The Pen Addict 52/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	52
Title:	It's A Gateway Pen So Be Careful
Release Date:	April 30th, 2013
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 52
Audio File:	Audio Episode 52
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 52
Length:	6161 min <br />1.017 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to episode 52 of The Pen Addict podcast, a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools you love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined today by a man who takes his power from the mighty mythology of the heavens. He is Brad Orr, the pen god.

Brad Dowdy: I want a comic book now.

Myke Hurley: I was looking at the comic book characters I have around my desk and saw Thor, and thought I would go along that sort of route. That's why Brad Orr.

Brad Dowdy: Nice. I was always a Thor fan when I was a kid. For some reason, he resonated with me. Thor and Spider-Man were my guys growing up, so cool.

Myke Hurley: It's as if I knew I've got Nick Fury, the Hulk, Red Skull, Captain America, Batman, and Spider-Man as well as Thor on my desk, and Thor was the one that I chose for you.

Brad Dowdy: Nice, nice. I like it. My physique is quite similar.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I've seen photos. Nice. Nice. Nice. Nice.

Pen Cases

Brad Dowdy: Nice. Yeah. Let's go the wrong direction real quick. So.

Myke Hurley: Right. Let's. Let's. Let's. How's things going? Yeah. Yeah. Things are good. Things are good. Moving on. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Segway master. Sure.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so we had a good episode last week that I got a lot of feedback on. We talked mostly about thinning out our fountain pen collections, how we make purchases, how we collect pens, or what's behind our purchasing decisions. And more importantly, kind of how many pens we use frequently. Like in my case, how many fountain pens I have inked up, and I kind of had a dilemma on the quantity that I had inked up. And I got a follow-up email from Daniel who initiated the topic from last week. And Daniel made a really good analogy that really hit home with me because it's another thing I collect and use a lot, which is CDs. He made this CD analogy, so I'll read a little bit of it real quick. He says, as someone who has far too many fountain pens, I like to think of them as similar to my CDs. There are some I make use of all the time because they're my favorites, and others I pull out and make use of once in a while because while I like them and wouldn't have them if I didn't, they're not the ones I want to put in a heavy rotation. Like my CDs, I want all these pens around so I can have access to them whenever I feel like. That doesn't mean I need to use my Parker Vacumatic daily just as I don't need to listen to Frank Zappa every day. So I thought that was a really good analogy because I have a huge CD collection, and I'm a huge music fan. And it made me sleep a little better knowing that I have eight or ten fountain pens inked up or took some ones that I just purchased and cleaned them, got the ink out of them, cleaned them up, and stored them away. You know, it's just, you know, I might have – I'm a huge Smiths fan. You know, I've got 50 or 60 Smiths CDs, and, you know, they're my favorite band. And while I don't listen to them every day, you know, I'm glad I have all these CDs, and they're here for when I want to listen to them. And, you know, I'll go and break them out and get great enjoyment out of it. So I thought that was a good analogy, and that made me settle down a little bit from like I have to cut this down. You know, I was like trying to be like hardline, like, all right, I've got way too many. I've got to force myself to cut this down, and, you know, I'm going to take it a little bit slower. So there were a couple other people that emailed – well, we got some tweets right after the episode too. I forget who said it, but one of the persons tweeted us, said something like, if I don't use the pen within two weeks, it goes on eBay. And I was like, whoa, that's a little harsh there. But, yeah, he said that's exactly what I do, and that's how I fund new pens that I'm going to buy. I was like, well, I couldn't do that. That's a little extreme.

Brad Dowdy: But I thought it was good. You know, I'm still going to cut down on the amount of pens that I have inked up, but I'm going to worry less about, you know, not using some of the pens that I own. I'm not going to worry about, like, I have to use everything all the time just to be fair to the pens that I own and things like that. You know, I've always had that mental block, like if I buy something, I want to buy something to make sure I use it. So I thought that was a good analogy with the CDs because I'm definitely in that same boat being a man from the CD generation. I've still probably got 500 or 600 stored away somewhere that I don't really use anymore because everything's digital now. But that was a big deal for me. I was a big CD collector.

