wrote it. Google did it. Google does not like analog tools as much as we do, Myke.

Myke: Google did it, yeah.

Brad: Google likes sitting. Google does not like analog tools. So I will not...

Myke: Google likes people to be stationary in front of their computers. Yes. Not stationary with the stationary.

Brad: Yes. We've had to train our doc at least twice. Like all of a sudden it will lose the E version of stationary and want to change everything and sometimes we miss them.

Myke: Yeah, there's no way you could have done it wrong. No. Never.

Brad: Never. Never.

Myke: What happens if it shows up on the website? Whose fault is it then?

Brad: I don't write in Google. Google, so... I mean, are you talking about like the Panatic website? Yeah. Yeah, I don't... No, because I never write anything in Google.

Google Docs Training

Myke: What do you write in?

Brad: Ulysses.

Myke: Right, okay. He's still in Ulysses. Okay. I remember you were on that a while ago.

Brad: Yeah, yeah. You just have to train it once, you know, to not switch your E's to A's and like it's good. Google, they don't play that game.

Myke: I feel like for you it would be beneficial just to have like a text expander snippet that just always naturally corrects it, right? So like...

Brad: It's funny because I do have like the stock list of like commonly misspelled words just to... And I'll be like, I'll like type in like because or something and type it wrong and then I'll hear like bloop. Like it changed it automatically. I should have that for the stationary one as well. But it doesn't matter with Google.

Myke: Well, also you never get it wrong. We've already established that.

Brad: True. True. True. I mean, like a lot of things in this show, I never get anything wrong, Myke. No. That's true. This is probably actually... Is this a big show of Brad gets things wrong? Probably.

Myke: I think that is the foreshadowing that you have established.

Brad: Yeah. I mean, this first topic that we're going to talk about, I didn't get this wrong. I just didn't know the answer to. And it turns out we have an amazing answer and I'm fascinated by what we came up with. So we had a question not that long ago around someone wanting a Tomoe River product or let's say a fountain pen friendly product in a steno type format, essentially top bound, wire bound, fountain pen friendly notebook. And I kind of really didn't know, right? Like you can get the Rhodia pads, but they're not really like the steno style. They're staple bound. You know, there's other glue bound pads that I use like from life, the bank paper, but there's nothing like a steno wire bound option until I was sent a really cool link from Toroco, which a lot of people are familiar with on Etsy, the Toroco shop on Etsy. They're very popular. Turns out, Myke, Toroco Reporter A5 Tomoe River paper notebook, completely fascinated by this.

Myke: So they, what is this Etsy store? Do they resell stuff mostly? It looks like they resell stuff, but they also make their own.

Etsy Store Discussion

Brad: I think yes to both, right? So yeah, like the, the, the reporter notebook is a Toroco design, right? Yeah. And I've heard a lot of people talk about the notebooks that they've gotten from them, but I would never thought to go check out the shop for.

Myke: Oh no, it looks like they make all of their own stuff. They just have different brands. So they use Cosmo air light paper in some product. I see. These look really nice. I wonder why it's on Etsy.

Brad: Yeah. Cause this is like, like top tier, like construction. Like you can tell just the cut and the binding.

Myke: Some people use companies like Etsy and eBay and stuff as like, you handle the taxes for me. Cause this is a company about Taiwan. So like maybe they have a Taiwan, a store for Taiwan and then for places outside of Taiwan, maybe they sell on Etsy. True. Like I know that you remember we were talking about that VAT stuff a long time ago. Like, right. I know that Etsy got a bit of a boon during that time because it's like, well, if you just sell on Etsy or eBay, they'll take care of the tax part for you. So you don't have to do it anymore.

Brad: Well, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So yeah, this is, I mean, this is like a pretty big shop for like an Etsy shop. This is like pretty sizable, I think. But this product, Myke, is, is killer, right? Like it's a top spiral bound, like a double ring spiral reporter notebook with the 68 GSM blank Tomoe River paper in it. And I think it's like, how many pages is it? I think it's big. It's like, you know, like the 150, 180 pages. Like this is a no joke size reporter notebook and it's only 17 bucks. And like, I'm just kind of fascinated that this exists. 112 sheets. 112.

Myke: 2 to 4 pages.

Brad: Yep. So yeah, really cool. So thank you. Of course, me being me, Myke, I didn't, you know, note the name of the person who sent this in to give them full and proper credit for this.

Myke: Not that you were wrong about that in any way.

Brad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to take full and proper credit for this. I found this on my own.

Myke: Oh, good work, Brad. Please, you put the effort in there.

Myke: This is a product though. It's like, this looks great. But for how long is it going to be great? We don't know. Maybe we'll find out next because the Tomoe River successor paper has been thoroughly reviewed, right?

