The Pen Addict 505/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	505
Title:	Aggressively Debossed
Release Date:	March 18th, 2022
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 505
Audio File:	Audio Episode 505
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 505
Length:	6666 min <br />1.1 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 505. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Trade. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by the one and only Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. Hello, Myke Hurley, if that is in fact your real name. I haven't talked to you in a while. Is this really you? How do I know this is actually you? I haven't cleaned my pens.

Myke: I mean, that's a dead giveaway. Yes, it's Myke. Welcome back, Myke. Who else would do that? I would like to thank Jacob for filling in for me last week. I really enjoyed the episode. It was a point where I thought you were committing us to go to the Tokyo Pen Show this year, which would have been news to me. We cleared that one up. I really want to go, though. I mean, we wanted to go anyway, but hearing Jacob talk about, what was the name of the 12-floor pen store? Atoya. I want to go there. Yeah, right. Oh, boy.

Brad: Yeah, but when Jacob started talking about the pen show, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's just clarify right now. And since then, I've had some conversations. I have an email in my inbox that I've yet to respond to because I haven't talked about it with you. But I mean, both of us are leaning more towards no. It's going to happen.

Myke: But I don't think it's going to be 2022, personally.

Brad: I kind of have that feeling, too. Because we have to decide soon, right? There's not just something we're going to pick up on a weekend on a whim and say, hey, let's do this. It will involve great planning.

Kickstarter Campaign

Myke: There still needs to be another Kickstarter campaign, I think, to make that one work out.

Brad: True, true, true.

Myke: So I reckon that's going to be 2023. That's what I have in my mind. Yeah, I think that's fair. And I think that will work out really nicely. And I'm very excited about it. Because I really want to go when there can be... So I really want to go to Japan. Full experience. I want to go to Japan so bad. I've wanted to go to Japan for years. I want to be able to go and feel like I can fully enjoy it. Because it might be the only time I ever do it. Right. I agree completely.

Brad: Yeah. On a smaller scale, that's why I haven't gone to any pin shows yet. I was just like... Yeah. Like, I'm ready. Like, I'm ready to get out there now. And I'm feeling good about getting on the road soon and doing some things. Good. But up until now, I've been like, you know, I just don't have to. Because it's not going to quite be the same. And I don't have to. So let's just wait. That's been my stance this whole time.

Myke: And I'm happy to have reduced experiences in things that I'm familiar with. But for new things that I've yet to experience, I want to try and get most of a normal experience as possible. And my feeling would be that this year, still there is risk. More risk than there would be next year would be my initial feeling. At least so much that if we were to commit now, you know, I don't feel like I would be able to put... Like, really feel like that would work. Right. Right. Hopefully 2023. We're going to make that the plan for the time being. What is it? Like October-ish time, right?

Brad: Yeah. Like late October, I think. Something like that. It moves around in that kind of range.

Myke: Because as well, like I want to take a big trip. Like, big trip.

Brad: Right. Right. This isn't like a five-day trip.

Myke: Going in there for a couple of days. I've got a lot of stuff. I want to go to the... That's right. Super Mario Land. I have to remember where that is. But anyway, all that stuff I want to do.

Brad: Nice. Nice. So anyway, thank you, Jacob. Feedback has been awesome. I'm sure he's received some of the same feedback. It was a great conversation. It could have been, you know, a three to five-hour conversation, knowing how you know that I am wanting to ask someone with Jacob's access and resources that he has. So I did my best to keep it a manageable time frame.

Myke: And I recommend, again, like if you enjoyed last week's episode, make sure you check out Tokyo Inklings, which is Jacob and CY's podcast. Yep. Yep. For sure. Many times on the show.

Brad: Absolutely. One of our favorites. And, you know, we're not done with Jacob talk yet, Myke. Okay. Because before I even asked him to be on the show, it was kind of a last minute request for me. And I'm glad he was able to work it out. He had sent me a package in the mail without telling me.

Myke: Huh.

Brad: Not until I got online with him did he mention, oh, you might have something on the way. So completely irrespective of our podcast and our podcast conversation, a box from Jacob showed up. Okay. And there is one very specific item that is high on my, that was high on my inquiry list that he took right off of that list for me by sending it to me, Myke. He sent me a Uni Mitsubishi Kurutoga dive. Ooh. Yeah. Ooh is right.

Myke: Time to flip it. Make some money. Yeah.

Jacob's Gift

Brad: Right. I mean, I think they were, what did they, I think Jacob even said they were going for several times, uh, their price on eBay or whatever the, you know, the Japanese versions, Mercari, um, you know, types of platforms. And Jacob went to several stores to find one. Oh my God.

Myke: I just found one, uh, sold on eBay five days ago for 230 US dollars. No way. Yeah.

Brad: So I have one right here. Um, y'all don't, y'all don't come, uh, y'all don't come looking for me. Um, so he sent me something. Some other things too, which I'm going to, I'm going to share, uh, share on Instagram and he sent me a great, uh, Hiroshizuku ink that I think you would love a Tokyo, uh, exclusive ink and some cool vintage sailor stuff, sailor, um, like accessory stuff. So I will, I will post all that. I just haven't had time to, to do, uh, some, some pictures of everything that he sent me. Yeah. But this dive Myke is something we have to talk about. I will do, I will do a full and proper review. I hope so. Um, on the blog. I did the unboxing on the stream. So we talked about like my initial thoughts, like, you know, literally from unboxing and discovering it. So I've had some more time with it and I just want to break it down a little bit here. Um, even though it's a little bit harder to do in this podcast format. Um, it's an expensive pencil, right? So if you're familiar with the Uniball Kuru Toga, it was kind of the game changer mechanical pencil. It's probably been almost 10 years since it's launched, maybe not quite that long. And it has a rotating, um, mechanism on near the front end of the pencil that when you write with it, the lead rotates. So you don't get one like really, you know, unsharpened side and have to keep twisting the pen pencil in your hand to get that sharp point. It does that rotation for you as you, as you write. And when it launched that base pencil was like $6. And then they did some fancier barrels that were around 15 to $20. Right. So when I say this is expensive, I tell you that it's $50 for this pencil. And that is like a huge, huge outlier in what the, what Kuru Toga has been in the past. Right. Which nothing wrong with that. Right. It's just like, this is like a sea change type of product. No, no pun intended to where you should have intended it. That was. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad: Um, so what they did, I'm still trying to figure out, you know, what the, what the engineering meetings in the boardroom combined with the marketing combined with the boardroom meetings for the decision-making processes on this pencil are says, why, why do we need this pencil? I don't, I haven't come to grips with that yet.

