The Pen Addict 501/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	501
Title:	The AL-Star Sucks
Release Date:	February 16th, 2022
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 501
Audio File:	Audio Episode 501
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 501
Length:	5151 min <br />0.85 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 501. I was going to say one, as if it started again, but like it was an intention, it wasn't like a mistake, like episode one. This is episode one of The Second 500. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. My name is Myke Hurley, I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad.

Brad: Hey Myke, how's it going?

Myke: You know what, this could have been the time where we could have done something different, like you could have introduced, you know? Like we do the switch over.

Brad: Yeah, yeah. We're not that smart.

Levi's Episode

Myke: No. I think of this as the Levi's episode today. 501. I don't know what that means. That's my...

Brad: Oh, the jeans, yeah. Do you have the 501 blues, Myke?

Myke: Don't like 501s. I'm a big fan of Levi's chinos. This is a new thing that they do and I wear them every day and I really like them. Okay. I could be down with that. You know, I've got that going on.

Brad: So yeah, this is now a fashion podcast. Yep. Pivot. We're not the people you want to take fashion advice from.

Myke: We're now the pin addict, right? Because it's like pins in fashion, so you know.

Brad: Alright. Thank goodness we have episode 500 to fall back on because it was really good, unlike this episode.

Myke: I was emotionally drained last week. I was just drained, drained. And I was like, we have to stop the show now because I just can't continue.

Brad: Yeah, you had a bigger burden to carry post-show than I did, right? So we did three hours. For those of y'all who happened to catch 501 before listening to 500, 500 was three hours. And then Myke had an extended connected to do. Connected always runs, you know, hour and a half or so. It's like two and a bit hours or so. Yeah, so this one was longer.

Brad: That's honestly...

Myke: That was before I even started the edit.

Brad: Yeah. Like, that's no fun. That's like really, that's a really long, stressful day, even though you're sitting behind a mic and then talking about fun things that you love. Like, it takes a lot out of you just over time and doing that, yeah, I felt for you. But people like the 500, Myke. I think we did a pretty good job last week. I think we had fun.

Myke: I think so. I wondered if it was going to be the case, but it wasn't. This was still not the longest episode of a Real AFM show. I wondered if that was going to be the case. Yeah. But there is a Reconcilable Differences episode. I think it's episode 24, which is 162 minutes. Wow. What did they talk about? Well, that's got to be shorter. Star Wars. Yeah, maybe. Oh, no, it's not that one, Sarah. It's episode 25. Episode 25 is 201 minutes. There you go. And it's more about Star Wars and drugs. Okay. I can see that. I put that one in the show notes.

Brad: So we did like 180 minutes. Yeah. So, yeah, not bad, not bad. I think it's the longest. Yeah, I don't count the Lego ones, though. That's not the public feed. That's not the public feed, yeah.

Myke: I don't count the Lego because we're not really talking for most of it. Right, right, right, right. I think it is the longest of anything I have published. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Brad: That makes sense. Publicly. Yeah, then me too, for sure. Mm-hmm. But, um...

Myke: Oh, no, I think some of our Lego ones have gone longer, though, like, just as a thing, but... Yeah, but those are more, like you say... Publish feeds.

Brad: Yeah, and those are more of an observational podcast, right? Those are podcasts that are, like, witnessing a thing. This is more like the normal podcast. So it was awesome. I appreciate everyone who downloaded, listened, participated, sent feedback, Myke. We got a lot of feedback. Um, people, people, um, either loved or hated the Rule Breakers. Uh, some that were on the Rule Breaker list were very proud of the fact that they broke the rules.

Rule Breaker List

Myke: As they should be, I think. I think it's like a badge, you know, you can, you should be able to wear it, but you've just got to be able to accept what you did, you know?

Brad: Some people were regretting that they actually didn't make the Rule Breaker list. They're like, well, darn, I should have put my ink in there, and, uh, that way I could have been on the list. And some people were like, well, hey, I didn't mean to be on the Rule Breaker list. And, like, that was okay, too.

Myke: Yeah, all of these things are fair, right? Or it's like, sure, some of you, you want to be, like, you want to be in the bad crew, right? Like, you feel like, oh, you want to be in the cool bad club, but you didn't do it. And then there's some of you, you think it's unfair. Well, you know, just follow the rules next time. It's perfectly fair. You know, you were asked a simple question. You couldn't give a simple answer. I can't be held responsible for that.

Brad: Nice, nice. So, um, we had a great sponsor last week, our good friends at Pinch LA. They, they, uh, did a giveaway for the episode. The giveaway is closed. And they've picked the winners. So, uh, without me reading last names, hopefully Jonathan, Lisa, Devin, Natalie, and Colton all receive emails from Pinch LA.

Myke: Because that's, they're not regular names. I'm going to give the first letter of the surname. All right. Jonathan, Y, Lisa, S, Devin, G, Natalie, D, Colton, B. They are the winners. Obviously, you will be contacted by Pinch LA. But I just don't want everyone with the name Jonathan, which I expect is quite a few listeners, to think, did I win? You know?

Brad: Yeah, I know. I know. That's, that's the hang up without, uh, giving up the opsec, right? Yeah, exactly. So hopefully they have had some, uh, contact made, I'm sure. Uh, if not, um, don't email me. We'll email you because you may not be the, the Jonathan Y that actually won. So.