Brad: Our good friend, Jacob at Fooday Fan, also Tokyo Inklings podcast. Jacob, so the Tokyo International pin show was two weeks ago, one week ago. My time frames are a little bit off these past few weeks. So it was recent, Myke. Yeah. And at the show, several people were able to get their hands on samples of Sansin, which we talked about, you know, Jacob and CY's discussion on the Sansin purchase of the Tomoe River brand. And the samples were available for, you know, I think people got like sheets, right? Like, I don't know that there was like definitely like there weren't necessarily like notebooks and things like that. This was like a pre-launch kind of, hey, test this stuff out, see what you think. So Jacob, we'll have a link in the show notes to Jacob's review, but he did a full paper test of Sansin's Tomoe River, the new stuff, the new new, the previously new Tomoe River, and then the old Tomoe River. So he did a comparison of all three. And the results were positive, right? He liked it. He thought that it did a good job. It had some features that were definitely improved over the new Tomoe River paper, right? And thinks it will be, you know, pretty well received, you know, when it actually does launch. So I think it's going to be pretty cool, pretty popular. The.

Myke: Yep. Like he said, Jacob said it was his favorite. It's his favorite of the three. So this is, you know, I think we have the tendency, like this happens in all kinds of communities, to catastrophize change. Right. Change equals bad.

Myke: But it turns out maybe in this case, at least depending on if you have similar tastes to Jacob, actually this change is a good one.

Brad: Right. And this new paper is comparable in size to the original Tomoe River Techo paper, the 52 GSM, which is my preference. I actually like the thinner, the thinner old Tomoe River paper. So, yeah, that he, like he, I trust his opinion, like very, very much to, for him to say like, hey, this is really good. Like, I'm excited to try it. I just hope they, they come up with a new name before they launch it. Like, hopefully this was the, this is the alpha or the beta name. The name being Tomoe River's successor. Like, that's just, that's not me saying what this paper is. That's what they're calling it. They should call it. He says it's the name.

Myke: They should go fast and furious on it and call it Tomoe, like T-W-O. We did that joke. Did we? Oh, man. Yeah. I'm so predictable.

Brad: You did, you did that joke. Yeah. So, yeah, I think you, it was probably like a fever dream at night, one night.

Myke: No, I'm just, I just don't have very original jokes.

Brad: But no, I did, I did this, I said this back when we were talking about this, what, a few weeks ago, that please don't call it anything with Tomoe River in the name. Although I get why you want to call it anything with Tomoe River in the name, right? But my preference.

Myke: Why, if it's good and it's similar, why not just call it Tomoe River? Why not just call it nothing else except this is Tomoe River paper? Like they did last time. Because it got changed, right? Like we just mentioned that, right? They changed the paper and they just kept the name. And people ultimately were happy because it was close enough. Why not just call it Tomoe River? Like why even give it a different brand at all if the paper's good?

Brad: Because then I always have to have a comparison. Well, but this isn't for you. And that this would separate me. No, I agree. That's the problem, right? I just want the notebook paper that fountain pen users use from the new Sansan brand to be called something. Not Tomoe River. But they'll never do that, right?

Myke: I would actually just like it to be called Tomoe River paper personally. Because then I just know what I'm getting. And it's just the end of that.

Brad: Maybe just T3. We're on round three of this. And I don't know. But like from Sansan's perspective, business-wise, right? This is more than a stationary paper, right? We just look at it from the lens of, hey, this is our favorite fountain pen paper where actually that paper is like a much bigger business that's, you know, used for different things, right? Which is why they would want to keep the name.

Myke: They bought brand recognition. It's one of the things they purchased. Yep. I agree. They're not going to change it. No, I think they're just calling it Tomoe River successor in the time where they have both of them. And then as soon as they're completely switched over, this will just become Tomoe River paper. That's what I reckon will happen.

Brad: Fair enough. Fair enough. I think you're right. I would just prefer.

Myke: Really, all they bought was the brand. That's exactly right. Because they didn't keep the machines. So why would they buy it and then just give it a new name?

Brad: I agree. I don't disagree with anything. I'm just saying. I understand. My preference would be, I would rather them call it sans and paper.

Myke: As a stationary communicator, it would make your life easier.

Map of the World Confusion

Brad: Yeah. Yeah. Which Tomoe River do you mean?

Myke: Yeah. It's like, you know, I have to be like the 2021 iPad Pro. Yeah, exactly. So trust me, I feel you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The 2018 iPad Pro. The iPad Pro with mini LED display.

Brad: That is very true. Very true. We have it easy compared to the digital world.

Myke: Maybe.

Myke: All right. What is this? What is this that you've given me? What is this? I don't understand what this is. I've read this thing and I've looked at the thing and I don't understand what this is.