Myke: Well, but because honestly, I think for me, it is just a natural extension of the over-engineered mechanical pencil that the Kuru Toga is anyway. Right. Right. Because you could very easily ask the same question about the lead rotation. You can just move it around in your hand. Right. Like that's how people have done it before.

Brad: Which most people with Kuru Toga still rotate because it's, that's human nature. Right. As you write, you rotate. Um, I actually have thoughts about it. It's, it's placement and what it means. Um, let me go over just some of the technical things. First, when I, when I was looking at pictures of it online, I thought it was going to be a very wide grip section pencil. And mechanical pencils generally aren't known to have width where you grip the pencil and it is wider than normal. I thought it was going to be problematic. It's not really like, it's okay. I'm okay with the grip width because the barrel is very light. It's an all plastic barrel. Right. Um, so it's not like the blue parts you see on the dive are plastic. So it's not extra heavy. It's, it's very, very well balanced, a slightly front end balanced. Um, just cause there's a metal ring around the tip, which, um, allows for a little magnet snap in there. I don't know if we can hear it.

Myke: Yeah, I can hear it.

Brad: So that little click is the magnet pulling in the last little quarter turn to seal the cap. So the new parts of the Kuru Toga, not only does it have a lead rotation mechanism, Myke, it has a lead advancement mechanism, which they made with the Uni Kuru Toga advance here in the past year or two. So it's like a combo. It's going to spin the lead as you write to keep the point sharp. And it's going to extend the lead using a similar mechanism in conjunction with the Kuru Toga mechanism to continue to extend the lead. So not only do you not have to click it, you don't have to spin it, right? It's a very kind of all in one. We're going to do all the things for you and it works well. The issue I have is with the advanced mechanisms. They tend to have a squishier feel when you write with the mechanical pencil. So most of us are used to very firm feeling mechanical pencils. That's like the nature of that product, right? It's a metal tip with a stick of graphite sticking out of it and there's no cushioning, right? It's just a firm experience. This is a softer writing experience. That's like I said, that's not a new thing. The advanced piece of this has been around for a little bit. Other companies do this type of thing as well. The Zebra Delgaard being one of them, I believe. But it gives you a different feel. If I had more of an engineering drafting style pencil, I would not like that. But this is a writing pencil, the way this is designed. Even though it has all these advancements as far as mechanical pencil technology and engineering goes, it's still like a writing pencil, a student pencil, right? You're not going to necessarily – this isn't the engineering style pencil or drafting style pencil that you can get in other brands like the Pentel Graph Gears, the Rotring 600s, the high-end drafting pencils. It also has a variable size pipe. So the pipe is the metal rod that sticks out the front end of your pencil that the graphite comes from.

Brad: We're going to talk about some invented by TWSBI stuff later. You have no idea how perfect that was.

Myke: I don't know what this is about, but it's something in the show notes I'm very intrigued about.

Brad: It's invented by TWSBI. It's adjustable. They have a little twist mechanism on here where you can set it to minimum length, middle length, or maximum length. Like, that's fine. Like, again, this is not an engineering technical pencil. So, like, if it didn't have that, I wouldn't care. But they really – they were playing to a price, if you will, in this pencil. So they're like, let's put all the things in here so we can charge $50 for it. Like, that's fine. I actually don't have a problem with the price. After getting it in hand, you know, it's got an eraser. It's got a cap. The cap is nice. The clip is nice. It's built nice. I mean, $50 is a lot for a mechanical pencil when you can get a rotary for $600. But, like, I get it. Uni's saying, hey, we are kind of – this is kind of – we're throwing the kitchen sink at a pencil. And this is what we're going to do. And it's going to cost $50. And clearly, they've done something right, right? Like, either they purposefully held back on the inventory to cause an uproar over it. Or they made a lot and they were available a lot and they just really sold that many out. Which is pretty impressive. Either way, this has been a win for Uni, Mitsubishi, and the entire Kuretoga lineup. Because now, even if you're not interested in this, you now probably have heard of the Kuretoga for the first time or you're hearing it again. And it's good marketing, of course, that, you know, the secondary market for this pencil is 5x what it costs. Even though, you know, if you just wait a little bit, hopefully it's going to be more widely available. Hopefully it's going to be in the U.S. Right now it's just been in Japan. But my thought with this pencil, Myke, is this is a platform for a premium pencil. This is the introductory premium pencil, I think, is what I see happening here. Because this barrel is plastic. This pencil is screaming for an anodized aluminum barrel. I thought it was. Like they did with the roulettes. Yeah. Because that's the appearance of this. But it's not. It's plastic. This is screaming for a $80 to $100 aluminum barrel pencil. And I would bet money that in the next year or two we're going to see that.

Myke: Because there are aluminum Kuretogas.

Brad: Yep. The roulette is. The roulette has a barrel.

Myke: So it's weird that they didn't just go that way. But maybe, like maybe they wanted to do all this other stuff, right? And it put the price up enough that they were like, oh, we don't want to start at $80.

Brad: Yep. Yep. Because it's only two parts that has to change. It's the barrel. The cap and the barrel. All the internals are done. The internals are the high-end engineering stuff. That's the money, right? But now we have a $50 pencil that has proven to be a hot commodity. Yeah. Hey, $30 more for the aluminum version? We're going to see that. I mean, I'm not going to say I guarantee it. I have no idea. But I think they're setting us up for like an even bigger tier of price point, which is pretty crazy. But like at the same time, like I buy expensive mechanical pencils all the time. Like I understand that the Rotring 600 is probably like the greatest pencil ever made. And it's only about $33. And that's just not this market. Like it's a different product. It's a different pencil. And like if you're only going to buy one thing, you just have to think about like what, you know, what questions you're trying to answer with how you use products. And, you know, the Kuru Toga dive is definitely not going to be for everyone at that price point. You know, the $6 entry lever Kuru Toga is. But it's interesting in the grand scheme of stationary and product design and innovation, even though this is not necessarily anything brand new, even from uni. The weight they're putting behind it, if you will, I find the most interesting of all of this.