Myke Hurley: Very cool.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. So you got some mail this week, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I received the package in the mail, which I wasn't expecting to get so soon, and I was very happy. So I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I bought one of the Dome Levelworks projects, products and projects. I guess it's a bit of both. And I received, I think it's a four-pen holster. Yeah, I think that's what it's called. Four-barrel holster, which is a much better term from Dome Paper. And it's really nice. It's kind of everything I was expecting from it, in all honesty. Like, nothing has surprised me because I was expecting a really good quality product. And that is exactly what I've got. It's got that great leather smell to it. Yep, smells great. It's a really nice color brown and the beautiful blue stitching that I was really excited about. I found that, obviously, you know, four pens do fit in it, but not always. It depends what I'm putting in there. Sometimes it's more like three. Like, the Twisbees are really big barrels. Like, they're quite wide. So they kind of take up a bit more space. But I don't think I would want to put four in it. I'll probably be happy with, like, two in here.

Myke Hurley: I don't really know when I'm going to use this, but I know I wanted it. And I'm happy that I have it because it's one of those things that it's probably going to last forever. Because it's a really well-made product. And, you know, it'll probably be something where, when I'm not in a position where I'm leaving my pens somewhere else to where I, you know, where I would prefer to be using them. So when they're not all left at work. Because I don't want to be carrying them back and forth. I've mentioned many times. This is where, like, on my desk, I would probably keep, like, a Twisby and my favorite retro in here. And they'd be nice and tucked away right next to me at all times.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I have the previous model. This is the new one. You have the newer one. It's got a slightly different shape. And then he's got a different – he's working with a different leather manufacturer, I believe. And it looks very much the same. It's a beautiful, beautiful piece. The leather is, like, nothing that I've ever used. Yeah, it's very rich. It's, like, buttery smooth, soft. But it's, like, really thick. And you can tell it's going to last forever. But, like you, I mean, it's called the four-barrel holster. And, yeah, if you're not using four big, fat fountain pens, you know, like a lot of the pens that we use, it puts four pens easily. But, like you, I usually end up carrying three. Like, if I'm carrying Lamy 2000, you know, Pilot Custom Heritage 912, and a Twisby, I mean, that's going to fill it up. Those are all three wide-barrel pens. But it breaks in very, very well. It's one of those products that gets better with age, and I'm super happy with mine. So I hope you enjoy yours.

Myke Hurley: As soon as I put pens in it, I noticed, like, the changing, like, the stressing of the lever at the bottom. And I was like, oh, that's nice.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. And, like I said, it really just gets better and better the more I use it. And then it gets broken in, excuse me, and, you know, it forms to the shape of the pens a little bit. You know, obviously, you're switching them around and putting them in different spots. But I'm very happy with it. It's a cool product. It's one of my favorite things that I've bought in a long time. I like using it, and I do carry that in my backpack. When I'm carrying the normal amount of pens that I should be carrying, that's what I use.

Brad Dowdy: So it does work well in the backpack. And that's my preferred thing because I don't want to carry, you know, two big fat pen cases. No. You know, if I'm going back and forth to work, I don't need to carry 20 pens. So that's what I use.

Myke Hurley: So if I was transporting my pens every day, this is what they would be in. But I don't transport them. In all honesty, they stay in one place just because I worry about damaging them.

Brad Dowdy: Yep, yep. I can definitely see that.

Myke Hurley: So I leave them where I use them the most, which at the moment is at the office. Cool.

FP Geeks

Brad Dowdy: Cool. And I think you saw this tweet around when I saw it, or you might have seen it first. But yeah, we got a tweet from, I guess it was from Anna or Artis or some of our followers on Twitter sent us a link from the Fountain Pen Geeks website, which I like those guys. Dan and Eric at fpgeeks.com. They do a great job over there. And they had a recent post with new TWSBI models. And both you and I are fans of TWSBI. We like their style. We like the value that TWSBI offers. They make some of the best bang for the buck pens on the market, in my opinion. You can get a really seriously good pen for a very good price, I think. And they had a post the other day with a bunch of the new TWSBI models. Did you get a chance to go through that whole post and look at all the links and all the new products and everything?

Myke Hurley: I'm looking at the other links now. I only looked at the original images. But ho mama.