Brad: All right. So we're going to share a link in the show notes today. And let me read the email. Okay. And then we'll get to the link. So this is from John, listener of the show. Since the question in August. I don't know what that means. That's probably Google. Who knows? I'm already in trouble. I have listened to all the Pen Addict episodes and have purchased an embarrassingly large number of pens. Welcome, John. You're one of us. Thanks to you and Myke for introducing me to the area. My Christmas card featured a pilot, Mew. How cool is that? You inspired me to create a tool to see the world of inks better. Below is a picture that shows about 1400 inks in a perceptually friendly way. Sweep over an area in the top graph and the ink brand and names are revealed in the table. The graph on the right encircles the selected inks and puts them in the context of all the inks. You select one brand on the top and select all of the inks in the top graph. The plot in the lower right shows you how the brand covers the spectrum of colors. So in short, this is pick a brand and it will show you their color representation of their current ink offerings across the color spectrum. Right. So if you're looking for this brand, do they have a color in this range? Right. So John sent us a link and the data comes from Fountain Pen Companion and the colors are the crowdsource hex codes. So, yeah, lots of caveats implied. But this is a tool that John built just for fun and wanted to share with us. And I've been messing around with this. And you can change like the plotting of the colors from colorfulness or lightness. Right. You can check off like if you go to like Ackermon where you know they only have about 30 something inks. Right. You can see that's a good place to start is something small.

Myke: They have more of the oranged brown.

Brad: Yeah. You can see. Oh, boy. I get it now. They really only have. So tell you where I got lost.

Myke: I have thought that this was like a map of the world. I don't know why. And I got very confused. Yeah. But now I understand. It's like a color spectrum. It's a color spectrum. Brown to red or something.

Brad: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, light to dark, top to bottom, and then the colors from left to right. So you can see where these things are represented. You know, it's just like it's a fun thing. Right. And then you can, you know, then you can figure out like, okay, do you want to plot that over pilot's inks? Yeah. And you can see, you know, where pilot fills in some of the gaps that Ackerman doesn't have. Like in the yellows, like pilot has a bunch of like different yellows and oranges that Ackerman doesn't have.

Myke: So like if you were trying to use this, you could be like, oh, I tend to like blues. And then you can kind of have a look at, oh, this company has a lot of blue inks or whatever. Yeah.

Brad: Speaking of which, let me click Robert Oster for the blues. Robert Oster. There's loads of that.

Myke: There's a lot in there. I think the benefit of, for me, what I like about this is it shows the benefit of freely available and open data. Yes. When you have data that is available from something like Phantom Pen Companion, you end up with people being able to make things with it. And you can, maybe that thing isn't worth it to you, but it could be worth it to someone else. But by having this kind of data set, it also helps people who are collecting the data understand like what can we do to maybe make the data better for people to use. Like it, there's just, I think there's a real benefit to having this kind of open and freely available data. And this is an example of that.

Brad: Yeah. It's really fun. And I'm sure there's, there's like more things we can do with it. Cause I'm just sitting here clicking all the buttons, but I like, I like. This is a fun thing.

Myke: Now I understand it. It's before I didn't get it.

Brad: I like seeing the scope of things. Like you click on bung box and they like have like almost like an equal representation. Like they're really heavy on the reds and pinks, but then across the board, it's like super like evenly represented across all the colors. Like when I was looking at Ackermann, there's like huge gaps in the range.

Myke: Weirdly, basically every single brand of the indexes in orange and red.

Brad: Yeah. Let me see. And let me pull up Robert Oster again. So yeah. Orange and red. Blue and purple. Seems very popular. A lot of green. Hmm. Oh, let me do Noodlers. Hang on. I'm looking at this.

Myke: Like diamond is like, it's like a million colors. Yeah. Yeah. In the red and orange area.

Brad: Yeah. It's red and orange and then purple. That's the Brad Dowdy effect. That's what we'll call that. Yeah. That's what it is. But yeah, it's red and orange and then blurple is like the next, it's the line between blue and purple piece on most of these.

Myke: They seem to be the two big groups. What is also interesting to me, because like there's a.

Brad: Except Robert Oster, they're not as high in blurple. They're more in blues and.

Myke: They've got a lot of green. More green than others do. Yep. So it goes, it goes in height. I don't really know what the axes are here. Right.

Brad: So lightness towards the top. Okay. If we're on the same colorfulness setting.

Myke: Yeah. On colorful. Because on the far left column, which is where a lot of the reds and oranges are, every brand, it like goes really high there. Right. And that doesn't reach those heights with basically any other color. Right. Right. So anyway. It's really weird and really cool. And if you have no idea what we're talking about, you've got to go check the website out. If you haven't looked at the website, there'll be a link in the show notes. It's just ink map. You won't have any idea what we're talking about. This would just sound like nonsense.

Brad: Yeah. So separate from this, John sent me a link to an interesting data point. And I don't have a direct link. And you would have to do some, you know, you'd have to have Fountain Pen Companion pulled up side by side. But there's a range of pink inks that he wanted to pull out from here. And he says, I've also attached an interesting sweep of the colors that show hope pink, which is a diamond color, and hellfire, which is a noodler's color, being almost the same color. So you can, if you like bright pinks, you can be hopeful and have the hope pink, or you can have hellfire and be the same pink color. So that was, that was, that's my kind of data point that I like. It's like the same color, but what does the name represent to you when you put the ink on the page? And sometimes it's hope and sometimes it's not, Myke.

