The Pen Addict 502/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	502
Title:	Throw a Dart at $125 Ten Years Ago
Release Date:	February 23rd, 2022
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 502
Audio File:	Audio Episode 502
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 502
Length:	5858 min <br />0.967 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Brad: Welcome to The Pen Addict.

Myke: I'm kind of familiar with my own pen zone. I've had some pen zone moments this morning, but what is the zone?

Brad: My pen zone today is the San Francisco Pen Show Special. Pro Gear Slim. That is what my pen zone consists of today.

Myke: Nice. Love that pen. Love that pen. The Spider-Man, as we referred to it at the time. The Spider-Man pen. It looks very Spider-Man-y. One of the cool ones. Did I buy that one for you and ship it to you? I was there at that show.

Brad: No, I bought it when I was in San Francisco.

Myke: Oh yeah, we were there at that show. That was the show we were together. That was the Relay Anniversary show. Gotcha. God, that has been that many years, huh?

Brad: Mm-hmm.

Time Flies

Myke: Wow. Many years. Wow, time flies. Time flies. Like, time flies to 502 episodes of this podcast, which I'm excited about still, to this day. And I'm also excited about the Pilot Custom 74, Myke. Did you know that?

Brad: I read this. I read this review that you wrote. It's like a re-review. Mm-hmm. Right?

Myke: Would you say, yeah, would you say it was fawning? A fawning review? I felt fawning writing it.

Brad: I would say that you are deeply in love, it would appear.

Myke: Yeah. And that's an issue in the grand scheme of things, was my discovery process, right? My re-discovery process. So the Pilot Custom 74, I just reviewed it on penaddict.com on Monday, but it is not a new pen. And it is, in our modern world, it's a pretty old pen. It's probably got a good decade behind it, if not more. I don't know the history of the 74. I'm guessing the 74 was maybe 74 years from the anniversary. So it could be a 30-year-old pen. Yeah. For all I know. Like, I'm not that smart, y'all. I get emails like, you are not smart. And I'm like, I know. I know those things. So Pilot Custom 74, I learned about it back when I just started getting into fountain pens about a decade ago. And I bought one. I had an orange one. And I really, I enjoyed it. Like, it was cool. It fit right in the category at the time with, hey, this is your first upgraded gold nib pen, right? So like, we would be dabbling in, you know, our Lamy Safaris or our Twisbees or trying to figure out what, you know, next kind of ramp up pen would be. And then there was a batch of gold nib pens that was like that next tier, you know, the Lamy 2000, Pilot Vanishing Point, Sailor Pro Gear at the time. And like, I wasn't even including the Platinum 3776 at the time. We'll get to that in a minute. But, you know, that was what we did like, you know, eight years ago, right? And the market has changed a bunch in the years since. And I wanted to rethink where the Pilot Custom 74 landed because it's still a really good pen, right? I raved about it the first time. I raved about it the second time I reviewed it. The reviews were seven years apart. I think my original one was 2015. And while the 74 itself hasn't changed in that time frame, the market has, right? I talked a lot about how we've gone through a lot of price changes, especially, you know, starting with the pandemic. It seems that all the prices escalated, you know, just the world got more expensive, right? It's not, you know, something exclusive to the stationary hobby.

Brad: Production is more expensive. Materials are more expensive.

Myke: Like, literally tick everything across the board got more expensive, right? So that shifted where these certain pens lie in the price market, right? There's different, the price brackets changed where you could just pretty much like throw a dart, you know, at $125 10 years ago and come out with a great gold-knit pen, right? And you would be just thrilled. And, you know, we could say, just pick whichever one you want because you'll be happy and your budget is the same. And in the past few years, a lot of those same pens got really, really ramped up in their different, you know, their different companies had different levels of price increase. You know, Sailors had a big price increase. Lamy's had a big price increase, you know, with their gold-knit pens, the Lamy 2000. Pilots had a big price increase. The vanishing point was especially hit by that. Platinum had a big price increase. And the Pilot Custom 74 had a little price increase. Like, it went up. It went up. And I looked at my seven years ago review, I paid $135 for the 74, okay? And this year, I paid $160 for the 74. I mean, that's a pretty reasonable just cost of living increase, you know, over the years. Whereas the Sailors are now starting at like $180, and that's just, you have very little choice there. And then they go on up from there. The Platinum 3776 gold and black ones are $176, I think. So, they're, you know, close to $160, right? These are not too disparate prices, but they're in the ballpark. But if you want rhodium trim, it's $200, you know, which that's the one I want is $200.

Myke: And it's just on and on. The Lamy 2000, you know, was back in that $125 range before $140. And now it's around $200. The Vanishing Points was in that price range. Now it's close to $200. So, yeah, it made me rethink the Pilot 70, Custom 74. And why wasn't it not only not on my top five pins in the $100 to $200 category, why isn't it the number one pin in that category? And I don't even have it listed. And I think the result of this article was that's a huge oversight on my part. And that list is going to change. And it's probably going to be the number one pin.

Brad: I don't understand that part. Which part? I specifically wrote, like, copied and pasted this quote from your review, which you basically just said, which is, not having the Pilot Custom 74 on my top five pens list in the $100 to $200 fountain pen list is a huge oversight on my part. In fact, I think it needs to be in the number one spot. I just am surprised you can go from not being there to number one. Like, that's a pretty big jump.

Myke: I think the way I see it is that it was a mistake on not my part by missing it, as opposed to I chose to, say, put it sixth in the list, right? It wasn't even a consideration for me, right? So therefore, if it wasn't considered, hey, here's 10 pins, and I'm going to rank them one through five, and it came out number seven, it was just almost like the Forgotten Man of not being considered. So therefore, it's not moving from seven to four. It's moving from oops to one.