Brad Dowdy: So let me just go through their post real quick. And we'll link this in the show notes if you're not familiar with FP Geeks. And you should definitely bookmark their site and read it frequently. They post – they do something like I don't do very frequently is they post a lot of news, right? So this is what I consider a news post. They're saying, hey, these new products are coming. You know, I stick with reviews. Otherwise, you know, I don't have time for 10 or 20 posts a week. So I kind of stick with what I do best. And, you know, I like to read guys like Dan and Eric and, you know, they use Aziza from Gourmet Pens and Ed Jelly right on this site too. So they have a lot of news posts, a lot of more frequent articles just surrounding new products and things like that. So definitely check them out. But this TWSBI post was really for – they're doing – so they have the TWSBI Vac 700, which is a very large, full-size vacuum-filling fountain pen. Well, they made this prototype that they showed on FP Geeks, link to picture, for the Vac Mini. And that's really – that's one of the most beautiful pens that I think that they've designed yet, in my opinion.

Myke Hurley: It's just – it's in these colors. It's absolutely beautiful. And I'm looking at the other links and, oh, my God. The 850 IROC. Yeah. Oh, my word. They're chrome. Chrome finish. A matte finish. What is it? Aluminium? Probably.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Oh. Oh.

Brad Dowdy: They don't say.

Myke Hurley: When are all of these products going on sale, Brad? You need to tell me.

Brad Dowdy: That was the big question. And actually, Dan posed that question. Anyone want to start taking bets on a release date? So they don't have release dates yet. I mean, they're – TWSBI, for all the products that they have, their release schedule is pretty – how should I say it? They spread it out pretty well. They don't – they're not jamming a lot of new products at one time down everyone's throat. So they're spread out pretty well. So it could be up until next year that we'll see some of these because this – that 580 or 850, excuse me, IROC, that's been a prototype, I think, for a while. And it's pretty awesome. I mean, it's like an – it's an all-metal barrel. I don't know if it's aluminum or not. I don't have the specs on here, but they have a chrome finish one and a matte finish one. And it's just – it's straight-up beautiful. I mean, it's an awesome-looking pen.

Brad Dowdy: It's basically the 580, just all chromed out, which is pretty awesome. And I made fun of the name on Twitter the other day, the IROC. You're too young to know what an IROC is, aren't you, Myke?

Myke Hurley: No, I don't know what that is.

Brad Dowdy: You're too young and too British to know what an IROC is. But back in the 70s and mostly the 80s, there was a Camaro model, Z28, I think, IROC. And it was just – that's what you – that's what all the cool kids drove in the 80s was the IROC Z.

Brad Dowdy: Just a kind of a – it's not really a muscle car, but it's just kind of a cool car. It was a hot car back in the 70s and 80s, so I kind of made a joke about that the other day. The name of it was kind of funny to me. But it's a beautiful pen. And then they also link to some other things in this article on FBE. They link to Twisbees working on their own notebooks, which look very nice. They look like they're going to be a good moleskin-looking black-covered notebook. The one I really like was the Slim, the PP081 Slim fountain pen that looked like a really good model to me. And the Twisbe Eco, which is going to be their entry-level fountain pen. I've read about this one before. It's going to be like the Lamy Safari of their Twisbe product line. It's going to be like around a $30 price point, a good entry-level fountain pen. And I think just a more straightforward barrel, simplistic nib, things like that. But it's still going to be a piston filler, I believe. So that's a pretty good price for a $30 pen or so. So that would be nice if we get to see some of these before the year is out. And some of them like the 850 iRock we may not see for a while.

Fountain Pens

Myke Hurley: Do you know the first post that fountain pen geeks had on the 850 was in October of 2011? Oh, my gosh.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, they said in one of their sort of – I started looking through the chain. And they're like, our first article was published way back in October of 2011 that simply included design renders.

Brad Dowdy: Wow. Wow. Wow. But I do like how Twisbe does – they released some of that stuff earlier. They're like, hey, this is what we're looking on. It's like the car show where they have the prototype cars. You'll never see them on the road. But, hey, this is what we're working on. And maybe you'll see some of this stuff integrated into our product line in the near future. And I think Twisbe does a good job with that. I think they post most of it on their Facebook page. I don't use Facebook. But if you're on Facebook, check out Twisbe on Facebook. They post a lot of images like this, and I think that's where FP geeks are seeing all this information about all the cool new stuff that Twisbe is coming up with.

Myke Hurley: Well, I want to just get one of these products soon because they all are amazing. If they get to give me any of them, I'll be happy.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean it's like they're not playing around. It's not just like we're working on this one pen. I mean there's like – they have five different things in the hopper right now that they're working on. So I like the mini – on the picture on the Twisbe post that we're looking at, the main one, the black faceted mini one that's on the right-hand side of that image, that one's mine whenever it comes out. So it looks pretty cool.