Myke: This episode is brought to you by Hello. Hello make incredibly comfortable buckwheat pillows. If you've never tried out a buckwheat pillow, they really give a new level of support for your head and neck. They do not collapse under the weight of your head like a traditional pillow. It's not like a feather or foam pillow. They stay cool. They stay dry. Because instead of like a soft filling, they have these buckwheat holes is the name of the filling. The thing I could most closely describe it to is like a kind of like beans in a beanbag kind of thing. Uh, but it gives you a really fantastic level of support, but it's not, the pillow's not hard. Like it's malleable, but once you've got it into the shape that you like, it just stays there. It's really, really amazing. It's very different to a regular pillow, but it comes with so many advantages. You don't need to flip the pillow over because it always stays cool and you can have the pillow be just the size that you need because you can very easily add and remove the filling. I've been sleeping on a hollow pillow for many years now, and I am, I'm 100% sold. I'm never going back because I get a level of comfort from that pillow that I've never experienced from any other. And for the first time in my life since I got the hollow pillow, I have just one pillow. I was always like a multiple pillow person because I could never get the support that I wanted just from one. Like I'd have to do a thing where I have like, kind of like half have one pillow and then put it over the top of the other one. So I get like, yeah, I hated it. But now with my hollow pillow, just one pillow and I've got exactly what I want. Super comfortable. Hollow pillows are made in the USA with quality construction and materials. The certified organic cotton case is cut and sewn for durability and the buckwheat is grown and milled in the US as well. Okay. So here's the deal. You may be curious to try one of these out and you should, and you can sleep on it for 60 nights. And if hollow isn't for you, just send it back for a refund. Just go to hollow pillow.com slash pen addict, and you can get your own buckwheat pillow today. That's H-U-L-L-O-P-I-L-L-O-W.com slash pen addict. And if you buy more than one, they have a special discount of up to $20 off, depending on the size that you opt for. They have fast free shipping of every order. 1% of all profits are donated to the Nature Conservancy. And with this hollow pillow, you can just give it a try. And if you love it, you keep it. If you don't, just send it back. Go to hollow pillow.com slash pen addict today. Our thanks to hollow for the support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad: Three nights, Myke. That's how long it took me.

Myke: Three. That's not bad.

Brad: Three nights. Yeah. To make the adjustment. You know, night one, I was like, what is going on here? Night two was, oh, I get it. Let me do these things. Night three, I was in. Like, I slept like a rock. That was it. And I, like, this pillow just never should be moved from my bed. And if it does, I hunt people down.

Gift Guide Introduction

Myke: Fair enough. So every year on the pen addict, we do a gift guide. And every year on the show, we've had the wonderful Anna Ryan join us for it. Unfortunately, we couldn't arrange for Anna to be here this time. We could not make the scheduling work, which is a real shame. But we felt that we needed to do a gift guide of some description. So we're going to do a mini gift guide this year. What are the rules of the mini gift guide, Brad?

Brad: Yeah. So since it's just you and I this year, and I wanted to simplify it, right? So I built out four tiers of price points. And within those tiers, you can only choose a singular item, right? You can't, like in the past, we've built a kit, right? So, or sometimes we've built a kit, right? We say if you have $100, you can get, you know, this pen, this ink, this notebook, kind of like, you know, a starter kit or whatever. But this is the idea of, hey, in this price range, what one thing should I look at for, you know, a stationary fan or someone new or an artist? Like I said, like there's no, there's no rule on like the type of thing. Like you could choose all fountain pens. You could choose no fountain pens, right? It doesn't have to be for any particular type of user. We're not trying to solve for, hey, this person uses fountain pens on Tomoe River paper and fancy inks, right? We're not getting that specific. So we're just picking price points.

Myke: I sent my own mini challenge. Oh, did you? Which was to not pick an overlapping product category. So only one fountain pen, you know.

Brad: So yeah, I went first. Yeah, I went first. And I kind of did the same. Like I was actually thinking I might not even have a fountain pen. But it turns out that I did because I think there's a good one. But yeah, like if you picked fountain pen.

Myke: I did pick two fountain pens. So you can ignore everything I said.

Brad: Oh, you did. All right. Myke's a liar. He's already breaking the rules. Yeah. There was no rule to only pick one category and then not use it again. So let's start out. The categories, I'll read them all. I just did under $25, under $50, under $100, and over $100. So I thought that was kind of a good range to get a good amount of stuff.

Myke: Yeah, I was very thankful for this because I feel like I'm always pretty bad at the gift guide, which is why I love having Honor. I'm sad that we couldn't do it this time because between the two of you, you come up really interested in stuff. And I'm just like, hey, have you heard of Field Notes? You know, that's kind of like my contribution each time.

Brad: Yeah, I thought your challenge was going to be not to pick Retro 51 or Sailor. You actually succeeded, so I thought that was going to be your challenge. I purposely didn't do it.

Brad: Although that Retro 51 steam liner, that's pretty hot.

Myke: I don't think I've seen this.