Myke: What I think is kind of fun is I do not recognize any of these names immediately. I do.

Brad: I do. Uh, you do.

Myke: You know everyone. You're a man of the people. I'm a man of the ivory tower.

Brad: Yeah. Speaking of man of the people, one of, uh, my longtime Twitch followers, Bork Ben Bork, uh, AKA Jacob, um, did a really epic breakdown of episode 500. Okay. Um, and basically did an accounting of the brands and the products of the episode. There is a full spreadsheet of this, Myke. I don't know if you've had a chance to look at the spreadsheet. Um, you don't really need to look at the spreadsheet other than to see the times that, uh, people made the list from the multiple things that they mentioned, or, uh, there were a few category categories on the list and we, uh, I have cleared it with Jacob. We were allowed to share the list, but let me give you the breakdown of some of the data that Jacob found in this list. All right. You're ready. So he says, while listening to episode 500, I did some compiling and have a tally of the favorite stationary items submitted, not the cleanest, but the survey sent out a few weeks ago, meaning the, the, uh, Slack survey, the Pinax Slack survey inspired me to take a data analyst projects. I find interesting into my own hands. So here's a brand count from the brands that were mentioned. So the top 10 brands, Myke, um, pilot 37 mentioned 37 times. So these are the mentions sailor, a distant second at 14. So pilot pilot 37 at the top. The next one, sailor and Lamy both had 14 Parker, which we'll have a comment on that in a minute. 13, TWSB 12, Hobonichi eight, Montblanc seven, Pelican six, Visconti and Schaefer, both with five, um, big, I, when we did the recap of the Slack survey, the pilot thing started to make a lot of sense to me. Right. And we discussed that and it bears out in this, um, kind of, kind of data point as well. You know, this is, you know, just more of a random sampling, but the data bore out. Do you have any, any thoughts on the continuation of seeing that? Uh, with pilot.

Myke: Well, not anymore.

Bork Ben Bork Tribute

Brad: Yeah. Cause I kind of, kind of bore out before. It's like we had lots of, the funny thing is, and the reason why this is not a surprise anymore is because we get a lot of pilot metropolitan love. And then at the same time we get pilot Namiki Milky way galaxy love, you know, a lot of zeros were added onto the pilot metropolitan. Yeah. And this whole range that pilot has captured this, this brand loyalty because they are, they have this uncanny ability.

Myke: What I will say though, is in doing the episode, I did not recognize that pilot was being mentioned to a level of two to one over the next most popular brand. Basically agree.

Brad: Agree. Like I recall Lamy, Twisby and Hobonichi were my big takeaways from doing it live. Yeah.

Brad: And, uh, not, I definitely caught the pilots. You know what? There was a lot of, and we'll go through this in a minute is, um, the, the decimos and vanishing points. So that in retrospect, there were a lot of mentions of that. So Jacob continues one notable difference from the favorite fountain pen brands slides from the Slack surveys, the brand Parker. Parker is not on that list and is neck to neck with sailor Lamy and Twisby in this list. Right. And he does mention it's difficult to compare since the surveys were so different, but this is people theoretically mentioning one product and Parker came up a lot. And I was kind of replaying this back in my head. What Parker got mentioned a lot besides, I think the jotter was a couple of times and maybe like a random dual fold or random vector. Was it mostly the jotter? I would even have to go back. I can look on the spreadsheet that Jacob sent, but I'm a little bit flummoxed. I guess maybe the Parker 51 mentioned Parker back. I guess there was a lot of nostalgia Parker mentions, which is good.

Myke: In the vintage stuff, I feel like we got the most.

Brad: Yeah. And that's where the data from this list would separate from the previous list. Yeah. Right. We had, we have more of a, a memorable type of question, right? Like what is important or, you know, meaningful to you in the product. And Parker landed in that category a lot, which I think is pretty cool. 96 total brands were mentioned. Myke. Eight Lamy Safaris. Six TWSBI Ecos. Eight Pilot Vanishing Porn or Decimos. So those were like the individual specific pen, like the Lamy Safari 8, you know, TWSBI Ecos six, you know, as opposed to like a lot of TWSBI's and a lot of Lamy's were mentioned, but those were the individual pens that were mentioned the most. The top five categories as Jacob designated them. Fountain pens were mentioned 150 times. Paper 41 times. Ink 13 times. Mechanical pencil 10 times. Rollerball 10 times. The paper number shocks me. I guess that was probably a lot of cheaters too.

Myke: They are most definitely the people on the bad list. Ink and paper. I think the only time we ever got like paper is my favorite thing is when we had a couple of people who were like making the general statement about paper in general.

Brad: Well, and the Hobonichis, like the Hobonichis. I guess, yes. Direct paper.

Myke: Yeah. For some reason I didn't register as paper in my brain. I was thinking of that as journal, but obviously that's paper. Yes. But I would say a vast majority of paper and ink was tied with a pen or of some kind. Yes. The people on the bad list, as you very rightly pointed out. Not that I would say that.

Brad: The Rule Breakers. The Rule Breakers. Yeah. That's a better name. Mm-hmm. But yeah. Interesting. I think the fountain pen, I think even... I see why the fountain pen is a big category here, but to have the separation from say like rollerball, like gel pen didn't even make the list or ballpoint. Mechanical pencil 10, rollerball 10, fountain pen 150.