Myke Hurley: They all look like design renders to me though.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I know. They do.

Myke Hurley: By looking – by judging by that, it's going to be a long time until we get them.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I know. But anyway.

Myke Hurley: I've now just liked their page on Facebook so I can try and find some stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Cool.

Brad Dowdy: Awesome. And one more thing about FP Geeks before we move on. I've been more active this week. They have a really nice forum at FP Geeks. Definitely check that out.

Brad Dowdy: It's a good – I like the layout. I like the community. It's a good growing community. Very helpful. You know, I've very much enjoyed it. I've been trying to use it more over the past week just because I like those guys and want to support those guys. So – and you will definitely notice some of the names on the board if you're into the pins at all. So you'll see some of the same people on Twitter that are talking on this board and things like that. So anyway, I just wanted to give them a shout out for their FP Geeks forum, which is very cool.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I hear their FP Geeks forum mentioned a lot. I don't feel like I have the knowledge to be there.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, no. That's the thing. I mean, it's like – I mean, it's like totally beginners to experts. I mean, people buying their first fountain pens are posted on there. And I posed a question about inks yesterday that I don't – I didn't even hesitate to make the post just because I didn't have the knowledge and got some responses and things like that. So, no, it's totally for beginners to experts and everywhere in between. So you should absolutely chime in.

Myke Hurley: Maybe I will. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: You should. You should. So it's a nice community over there. I'm very much enjoying it.

Sponsor

Brad Dowdy: So I think that's all kind of the follow-up, catching-up stuff I got to do if you want to talk about our sponsor. And then I've got an interesting topic that is kind of a combination of a few things we've talked about in the past.

Myke Hurley: Do you know, this show now has hypercritical levels of follow-up. 18 minutes of follow-up. Yeah. I love it. I think it's great. I really like – because I am such a fan of hypercritical. The old show on 5x5. Like I've even – I listen. I've started listening again. I'm up to like episode 39.

Myke Hurley: From the beginning? You went from the beginning again? From the beginning, yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, I really enjoy it. I really, really enjoy it. And I like that a show like this one has become such a thing now for us and for the people around us. We get sent in stuff and we have other things that we need to address. And I really like that. I think that for me personally that shows the maturity of a show. I don't know how good it is for new listeners. That was something that John Syracuse always used to talk about, especially in sort of the final episode. So I'm going to put that one in there, actually. I think it was called Metacritical, where he sort of criticized the show and he criticized the idea of follow-up and the fact that it was at the start because it made it difficult for new people coming to the show. But he still says that he always would have wanted it that way because it made sense to him. And it makes sense to me to have it then as well because it's the continuation of last week's content. Right.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, I definitely see John's point to where it could be difficult for a new listener. Actually, I get some emails saying, hey, I'm a new listener. Have you discussed this or things like that? But I think it absolutely helps with the continuity of the episode. People can be engaged in the podcast knowing that we've discussed the topic and even if they don't email us in their interim or tweet us, that we're likely to mention that again and they will know where we're coming from on that particular topic. Or we could ask a question to listeners and we can follow up with the answers on a future episode and things like that. But I just think it really engages the community around the podcast to have this type of discussion. And I've said it before. We could just do our whole episodes on just all the follow-up stuff from the week, all the emails and tweets and answering questions. And actually, I want to do an episode coming soon, like an all-questions-answered kind of episode soon. So, you know, I like doing that because it's actually – sometimes it feels like there are some main topics that I want to approach and do specific things and do some larger discussions around. But sometimes, you know, I just want to chat with you and talk about pens and talk about what we've talked about before and what people are asking questions about. So I think it works out well for us. I think it's a good format for our type of show.