Brad: Yeah, you should go look that up before we dig in here. But it's a train-based one. And, you know, all their travel and vehicle and planes and space ones are always good, and those are good. All right. So we're going to start in under $25. We'll go in order here. We can alternate who goes first. But under $25, I went with a notebook, specifically the Musgrave Pencil Co. notebook, which is just a design stunner. And I think it makes a great gift because...

Myke: It's a pencils only!

Brad: No, it's not. Pencils only! From... I have it on good account that it's really good with a lot of pens as well. It's not pencils only, Myke.

Myke: Get out of here with that pen.

Brad: No. But...

Myke: It's just pencils only.

Brad: I will say this. It's expensive, which makes it a good gift, which makes us like, hey, I don't want to buy this for myself, but will you buy this $22 notebook for me? And I think it just... The design of it is super clean and nice and a little bit retro-y, like in Musgraves, kind of like a throwback kind of way. It's got this beautiful yellow cover and reddish-orange print on there. It has a dot grid interior, and it's just nice. Like, I would... I think this is kind of like a great gift type of item. Like, it just shows up and, you know, someone who's into notebooks or pens, and they see this and they go, ooh, this is nice. I really like this. So, yeah, $22, Musgrave notebook. Very, very well done. I might even, you know, have to go shopping for myself for that one. I have not ordered those for me yet, but, you know, just saying, maybe I treat yourself. That would be Brad's treat yourself is the Musgrave Pencil Co notebook.

Myke: I have picked the most fun you can have for under $20, so I went even lower when it comes to stationery, and that is the TWSBI Go.

Brad: So, that was really smart. When you saw this, I was happy you put this in here. You are an unabashed TWSBI Go lover.

Myke: I am a big fan of this product. I think that it is a pen that all pen addicts should own because it's weird and fun, and you do not have another pen like it. You just don't. You never see springs. When do you see springs? No one sees springs in fountain pens. This one has one, and it's the main design element of this pen. If you don't have a TWSBI Go, you really should get a TWSBI Go because they're just really, really great, and they have tons of different nib options. They go from extra fine to stub 1.1, so it might be an easy way to try out a different nib size than what you've already used. They're fun, and I think a design like this also breaks down the barrier for somebody new to the hobby because it is not a fussy-looking pen. It is a very utilitarian-looking pen that is, I think, pretty forgiving, too. So I think, yeah.

Brad: To your point, I think why this is such a good pen is that if you know someone who's like a Mont Blanc user, right? You know the Mont Blanc users out there, and you drop this TWSBI Go on them, they're going to smile, and they're going to love this pen because it is so different from your classic fountain pens, and you could just buy this on a whim, and I think someone would love it who's not into this, who doesn't listen to the Pen Addict podcast, who's not really into this stuff, but kind of has an idea about fountain pens. I think this would just be the biggest pleasant surprise for a lot of people, so I thought that was a really, really good choice. Thank you. All right, so I'm going to make you go back-to-back here on the under $50 category. You go first. This is another one where I saw Myke's entry, and I just nodded my head. Yeah.

Myke: Penwell Craftsman. Now, this is kind of a cop-out because, I'll be honest, the models that I like are more expensive than $50, but you can get one for $50, so they do the wooden one is $50, but I like the ones that are made out of, I think they're made out of stone, and I have one with a brass weight on the bottom, which is more expensive. It's like $89, but I think that this is a really nice addition to the desk in whatever material you get it in, and I really love this product. It's made by good, made better, and I think we've spoken about this before. I think it's a really great example. It's concrete, says Tony. Thank you, Tony, for the correction there. In my brain, concrete and stone are basically the same thing, but I understand why they're not.

Brad: Yeah, I think that's a good argument.

Myke: And so, yeah, I just think these are super, super fun and a really nice addition to the desk. I think they're really classy, and if you're working on something and you want to put your pen down, this is a great way to put it, a great place to put it. So it's a really nice way to turn any fountain pen into a desk pen, but temporarily.

Brad: And I think it's a really smart gift item too, right? Like, I think, like, these may not be something that you necessarily buy for yourself, but I think the people who you would consider giving this to would thoroughly enjoy what these pinwalls are and what they do, and, you know, to have, like, a desk accessory, I think is always, like, a good gift item. Like, I went for an accessory as well. I went for a pen pouch on this one, specifically the Galen Leather Slip and Zip, which is a name. It's a great name. It's a four-pin pouch, and it's $43, and it's, you know, a leather pin pouch where it's a singular pouch with an insert for your pens, so you can slide the four pens into the rubber bands of holding, if you will, and remove them from the exterior pouch and, like, have them on the desk or, you know, wherever you're working, and then when you're done working, you can just load them back up into their little sleeve and then put it into the exterior pouch, zip them up, throw them in your bag, and I think it's a neat design as opposed to, like, your traditional, like, fold-over, you know, like, book-style type of cases, which we all love, right? But it's something a little bit different, and I think it's unique in that fact that it's a little bit different style of carry, and you can fit any types of pens in it, right? You know, fountain pens, regular pens. You know, you don't have to be a fountain pen person to use this, and it's really, really nice, well-made, and good stuff from Galen, so I really like them a lot.