Brad: Yeah. No, I get it. It's just still a surprise to me, though.

Myke: Yeah. And it may not be number one. It may be number two, but it's going to be one or two, because I think the gold nib pens have to be at the top of that list, because there's very few gold nib pens. It's that I would recommend in that price point now. All right.

List Introduction

Brad: So this isn't the official list, right? Right, right, right. But we're going to go through here. I'm going to go from five to one, and you're going to give me your gut instinct as to where this should sit, right? So top five fountain pens in the $100 to $200 category, which anybody can find in the top five lists over at penaddict.com. You should go check those out. There's a lot of great lists there. So number five, Lamy 2000. Does it be Lamy 2000? Yes. Okay. Lamy, sorry, number four. Lamy four. Lamy four, Estabrook Esty. Yeah. Okay. Number three, Diplomat Aero. Yeah. Number two, Leonardo Memento Zero slash Furore.

Myke: Yeah, that's just a shape difference. That's like a Pro Gear versus a 1911. Same essential pen, different shape. Yeah, easy. All of these are easy so far.

Brad: Number one, Platinum 3776.

Myke: If Platinum changes-

Brad: I knew this is where it was going to get stuck.

Myke: Here's the problem. If all the Platinums were $176, Platinum would be number one. There's only one, or maybe there's only a couple barrel styles and only gold trim that are $176 and everything else starts with a 2, right? So they're almost not on the list, right? I would- I prefer- Okay, so here's the difference in this list. This is my recommendations list, right? This is different from Brad's preference list, right? Okay, so the Custom 74 is number one. It's ahead of the 3776. Okay. If I'm going to the Closet of Doom, and I have two pens that exist in the Closet of Doom, for me, my personal use, I'm going to pick a 3776.

Myke: Okay? So that's always been the challenge with this list. This is the recommendations list, not the Brad list. So in this list, the 74 is going to go first. Because I think it separates itself in price and materials from the remainder of the list. Okay. And that would make it a very highly recommended pen for me.

Brad: Sure. So just to recap, on the list, 74 is number one. Brad Dowdy's picking up a pen. This is number two.

Myke: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. And what's funny is this Gold Nib Custom 74, it'll be the least expensive pen on this list. Which, I mean, that's part of the recommendations. That doesn't surprise me, though. That helps me why it's number one. If it was $195, it's still on the list, but it's probably number two. For sure.

Brad: This is definitely, like, you know, I read this article and I'm like, oh, maybe I should pick one of these up. And I go and look at them and it's like, none of them really excite me enough. Mm-hmm. And so, like, it doesn't surprise me that it's cheaper. And it also kind of doesn't surprise me that it maybe gets forgotten about. Like, you know, we had this issue with the 3776 for a long time. Like a long time. 100%. 100%. And then Platinum woke up and started making some good looking versions of the pen. Yeah. You know, like either in color or material or like the way the material was shaped, you know. Yeah. And then I ended up with two of them because they were interesting to look at as well as being fantastic to use. And the 74, it kind of just feels like it was forgotten. Pilot have such strange design in some of their products where it's like, we did it once and then that's it. And we're not going to touch it anymore. Like, I'm not really a big fan of the ball and the clip. Like, I don't really like that. But that's not enough to turn me off. But it's just I look at the finishes and I'm like, well, the green one's kind of nice. But there's just so much more that they could do here. Sure. You know, like, you haven't got to be Sailor. Like, only Sailor should be that. But they could do, I don't know. I would maybe follow more what Platinum did. The colors are fine, but the shape of the pen isn't my favorite. So if they can accentuate that in different ways, then I could maybe get more on board.

Myke: So that's the price you pay for the entry-level gold nib pens is you get the average barrel. That was the problem I had with the 3776 for a long time, right? And what you said, Pilot, finally, hey, let's do this in rhodium. And, you know, let's do different colors. And now those also start with a two in front of them, right, in the price. So, you know, that's part of the challenge. You can still get the 3776 for less than $200, but you're limited in your choice. So Pilot, like, they kind of took a few years off from updating the colors of the 770s, excuse me, 74.

Myke: And over the last two or three years, they've introduced, like, two new barrel colors a year, which is good. Like, it's fine. I don't need more than one of these, right? Like, this is just one pen. Like, I'm not, this isn't like, you know, I'm going to now have three of these. I'm going to use this one, make it nice, and I would recommend it highly. Like, it's a really good quality pen. The Pilot nibs are spectacular. Pilot nibs are the most user-friendly nibs, I think, for people who aren't, like, super experienced and don't want to have to deal with, hey, what's going on with this nib, or it feels different than I expected. Pilot really nails the nib experience out of the box more than, in my opinion, Sailor and Platinum, even though I prefer Platinum's nibs, you know, overall. I think Pilot is the best overall nib to recommend to someone who's just kind of discovering things. Like, I think it's really just exceptional. So, anyway, like, I've, I can't believe how much I have enjoyed using the 74. It's to the point where I just, I just want to keep it in use all the time, which is an interesting place to be.

Professional Promotion

Brad: If somebody wants to get a Custom 74 of their own, Brad, I have a place that they can go to.

Myke: Look at you. This is some professional podcasting right here.

Brad: Hey, look, I told you I was in the zone today, didn't I?

Myke: Yeah, and I was so in the zone, I wasn't even paying attention. I wasn't even down with this. And look at you bringing in our good friends at Pen Chalet.