Brad: Pretty interesting to me. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that and if there's anything to say about that. I guess a lot of times the price point investment has a different level of meaningfulness sometimes, even though you don't really draw... In our day-to-day life, we don't really necessarily draw those conclusions. We talk about you can get just as much joy from a $3 pen as a $300 pen, but if you're saying, hey, what's my most meaningful memorable pen? Well, I think the fountain pen ends up being an outlier to that specific answer to that question.

Brad: So, I don't know. I think it's interesting. But yeah, this is cool. This is great stuff from Jacob. We'll have this spreadsheet shared in here if anyone wants to poke around it. It lists all these specifics. You open it up and in the first one, it's got the J. Herban ink and the specific products are all listed in this list.

Myke: This is an incredible amount of work. Yeah.

Brad: I don't know. I'll ask him how long it took him next time I see him on stream because there had to be a lot of pausing unless you're really fast at comprehending and typing. Yeah. So, yeah. It would be interesting. Yeah. The chat wants to know, is there an ink winner? I don't know. There was only like 13 individual inks in a category.

Myke: I'd be surprised if there was more than one mentioned.

Brad: I think it was just a few random things. There were several Orochizukus mentioned. So, I think out of the 13 inks, I bet half of that's Orochizuku of some color. Yep.

Myke: Which does not surprise me at all. Mm-mm. Yeah, for my recollection. Actually, maybe my surprise would be that Robert Oster wouldn't be in that contention. Yeah. Because it's similar to the way I think about Orochizuku is performs well and is a color for everyone. Right, right, right. Yeah. I don't know. Well, I appreciate the work that Ben Bork did for that. It was awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad: It was really, really good. So, we're not done with episode 500 stuff yet, Myke. We have promised. We have promised to answer the question ourselves. But not before we hear from our good friends at Squarespace.

Listener Question Segment

Myke: Our thanks to Squarespace for their continued support of this show. They are the all-in-one platform to build your online presence and run your business. Everything from websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics, Squarespace has you covered by combining cutting-edge design and world-class engineering to make it so incredibly easy to establish your home online and make your ideas a reality. You start with one of their professionally designed templates. You very easily use drag-and-drop tools. You can, just with a few clicks, customize the look and feel. Really make that website your own. You can adjust the products that you have on sale if you want to set up a site incredibly easily too. Squarespace really has everything that you're going to want and need to create a beautiful, modern website. Like the fact that all of their sites are optimized for mobile so they look great on every screen size automatically. You don't need to do anything. They take care of it for you. And there's so much of it that's like that. Like your hosting is unlimited. Top-of-the-line security, all that kind of stuff. They do it so you don't have to. There's nothing to patch or upgrade. They have award-winning 24-7 customer support. You can use SEO tools, email marketing tools, and even grab a domain name of your own to turn your idea, that thing that you've got going on in your brain, into a Squarespace website. So awesome. So easy to do. Whether you want to publish your blog posts, sell off your digital physical goods really easily. Whether you want to showcase your work. Whether you want to promote your business. It doesn't matter what you want to do. Squarespace has all of the tools that you need to make it a reality and to make it awesome. World class. So go to squarespace.com slash penaddict. And you can sign up today for a free trial with no credit card required. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code PENADDICT and you'll save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash penaddict and the code PENADDICT when you decide to sign up. And you will get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for the continued support of the Pen Addict and Relay FM.

Brad: All right, Myke. So the question we asked our listeners was, tell us about your favorite stationary item and what makes it so special. So that was the question posed. And we were asked, hey, what about you and Myke? Do you have an answer to that question? And it's funny. I didn't even consider doing that for the last episode. That's just how I think sometimes. You know, it's like, oh, wait, I should answer this too? Yeah, I guess that would be pretty smart if I did. So before you and I answer this question, Myke, did you have any difficulty when you thought about this? I mean, I know if people listened last week, I cut you off when you were about to say it. You thought of it immediately. Did you have any, since you had time to think of it, did you have any difficulties sticking with your answer? No. Yeah, I kind of feel that too. So when I thought about the question, I didn't instantly as get it as Myke did, but it was pretty quick. Like it was once I, you know, like considered it for about 30 seconds and landed on the product that I'm going to discuss. I was like, yeah, like that's it. And for me, the answer is the Pilot Murex.

Brad: It's hard to explain why, but there's a pin that gets me so well. And that's the Pilot Murex. It's the way it's designed. It's, you know, a 50 year old pin that looks like it could be designed today. And I don't know why. Again, we fight that fight all the time with pilots. Please bring back the Murex. It kind of represents like growing up, you know, like in the 70s and 80s and kind of falling in love with stationery at the time. You know, I would never see a product like this, but I was around at that time, you know, buying like engineering pencils and like really unique stationery. And this was kind of the one pin that brought me back to those early stationery memories while also being an extremely modern pin that offered the aesthetic and writing style and performance that, you know, matches how I like to write and what I want represented in a product. And, you know, it's kind of encompasses everything that I love about the products that I love today as well as being kind of a throwback, even though, you know, I'm new to the Murex, you know, 10 years or so. It's it feels like that pin that I would have bought growing up. And it just kind of got this special connotations to me. It doesn't help. It doesn't hurt that it was introduced to me by our friend Thomas Hall, who sent this to me. He's like, hey, I think you're going to really like this. And turns out, yeah, he was he was right. He seems to be right about a lot of things.