Myke: I mean, you know, about the pricing though, I mean, clearly they set it right because they can't keep the thing in stock. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

Brad: Or they shorted it to create, you know, create the uproar, you know, one of the two. Well. But honestly, I doubt it's the latter.

Myke: I don't think it's the latter considering it's $50. I don't think they would have. Because I don't know if they would have expected necessarily that people were going to go so mad for this pencil.

Brad: Hey, there's no way any pre-marketing would say that this $50 pencil is going to just go madness off the shelf.

Myke: Especially because they didn't do anything.

Brad: Right? It's not new. There was no hype for this. It's not new technology. They've made this internal in the past year or two. Right? Yeah. These internals are not new. Right? So, what's the story they're trying to tell here? It's almost just like a pure price point thing. It's very interesting.

Myke: I mean, I guess people just like it, right? It's interesting. Yeah. It does these two things. It does the turn in and it does the auto, what would you call it? I can't think of the right word. Auto advance. Auto advancing with the lead. Yeah. You don't have to have the button. I just think that it's cool. That's just cool.

Brad: It's like a... It's just cool. That's right.

Myke: It's just cool. It's like futuristic in a way. Yeah.

Brad: This is my problem more than expensive fountain pens, right? Is this... Anything from like 10 to like 40, $50 in like normal state... In non-fountain pen stationary. This is where I end up with 10 different things where I could have bought a $500 fountain pen. Like that's not necessarily my market, right? Like this is what's going to get me in trouble when we go to Japan is going, oh, look at this. And it's, you know, $12 and then all of a sudden I have 10 different ones, you know?

Brad: That's my problem. That's historically been my problem. That's why the pen addict exists. You know, not because of fountain pens, but because this is the stuff that I just love. I love thinking about it. I love talking about it. And I love having friends like Jacob who hook me up. Like this is a serious hookup. And he didn't tell me until I unboxed it and I saw what it was. So I appreciate him keeping that little secret from me. It's really, really fantastic. So thank you, Jacob.

Myke: I look forward to seeing one of these at some point. I will buy one because I love the Kuro Togo.

Brad: Yeah. I think you will enjoy this pencil. Like it's like you can't compare it to the things I want to compare it to, like a Rotring, right? It's not in the same category regardless of price. It's not available anywhere outside of Japan, right? No, and it's not even available there right now, really. Right. Like they're – I don't know that they've restocked or resold anything. I haven't seen anything, any notes about it. So, yeah. It's such an interesting product launch. This is like what gets me going is these silly things. It gets me going more than anything.

Myke: Very cool. Very cool.

OKB48 Poll Results

Brad: Our next topic will be along those same lines as well. All right.

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Brad: All right. Continuing the right up Brad's alley.

Myke: I've been excited for this, Brad.

Brad: They haven't – so we're going to talk about the OKB48 results. And if you're not familiar with this, it's a poll, essentially, a long-running poll, like months, like two, three months. I think they keep it open for users in Japan to go and vote on their favorite pens. And I've gone through, like, the voting process. It's kind of a – it takes all the pens, and it takes you through this process to work through, okay, pick 10. Okay, now pick – out of those 10, pick five. And it just kind of tries to narrow you down, and there's different weights in the results. So I've always enjoyed the results. And seeing this when it comes out, it always gets me very, very excited. And this year, like, the announcement of the results, I usually see just, like, all over all the people I follow. Like, I follow a lot of, you know, Japanese stationary fans on Twitter, on Instagram. And I wasn't seeing much. And I finally saw the OKB48 account kind of, like, pepped up a little bit. I was like, well, maybe the results are in. And it looks like they are. So this is the 11th OKB48 general election results.

Myke: Love that they call it a general election. It's just my favorite part.

Brad: So they take this OKB48 group. I don't even – I've read about, like, what the build of this group is and what they're trying to accomplish. But I don't even recall. But I don't even care. I just want to vote on pens and tell me what pens are awesome. And this is generally your store-bought pens, right? This is your basics, your ballpoints, rollerballs, gels, you know, that type of thing.

Brad: And the results are out. Because for the second year in a row, I didn't go back further, the uni Jetstream standard has won. And it's by a pretty good margin. There were less votes this year. I don't know what the difference is this year. Last year, there was almost 4,200 votes. This year, there was only 1,660 votes. So it's a little bit confusing. But it's close to the same ratio that the Jetstream is that far ahead. Maybe everyone was just so mad to the Jetstream one that they decided not to participate. There's 48 pens, Myke. That's why it's in here. You could vote for any other ones besides this one. But it's the .7, the exact model that they show in this picture, which is the .7, what we refer to as the sport Jetstream here in the U.S., is the exact best Jetstream, right? Like, we have fancier Jetstreams. We have multi-pin Jetstreams. We have all these crazy Jetstreams.

Myke: And it is the right width, too, for, like, the majority of people.

Brad: Yep, yep. Like, their premium Jetstream that is usually sold side-by-side of this one at the store is not as good of a pen as this. And it's, like, twice the price. So this is the one that's super popular. The second one, I was mad last year. I'm going to be mad again this year. The Uniball 1 is just not a comparatively good gel ink pen. And it raised from third place to second place. It went from third to second. And I thought last year it was third because it was new. Yeah. And for it to not just retain but to move up and to be, like, it is rock solid second place. Like, it was not close. It's not close to first place and it's not close to third place. Everything kind of bunches up after these first two.

Myke: Uh-huh.

Brad: I don't get it. Like, it's perfectly fine. It is by no means special, right? Like, it's fine. Like, I have, it's just not as good of a writing experience.