Brad: Because Pen Chalet sell authentic, amazing roller balls, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and so much more from all of your favorite brands, like Pilot. But many more, Sailor, Kaweco, Pelican, and more all the time. One of my favorite things about Pen Chalet, they're always adding new stuff. Every couple of weeks, you see new styles of pens from new brands. And it's not just pens, right? It's also the accessories that go with it. So, if you want some ink or some cartridges, you know, bottles or cartridges, maybe you want a fountain pen converter, some cases to put your stuff in, you know, they do really nice pen cases over at Pen Chalet. They have everything. They have fantastic customer service, really fast, really reliable. And they're doing discounts all the time over at Pen Chalet. Every couple of weeks, you're going to find new discounts on new pens. But, of course, there are special discounts available for Pen Act listeners, which I'll get to in a minute. They do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the U.S. And they sell internationally with great shipping rates. Pen Chalet has low prices on high-quality pens. And they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So, go to penchalet.com. That is P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. And click the podcast link at the top of the website. And use the password penaddict for this week's special offering to get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time at Pen Chalet. Now, Ron wanted me to let everyone know they're doing a bunch of special deals because it was Tuesday yesterday. Two, two, two, two, two, two, two. I heard that. So, there's still some deals going on from Tuesday over at Pen Chalet.

Myke: So, when you go to our penaddict page that Ron sets up for us, you can see the episode 500 giveaway winners. I know we had, I think it was Lisa tweeted us. She got her Bennu and Con Pecky combo. And it looks kind of amazing. I'm actually pretty jealous. It's like, hey, I picked this pen out and maybe I should get it for myself. So, you can do that at penchalet.com. In the deals section, there's some stuff you don't normally see in here. Number one, there's some Retro 51 Tornado Poppers in there. It looks like some of the, is this the train ones? No, Jim Ka. Those are in there. Tuesday is in there. Get it Tuesday. That's the new one for 2-2, 2-22, 2-2, 2-2, 2-20, 22, 2-2. The Gioia, Gioia, pen, Italia, special edition, the Partinope. I believe that's the one, that's a model that Kimberly has reviewed on the blog. She loves them and they are a really good price right now. That's maybe something I'll consider in that Leonardo, Esther Brook, Diplomat range as I get more experience with them in that $150 to $200 price point. It's a really, really cool looking pen. Very good quality and kind of newer to the market. And if you scroll down, Myke, there is a Pelican Suveron 405 Silver White, not to be confused with white silver fountain pen, which is a really, really good price. This is one of the best looking limited editions that Sailor has done. And interestingly enough, Myke, there is a new, not a new brand, but a new retail brand. It looks like Pen Chalet is starting to carry the Ranga pens, which is an Indian brand, which have always been very popular pens.

Myke: We've been able to get them in the US a little bit, but now it looks like they're maybe getting a little bit more widespread. And they've always been well-received and have good quality. And Ron's got them at a discount. Yeah, they look like a very good, that's something I'm definitely going to have to try. Actually, I might have to go after the show and grab a couple of these for review because they use Ebonite, Myke, is what Ranga is known for. They're Ebonite barrels. At that price? Yeah. That's always been the reaction because we're about to talk about a different Ebonite pen, and they're usually not at that price, as you say. And this is really, really good. So this is worth me personally checking out and get some review models for the blog. I think they'll do very well.

Brad: So go check it out yourself right now at penshalet.com. Our thanks to Pen Chalet for the support of this show and RelayFM.

Myke: All right, this next Ebonite pen I wanted to talk about kind of snuck up on me. It's the, ooh, here we go. Tuduria, I believe is the brand name. Tuduria Moonlit Fountain Pen. And this is a Kickstarter pen that a lot of people sent to me once it launched on Kickstarter, said, hey, look at this great new Ebonite pen made in Japan. It's got some interesting features. It's got kind of a standard barrel. It's got some unique grip sections. And it has the option, which is what really struck me, it has the option to be fitted with Sailor or Pilot nibs, I believe. At least Pilot nibs. I'll have to double check the specs. So friend of the show, friend of the blog, Andrew Kuhn, was able to get some samples on behalf of the pen addict and wrote a little preview, review post of the pens. And I wanted to bring these up for a couple of reasons. So it's kind of a dual conversation. One, talking about the pen in general. And two, talking about Kickstarter and how I think about products like this. So this is a new maker. And they have gone through, as best as I can tell from their Kickstarter page, an extensive testing and creation product. And they basically listed out their thinking of how they went through the manufacturing and the final design of this pen, which I always find very compelling, right? From a maker to sometimes, I don't know if you feel this way, Myke, but sometimes when the product is too glossy from the launch, too perfect, I feel a little less uncomfortable. I mean, I feel a little less comfortable kind of backing it. Not backing it, but I was like, yeah, this is like really polished. I mean, that kind of goes against convention. But like I kind of want to see in campaigns, I kind of want to see some blood, sweat, and tears saying, hey, I'm confident that I nailed it because I did all these things and I had problems and I solved the problems. And now here's the product and I am happy. That doesn't mean that the glossy productions didn't go through the exact same thing. But I think all of us, especially like on Kickstarter, you like to see the behind the scenes. How did we get to this final product? Well, that's kind of the point of it, right? Right, but some of them don't do that.

Tuduria Pen Discussion

Brad: Should be a little bit more. Well, it depends, doesn't it? Because some companies are not using it for that.