Myke: The Murex is the full sized one, isn't it? It's the full sized one.

Brad: Yeah, I'm not an M like the the Mew or the M90, which is the one that you have. Like, I like it. It doesn't hold a candle to the Murex for me. Like they're not in the same category of love for the pin as the Murex. I don't I wish I could explain more why the Murex just it. It's kind of that perfect pin for me. But I would put that down as my favorite stationary item. And it's just a super special pin.

Brad: And you can't bait me into telling you what ink I would use because then I'd make your list. I feel like there's some entrapment coming on.

Myke: I would never. I would never.

Brad: Entrapment.

Myke: The Murex is a really good one. I mean, I love the M90. Right. And I said many times, like, I think the M90 might be the best pen that I own. Mm hmm. And I expect it's for a lot of the same reasons. Really, it's like how it looks and how it feels to write. And I expect the Murex and the M90 are pretty similar in that regard. It's just one is full size and one is.

Brad: Yeah, they're they're usually spoken of in the same sentence. Right.

Myke: And where I am not actually a pocket pen person, the M90 is just at the right size that I can use it uncapped. And it posted it actually feels pretty good. But the thing for me that tips the M90 over the Murex is I think the M90 is more visually appealing. Mm hmm. I don't disagree. Because the Murex has that step down and the grip part, which I wished it didn't have that. Because my favorite thing about the M90 is it's just like one piece, like one. Yeah.

Brad: See, I love the grip.

Myke: Yeah. I'm sure to use. But I get that. I get that. Yeah. Yeah. Mine was super easy.

Myke: Super, super easy. It's the Arushi, custom Arushi Lamy Safari that Jonathan Brooks made. That's a good choice. For us. So this was something that we did ages ago. Both me, you and Anna gave him a Lamy Safari and was like, just see what you can do with this. And then, I don't know, maybe like a year later. I think it was close to two.

Brad: It was like a year and a half at least.

Myke: Jonathan just showed up with these with the extra one, which we did as the raffle prize, I think. For St. Jude. In 2021. So there's a few things to this. Like, one, it's just an absolute joy to use anyway. I love Lamy Safaris. I love Lamy nibs. I love the design of the Lamy Safari. I love everything about them. The Arushi work is incredible. And it's all exactly as I would want color-wise. And it's also special to me. Like, I don't think I have another pen that hits all three of these marks so well. Like, close for me was my 3776 Galaxy Starlight. Because also it has an interesting story. Did I tell you I've chipped the cap on that? No. Oh, man. I'm so upset.

Brad: Hold that thought. We're going to bring up a platinum later. We'll talk about it. I want to hear that story.

Myke: There isn't a story. I just took it out of my case one day and realized that the cap had a chip in it. So, whatever. It's jinxed. At this point, I'm just like, whatever. I don't really. It was like, oh, man. But now I'm like, fine. You know? Like, whatever. Like, this pen's been through so much at this point. But, yeah. The Arushi Lamy Safari, like, for me, it's an absolute pleasure. I put a link in the show notes to a great photo that you took. And I absolutely love this pen. And I've got the left-handed nib in it, too, which I like a lot. It's just perfect.

Brad: Yeah. The other thing, like, not to answer your question for you, but about making it special is because it shouldn't exist, right? This is not something that should happen. No. It's stupid. It's so, like, extra. It's dumb. Yeah. It's, like, one of the dumbest ideas we've ever had. Yeah. And it worked. But also great. But also amazing, right? That's what we're good at. That's what we're known for. So, yeah. I like that choice a lot. And I love mine as well. It's just cool. You know? I love the Safari. Which we're going to talk about. How about now? You have anything else to say about our favorites? I think we did good. I like our choices.

Myke: No, I really like the two that we picked between the two of us. Because also there's a big overlap where, like, we both have love for these pens. You know? Yeah. So that's really good.

Brad: Yeah. We both get what each other's saying about these other pens. Yeah. Totally. Totally. All right, Myke. A couple of weeks ago, the new Lamy Safari All-Star was launched. It's called All-Star. All-Star. White Silver. And we... It came out, like, the morning of, like, episode 499. And I didn't get it in the show notes to talk about. Which I'm glad because since then, the new Safaris, the 2020 Safari release limited editions to go along. They usually launch them around the same time as the All-Star, which was the White Silver. It's Lamy Safari, strawberries, and cream. So how should we take this? Let's go... I guess we'll go in launch order. Yep. So the All-Star White Silver came out, and it was a big... Snooze fest. It was a big... Womp womp. Right?

Myke: Because that's how it always is with the All-Star, because the All-Star sucks. Because it exists. The All-Star sucks. The All-Star sucks. I always get in trouble. Either. And the Safari is the best. You know? I mean...

Brad: So I was excited when White Silver came out because it was so lame.

Brad: I was like... The White Silver came out, and I did, like, a fist bump. Like, yes! We're gonna, like, just totally destroy Team All-Star this year. And then the Strawberries and Cream came out, Myke. And I'm not gonna lie. I am unimpressed. So what is your take? Yeah, I mean, that's not great either, to be honest.