Myke: Mitsubishi 1 is your, uh, jet stream for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I don't care about this pen. Why does everybody love it so much?

Brad: Yeah. So the big thing last year for the, for Pilot, Uni, and Zebra all did a highly pigmented ink gel. Yeah. And it just doesn't perform as well as the traditional gel pens, in my opinion. You know, you get brighter, more vibrancy in colors. But the trade-off for a brighter color is, is not a good trade in, in, in my book. Like, the standard gel colors are bright enough and the performance is poorer in these, in these saturated inks. And I, I'm just not a fan. Not a fan. The third one I love to see. I don't even know if it was on last. Yeah, it was a ninth place last year, all the way up to third, Pentel Energel. So they're calling this model the Enfree. It's just the, kind of the skeleton, you know, um, trans, transparent demonstrator model of the Energel. But it's just a standard Energel, basically, with a needle tip. You could put this number one and I would have no argument.

Myke: Huh.

Brad: It is, it is outstanding. It is an outstanding pen. I, I praise the, the Pentel so much. You know, I mean, I know I use the Uniball Signo DX more than anything, but I think more people should be using the Energel. Like, it's that good of a pen. Fourth place is the shock and awe, uh, category. The Uniball Jetstream Edge, Myke. So this is my platonic ideal of a micro tip pen. It's also like $20. Like, I don't know how this got people. I guess if people are buying the Kuru Togo Dive for $50. This is a steal.

Brad: But it's around, like, every other pen within eyeshot is $2. Yeah. Right. And this one's right in the middle of the top 10. And it retained fourth place year over year. It's a magical pen. I love it. It is not for everybody. That's another reason why I'm continued to see, shocked to see it, uh, in, in this list. But I guess people who are actually voting on this list probably would have the tendencies to purchase a pen like this, right? How else are you going to vote on this? So, um, I love that pen. And, like, I, and not even I could vote it number one, right? Like, it's just a weird, weird pen. It's, like, perfect for me. But it's, it's really not for everybody. And especially at that price point.

Myke: The Jetstream is the only one that kept its position in the top 10.

Brad: So, that's two Jetstreams in the top four. Uh, one Uniball gel and one Pentel inner gel. So, fifth is the Zebra Bren, which came up last year. That was the confusing one last year because it came in second. And we had no idea what it was. No idea. Someone sent it. Someone, when we were talking about this, someone offered to send me one. And I was like, yes, please. Because this thing landed number two around some of the other best pens in the world. And I'd never heard of it at the time. It's fine, right? It's the, um, it's kind of their Jetstream equivalent ink. The barrel's good. It's probably inexpensive. It looks cool as anything, right? I think that's probably a lot of it. It looks cool and it's good enough, right? So, it's just kind of gets there, right? It's, it's, it's more modern than a lot of these pens that you'll see in the top 10 and throughout the list, right? Yeah. Six, like six, seven, eight, and nine are, well, six is the Pilot Juice up. That's newer. Yeah. But it's a very basic standard barrel. It's a newer barrel. It's definitely the, the, the best Pilot Juice model. And then seven, eight, and nine are your classic standards. Seventh is my Uniball Signo that I love, right? Yeah. The, the DX. Eighth is the Zebra Saraciclip, which I rave about. And ninth is the Uniball Signo RT1, which is kind of the retractable version of the Signo. That's so great. Like, those are the classics that the Zebra brand has just up and usurped, which I just find really, really strange. But it's all good.

Myke: I have no idea what number 10 is. The Dragonfly Monograph White.

Brad: So, we saved that. We saved that purposely. Okay. For this. Back when we voted, back in, gosh, probably October, I mentioned that I was so happy to see this pin as a choice. I have reviewed it on the blog. Okay. It is one of the, it is a micro tip ballpoint pen along the lines of the Jetstream Edge, but with standard ballpoint ink and like a $250 price point. So, it's what the Jetstream Edge is if they put it in the Jetstream standard barrel. Does that make sense?

Myke: Uh-huh.

Brad: It is that good. It just doesn't have the Jetstream ink technology, which is an archival pigmented ink, which is fine. Like, that's, you know, a ding. Oh, is this the Tombow? Yeah. It's the Tombow Monograph. Okay.

Myke: I don't know if this is a translation thing in Google Chrome. Yeah, I'm sure.

Brad: It's called it Dragonfly? Yeah, which is the Tombow. Oh.

Brad: Oh, dear. Sorry. So, yeah, yeah. So, my translation has a lot of pencils from Thailand.

Brad: So, I don't, the translations aren't going well. So, that's the top 10. The Monograph is like my shocker of the year, but I could not agree more with that rating. It is that good of a pen. And I will put a link in the show notes to that specific review. Yeah. Because I don't think a lot of people know about that pen. And a lot of people should if you're into that type of micro ballpoint. Uh-huh. Which not everyone is. Again, not a pen for everybody, right? Uniball Signo? Go for it. Pentel Energel? Go for it. Uniball Jetstream? Go for it. Jetstream Edge? Eh, you might want to think about that. Tombow Mono Ballpoint? Eh, you may hate that. So, yeah. Very interesting. Very good list. And hopefully we'll see the Zebra brand can continue to fall down the charts as we go.

Brad: Complete hate for the Zebra brand. Just kidding. We are anti-brand. Yeah. Nah. Nah. It's just fine. Yeah. Right? There's no way. Like, I never voted for it in any level of the competition. Right. Right? And, like, it was a big survey to fill out. And at no point would the Zebra brand make my top 20 of anything on this list. Like, you get on this list, there's some really, there's some good stuff down low. Like, you get into some really off-kilter stuff that's never going to be, like, very popular in this list. But, you know, when you're doing 48 different pens. But this top 10 is really strong. I mean, the only couple I see down at the bottom, like the 48, the Oto, it's a .38 millimeter gel pen. Like, that's a really good pen. And I thought it was more popular than to get, like, 21 points. It's just, like, a good pen. It seems like, you know, a top 20, top 25 type of pen that's all the way down there at the end. But, yeah, most of these at the end are just kind of your one-offs. They have comparable pens that are better. And they're just kind of meh. But these top 10, even probably up to, like, the top 20 are all, like, really, really solid choices. So it's good to see the power tank still going for Uni Mitsubishi. We don't get those in the U.S. anymore. But that's a classic from, gosh, probably a decade ago as well that we just don't see anymore. It's a pressurized ballpoint ink cartridge. And it's 15th on this list, which is really cool.