Myke: Right, right. So this one, I feel like this is one of those products that is using it for a launch. Now, again, you'll have to go read the Kickstarter. And this is not a promotion, an advertisement or anything. Andrew was able to get these pins for free. They sent him two models for review and put the review up on the blog last night. And I think they're interesting, right? It is not for me. I'll just tell you straight up. Like, this is not a pin shape that I personally enjoy, right? So I'm not going to jump into this Kickstarter for myself. But I think it is compelling for a lot of people who like the Japanese style ebonite constructions. They look really big. Yeah, they're pretty long, right? Which is, you know, not my style of pin. It's the length of the pin that gets me, right? Like, I'm a small pin in general guy. I like the smaller shapes. I do have some big pins, but, you know, I would, this is one I would want to see in person before I jumped in. Because they're not cheap. You know, they're $225. You know, they're all handmade. They have some really great finishes. They have some great options in the sections. You can really upgrade them with the Pilot nibs and things like that to, you know, get into like a $300 and something pin. But I like the idea. I like the platform. I like a new entrant into the maker space. Especially from Japan getting the broader distribution, which we didn't really have up until a couple years ago where Kickstarter allowed Japanese brands and Japanese companies and Japanese makers to get into the crowdfunding, the Kickstarter model. Right? At the time, you couldn't do a source, a home country of Japan as, you know, a Kickstarter launch, right? And now this is one of the effects from that. And we're getting to see this. So, this is one, we go back to that Kickstarter podcast we did where I talked about like green light, yellow light, red light. You know, I'd be pretty comfortable backing this, like if this is my style of pen. Like for me, it's a yellow, right? Just because I don't know that the product would fit my style. But I think as far as, you know, a fulfillment and quality perspective, I think it seems like a pretty green light. Because, you know, you have to have faith in that the creators, the project creators are, you know, and take them at their word of what they're going to offer and what they've gone through. And this seems like a well thought out campaign. And it brings a pretty cool platform to a wider market. And I love to see it. So, I think it's interesting. And I wanted to point it out because I think a lot of people will like this style of pen. So, it's very cool.

Brad: You love to see it. Love to see it. This one doesn't tick boxes for me. Same, same.

Myke: Yeah, but when I got the feedback from it, when it launched, people were very happy with this. And like I'm very glad of that, right? It checked a lot of boxes for a lot of people. And I think it's going to do pretty well. And if nothing else, it opens them up to have the opportunity to make something cool that people like and do something next, right? I hope that's the case, right? Like these companies that do this, I don't want to see these being like one-off type of things. I like, I want to see, hey, this got them off the ground. Hey, kind of what Kickstarter is for, right? And got them into making some cool stuff and then maybe down the line, I can go back and see, hey, people like these pens. It was very successful. And maybe I'll try this, you know, third model that they come out with that's more my style. So, it's cool. Cool to see.

Brad: Can you explain the Kuro Toga dive to me?

Myke: I tried. I've tried. I'm going to go with no, but yes. So, our good friend Jacob, food a fan, had a great Instagram post that I just saw this morning before the show. And we talked about the Kuro Toga dive or I talked about it, I guess, in refill. I don't know if we talked about it on the show.

Brad: We haven't spoken about it on the show yet.

Myke: All right. So, it's a capped Kuro Toga, right? So, you don't normally see capped mechanical pencils for starters, okay? So, it's a two-piece, you know, shaped like a pen, if you will, capped mechanical pencil. So, the barrel is shaped so the cap posts deeply down the barrel, kind of like the Sunderland MK1 pen, which I enjoy so much. It has a, or the Franklin Kristoff Model 02, there is a large taper in the barrel. So, when you post the cap, it doesn't extend the pen to unwieldy lengths, right? So, it sleeves in there deeply so it's comfortable. So, the Kuro Toga dive is a premium Kuro Toga. A lot of Kuro Togas are premium. They usually run in the, say, the $15 to $25 range, most of them in the past. This one's twice that. It's more in the $50 range. And what you get for that is you get this aluminum barrel that's capped. So, it's a two-piece barrel. And you don't just get the Kuro Toga lead rotation mechanism. If you're familiar with what the Kuro Toga is, it always keeps a sharp point on the lead by rotating the lead as you write. As you place the tip of the pencil down on the page, write your letters, lift it up, there's a micro rotation that's hardly visible to the eye. And it keeps, you know, a steady point so you don't have a real strong angled point to your mechanical pencil. And it works. Like, it's legitimately good. The dive adds in auto lead advancing on top of the lead rotation. Whoa. So, pencils have done auto lead rotation in the past, right? It's the same concept of when you lift, I mean, auto lead extension, I should say, right? It extends the lead. So, when you would lift the pencil off the page, there would be like a micro click, if you will, to extend the lead. So, it was a consistent length outside of the tip, right? Right. So, now you get the consistency of the Kuro Toga mechanism to keep the tip sharp, if you will. And then you get the consistency of the advancement mechanism to keep it at the same length. So, you don't have to click. There's not even a knock on this pencil, according to Jacob, which I didn't realize. Like, I've been looking at a bunch of the Japanese stationary bloggers and video makers, and I haven't quite caught all the things in translation. On top of that, the lead pipe is adjustable. So, this is something we've seen in, I don't know, Oto, like the Pro Mecca, has like a few different mechanical pencil manufacturers make, you know, different pipe length adjustments. So, you can have a longer pipe length or a shorter pipe length, it looks like. Why? Why would you want that? Just, it's a classic engineering design to where engineers wanted a lengthier, I guess, visual, right, for seeing what they're writing on the page, where the pencil tip wasn't too close to the barrel to where you didn't have visual clearance. So, you can get a further visual clearance from that. Right, right, right, right, right. You know, and probably certain like sketchers and artists, like either like a further back grip, if you hold the grip back further, you want a longer tip, you know, pointing out so you have that adjustment in there. So, it's just a little bit of personal taste and a little bit of visual access.

Brad: I don't mean it's in a bad way, but talk about an over-engineered product, right?

Myke: Like, I am so excited to try this. Yeah. I don't like the way it looks, though. I have zero hopes for this that I'm going to enjoy it.

Brad: I really don't like that they made, like, the body go all slim for the cap. Like, I don't like that design. But technically, this sounds incredible. Like, it sounds so clever.