Myke: Better, I think, than the Silver. I like the Red one. The Cream one, don't get it. Mate, you know what I feel like with the Cream one? I bet, in person, I could imagine liking it. Yeah. Like a nice, like, off-white. But it's not incredibly inspired. What I would have wanted is what they've actually called it, which is Strawberries and Cream. I wanted one pen, Strawberries and Cream. Not two pens, one's Strawberries, one's Cream. Thank you, Myke.

Brad: That's exactly right. You know, all I do is stare. You launch Strawberries and Cream. I see this vibrant red pen, right? It's not, like, Fire Engine red. It's not Ferrari red, right? It's a really strong strawberry red. Like, it's very, very bright and very, you know, strawberry. The Cream portion of this launch should be in the clip, on the finial, at the section band. Anything to make this a singular, universal Strawberries and Cream pen, instead of two very average, individual safaris.

Myke: I think Lamy are playing 4D chess with us here. Why? I think they know a bunch of people are going to buy both of them and make their own Frankenstein pen.

Brad: I agree. I agree. I mean, then I'm just going to yell at them.

Lamy All-Star Discussion

Myke: No, they're playing 4D chess, man. Now I'm going to spend $60 for a $30 pen.

Brad: Oh, I know. Oh, I'll get both of them. I mean, not for me, like, but I'll get both of them to, like, do giveaways and stuff like that and maybe mix and match their parts.

Myke: Yeah, you Frankenstein it, you know? You take the part. You, like, go with, like, red body, maybe. Maybe red body with red grip section. Cream little, I don't know, belly band or whatever they call it in the middle. And then a cream cap. And if you can get the, if you can very carefully, it is possible, extract the clip or swap the clip over.

Brad: Oh, yeah. I mean, this is what they did with the candy ones from a few years ago where they had, like, the teal, the purple, and the yellow. Right? Like, all you could do, people can mix and match those fast enough. It's like, I get it. I get it.

Myke: But they should have just made one pen that has exactly what I've just described or what some version of that.

Brad: Yeah. Like, Safari, like, I get the all-star. Like, I understand why they do what they do and why they did this pen. But, I mean, this is a standard library pen. Like, this is not really a special edition. You know, all-star in my book. So, they could have done better. But the Safari is supposed to be the fun pen. And to not, I mean, what if the strawberry one had a green clip, Myke? Like, what if we could just do that, you know, and make it, like, a real strawberry colorway? You know, I just, it frustrates me a little bit. I'm not sure I know what white silver is.

Brad: It looks just silver to me. I don't understand. Well, because they're, yeah. Because they've done silver in the past, right? They've had a silver all-star.

Myke: I think it was silver two.

Brad: Yeah. That would have been a better name. Silver two. The old silver all-star had a black clip was the only difference. So, this one has the raw clip. I don't know. I just felt like, I mean, they don't hit on these every year, right? Like, last year was, like, such a win for the Safari. And they've had some really stellar releases in the past. And then some of them just fall flat. It can't be, like, knocked out of the park every year. I get that. But I just can't help but feel, like, there's not much differentiation between Team All-Star and Team Safari this year. Even though I'm voting Team Safari just because, you know, because of the strawberries and cream. I do prefer those over the white silver. I keep wanting to call it the silver fish, which is not good. But that's the name that sticks my head. I don't like that at all. Yeah. So, yeah. Like, I don't know. Not a huge, huge W this year. Also, do we have inks to match any of this? Are we getting a strawberry ink? I haven't seen that. I doubt we're getting white silver or cream inks. I don't think that's going to work. Or do we get a, you know, a bright green ink for the strawberry pen? I don't know. Just one more little thing. I would have been much happier. Just, like, something tiny. I don't even care what it is. You know, a different color clip on the Safaris or an alternate color ink to tie in the two pens, right? So, I don't know. I don't know. So, it's, they were interesting. We'll say that. Next up, Myke, is a pen I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around. So, the Platinum Limited Edition 3776 Shape of a Heart fountain pen came out, Myke. And from just an image, right? If you see the image before you read any of the details, you go, oh, this is like a black with a rose gold trim. Black pen, rose gold trim, 3776. And it has what Mont Blanc is popular, known for the Starwalker cap, where it's a clear top finial with something in it, right? We've spoken about this pen before.

Myke: I feel very confident about the fact that we have spoken about this pen before.

Brad: The Starwalker or the shape of a heart? The shape of a heart. Oh, no, definitely not, because it's brand new. Because, Myke, what they've done here is actually kind of cool.

Myke: Yeah, because I remember this. I remember us talking about this exact, I don't know.

Brad: With the punch out? Yes.

Myke: With the punch, the nib punch out? Really? I'm convinced that we've spoken about this.

Brad: Okay, then maybe we did. Maybe we did. I don't recall this, because I was looking closer at the cap and the punch outs. Uh-huh. So, for people that don't know what I'm talking about, Platinum has their nib hole breather. Um, is a heart shape.

Myke: There's a lot of stuff I don't like today, Brad. I'm not going to lie.

Brad: Breather hole. Oh, jeez.

Myke: Will you stop it, please? That's terrible.