Field Notes Release

Myke: All right. We've got a new Field Notes release.

Brad: We do. What are your thoughts?

Brad: I mean, did you think it was the Ukraine release like me?

Myke: Oh, interesting. No, I didn't think of that. But I guess it does. It fits some of the color anyway.

Brad: Yeah.

Myke: It's too much.

Brad: It's a lot.

Myke: So basically. I like it a lot, though. These are very springy. And they have basically gone for maximum embossing, right? Like. Debossing. This is the debossing version. That's what I meant to say. Like, this is how much debossing can you go with? The issue I have is the sunflower one makes me feel uncomfortable. You know, you've heard of trypophobia. Yes. Right. It said I suffer with this. This is like the fear, like an uncomfortableness of holes in things, like unnatural holes in things. It freaks me out to look at the sunflower cover. Yeah.

Brad: Big time. It is aggressively debossed. Yes. Right. I honestly, Myke, I think this is a better in-person edition than in pictures.

Myke: Okay.

Brad: I don't know why. But, you know, once you start using a book like this, the way these break in, I mean, it's not going to change the debossing. But it looks, you get the different dings and dents and bends and folds and it looks more natural to where maybe that wouldn't be as much of an issue. But I totally get why people, not even for that case, why people may not be like, yeah, it's amazing. Like, I think it's good. Like, I really enjoy these. I'm not going to rush out and buy them or anything. Like, they're a good middle tier. I think they're good for spring. I love any debossing or embossing work, right? This is a lot. The interesting thing I wanted to point out, Myke, and I made a special note of this, is with field notes, you always have to read the specs. And this goes back to the last time you were on the show two weeks ago where we had an STPA question about fountain pens or field notes and our reader saying that they were good and I called him a liar.

Brad: He responded to me and said, yeah, it wasn't the standard edition. It was one of the, I don't know, it was one of the 60 pound or it was one of the 70 pound paper editions. I was like, uh-huh, uh-huh, see, see. But no, it was a funny conversation. But I always look at the specs because not all field notes are created equal on the insides, right? So this has a new paper that they have never used as far as my research went. It's the Strathmore Cambric 70 pound Ultimate White. So if you're going to get a fountain pen friendly paper, this has a chance at least from paper weight. So I did a search through their whole site. Huh. They've used Strathmore before but not this specific line, the Cambric line. But you know what they used? One of their Strathmore papers was in Dime Novel, which was a very popular writing book. I like Dime Novel a lot.

Myke: Because I looked at the image. They did like a little image and they call it linen-like texture and I don't know if I would like that. Right. But I do really like Dime Novel. I was using one just last week. I have one in my backpack which I use when I travel.

Brad: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So it's not the exact, it's not the exact spec. It's not like, that's a product line. So Strathmore's the brand. Then they have like sub-product lines that perform differently. So the Cambric is this one and I couldn't find any mention of that. They'd only use Strathmore in that Dime Novel and then one special, I think it was some special artist edition and it was a different model. Then it was more of a sketch type paper. So yeah, I mean, really good for spring, right? They're really leaning into the spring feel.

Myke: Like I think they've done a really good job of it. It's just really not for me.

Brad: I get that. Like I get the patterning. I like the other two a lot, but the sunflowery one. Just with the round center.

Myke: I can't handle it. Mm-hmm. I've got to close the page now.

Brad: This one, I will be looking forward to seeing people's finished versions of these because I think they're going to look even better used than they do with this type of cover.

Myke: I hope people paint them and stuff, you know? Like you could paint inside of the, or like color inside of the debossing. That could look really cute. Yep. You know, take a nice like green felt tip pan or something and paint in all the leaves. I like that. That looks sweet.

Brad: Yep. Yep. So all around thumbs up edition. Maybe not two thumbs up, but thumbs up, thumbs up. All right, Myke, you ready to learn something today in this episode? Please. Did you know, Myke Hurley, did you know that Twisby invented the piston filling system?

Myke: I did not. That's good news.

Brad: That's what they'd lead us to believe, Myke. What? What's happening? Yeah.

Myke: I feel like we've got some drama going on here. Yeah.

Twisby Patent Controversy

Brad: I'm joking, of course. Twisby did not invent the piston filling mechanism. But they have put some companies on notice publicly, Myke. One of those being Narwhal Pence, accusing them of copying their piston filling mechanism. Okay. The parts, the piston, the parts, the knobs, the twist. And they've publicly done so by sending an email to retailers containing images and measurements, which I'll get to in a moment.

Brad: And it's two parts. So it's the Twisby saying, hey, they've copied us. Here are the measurements. By the way, if you continue, this is to retailers. If you continue to sell Narwhal products, we will no longer sell Twisby products to you. So that's part two. We'll get to part two in a minute. Part one. Did Narwhal copy Twisby's piston mechanism? So Twisby alludes to the fact that there are several factories in China that make these exact same parts for these brands that use their filling system as the model for manufacturing these filling systems.

Brad: Twisby's pictures, images, measurements.

Myke: Are these online anywhere?

Brad: No.

Myke: Okay. You are just aware of this from what's been shared.

Brad: Well, I have them. I have them. Yeah. But I'm not going to, I'm not to republish them, right? Like it wasn't sent to me. I'm not going to send it.

Myke: Because you probably won't send them, right? Yeah. Somebody sent it to you.