Myke Hurley: I agree. And something that John used to say was that he thinks it would be weirder to put it at the end because then you're having a whole conversation in between last week's topics. So last week, new topic, follow-up on last week. Kind of seems strange. So I agree. Yeah. But anyway, let's talk about Squarespace. All right. Let's. Let's. So I want to take a brief moment just to thank our fine friends and the great folks over at Squarespace.com who give you absolutely everything you need to make an amazing website. Me and Brad both have our personal sites there. It's my personal site, mikehurley.net. Brad has penaddict.com. I would like to tell you, show your attentions to our field notes pages. And you'll see them in the in the lists there, you know, like in our navigation right at the top. Both mine and Brad's sites, which look which do look very different, are both built with fantastic Squarespace templates. And they look great on all devices. Brad's recently redesigned his site. And I think it looks even better than ever, especially on the phone. I think it looks really, really great. And you'll see that we both created these field notes pages. So we've created those pages. If you go to, for example, mikehurley.net forward. Just go to mikehurley.net and you'll see field notes collection or penaddict.com. And you see field notes right at the top. And you'll see that we've both created these pages. And we were able to do those using Squarespace's page layout system called Layout Engine. And with that, we were able to drag and drop. So, for example, I wanted to put the photos around and put them in the order that I wanted from when I first purchased to now and as I've collated more. And I'm able to just, in the web browser, drag and drop these images around. And I'm able to resize them all within the web browser. It's so simple. I don't need to learn any code or anything like that. It's just the way I would want it to be. If I was going to create a grid of icons, I would want to be able to drag and drop them like if it was resizing images in a PowerPoint, for example. That's how simple it is. You just can click the adjusters and drag them to make them larger or smaller and move them around the page. It's so simple. And that's what I love about Squarespace is how easy you can throw something like that up. It took me for, like, even to upload the images. You drag them into the web browser. It says, like, upload an image here. You can click it or you can drag it from your desktop into your browser and it uploads into the page. And I just love that stuff. I just think, really, it's great that I don't have to worry. All I need to worry about is putting my content online. So I've kind of deviated from the regular discussion that we have with Squarespace. But I think that that's a good sort of, you know, this is how we did it. Squarespace have everything you need. Great hosting, great integration. They have Squarespace Commerce where you can sell products. It's brilliant. They have 24-7 customer support. Find out more and try it out for yourself. Go to squarespace.com forward slash 70 decibels. You can start your free trial there. Squarespace plans start at $10 a month for their standard plan and $20 a month for their unlimited plan. If you sign up and pay up front for one year, you'll get 20% off these prices. If you sign up for two years, you'll get 25% off. But don't forget to use the code 70decibels4. That's 70-D-E-C-I-B-E-L-S and the number four. And you will get an additional 10% off your first order. So go check out Squarespace, everything you need to make an amazing website. Is that okay, Brad? I kind of went off script totally.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. No, I thought it was good for a change. You mixed it up. It was more of a use case, which actually I think is better. It's a very simple product to use. And I think I mentioned last week when I did my site redesign. I mean, when I decided to do the redesign, I'm sitting on the couch at like 1 o'clock at night. And I go, I think I'm going to redesign the site. It's not like, all right, a week of planning. Let's put on a pot of coffee. Yes. And get some Red Bull going and let's dig into the back end. I mean, I think I said it took me 30 minutes to redo everything that I wanted to do. So, I mean, it's just for me, that's what I'm looking for is a site that looks great, is easy to use, and I don't have to manage all the back end code. That's why I've never gone to WordPress and done WordPress installs because I don't want to have to upgrade my own back end code. I want someone else to handle that, so I'm happy to pay Squarespace to do that. And for me, that's what works. So, that's my speech. I appreciate it. So, I have a topic I would like to discuss that is kind of a culmination or kind of a merging of quite a few different topics. One is, you know, my top five list that people enjoy. You know, second is the state of the big box retailers like Staples, OfficeMax, or large, you know, retail establishments that carry office supplies. And then, you know, related into that, the things you cannot buy at a retailer. So, I got a tweet from Brian Esposito, who's on Twitter, at Espowari, E-S-P-O-W-A-R-I. And he says, article idea, top 10 pens under $10 that you can't buy at a big box store. So, I thought that was a really good question. And it was actually when I decided to do this topic, it was actually harder than I thought. And I'll talk about that in a second. But I wanted to follow up an email I got. It's probably been a month or two since I did my last little rant on the state of the big box retailer. And I actually got an email from a guy that applied at OfficeMax. And I've saved this email ever since he sent it. Randy sent in this email. And I wanted to read it because it pretty much, I mean, it's not surprising at all. You know, what he says in this email to me anyway. But I just wanted to read it out because it's just, it's kind of what we're up against, if you will. So, I'm going to read this. It's a little bit long, but let me read through it because I think it's good. It says, Dear Brad, Great podcast yesterday about Japanese pens and why they are so scarce. A couple weeks ago, I applied for a part-time gig at the local OfficeMax, hoping to pick up extra bucks to feed my habit and, if possible, take advantage of any employee discounts. The hiring manager asked why I believed I was qualified, to which I replied that I had a semi-encyclopedic knowledge of pens and how they might improve their sales of writing instruments. Young Mr. Manager suppressed a lip curl and replied that the store's customers did not really care about pens so long as they write and are cheap. This, to my mind, is one of the things wrong with big retailers. They offer only mediocre crap because they believe no customer will want a better or more specialized product. My response was to say offering a wider variety of writing instruments might provide a marginal competitive advantage to the store. He said this didn't matter as there was no real margin on pens. Now, admittedly, I was less than an ideal interviewee, but this incident may illustrate why OfficeMax, Staples, Office Depot won't devote three hooks, say, to the Pilot High Tech C or the Zebra Sorare. I think if you offered great pens, most customers might accept a slight markup, but maybe that's just me. Thanks. So, that's pretty disappointing.