Myke: This is a nice-looking product.

Brad: Yeah, I think it's neat. Like, it's classic, but it's kind of got, like, a unique idea to it, and I appreciate that, and I think, like, any pen lover, like, both of those gifts, right, we're shopping for people who are into this stuff, and then we're giving them accessories. To where we moved to under $100, Myke, we both chose pens. I chose my one and only fountain pen here. The Kaweco student needs, I think we need some love for the student. We already give it a lot of love. We've given them a lot of love here on the show. It has gotten reviewed on the Pen Act several, several times, and for, like, a $60 fountain pen, this is probably focused at someone's, who's more getting into the hobby, right, who has dabbled with their Twisby Go's or their Lamy Safaris, and wants kind of that next step-up pen. This is a traditional-sized Kaweco fountain pen that is beautifully designed. It's classic. It's got modern colors. It has, you know, you can take the full-length ink cartridges, if you want, or the full-length converters, I should say, right? It's not the pocket-sized Kaweco that we all, you know, think of when we think of Kaweco. We think of pocket pens. This is a full-size pen, but at a really, really good price, and a lot of colors to choose from for a gift, and it doesn't break the bank. It's way under $100. Like I said, it's about $60, I think, something like that. I'm not looking at it, but I love the colors. I just got a red one in myself, so I'll be checking that out, but I love these from the moment they came out, and I think this would make, like, kind of a good classic gift for someone who is into this a little bit, and wants to kind of turn it up a little bit, so.

Myke: In my opinion, the only acceptable colors of this pen are the two-tone ones.

Brad: Yes, I agree. Yes, yes, yes. I'm specifically referring to the two-tone ones. They have solid black and solid blue, but all of the, I call them the music series, even though that's not really it, but the jazz, the soul.

Myke: Inexplicably, the Kaweco student has black, blue, clear, red, vintage blue, white, and vintage yellow, and then 20s jazz, 30s blues, 50s rock, 60s swing, 70s soul.

Brad: Yeah, buy one of the music-themed ones.

Myke: The music ones are the only good ones. I don't know why the student has a music line, but it just does.

Brad: Agree. And I don't know why the red cap is called 30s blues, but, you know, there you go.

Myke: You think it was right there, you know?

Brad: But they only do two of these a year, right? Like, this whole series didn't come out at once. They did two to start with, and then they did two more last year, then two more this year. Yeah.

Myke: So, like, the soul one was the only two-tone one. It was just called Soul. And then they put a number on it when they brought the other ones in.

Brad: So, yeah. So, yeah, the ones I'm talking about are the two-tone ones. Thank you, Myke. I think they're the best looking, and they're just great pens.

Myke: I've picked what I think is the best pen you can get for under $100, which is the Studio Neat Mark I.

Brad: Yeah. Good call here. And I went the other way. I chose this pen for my next category, but this is the right answer, I think, for you in this category. Why do you love the Mark I so much?

Myke: Well, I can give you one. It's this. That's part of it. Nice. The beautiful sound it makes. This pen is built around my favorite refill, which is the Schmidt P8126. It's 26, right?

Brad: 8126 is the preferred. Thank you. They always ship. Most other companies ship with the 8127, but we talked them into the 8126 for this pen because it's a little bit finer.

Myke: A little bit finer, but same performance. P8126. And, you know, this is the refill that you'll find in Retro 51s, either the 26 or 27, which is just either 0.6 or 0.7 millimeter tip diameter. And just overall, this is just a pen, which is fantastically well made with just beautiful attention to detail to the point where most companies you see that have a retractable pen that uses this refill uses the knock that Schmidt created, which is terrible. Correct. It is spongy and looks really bad. You know, like, I think, and this is, different people think about it differently. I think there's like a retractable squire, like the Baron Fig squire. Mm-hmm. And I believe they use the Schmidt knock. Mechanism. Mechanism. That's what I was looking for. And what you'll notice is it has this kind of like silver cuff around the top. And that is the Schmidt mechanism. Like, that's just what it looks like. It's how it comes. So it doesn't look very good. Yeah, it's like a two-step mechanism. And it doesn't feel very good. So I'm looking through Baron Fig's website. I don't even know if they still sell that anymore.

Brad: Yeah, I wouldn't have a clue.

Myke: So the squire is, I actually really like the squire as a pen. Oh, yeah, it's a great pen. I actually can't, I'm looking at the website now and I cannot find it. So maybe they write the right, oh, no, there is squire click. And they, honestly, in my opinion, like the squire click, it kind of ruins what is otherwise a really good looking pen by having the little silver cuff thing on the top. Anyway.

Brad: Buy the regular squire. Buy the regular squire.

Myke: Yeah, buy the regular one. Do not buy the click one. The regular one's great. The click one, I don't like the mechanism because the mechanism doesn't feel very good.