Brad: Platinum has always had a heart-shaped breather hole in their nibs. Oh, Jesus. That's the literal, that's the literal marketing, okay? Uh-huh. That's what it's called. I called it a hole breather. That's a Stranger Things thing. Um, but the breather hole is heart-shaped. Well, they punched them, and they put two of them in the cap around these, um, kind of glittery diamond-looking things. Uh-huh. Yep. Uh, I think chat's with you that we maybe mentioned this, like, it was leaked, like, a month ago. I don't, I don't, for some reason, it's, it's not sticking with me. Maybe because it kind of fell flat for me. Maybe just the, the colorway of it, and the, the price point. So, this is a $390, 2,000 unit limited edition. Like, it's cool. Like, it's good. I love it. I like, I like the idea of it. I love it. Right. Yeah. I really do. Yeah, this looks, this seems like, this is definitely more of a U-pen than me. And, like, I, I totally get it. I love the, the, the heart-shaped punch-outs from, from the metal. And there were some images, I, I don't have it in this link, but there were some images of, like, the flat pen, the flat nibs, you know, before the nibs are, are finally shaped. They're, you know, a piece of flat metal, and when they get stamped out, and all the little hearts collected, it's, it's a really neat idea. I like it. So, I think this will do, this will do pretty well, especially for platinum fans. So, yeah. How did you break your cap again? Just, I don't know.

Myke: I just, I took it out of my Sinclair, so I'm going to blame you. Uh-oh. No, I just, I don't know how I did it. I mean, who knows, right? I bumped it.

Brad: So, is it chipped or cracked?

Myke: Chipped. There's like a little, there's actually a piece missing from the, from the bottom of the cap.

Brad: The very edge, like the very edge of the cap. Yeah.

Myke: It is what it is, you know? It's what it is. I kind of feel like these, my feeling. I think about, yeah, I use it. Yeah. I mean, it's with me every day. It's coming backwards and forwards in my backpack all the time. Like, for me, with this kind of stuff, I try not, I try not to be too precious. You know, like, I note these things, and it's like, that's a shame. But I'm not going to be like, oh, well, now I have to completely rethink the way, like, it's just like, it just doesn't. Right. You know, I don't, I don't like to, to be so precious. So.

Brad: I agree completely. Like, the nib thing is different, right? That was like a flaw. This is, hey, I use this product a lot, and, you know, this, sometimes these things happen because we should be using our products. Yeah. Speaking of using our products, we're both big fans of the Sailor King of Pen, and our good friend CY from the Tokyo Inklings podcast sent us an image via Twitter, which we'll include in the show notes to CY's tweet, and you should go follow Tokyo Station Pens on Twitter. The new Sailor logo. So, we talked about the new Sailor logo and the word mark last year, right? They were modernizing the anchor, and they were modernizing the Sailor word mark, and that has made, the anchor has made it onto the nib of new King of Pens, and what is your opinion of this?

Myke: I like it. I mean, I said at the time, I believe this is how I feel, and that's my opinion changed. I like the new Sailor logo. I think it has more personality to it. I think it's really interesting, and I think that this is a very, I think it looks great. The nib itself, I think, looks fantastic. It's in the image. I mean, I'm looking at my King of Pen now, and it's like, it's really busy, you know?

Brad: So, the traditional ones are very scroll-heavy, script-heavy, letter-heavy, you know, markings. And this one, the new one, is kind of a mix of old and new, which I think is probably the hang-up for a lot of people, right? So, the anchor is the new, very modern, you know, pointed anchor right in the middle of the nib. But the scroll work on the nib, you know, that runs, you know, around the nib is kind of the traditional scroll work. So, it's a, I could see why it would be a little bit off-putting, and even see why did it run a poll on his Instagram story. So, it was 56% for dislike and 44% for like. So, you know, pretty, you know, even results. But I would say that's a pretty negative result for something that should be like, Sailor would hope would be 80% positive.

Myke: People are always resistant to change.

Brad: Yeah, but like, I'm, I like it. So, I just, to go on record, I like it. I would totally get a Sailor King a pen. Play cleaner. I kind of can't stop staring at it either, because I'm looking at these two kind of different design stories in a singular nib, right? I would almost rather the scroll work be replaced by a line or something else, even more simpler nib, right? But you're paying buku bucks for this nib to begin with, right? It's probably a $300, $400 nib. You just don't want like a single line stamping and an anchor stamp. You know, the scroll work is kind of required, but I almost would have liked to see some more, a more modern tie-in with the scroll work. I don't know, I like it, but I will admit I'm not having a like 100% satisfaction with it, despite liking it. I do think I would maybe like it in a single color, either, so this is a two-tone nib, when y'all see it in the, when you see it in the link. I do think it might look better with a solid nib to where the scroll work is more in line with the anchor, either solid gold or solid, you know, rhodium plated or whatever. I think that aesthetic I might like a little bit better. I don't know. I'm a little bit thrown while also glad that they did it.

Kaweco Iridescent Pearl

Myke: Right. That's fair.

Brad: Yeah. So it's good. I will be anxious to see if these make the limited edition ones. This looks like the standard. So Sailor does a stock King of Pen, if you can call it that, you know, just your black and gold King of Pens that they do, you know, keep as the regular model of the King of Pen. And that's what it looks like. This is just a section shot, but it does look like the regular black and gold barrel. So it's very cool. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Myke, I got the email from Kaweco for their new springtime launch. They have two really, really, really interesting pens here. The first up, I think is going to be the most popular one. And it's the Kaweco Collection, which is your sport model, your standard plastic model.