Brad Dowdy: It's not surprising, right? I mean, they're not a pen store. They're filling a need of someone who's coming to buy in. In general, they're filling the need of someone who's coming in to buy large quantities of office supplies. And so, they're getting the cheapest pens. They're cheap and they're right. They're going to sell it. So, that's kind of what we're up against and why – that's why I write a blog called The Pen Addict and finding other things that aren't available there that are so much better. So, I thought that was kind of – that really summed it up in a nutshell what the thought process is behind these retailers.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah, it's such a shame. I mean, I understand – you know, I understand that maybe not all of their customers do, but I'm sure they get some that do. And I feel that maybe even people that are going into this store are not just picking up what's in the office supply cabinet at least care a little bit more. And then you'll get people like – you know, people like us go into these shops and have a look around. And I don't know. It's a shame. It's a shame. Right.

Brad Dowdy: Like I always said, I mean, you know, not everyone is going to have the level of craziness that we have around pens. But if you just take, you know, one second to buy one thing different than what you would find like in the office supply cabinet, you know, just take one little step up and you'll just be in a lot better shape, you know, in your writing instruments. But anyway, that's – everyone knows my stance on that. That's my rant. But hey, this is a precursor to a rant I have at the end. So that's a tease. Everyone needs to stay around for my rant I have at the end. It's a good one.

Myke Hurley: Oh, I'm excited.

Brad Dowdy: But let's get into Brian's real question. So just to recap, the question is the top 10 pens under $10 that you cannot buy at a big box store. So it's pretty much retailers, you know, online retailers. And in my case, all the pens that I use, I think I pretty much found all these at JetPens just because, I mean, obviously I love them and have used them forever and obviously have worked for them. And, you know, they do – they stock. They do merchandising better than anyone I think pretty much. So let me go through my list. We'll talk about it. And, you know, if you have any questions about them, chime in, Myke. And this was – like I said, this was harder than I imagined because I tried to be somewhat strict to where, you know, like if they – like the Pilot Hi-Tech C, you can get it at the store now in like the Pilot G-Tech C form. Right? So I didn't say, well, the Pilot Hi-Tech C .3 millimeter. They only carried the .4 millimeter at Staples. So I didn't say – I didn't take the easy route and say, well, the .3 millimeter, that's a better one and you can't buy that in a store. I tried not to do that. You know, so I tried to get things that you really can't buy at a store in, you know, another tip size or, you know, something relatively – relatively similar, same product line but a different size, different color, things like that. So I tried to be as strict as I could. So let me go through the ones that I came up with. Number one for me was super easy and then after that, it was all downhill from there.

Brad Dowdy: After number one, it was hard. But number one is the Uniball Sino DX. This is the one that they call – the model number is UM151, which a lot of people refer to this pin as the UM151. And I've always been on – I've always said the same thing about the Sino DX. And I know it's pronounced Signo. Y'all don't have to tell me that. I just can't say Signo.

Myke Hurley: Signo is better. It makes more sense.

Brad Dowdy: It's the Signo to me. But in the stores, they have, you know, the Signo 207, the Signo RT in various different versions. The UM151 Signo DX is different. It is absolutely different. I will go to my grave saying it's different. It writes different. It writes better. It feels better. It feels different. That's my favorite pin that you cannot buy at a store. And I tell that to people all the time. You know, if you want something at the store, here's one list. But if you want to try something that's really good, it's really cheap, that's going to write really, really well compared to anything else you've ever used. It's the Signo DX. And that's, for years, that's been the pin I've recommended more than any. And it's never been available in any store that I've seen. And I want to clarify. We're talking about big box retailers here. You know, if you go to, you know, Mido, like in San Francisco, or I can't pronounce this, the Canocanua bookstore in New York and San Francisco, you're going to find these pins. Those are specialty retailers. We're talking about, you know, the big box stores here.