Brad: All right. All right. Right. But so I'm looking through these images and I'm like, okay, it looks close, but even your measurements show that they're different, right? Okay. Like there's different measurements on the same parts. And I'm like, what are we talking about here? Like my initial thought was, well, can you take out a Narwhal mechanism and stick it in a Twisby? You know, can you, are the pistons hot swappable? And the answer is no. Right. Right. So they're not an identical match. Okay. So it's like, what, like, what is Twisby getting on at here? And I just think it's just like the general, like it's, it was a lot of shape and design. Right. Parts that they were upset at, but it's a piston mechanism that's been around for, I don't know how long, a hundred years, probably close to it. But that I'm not saying isn't unique. Like, and Twisby should be upset if someone's, you know, doing a micrometer to micrometer match of their product with, you know, like no thought put into it. It's just like a complete copy. Like I get like why Twisby would be upset, but is that really the case here? I don't know. So, I mean, Twisby knows more than I do and Narwhal knows more than I do. And Narwhal's responded with a similar type of email with the measurements.

Myke: So, what is Narwhal's response?

Brad: Narwhal's response is no, we're not. And look, here's the differences between the two. And look, this doesn't even fit in a Twisby. How can it be a match if it's copied and things of that nature? So, it's like, that's not something that interests me getting in the middle of. I'm just bringing it up because it's come up and it's affecting retailers, which is what I really want to talk about.

Myke: What I'll say on this, but I mean, I haven't seen any of this. It would be really weird for me for Twisby to do this without at least feeling like this is the case. I agree. Right?

Brad: Because they definitely feel it's the case. They said this has been like a couple years worth of ongoing, like trying to figure it out.

Myke: Narwhal is not a threat to Twisby at the moment. Right? Like Narwhal is a much smaller company to my knowledge. I don't own any Narwhal pens.

Brad: Yeah. And they're calling out other companies as well. Oh, are they? All are in our world. You know, Moonman and whoever else. I don't even know the whole list.

Myke: Huh.

Brad: So, like Twisby went all in with all of these companies. These companies are using our exact mechanism. And they may not even be saying that these companies are at fault. They may be saying the factories that they use are at fault. Right? Yes. Have taken this general mechanism. Which is the thing that happens. Yes. Right?

Myke: That, like, you do all this work and then there are factories that you are paying to produce this work. And then they either, A, take your work and make their own product or they take your work and they sell it to somebody else. Right. Now, I'm not saying that that's happened here, especially if the measurements are different. But, honestly, maybe what Twisby is saying is it's not the measurements exactly. I mean, again, I haven't seen this. But, like, the way the mechanism works maybe is a thing that they believe is proprietary to them. But, like, if you can scale it up and down as long as you scale it all in and it will, you know what I mean? If you make it 1.2 millimeters bigger, as long as you just scale everything, you know, that's not too difficult to work out and the mechanism will still perform. But maybe they feel like they did this work and these companies are taking it from them. I don't know. I mean, I don't know.

Brad: So, the bigger, well, not the bigger, but related, our friend CY, who is really great at figuring these things out, disassembled, you know, all these things, did a lot of comparisons. It's shocking how close this design is to what Pelican uses. Oh.

Myke: Okay.

Brad: Kind of interesting. Like, it's, I'm not going to say it's literal because I am not the scientist here. Uh-huh. But, you know, my whole point was, like, man, my house better not be glass if I'm going to start throwing these stones, you know? Like, if I'm going in, like, I better be right and I better be unimpeachable. And they've at least left the opportunity open to-

Myke: Did CY share this online anyway?

Brad: Yeah, yeah. So, I have a link in the show notes. We'll share that. But, he did an Instagram video comparison so everyone can look and see as well. But, you know, the whole copying thing, we've covered things on this, like this before, the inspiration or theft of ideas, right? And, you know, like, we talk about, we weren't the first one at Nock to make a pen case, right? We make a three-slot pen case that looks a lot like, you know, leather pen cases have been made for hundreds of years. And, like, no one's coming at us for saying, ah, look at you did a three-slot pen case that's already been done before. It's like a mechanism on the inside. If it's not, like, a patented unique mechanism, say, like a coned mechanism, and I don't know if that's patented or however. If it's not, like, freshly engineered, like, what's the patent experiment on whatever this piston design is? I don't know. It seems pretty basic for someone to be claiming ownership of, you know, in the grand scheme of things. So, the bigger question or the bigger comment I wanted to have is TWSBI's stance on this to retailers. Blackmail.

Brad: That's a bad look. Yeah. Like, care what you, I mean, fight the fight you're going to fight, but don't put your retailers in the middle of it. Yeah. I just think that's the worst look here to me is this is your fight, not your retailer's fight. They don't make these decisions, right? And if you're going to hold them hostage for something that's not they're doing, I think that's the true issue here, regardless of your thoughts of Piston Gate, if you will. I just, like, telling a retailer it's my way or the highway and you can't carry these other brands or you can't carry, if you do, you can't carry mine.

Brad: That's not a good look. Like, I'm being kind. Like, you can't put your retailers in that position in my book. Like, you got to handle your own business and not put your customers in the middle of it. Like, that's just, that's bad form, if you will. So, I think that's the bigger issue here. You know, honestly, my gut feeling is this is just going to eventually just vanish and blow over and everyone's just going to move on. But, Twizby's pretty hot. Like, they're publicly saying some things and, you know, maybe rightfully so and maybe, you know, maybe I'll get a dirty email after this. But, I just think they're doing the retailers wrong more than any fight they have with another pen brand.

Myke: Yeah, I think it's a bold move. I'll say that much. It is. They must really believe it. That's what I keep coming back to, right? Like, they must really believe it because. Yeah, that's a hill, right? I mean. It's a big, it's a big one to go out there and, one, to say it so publicly and then, two, to gamble some business on. Right. Right. So, we'll see. I have a question for you. I have a question for you.

Myke: Did Twizby do something intellectual property related recently? Did they file for patents? Who was that?

Brad: Kaweco was trying to go against Moonman. Moonman keeps popping up in the copying world. I don't know the people behind Moonman. I probably never will. I'm not a Moonman fan because it seems to be. They more tend to liberally use pen shapes that are very similar to existing products. Just like.

Myke: See, because this is the. Constantly. See, that's interesting to me because Moonman have come up twice now. So, pen brands believe that they are copying them, right? We've got two brands now. Externally.