Myke: And that's where my first looks at it, I couldn't figure out in my head how they were justifying this price. And then I see the additional mechanics that they've added to it. And I was like, okay, that at least makes a little bit of sense. A few bucks, right? Yeah. They're about 6,500 yen. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, the kicker and why Jacob wanted to post this and why I appreciate that he did, and he's been following this on Twitter, is they stealth launched it, Uni did, in Japan. And they can't keep them on the shelves. And they're selling in the aftermarket for three to four times the price. So, they're selling for $200 in the secondary market.

Brad: Wow. Why?

Myke: They cannot keep them. He was able to, he basically walked into a store and basically got the restock, you know? Yeah. It's like a sneaker thing, right? Like, he hit the restock. So, he was able to get it. And I don't know. It's definitely struck a nerve with the stationary market in Japan. And we'll just have to see if it's, like, if it was intentionally, like, short-stocked or if they actually sold a lot of them. You know, like, did they do, like, almost like a pre-release, like a short release where they didn't have, weren't flush with inventory? Or are they really selling, you know, $50 pencils left and right and can't keep them in stock? I think that would be kind of wild if the latter was the case.

Brad: I mean, I would expect it's a little column A, column B. Because maybe they didn't make that many, but they also can't keep them in stock. So, yeah. Yeah.

Myke: But that's an aggressive price point. That's a price point no mechanical pencils are in, right? Even, like, the most highly technical engineered pencils where you have all the moving parts, they're usually about $30, $35 maybe?

Brad: Yeah.

Myke: And this one, I don't even know, has, this one doesn't even have all that. It doesn't have a knock, and I'm not sure it even has an eraser.

Brad: Right, but why does it need a knock? That's the point. Yeah. No, I agree. I agree. You know, like, that's kind of what makes this thing special, I guess. It is interesting. I would love to try one. I'm just not a big fan of the design, like, the body being shrunk for the, so you could post the cap. I don't like when you make such a concession for that. Yeah. In general, I don't like that. Mm-hmm. I don't think that that's...

Myke: We'll see. My biggest concern will honestly be the grip section, and if it's too wide. Mm-hmm. I think it's going to be okay, but I think it's going to be at the maximum diameter that I like in mechanical pencils. Usually, like, the thinner the tip of a pen or pencil, usually I prefer the thinner the grip, right? Yeah. If I have a wide grip and a thin tip, my writing suffers, right? It's not a good feel. Uh-huh. So, I will be interested to get my hands on one of these. I'm certainly not paying premium price for this, because it's already a premium. I'm not going to pay a secondary market price for this, because I don't... It's certainly not worth that. So, we'll wait and see, and I'll get my hands on one when I can.

Brad: All right. I'm very intrigued about this. Yep. I hope you can get it.

Myke: So, let's do our next sponsor, because I'm moving a topic into a different spot here. So, let's talk about our next sponsor, because I am wired this morning. All right.

Sponsor Transition

Brad: Because of them. I mean, probably the same reason as me, and that's because this episode is brought to you by trade. How do you take your coffee? Do you like a full-bodied roast? Do you like something light? Maybe you like different... Maybe you like chocolatey flavors. Maybe you like fruity flavors. So, we'll have our preferences, and even if you don't know what they are as well, this is one of the good things about trade. But no matter what you love to drink, trade coffee makes it easy to brew your best cup at home. And you may think to yourself, look, I know I like a cup of coffee, but I don't know how to describe it. I was in that point, too. And what I really love about trade is they have a really easy survey that you take. So, you go in, and they ask you some basic questions, and it helps you build up your knowledge. They're going to send you some stuff. You can try it, and you can tweak and adapt it over time. And I promise you, within a month or two, you will have a better sense for what your preferences are, which I really like, because then when I go to coffee shops, and I see the really long explanations on the wall of the tasting notes and that kind of stuff of a particular coffee, I can look for some keywords that I know I like, because of basically this stuff with trade. I can go, now I know how to order what I want, so I think it's super cool. Anyway, Trade sells the freshest roasted and ethically sourced beans from America's best independent roasters. They ship free to you as often as you like, whole or ground. Whether you're a coffee nerd or you just want a better daily cup, Trade's real coffee experts taste test over 400 roasts and use technology to match you to your ideal coffee based on your preferences and brewing method. You just take their coffee quiz to get started, and Trade Coffee guarantees you'll love your first bag or they'll replace it for free. Trade has been featured by the New York Times, Wire, GQ, and has delivered over 5 million bags of coffee. Quite a big chunk of those are to me recently.

Brad: I got so many bags of coffee. Same, same. Their subscription is no hassle. You can skip your shipments, change your frequency, or cancel them at any time. Because I've done the whole thing with Trade, and I did the questionnaire thing, and it was awesome. And then I went in, because you could also just buy stuff. So I tried out some stuff that I wanted, and then I wanted to buy some of their most popular coffee and stuff too, so I could try that out. So I've got just bags and bags at home, and it's all amazing. For listeners of this show, right now, Trade Coffee is offering a total of $20 off your first three bags when you go to drinktrade.com slash penaddict. To get started, you just take their quiz at drinktrade.com slash penaddict, and you can start your journey to your perfect cup. That's drink, D-R-I-N-K, trade, T-R-A-D-E, drinktrade.com slash penaddict. Our thanks to Trade for their support of this show and RelayFM.