Brad: There's a reason why someone like Studio Need and other companies make their own mechanism.

Myke: But there's also a reason why this pen took an extra year and a half to get onto market. And it's because they were making their own mechanism. Right. It was incredibly difficult things for them to do, but I believe it was worth the work. I think that this pen, I'm very confident this pen would not have had the success that it has had if they would have used the standard click mechanism. So, yeah, I really, really like the way this thing comes together. It's absolutely fantastic. And it's why we're making a Cortex version. It will be on sale in limited quantities in December.

Brad: Awesome. It's a really cool pen. Lives on my desk as well. And I couldn't recommend it enough. It's a good gift. It's like a good surprise gift for someone who you don't even necessarily have to be into stationary. Like people who are like into tools and toys. Definitely. That's the kind of stuff. And that's what I picked. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I picked for my over 100 is the Tactile Turn Stealth, right? So they just sent this to me, I don't know, a few weeks ago. And I'm just completely enamored with it. I like everything that Tactile Turn does to begin with. But this Stealth model with the all black and the red bolt mechanism. Love the red. So here's the unsnapping of the bolt. It's really nice. It's a really fun thing to play with. The interesting thing about this, well, before I get to that, they have the clip has like this like digicam, you know, kind of stealth radar looking thing on here. It's really cool.

Myke: I just read this.

Brad: What?

Myke: Did you read this? Like this is one of the most interesting and weird and cool things I've read on a pen page before.

Brad: Read it, read it. Because I mean, the pen is literally in my hand. So you probably read it. But what do you got?

Myke: A subtle glow. For the first time ever, we're offering an optional tritium back finial. Tritium, tritium? Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that gives off a green glow without needing exposure to light. The low energy beta radiation isn't powerful enough to penetrate the skin and is completely safe for everyday carry, commonly used in watchmaking and gun sight applications. Just that wording, I've never read. Like, don't worry. The radiation in this pen is not harmful to you. I've never read that before.

Brad: Yeah. So between like my COVID booster shot and my tritium radiation here, my bat signal is like pumping right now. So yeah, I have the little tritium little add-on on the back end of the barrel. You don't have, it's an optional piece, right? It's like, it's a $50 upgrade. I actually don't know that it's worth the price because tritium glows in the dark, but it's not like light sensitive. So you don't see it like in the daytime, like sitting here at my desk holding it, you don't see a green glow unless I turn off the lights, right? So it's a cool- They've been doing a great job with their- They really have. Their seasonal releases. They really have. And the best thing about them is, right, they're limited only in the timeframe that they're available to order. And they run them for like three months. Like you have like three months to decide, hey, do you want this pen? And then it's kind of going away.

Myke: They're really, really different.

Brad: Yes. They're very well thought out, very well put together. I like stories, Myke. And they put together, you know, something unique with this one. And just like they've done with the past releases that I keep holding off on, holding off on. But I have the standard length. And then, you know, this is not a cheap pen, but again, this is like fits that tools and toys category. And like good fidget stuff. I'm sitting here clicking it as well. So it's the model I have is a hundred. The model I have is like 200 and something dollars, but you can just get the standard non-tritium version for $179. And I think it's totally worth it. It's a great writing pen. I just got some Pilot G's refills to put in here, which I prefer over the Pilot G2 refills. So I've been using it a bunch. It's been in high activity on my desk. And I think it would make a great gift. You know, if you're like, that's a pretty expensive gift, right? Like this is a kind of a fancy pen. And I think it's just really well done and worth the money. I love it.

Mini Gift Guide Completion

Myke: This is really cool. So that was the mini gift guide. I think there's some good stuff. No, no, no, you didn't go. Oh, sorry. Platinum 3776. Yeah, it is. That's for some reason, I just put the Mark one and the tactile turn together and then thought it was done. Yep. If I was going to give somebody a fountain pen to buy, if you don't have one of these, you should have one. The issue with the Platinum 3776 for me is by and large, the colors and designs are really boring. So like if you can find one of the more colorful ones or the special edition-y ones, even stuff like the Nicely Last and stuff, which is what I have, where it's like demonstrator and it's purple and it's got like a ridge design on it. Because typically they're just like boring, standard acrylic colors. So if you can find one that's a little bit more interesting to you, then go for it. Even if it's just like you see like a red one and you're just like, oh, I like red. Like, you know, like the Chartres Blue or something.

Myke: But ultimately you will not find a better nib. You just want, in any price category, Platinum's nibs are just the best. I've come around to this in the last couple of years. I mean, you stack it against anything. Like you will not get a better nib for, I don't know, they go between 170 to 250, depending on what you get. You're just not going to get a better nib than what you will find in that pen. Yeah.

Brad: And to kind of put a bow on like the thought process beside choosing this pen, I think a lot of people who are getting into this price range, into this style of pen, into this type of nib, generally look at Pilot and Sailor first. And I think both you and I over the past few years realize that Platinum 3776 should probably be like your first entry point into that price range. Or at least should be

Myke: in the conversation more. Yeah.