Brad: Iridescent Pearl in the Kaweco Sport. What they call their naming convention. They really mucked this up. I'm sorry. So you have to understand that Kaweco Collection is the annual limited release of the Kaweco Sport. But it's not called Sport. It's just called Kaweco Collection. They kind of went off board here, right? Yeah, they've messed up the brand name.

Myke: They've nailed the colors.

Brad: Yeah. Well, it's just hard to talk about the pen. I have to say Kaweco Collection, but this is the AL Sport pen, right? I mean, excuse me. This is L, man? The Kaweco Sport. No, no, no. I misspoke. See, it's causing me a problem.

Myke: How the hell did they do that?

Brad: It's called the Collection, but this is the Sport pen or the Classic pen, whichever one you want to choose. They're both the same name. So this is the Plastic Barrel Pocket pen. And that's a really wild, iridescent material. And that's what they should do, right? Yeah. This is what the Special Edition should be, right? Kaweco has always done solid color Special Editions. They're known for solid color Special Editions, unless you get into the art sport where they use different materials. And, you know, they're close to $200 pens. These are your basic Plastic Barrel Sport model pens, and it's in a fun, wild color. It's not going to be for everyone. I think it's killer. I will want this pen. And this is the experimentation I like to see. Now, could I translate this into Lamy? Could you see Lamy doing this, Myke? Like, this is my overarching question after we just had the Safari conversation. I'll answer for you. No way in hell.

Myke: Oh, no, no, no, no.

Brad: Absolutely not.

Myke: I don't know.

Brad: I don't know. No way. No way would Lamy do this, but I'm asking them to do a little bit more. Kaweco. Kaweco. I'm glad they're doing this. This is a little bit of an outlier for them, but they've kind of been leaning. I don't know. They kind of go on this path with, like, the torch stuff.

Myke: If you've shown me this material a week ago and said, could you imagine Kaweco doing this? I think I'd say no.

Brad: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. But I don't know. Maybe. Maybe. But it's awesome. I'm glad to see it.

Myke: Just because they have been missing constantly for the last year, right? They have been. What is a baseball term for this, surely? They've been striking out.

Brad: Swinging a miss. Striking out. Yeah.

Myke: Over and over and over again.

Brad: Yeah. Yeah.

Brad: I wouldn't go that far. I would. Over and over.

Myke: Constantly.

Brad: Yeah. For about two years, probably. They've been questionable for about two years. I will give you that. And having to, you know, it's always, I always go back to the storytelling and they muck that up like pretty hardcore. And they're trying to correct that. I'm not sure if they are or aren't. But regardless, this Kaweco collection release, I mean, this is a sellout. Like, no doubt in my mind. I mean, it's not limited or anything like this. And you'll be able to buy it if you want it. But it's great. Like, and this is a crossover pen too, right? This is now someone's first Kaweco sport model pen. I see what you mean. Yeah. Yeah. Right? This is now they have a new customer base and they've also thrilled their existing customers. Right? Well, what has Lamy done with strawberries and cream? They don't stand out from the rest of the wall in the Lamy store. They fit in. And if you hadn't drawn in the customer already from the vibrant store wall, right? They look great. It's the same pen. This one is a little bit more, hey, look at me. And I think Kaweco has earned that right to kind of do this and see what happens. And I think it'll go well for them.

Brad: I may like the Lilyput even better. It's been a while since they've kind of done a new Lilyput. They do about one a year. They don't do as many as some of the other pens. And honestly, I know why. Like, it's not as good of a pen as the AL and the Classics and the Collections and the bigger sports series. But this one's called Kaweco Collection Fountain Pen Lilyput Green. And it's this very bright anodized aluminum green, kind of a yellowish green. And it's spectacular, right? But the Lilyput is such a difficult sell. It is a really, really small pen. And I happen to like it. You have to use it posted. But I think this color, like the last one they did, I think, was purple. And it did really well. They have a blue one that they've done. They did a, it might have been a Cult Pens exclusive blue one that I bought. But this pen just doesn't get as much use from me because of the size. Like, I'm using a Steel Sport today, which is, you know, the classic faceted barrel, fuller sized pen. The Lilyput's a little bit of a tougher sell. But I think this color is spot on. What do you think about it?

Myke: It's a beautiful green, man. I really like it.

Brad: Yeah. And I would never recommend this pen to you in a million years. It's a small for me. I know that. It is so small.

Myke: The material finish released from these images is really, really nice.

Brad: Yeah. So this, I, this is one I like, I might break down and just buy one. I haven't bought a Lilyput in years, probably. Um, just because they just haven't been that compelling and they don't do that many of them because it's not a bestseller. Like some of these, some of their other models in this, in this price range. Um, it's just, it's a really tough sell for most people to use this pen and, and for understandable reasons, like I totally get it. But I think this color is great and it's, it's going to pop and it's going to draw people's eyes to it and things like that. So I included, um, Kaveko's, uh, mailer for this. Those were the two most interesting items. They are, they are doing the calligraphy set that they're pretty popular for, uh, known for where they have different nibs that you use and they added in the mint barrel for the Kaveko sports, which they've always done just kind of traditional colors, black and white, things like that for their barrels. They have a mint, uh, barrel set and things like that in there. So y'all can, y'all can pop in and, and see any of the new products that they have, uh, linked in this newsletter. But I thought the, the iridescent pearl Kaveko collection and then the green lily put were just, uh, just great. I think, um, I think I kind of would have gone with a different name than green though. Is it just called green? It's just called green. Lily put green.