Brad: Brands are saying external designs and Twizby as a manufacturer is saying internal mechanisms. So, two different parts of copying.

Myke: Is this a smoke fire type situation for Moonman?

Brad: Moonman's always been on like kind of my edge list. Like I just tend to ignore it because it's like, this is a little too close for comfort and I just can pass. Like I don't know what their deal is.

Myke: There's another brand, right? That's on that edge quite a lot. They copy Twizby products, I think.

Brad: There's a brand called Hero that has done like the Lamy Safari copies. Wingsung has copied some of the Twizby looks. I think that's the one I'm thinking of. I think that might be the one I'm thinking of. So, yeah. Like, you know, no one comes out looking good in these cases, right? Right. You know, it's like if you're like if you're the if you have an ownership stake, you know, and you're Kaweco or you're Twizby, if you're that person, I mean, are you going to sit back and just let things happen? Probably not. You shouldn't. But it's complicated. But, yeah. But.

Myke: In the public arena, it's never a great thing. But like, I understand why if a company feels that they're there, the hard work that they have done is being ripped off. I understand. I understand why somebody would want to.

Brad: I fully understand why someone would be mad, you know? And I mean, your stuff better be right because.

Myke: Correct me if I'm wrong, but like, I know we've had these conversations before, you know? Sure. Of course.

Brad: And like it happens. And we will always have these conversations, right, in manufacturing and intellectual property.

Brad: But there's like I'm telling like I've just always believed like if I'm going to go in, my case better be rock solid. Yeah. And that's why you don't see me go in very often because like, you know what? You know, if you can sleep at night with the decisions you made, that's the best thing you can do. And if you're going to have to go out here and yell from the mountaintops and not have all your ducks in a row first, we'll see.

Myke: I'm keen to see how this one progresses.

Brad: My gut feeling tells me by, I don't know, let's just say summertime. This will be a non-story. That's my gut.

Brad: It'll just vanish. Swisbee will back down. Narwhal will continue. Retailers will continue to carry both. That's that's it has to play out that way. I don't think that I'm not making a stand here. It has to play out that way.

Myke: We'll see.

Brad: We'll see. Or else Swisbee's in for Swisbee's going to be up to something for sure. Swisbee could Swisbee holds all the cards. So we'll see. See what they do.

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Brad: All right. Let's hit some Ask TPA since it's been a couple weeks since we've had some. I'm owing some answers to people, Myke. I'm owing some answers. Oh, that's important then.

Ask TPA Segment

Myke: We're going to get to them. So all right. We're going to do a few here. The first one today comes from listener Brian, who says, my best friend just got an excellent tenure track job as he's finishing up his PhD. He's interested in pens and stationery, but not quite one of us. I've got him gifts in the past, such as a Roger 600 and some good notebooks. They've been hits. I decided to get him a pilot decimo, a celebratory gift. Obviously, it needs to have a converter and some ink in the package. The tricky bit is he is a lefty. I've never thought of inks from that perspective. The criteria are true black in an attractive bottle, beginner friendly and left handed friendly. I am considering Pilot Namiki Black, Pilot Hiroshizuku Takesumi and Pelican Edelstein Onyx, but I'm open to other suggestions. I'm not especially concerned about costs. I'm much more focused on picking an ink that will give a novice lefty their best chance of a fountain pen. Suggestions?

Brad: You want to go first or you want me to give you the answer?

Myke: From those three, I haven't used it, but I would say Pilot Hiroshizuku Takasumi.

Brad: So I'm going to say Namiki Black. Okay. And here's why. It is the most traditional, performing, and color black ink, at least out of that group, right? The ink pot is the coolest of those, even though the Orozuzuku and the Edelstein have great bottles. It is a awesome, I wish, if every ink came in this bottle, I would take it, even though it's not the most functional. It's just cool. But what Namiki Black offers you is wonderful writing performance, real black ink, and a slight bit of permanence that Pilot does with their stockings like blue black. So they don't market it as waterproof or anything like that, but it does have a little bit of those properties. The only kicker, and this is for probably all of these inks, Edelstein the least, is dry time. I'd say Namiki Black is in the middle. Oroshizuku Takasumi would be the quickest dryer, and LSD Onyx would be the slowest dryer. So yeah, that's...

Myke: I've said this a bunch of times on the show, but when I was going through my tests, and I did extensive testing a long time ago in the show's history, and of the major brands that I tried, I found Oroshizuku to have the most reliable drying time on the most amount of papers. And it's why, to this day, I still use multiple Oroshizuku inks. Because, one, I love them. Konpeki and Fuyugaki, two of my favorites. But they dry so fast. And so that's why I would recommend it. And I understand what you're saying. Like, the bottle of Namiki is awesome. It is blacker. Like, Takasumi looks a bit more charcoal-colored, a little lighter. But I would say, as the educated between the two of us, as I am left-handed, if you're trying to get somebody into this, as a left-handed person, the biggest problem that they will have is smearing. And it can really turn you off. And so, I mean, I would recommend, considering... Well, I would say, Brian, if you're willing to do so, get both. With Namiki Black and Hiroshizuku. And let your friend try them.

Brad: Yeah. I mean, the bonus... The bonus is that they're both pilot inks. And they both should perform well with the Decimo. Even though, like, I don't totally consider that, you know, brand matching-ness to be, like, a big thing. It's very important, man. But... But I do like it. I'll find a post. I'll put it in the show notes. We have a reader, listener, Tony, did a black ink comparison on the blog. Most of those were of the permanent pigmented type. So that may not be your go-to. But, you know, that's something you could look at for reference as well. But, yeah, I mean, since, Myke, you called me uneducated about being left-handed, I mean, I guess that's fair.

Brad: I don't know if you caught that, but... There are very few times where I am the expert. Yeah. I will leave it to you.

Myke: But when it comes to being left-handed, I am the expert.

Brad: I do not disagree with your perspective or your left-handedness.

Myke: There was a time in my life, Brand, where for a couple of months, lots of people disagreed with my left-handedness.