Myke: The funny thing is, like, how do you take your coffee? I take mine intravenously. That's all I was thinking about. It's just, like, tap my vein. Immediately. Hook me up. So, yeah. I've got the thing I like about Trade the most so far is the variety. Of roasters and getting to learn about different things. So, they're all still hitting the notes that I prefer based on the quiz I took. And now, I'm getting to try these different roasters. All have been on the East Coast so far, you know, close in proximity to me. So, I've had an Atlanta roaster, a Washington, D.C. roaster, and a New York State roaster. I can't remember if it was, like, Albany or Rochester or something like that. So, it's been really cool. And all the coffees have been spectacular. And once you sign up, the coffee just shows up and keeps on coming. All right, Myke. My good friend Annabelle, a.k.a. Strings and Pedals, who was on the podcast not long ago, was on stream yesterday. And I was quizzing the stream viewers. Like, hey, were there any topics they wanted me to discuss? And we came up with a couple good ones that I wrote down to discuss today. The one from Annabelle, I told her, you're trying to get me in trouble, right? Like, you're trying to cause a fight. You're trying to cause my email inbox to fill up with this very simple question. And I'm pretty sure we've covered this before, but I figured it was time to revisit. The question is, what is your fountain pen filling system tier list? So, all the different fountain pen filling systems, rank them. So, are you ready for me to get emails, Myke?

Brad: Yes, and we're going to do standard tier list, S-A-B-C-D.

Myke: Oh, could we? I was going to do one, two, I was going to do ordered list. No, let's tier list it. Let's tier list it. So, let me see.

Brad: So, we've got top is S-A-B-C-D.

Myke: Okay, then let me do this. So, I will go ahead and tell you, there are no S-tier filling systems.

Brad: Oh!

Myke: So, here come the emails. No filling system is perfect. So, there are no S-tiers.

Myke: Let's see. So, I'm going to put my tiers on.

Myke: Okay. Okay. Okay. Man, I'm going to cause a fight. Golly. There's no subgrades, A-pluses or B-pluses or anything like that. Oh. Oh. Oh. Shh.

Myke: I think that's a tier down. Okay. All right, here we go. Okay. He's Louise.

Myke: All right. We're going to go from top to bottom.

Brad: Oh, okay. All right.

Myke: Yeah, I'm not starting with my lowest grade because that's going to be the biggest problem. Okay. So, A-grade. I have two A-grades, Myke. I have cartridge converter. I consider that a single film system. Not just cartridge. Everyone can understand it. Not just converter. That's cartridge converter. Yeah. Also an A-grade, vac. Vacuum fillers are an A-grade. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And this is going to be a problem for me momentarily. So, my B-grade, I have one B-grade, is the eyedropper.

Brad: Oh, see, now I'm not, yeah, you see? Uh-huh. I'm disagreeing with you now. And then I have- Massively.

Myke: I have one C-grade, and this is going to be a problem. It's the piston.

Brad: Yeah, you see, I'm-

Filling System Rankings

Myke: We're having some problems, me and you. So, that's my four filling system rankings. Okay. So, there's no D, no S. There's no D. Unless, there's no, definitely no S. There's no D. And, um, this is going to be problematic for a lot of people. Let me tell you mine, all right?

Brad: Let me tell you mine. So, I'm going to-

Myke: Did I miss any filling system? I feel like that's the main four, right? I think you're probably good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brad: I would go cartridge converter A-grade. Mm-hmm. I would go piston A-grade. Mm-hmm. I can explain these in a minute. Mm-hmm. I would go C-grade. There's no B for me. Uh-huh. I'm going to go C-grade for, um, VAC.

Myke: Mm-hmm.

Brad: D-grade for eyedropper. Okay. Now, the reason I'm doing this, right? So, it's VAC. Honestly, I could put, I could put quite easily VAC and eyedropper in D-grade. The reason being is they're too fiddly and complicated and you need extra stuff. So, like for a VAC filling system, correct me if I'm wrong, you actually need an adequate bottle, right? Yeah. That can provide the vacuum seal so you can do it.

Myke: Right. It's a two-handed operation.

Brad: Yeah. But also, it's like you either A, can't use all inks or B, you need to buy specific bottles for all of the inks that you would want to fill with, right? So, that's just like a pain, right? Mm-hmm. And then eyedropper, it's like, well, have you got grease? Do you have O-rings or be really careful? No, I'm not into any of that. So, I'm going to go A-grade. I like piston because you get a lot of ink in them and it's easy and it's all contained. Like, I like piston systems. Cartridge converters, just the most like cartridges and cartridge converters. People just understand that easiest. We agree on that. Right? We agree on that. So, I put them in there and then nothing is in C and then it all goes down to D because it's like, this is so complicated and it might not even work the way you want and you've got to buy a bunch of extra equipment just to even start. So, that's right.

Myke: Chat does want us to separate the eyedropper formats. I'm not going to do that. I think they're probably still both B-grades. There's the kind you're mentioning, right? Where you need silicone grease and you need to make sure the seals are tight and you have a little extra work. Or there's the Japanese type, which is basically a shutoff valve that, you know, it has less, you know, extraneous parts, but it's still filled the same way. Like, cartridge converter is an easy A for me. And I think the yelling I'm going to get is the difference between VAC and piston. I think eyedropper at B is not very controversial, although I think it's ahead of piston. I think it's ahead of piston filler. So, I'll try to explain this the best as I can and everyone will tell me I'm wrong and that's fine. And I'm not doing this for, to be contrarian.

Brad: You should make a YouTube video, you know.

Myke: So, VAC is a more complicated filling system than piston. But I'm actually giving it credit for that in my personal enjoyment of using a filling system. The technical advancement of a vacuum filler versus a piston filler makes a difference for me. A two-tier difference, I think, is where people will have a bigger problem with that. But the VACs are harder to clean than the pistons. I get more enjoyment out of them because of the way the added materials make the barrels feel.

Myke: Even though that's not the filling system part of this question. But there is a feel difference between a VAC and a piston generally a lot of times with the metal parts, at least the ones I've used. I'm not super experienced in VACs. But I like the technical aspect of the VAC. The piston filler, there's really nothing wrong with a piston filler. I just think that's where they rank in my realm of things. As fiddly as VACs can be, the constant twisting and turning of cleaning the pistons is equally as annoying. You can say it's not as bad. That's fine. I'll disagree. But it is no less fiddly than a VAC from cleaning. Of course, either of them, you can just unscrew the nib and clean it out that way. And it's even completely fine to do it that way.