Myke Hurley: So make sure you tell me the name of that place in San Francisco a little closer to WWDC. I'll be going there.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Canocanua bookstore in my Mido.

Myke Hurley: You might need to send me those.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think I've linked it in one of the other podcasts before, but I don't know that I've ever actually said the word.

Fountain Pens

Brad Dowdy: So that was my number one. My number two is a pin that I've been talking about a bunch, and a bunch of people have ordered on my recommendation and have enjoyed it, fortunately. That's always a scary thing for me when I recommend pins and everyone orders it and says, oh, this is terrible. But the Oto graphic liner has been a huge surprise, continues to be a huge surprise, continues to be in my top five pins list all around. And it's just a flat-out great pin that I enjoy riding with a lot. And you picked up one of these recently, didn't you, Myke?

Myke Hurley: Yep. And I even told Dan to get one, too. Cool. We've got Dan Benjamin on the bandwagon, guys. He's joining us. He's joining the Pen Addict ranks.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Dan posted a tweet. We'll have to post that tweet. He had two fountain pins in his tweet the other day, and I was like, uh-oh. So the big boss man has got the bugs.

Myke Hurley: So we'll have to get him on. But he's got a Pelican M205 and a Kaweco AL Sport. Don't worry, guys. That was with mine. Mine and Brad helped him with that. Don't worry.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I was proud of him for getting the clip on the Kaweco because I think that makes him look so much better.

Myke Hurley: Well, obviously somebody told him to get that. I said, you've got to get the clip. You've got to get it. Because, yeah, it looks better and it's more functional. Yep. And he found J. Herbin Pearl Noir on his own.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that was a great choice. I figured you told him that. But if he found that on his own, that would probably be in the top few inks that I would recommend to someone trying the first time. J. Herbin inks is a really easy ink to use. Yeah. And it works real well. And Pearl Noir gets a lot of good reviews.

Myke Hurley: He said, I think he was looking through the top lists on Jet Pans. He was like, what do you think? I was like, I said, you will love it. You think it's great. It's a good color. Good ink. Good solid ink. But anyway, sorry. I've derailed you.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. No, no. I forgot. We should have talked about that in the beginning too. But yes, we'll link to Dan's pictures. I thought it was pretty cool. So anyway, the Odo graphic liner. That's number two. That's one of those pens that it's cheap enough to where you can just throw it in an order sometime and try it out to see if you like it. I was impressed with it. And it's got a pigmented ink and a very firm tip and comes in lots of different sizes. So I very much enjoyed it. The third one is the Monteverde Poquito, which is a mini pen that I use a lot. It's probably the most – it's one of the two most expensive pens on here. This is actually a straight-up $10 pen. So it's not cheap, but it stayed under the limit. And it's a portable pen that I clip like inside, you know, like a Field Notes cover or a Dome Utility Journal cover. And it's got a really good ballpoint ink cartridge. That's what sold me on it is the ballpoint ink cartridge. It's really smooth and really dark. And it's also got a stylus that works really well on the other end of the pen. It's a twist pen, so the stylus doesn't get in the way at all.

Brad Dowdy: And the stylus works very well on, you know, your devices. You know, it works great on my iPhone and stuff like that. I'm on my second one of these because it's so tiny and small. I washed the first one in my pants pocket one day. So I'm on number two of the Poquito. I liked it that much. I went ahead and ordered another one real quick because I didn't like being without it.

Brad Dowdy: The fourth one is a really cool pencil. It's called the Tombow Ulno Body Knock Pencil. And I've recommended this to people a few times. It's a more casual pencil compared to like a Kuratoga roulette or, you know, like a Rotring. You know, it's not a real – it's an everyday use type of pencil. Not a – you know, it's not an engineering or drafting type pencil. And what it does is it allows you to extend the lead just by clicking the middle of the pen. So there's like a – it's called the Body Knock really because there's almost – you can't feel it. But there's almost like a break in the middle of the pencil and you just use pressure. Like you never have to leave your writing position to extend the lead. You just kind of make this little move with your fingers. It's hard to explain on the microphone. But it actually – I have a couple of these and it works really, really well. And it's – I think it's under five bucks. Great colors. Yeah, they're cool looking. They did a great job on the design. This is something that if you get – that if you buy this pencil, no one else is going to have this pencil. This is one you show off to your friends and they'll go, oh, cool. What is that? And you can tell them and show them how it works. And it's a great writer. It's very comfortable. It's one of my favorite pencils outside of the Kuratoga and the drafting style pencils that I like so much. It's probably – I don't know, maybe one of the few that I use outside of those. And like you said, they have really cool colors on them.