Myke: Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. We just iridescent. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad: Cause this color is, this color is five. It's got some vibrancy to it. Yeah. And some, I don't know. It's got some pop and it's just called green. So I don't know. It's, it's great looking though. I love it. So big fan, big fan of what Kaveko is doing despite the naming conventions and confusion going on. Yeah.

Myke: Yeah.

Brad: All right, Myke, you want to hit a couple of ass TPA and we'll wrap it up. We'll keep it shorter this week, even though it's pretty much our regular time, but compared to last week, man, this will be a short episode. Have we even started the show yet?

Myke: I don't think so. All right, let's do some ass TPA. Ezcom comes in from Fibber who wants to know, uh, any thoughts on the Muji branded platinum preppy?

Brad: Yes.

Myke: So this is a preppy with all the branding removed in true Muji style.

Brad: True Muji style. Uh, I don't know why my link's not coming up, but I looked at it before. It is like the perpanep, um, platinum preppy with the all white barrel, except you just remove all of the perpanepness of it. I think the clip is different though. So they've changed the clip style, but I mean, even the nib has the P on it for platinum, which you usually don't see in a Muji product. And it's like, well, yeah, okay. Let's see what you do there. But the...

Myke: I mean, that could have just been a thing of like, we can't, and we're not like, we'll do everything you want. We're not going to make a new nib for you.

Brad: Yeah. Yeah. So it, this, I'm glad Muji did this because they get such love for their aluminum barrel knurled grip fountain pen that I actually don't think is very good. And they get a lot of love for that pen. And I think it's about, that one's about $15. How much is this one? I don't even know. I'd have to do the conversion, but it's not very expensive. Relatively. And this is such a better pen than the metal barrel one, even though the metal barrels sell, right? Like aesthetically, they're aesthetically pleasing. This is such a high quality pen. And this was a great decision for Muji to white label this pen. I am, I do think the clip is kind of funny though. It's like literally the entirety of the Preppy barrel. The barrel shape's the same. The grip section's the same. The nib's the same. The cap shape is the same, except for the top of the cap, which has on the Preppy, it has like this overlapping kind of clip that flows into the top of the barrel. And this is almost just like your standard basic clip. And it definitely, I mean, it, it stands on its own. It's just not as cool looking as the Preppy, but for Muji, man, this is pretty great. I love it.

Myke: And then also Don asks, do you know why Pilot doesn't sell the Orochizuku inks and cartridges?

Brad: I don't. Other than I think probably everyone would assume the same thing. Is that it's expensive, right? Like it, it's an expensive ask. And like Sailor had made their own machines, I think, because they're also a robotics company. And I, and they made their cartridges with all of their like Sailor gentle inks and Sailor ink studios. And they made a bunch of ink cartridges. I still haven't seen those like readily available. I still don't own any. I haven't chased them down. Um, so it's just a more expensive proposition for both sides of the coin for manufacturing and for consumers. And maybe they don't feel the markets there, but everything that we see in all of our surveys says Pilot is the most popular fountain pen company. They do some, you can find some basic non-black blue and blue black ink colors, but they're still not their Orochizuku inks, right? You can get purple. I know Myke uses purple. I've used orange and turquoise, but man, if I could get a Shinkai or Kanpeki or Yamabudo and cartridges, I would love it. I would pay the premium for it, but I, maybe they just, maybe they'll, they'll watch what Sailor does and, and follow along. But, um, it definitely won't be cost effective for anybody, but I would pay the premium. Like I, I talk about that with ink these days, right? Buying a 20 milliliter bottle at a more premium per milliliter price still keeps it like at 18 or $20 and theoretically I'll waste less, you know, if by not using it, right. Or, you know, having a 50 milliliter bottle that I pay $25 for, but don't use the whole thing. Like where's the real inefficiency? So, um, I would love to see this Don. I'm not going to hold my breath, but I didn't think Sailor would ever do it either. And they did. I don't know if they're going to continue to do it. Um, and I don't know how accessible they are to everybody, but I shoot like pilot just came out with some new ink colors for Uro Shizuku. Um, I would love to see them do some cartridges and just kind of lean into that or, you know, other pens, people that are buying a metropolitan. Can also buy a pack of Uro Shizuku cartridges to go along with it, make their, their first fountain pen a little bit more special. I would love to see it. I just not going to hold my breath, but, uh, one can, one can hope.

Myke: If you'd like to send in a question for us to answer on the show, you can send out a tweet with the hashtag ask TPA. You can use question mark ask TPA in the Relay FM members discord, or you can email longer questions to hello at penaddict.com. When you go to penaddict.com, you can see the work of Brad and the other penaddicts there writing wonderful articles about new exciting products. You can also go to spoke design.com to buy some wonderful tools that Brad makes himself. Go to, uh, twitch.tv slash penaddict where Brad streams three times a week. So you can hang out with him there, watch him on box stuff, hang out, all that fun stuff. Go to penaddict on Instagram. Dowdy is on Twitter. I am imike. I am Y-K-E. And I urge you to go to cortexmerch.com and buy yourself a theme system journal and check out the stuff that we've got going on over there. Uh, thank you so much to Squarespace for the support of this episode and thank you all for listening. We'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.