Myke: Pistons just seem to be more frustrating to me from... I guess it's like the feel of it. I don't like the feel of filling a piston. I don't like that not knowing what's going on a lot of times inside my pen, even if I have a non-demonstrator type piston filler. I mean, the same could go for a VAC too. I'm not discounting that. But I've never put the piston filler on a pedestal like most people do who say they will only buy piston filling fountain pens. And I guess that's my biggest thing. It's not special to me in the way I use them because I get more functionality from a cartridge converter. I get the options of just switching in and out inks as I want quicker. I get the portability of cartridge converter A. A grade. The VAC is the A grade because I get the cool factor of the VAC filler. The eyedropper is a B grade for capacity and ease of filling. Well, that puts piston forth in my book. It just does. It doesn't mean it's bad and it doesn't mean it's not your favorite or someone else's favorite. It's just that it's not important to me personally when I'm shopping for a pen. That's probably the best way I can put it. It doesn't mean it's a technically bad filling system. It's just I don't care. Like some people care about a piston filling system, if that makes sense.

Brad: Fair enough. Not for me.

Myke: All right. You can email me at hello at penaddict.com. I'll just go ahead and save Myke.

Brad: Yeah, it's nothing to do with me. This is all Brad.

Myke: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Your list is fine. I have nothing. I have nothing against piston fillers, but.

Brad: Seems like you do.

Myke: Annabelle wanted a ranking and therefore I ranked. And then you. It was just going to be fourth in my ranking. Then you made me put grades on them, which is fair. And you have to separate. The whole point of a tier list is you have to have. It's tiers. Step downs. You have to have step downs. And that's where it landed. So related to this, I'm going to put a link into the show notes that goes along with both Myke and I's tier grades. Tier grade A for cartridges. And Anna did an in praise of ink cartridges blog post last year. And I could not agree more with the ink cartridge love. I didn't used to be that way. Right. I was like, oh, I need a. You have to have a converter or it's got to be a piston or it's got to have some type of a filling system, blah, blah, blah. It's got to be special. And like, no, like I am totally down with ink cartridges. I would use ink cartridges all the time if that was my only, if every ink had a bottle or a cartridge option and I had a cartridge converter filling system, I would buy cartridges every time. Even though they're more expensive per milliliter there, I use them more and you get to change things more. Right. You don't end up with stocks of bottles. And that's a that's a personal thing. But I just wanted to shout out that article. So before we get into our last topic that came from the Twitch stream, Myke, I think this will cause less of a fight. This is more just kind of a straightforward conversation. And I thought this would be good for you to to to think about. And it's came from Greg. And the question is, what do you need to see in a limited edition to justify a price premium? All right. So let me let me put one little note in your thinking, Myke. So I'm thinking of this category of conversation as your more expensive pens, like in the three hundred dollar plus category. Right. I'm not talking about TWSBI Eco that I go, ooh, orange and buy it. Right. That's not the same category, I think, is what the intent of this question. Is that fair?

Brad: Yes. Yes.

Myke: OK. So we're talking like not a price premium in a nutshell, but a premium pen to begin with, which I'm categorizing for sake of this discussion is over three hundred dollars. Fair. OK. Yep. All right. Because like I will buy a new color TWSBI Eco just on a whim, whether I need it or not. Hey, cool. That's cool. That's cool. Give me that. Yeah. Right. This is this is different. This is like, hey, I need to think about my budget. Right. It's like you want to go. You want to go first?

Brad: Add expensive prices to a pen that's already expensive.

Myke: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we could we could, you know, take Sailor or Platinum or any of those that we talk about a lot, you know, as a as an example. You know, so your standard pro standard pro gear slim is to 280 or whatever, 220 and the premium one is 320 like or whatever. Like what is going to make you what do you find special about these limited editions to where you will justify paying more for them for this? Essentially the same pen shape and design and functionality. What makes you pay $100 more, $200 more for a special one?

Brad: I think there's a couple of things that I've got to go on. I think the first is just like colors. I've got to speak to me. Right. Like that's because that's the first part for me. It's like just the visual design from there.

Brad: Adornments. I really like a pen that is interestingly made if possible. Extra bonus points for there's a good story for it. You know, I'm thinking of like the Japanese steel pro gear, the one where it's like hand, like put the pock marks in by hand, you know, into the pen. So if there's a story that goes along with the adornments, great. But it doesn't have to be. So something like the Bung Box 4B, it's just like it's got all those little lines in it. It just looks cool.

Brad: From there, it would be the furniture, I think, after that point. So like for me, I think it has to be the design has to be like visually from a color perspective what I want. And I have to feel like I'm getting something extra to justify it being limited. This can be as simple as, well, this demonstrator has got glitter in it. It's like, oh, awesome. It looks great. They don't usually do that. You know, so that's kind of where it goes for me, I think.

Myke: Yeah, it's like an aesthetic jump from your stock additions.

Brad: I don't need personally exact value. Sure.

Myke: You're never going to get it.

Brad: I mean, you can, right? Where it's like, well, this one's limited edition and we're making it out of a different material, which is more expensive, and you're paying for the additional cost of this material.

Myke: Yeah, but I mean, it's a quantity thing too, right? That you run into. Like Platinum will do a 3,000 unit limited, and then Sailor will do, you know, 30, 100 unit limited editions.

Brad: What I've said is, for me, the amount doesn't really factor in too much. Agree. Like, that's not something, that is not something that I care about, but it is something that will make me make a faster decision.