Brad: Like don't discount this, how great this pen is. Like for me, my hangup was always the lightness of it. Like it is a lightweight pen, right? Like Pilots, like acrylic barrels have a little bit more density to them and Sailor's, I mean, and this is slight, they're all lightweight pens, but this is a lightweight pen and it took me a while. I was like, is this really worth the money? And it turns out, yeah, like it's really, really great. I have the Chartres Blue Rhodium Trim UEF nib is one of my all-time favorite pens and I really only acquired that like in the past year,

Myke: year or two. Yeah, mine is the Nice Lelass with a 14 karat gold broad nib and that nib is just, it's the best stock nib I've ever used.

Brad: Yep. Yep. All right, Myke, now you can wrap up our mini gift guide.

Myke: Now the mini gift guide is complete. I hope that you'll find something in there for either yourself or to buy a pen addict in your life. To wrap up this episode, let's do a couple of Ask TPA questions. Sounds good. And this one, this is like an ultimate gift guide one that comes from Fibber. True. If someone offered to you to gift you any pen of historical importance, what or whose pen would you select?

Brad: You go first because I like your answer and mine is, mine is not as specific.

Myke: I really racked my brain on this one. Yeah. And I was thinking about like important things in human history. That's where I was going to. Like, you know, I've got to come onto the show and I've got to sound really important or do I go like sentimental? No, you know what?

Myke: Let's take it as if I'm actually being asked this question like it's a real possibility to me. I'm going to want something that is important to me and the thing that I care about most. I want the pen that Steve Jobs would have used when he signed to return to Apple. Like he would have had to sign a contract with Apple to come back I want that pen. Whatever that pen was that he used to sign that document that put them on the course to where they are now. Like that's what I would want.

Brad: Yeah. See, that's cool and I still like I couldn't come up with like the singular one event type of pen but where I came at it from was, hey, you know, some of the people that I enjoy their work say, you know, like Joy Division and Ian Curtis and one of the pens he used to write his lyrics in his notebook. He used just a basic, he used just basically, essentially a found ballpoint to do most of his written work or a marker that Jean-Michel Basquiat used to write in his early sketchbooks. Like just one of those types of pens that a creative person that I love used to create the thing that I ended up loving, right, as opposed to like the specific event pen was where like my brain got stuck. I could never come up with a one specific thing. So yeah, like I would like to have like an artist or some type of creator, a tool that they use to create the thing that I ended up, that ended up making a difference in my life, right, that I like was really passionate about or cared about a lot. So it would be, you know, like an Ian Curtis pen that, you know, he wrote some of the lyrics and like something like that would be really, really cool.

Myke: That would be really nice and it would be meaningful for you. You could like put them on the wall with the album or something. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

Myke: All right, and Michelle asks, in Back to the Future 2, Marty stands in the rain and gets a mysterious letter. It's from Doc writing to him from 1885. Marty reads the letter in the pouring rain but the ink doesn't run. Were there any waterproof inks in 1885?

Brad: Absolutely. And actually, they were probably primary waterproof inks because that's where iron gall inks came from. From the trees and the nuts falling and the boiling of the water to turn the raw materials into inks that then presented a permanence onto the page. So, I would say, you know, waterproof inks for at least documentation, right? Any water-based dye ink that people have made for thousands and thousands and thousands of years is going to exist, right? People can, you know, people could just, you know, grab a stick and smash some leaves and write with it. It's going to be, you know, just a water-based ink and it's going to run for waterproofness. but once people discovered that certain materials could be turned into ink and then that lead into permanence, yeah, 100%. So, that was probably very commonplace, especially for any type of writing or documentation. Books, you know, official paperwork, anything is all going to be written in some type of iron gall ink. You just hope, like, aside from the movie, you hope long-term that there's different like acidities with paper and those types of inks that hopefully don't destroy things but as far as ink permanence goes, yeah, 100%. That's a real thing.

Myke: Wow. Well, there you go.

Brad: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Myke: You just made it onto an IMDb trivia page or something. No,

Brad: no. I think that's pretty straightforward. Like, any nut-based iron gall inks are going to be permanent and those were essentially, like, boiled over a...

Myke: You're a nut-based iron gall inks. Yeah, you are. No, you're... Oh, dear. Well, that's it for this week's episode. Yeah. If you want to send in a question of your own, just a note, tweet with the hashtag AskTPA or question mark AskTPA. If you're listening to this at the right time, happy Thanksgiving if that's something that you celebrate. We'll be back next time. You can find us in a few different places. You can go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash four, eight, nine to get links and information about today's episode and everything we spoke about in the gift guide. You can... What else can people do, Brad? Ah, they can go and follow you on Instagram, you're penaddict. They can go to penaddict.com, spokedesign.com and twitch.tv slash penaddict where you'll find Brad streaming multiple times a week. Brad is dowdyism on Twitter. I am imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thank you to Holo for the support of this show and to you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad: Goodbye, Brad.