Myke: But we don't like to talk about that. Frames asks, Myke, how did you feel in episode 504 when Jacob outed himself as the person who threw away an M90? I felt like a simpatico with Jacob in that moment. Really? It's because I know I have made similar mistakes. I couldn't agree more. Right?

Brad: Yep.

Myke: But it's just like early on, things that I thought were good for me or bad for me, I was just so wrong about it. Like how excited I was and how perfect I thought the vanishing point was. But it's a terrible pen for me. I find it so uncomfortable to use. But at the time, I just didn't really know what I was doing. I think I was blown away by the clickiness of it and just too excited. And then it's just like, oh, this pen's amazing. But it's like, oh, wait, hang on a minute. No, it's not for me. You know? Right. So I've been, we've all been there.

Brad: Yeah. It's an OMG what just happened. And I get it.

Myke: It is so sad. I get it. I mean, what I was thinking about it in that moment. It's like there was a limited amount of these pens made of one of them. I mean, I don't remember. What did he do with it? He just threw it away?

Brad: He literally threw it away in the garbage.

Myke: Oh, yeah. I remember this now. Now I'm remembering this image. Because I had this image in my mind the first time. I had no idea. It just came back to me. Of a Pilot M90 sitting on top of like a rubbish heap somewhere.

Brad: Brutal. Brutal. Like, I don't want to say I get it, but I get it, man. Like, I get it. I get it. Like, it's crazy. And you don't want it to ever happen to anyone. But I get it. We all have these horror stories to tell.

Myke: Well, I can personally thank Jacob for marginally increasing my net worth.

Brad: Yeah, exactly. Right?

Myke: Because I have two of them. So the price has gone up. Yep. There's one less in the world. And they contribute towards there being one less in the marketplace. That's exactly right. Thank you, Jacob. Exactly right. And Todd asks, big eye design pens, brilliant multi-refill mechanism that truly shines in practice or jack of all trades concept that delivers ho-hum results. What are your thoughts?

Brad: So this is the one specific pen that fits, you know, the 200 plus refills. I mean, there's different models, but they also have single refill pens. So I just want to be clear. This is obviously the, they say it in the thing, but it's not just all of big eye design pens aren't this multi-refill mechanism.

Myke: What is the name of this pen that they were asking?

Brad: Great question.

Myke: The ultimate refill friendly pen? The T-Arto?

Brad: Arto. Arto. The A-R-T-O. So yeah, there's different models of the T-I-Arto. Thank you. Um, so what it has is like a, if you're ever, if you're familiar with a clutch pencil, it has a similar type of system to where your reef, you can use different types of refills and the front ends will kind of latch on to whatever refill. So the, the hangup when you're designing pens, like makers are designing pens, like say us at Spook Pens is we have to be, have answer some very specific refill shape questions, right? Which refill do we want to use and design around it? So what big eye design did was build this, this mechanism that is for lack of a better term, more flexible around the shapes of the front end of refills. I think it's really smart. I think it's a great concept and I don't use that pen because I have a lot of pens, right? I don't like, I just grabbed the pen that I want. I don't want to be refill swapping all the time based on which refill I want to use. I'll just grab an Energel or a DX or a G2 or a Juice in whatever barrel I have them in instead of taking the one pen and having a stack of refills and going, I want the Hitec C now and I want the DX now. I want the RT1 now and I want the Jetstream now.

Myke: Yeah, I guess the benefit to this pen is if you like, if there is a specific refill that you like and you just hate the body that it comes in and they don't offer an option that you like. Yep. You know?

Brad: So I think it's a really good design for that.

Myke: I think it's clever. It's a clever thing to have for the people that want it. I'm really, I would be intrigued. Like, I wonder like how well this pen performs for them compared to their other models.

Brad: I think pretty well from the feedback I see and the feedback I get. A lot of people like that idea and concept and then they, once they get it, they like the execution and like the shape and the way it delivers the refill and the performance, the writing performance. The delivery of it seems to have been done proper to where, you know, it's aesthetically, it's shaped. I'm a big front end aesthetics person. Like I want to, when the refill is coming out the front of the pen and that whole front end shape of the pen is a big deal to me, like aesthetically. So I like that and I think they delivered that, which that's probably the hardest thing to do. The mechanism was probably the easiest thing to do comparatively to making a lot of things look really good when you're writing, right? If it doesn't look good, I don't enjoy it as much. And I think they did a good job with it.

Myke: If you have a question you'd like to hear us answer on the show, you can submit it in a bunch of ways. You can send out a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA. You can use question mark AskTPA in the RelayFM members Discord, or you can send longer questions via email to hello at penaddict.com. If you'd like to find Brad online, you can go to penaddict.com, spokedesign.com. You can go to Instagram where he is penaddict. He's Dowdyism on Twitter. And Brad streams live on Twitch three times a week at twitch.tv slash penaddict. If you want to find me, you can go to relay.fm, where I host many shows along with this one, which is where you will find the penaddict at RelayFM. If you are a Formula One fan, I'm starting a brand new podcast called The Backmarkers with a friend of the show, Austin Evans. And we're going to be streaming live with our reactions to every race for the 2022 season. We're doing it on YouTube, and we've also got the audio version of the show as well. So you can find the backmarkers on RelayFM. For people that maybe would want to know, backmarkers are the people who are at the back of the grid, who are overlapped, like they're lapped by the leaders. We chose this as like, this is an F1 podcast for new fans. We do not have years of experience. We are not claiming to be the best Formula One podcasters, but we are the ones with the most heart.

Brad: That's right. It's going to be awesome.

Myke: I can't wait. I hope that we're going to be able to have you on an episode. There's a bunch of RelayFM hosts that are new or existing F1 fans, and I'm hoping that over the season we can collect up a few people. It's different for me. It's going to be video, so that's going to be a different thing. We're going to do video on Twitch and then audio going out in our usual channels. So I'm really excited about this. It's starting Sunday. It's time. Very excited. Very excited. Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode of The Pan Addict. Thank you to Trade and Squarespace for the support of this show, and we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.