Myke: Yeah. Yeah, the exclusivity generally never plays into my decision-making process. No. At least currently. Maybe in the past.

Brad: Especially because I have thought that before, and then they come out with more of them. You know? Right. Exactly. It's like version two. It's like, well, now it's, you know.

Myke: Yep. All right. So my list, we have some overlap. One thing you didn't mention was actually the top of my list. And I'm saying this just not in a general sense. I'm saying this in my taste of transitioned sense from, you know, I bought a lot of special editions, limited editions in the past. So today, what is going to make, like now I'm buying less of those. What would make me buy one? And now I think it starts with the nib for me. And it either has to be a non-standard nib, meaning there's some aftermarket grind or current market grind or a different shape or just a non, not a medium nib, you know, or a fine nib, something different. And slash or non-traditional nib stamping. Right? If you're going to make a special pen and not include nib is part of the special part. Right? If you're going to use a stock nib, I'm less, nowadays I'm less interested in that. Right? Like just the fancy barrel colors may not cut it. Like with Sailor, if I'm just getting the regular Sailor nib, I want, I want a full story told. Right? If you're telling me about this pen barrel and the color you chose and the materials you chose to tell this story and don't include the nib in the story, it's less cohesive. And therefore, it makes me like it less if we don't have like cohesion from like top to bottom of the pen. Right? Which, you know, that happens a lot if a company is just turning out limited edition barrels over and over and over again. And it's the same nib, same nib, same nib. It's like, well, what are we doing here? So, like that's my number one factor I'm looking at. The second, I actually wrote down a barrel texture. Right? This is like your adornment statement. And as soon as you said that, I wrote down 4B before you mentioned it. I think that's kind of the ultimate pen that I don't own. It was too expensive for me at the time, like when I was thinking about buying it. But that's what I want. I at least thought about that one. Right? I would consider paying an ultra premium for that model because of the way the barrel was designed over a limited edition. That's half the price. That's just a color change. Right? So, that's where that price premium comes into play that answers Greg's question. Right? That one's like a 2X price from a lot of the regular sailor ones. But I don't question the price whatsoever. Right? Like I say that is worth the premium. We have justified the price premium with that pen. So, I think that's like the target example for the premium being worth it to me. Right? This is all personal. Right? So, everyone has their own little personal list. So, I would love to hear from listeners. Like if they have a thing nowadays, especially, you know, as you go along your fountain pen journey, you know, you start to learn more and your tastes change and you figure out more what you like. And right? Like the everyday color launches don't do it for me as much as what are we going to do that's really special even though it's going to cost me more. But it's more of what I want now. Yeah. Just because that's the place I am in my fountain pen journey. That's exactly where I am.

Brad: Like there was a nice looking, there's another nice looking pro gear that I just saw yesterday.

Myke: The black and yellow one? Yeah. Oh, it's killer looking.

Brad: Looks great. Yeah. But to me, it's just black and yellow.

Myke: Yeah. It looks awesome. I have no interest personally. Exactly. Right? It doesn't mean it's not like, to go back to our tiers, it doesn't mean it's not an A-tier pen.

Brad: Uh-huh.

Myke: It means, hey, cool, and then we'll see what's next.

Brad: It's called the stellar black hole, right? It's really pretty. And so, when I saw it, I was like, great, what's the finial going to be? And it doesn't really seem like there's anything special going on there. There's no images of it that I've seen in a variceal and nipsmith. And so, it's kind of like, well, then they've missed a trick. Like, if they would have done some really cool, like, black hole-looking imagery made out of Rodden and something, you know what I mean? I'm like, well, maybe I'm on board here, but they didn't do that. So, it's kind of just like, it's nice, but I don't need, I don't want this for my collection, particularly.

Myke: Right, right. We have a lot of choice now. We are flush with choice, so we can wait.

Brad: So, it's not just a choice for me, it's the fact that I have so many, right? Yeah, exactly. I'm good. I'm covered. I'm blessed to have so many pens that I can use different ones every single day. But that just means that my personal threshold for adding has come down. Correct.

Brad: Correct. Especially adding new versions of pens I already own. Yep. That's the bigger part. Yeah, we'd love to know, for the Pen Addict listeners, what is the differentiator for you when it comes to limited editions? Send them in to us. Use hashtag AskTPA. You know, go into a spreadsheet, which we can use, if you're in the RelayFM members Discord, question mark AskTPA for that too. Or you can email them to hello at penaddict.com. When you're there, go to penaddict.com. Check out the top five lists. See when Brad updates it. Who knows? Could be any day. Could be any moment now. Could be any decade. Any period of time between now and the heat death of the universe. That top five list could be up there. You can find Brad online at penaddict.com. He's spokedesign.com. He is dowdyism on Twitter, penaddict on Instagram. And Brad streams live three days a week, twitch.tv slash penaddict. Is that Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays? Correct. Still. Yep. Mm-hmm. Tuesdays, Thursdays, 10 a.m. Eastern. Wednesdays, once we're finished recording live. We do record this show live every single week. You can go to relay.fm slash live and you can listen in. But if you are a RelayFM member and you're in the Discord, you get the live chat and you can listen there in the Discord too, if you would like. I am iMike. I am YKE on Twitter and Instagram. Go to cortexmerch.com. You can buy yourself a theme system journal. Those things have been flying off the shelves this year, Brad. I'm very, very pleased. Love it. Thank you to everybody that has been buying a theme system journal, working on some new stuff. But the old supply chain has come for me, Brad. It happens. I was getting ready here and then the old supply chain is like, oh, don't have any of that paper. Okay. I guess I'll just wait.

Myke: So I'm waiting. Logistics, baby.

Brad: Yeah. All right. Thank you so much to Trey Coffee and Pen Chalet for the support of this week's episode. But most of all, thank you for listening. And we'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.