Pressurized Refill Pens

Brad Dowdy: The next one, number five, is a pen that I fell in love with a couple years ago and actually forgot about until I started writing this article. And I might have to get it back out because I really enjoyed it when I used it. And this is another branch out type of pen to where if you haven't used something like this before, you want to – this is the one you want to look at. It's the Kuretake Fudego Kochi brush pen in Superfine. So, brush pens, most people think about having a large, very large, flexible bristle tip pen. This is almost more of a porous tip pen. It's the Superfine. It's got a firmer tip. It's not a very expressive brush, if you will. It's more of a finer, firmer brush tip. And I use this pen to write notes with – I mean, I've had a lot of – got a lot of enjoyment out of this pen. And I think this kind of – this pen is – it kind of really sums up the whole feel of this list. This is kind of a list you want to look at for something if you want to branch out from the norm. That's kind of the gist behind this whole list. You can't find these pens regularly. Maybe you've never tried a brush pen before or something like that. So, this is kind of the first one you might want to consider trying if you've ever thought buying a brush pen or a different kind of pencil or a mini pen or anything like that. So, that's kind of the gist behind this list. I enjoy that pen a lot. And the number six item on this list is one I recommend a ton and is also one of those branch out items. And I think you have this pen on my recommendation. It's the Kokuyu Beetle Tip Highlighter. Of course. That's – I mean, in my book, it really can't be beat for a highlighter just because of its functionality. You can do different things with it, different line widths, wide, medium, super fine, underlining. It does it all. It looks cool. It will freak your friends out when they see it. So, it's a really good highlighter. It's about the only highlighter I recommend. And, you know, you just can't pick up something like this at Staples or Office Max.

Brad Dowdy: The next one is, I think, tied for the – it's another $10 pen. But I had to include it because it's – you can get some similar things at the store, but nothing really as great as this. And that's the Tombow AirPress. And this is a pen I don't talk about enough. This is a pen I like to keep in my car because it is a – it uses a pressurized refill. It's a ballpoint pen. Pressurized refill like the Fisher Space Pen. It comes in a really great barrel. It's really – it's really well designed. It's really durable. Yeah. It's got a super, super fantastic clip on it. The knock mechanism is really solid. You know, it's not the purest ballpoint writing experience, you know, compared to like a Jetstream. But the functionality and the type of things that you use this pen for, it's one of the best. It's really kind of like the all-weather pen. It'll write in the rain. It can stay in the freezing cold. It can stay in the super hot. That's why I said I keep this pen in my car with the journal I keep in my car because I know it's not going – nothing's going to happen to this pen until I ran out of it. And I've already run one of them out. I've used it so much in my car.

Brad Dowdy: It's one of the best pressurized refill pens. Like I said, like at the store, I think Pilot is starting to put their downforce. I think I've seen that in the store shelves, which is a pressurizing refill pen. But it's not as good as this AirPress. It's actually not even close, just mainly because of the barrel design and clip and knock and looks of it. This is a killer pen.

Brad Dowdy: Excuse me. The next one, I wouldn't be surprised if one day it did come into the office supply stores. Out of this whole list, if any of them showed up besides maybe the Uniball Sino DX, it would be the Pentel Vicuna. It's a – it's Pentel's version of the hybrid ballpoint ink pen, like the Jetstream, like the Sorare, like the Pilot Acroball. This is Pentel's version. It's the Vicuna. I didn't like this pen at first. I thought it was a little bit globby, a little bit messy. And then I ordered a 0.5 millimeter, and I ordered the multi-pen, and I kind of fell in love with it because I used the black ink on it, which I'm more of a blue ballpoint ink guy. I don't like the blue as much, but the black Vicuna is really, really dark and rich and clean and writes a really good line. So I was very – I'm always very happy with this pen.

Brad Dowdy: Like I said, it's a base hybrid ink ballpoint. So I wouldn't be surprised one day if Pentel put it in the store, named it something, named it something other than the Vicuna, I guess, because I think that's the rule for any pen company. If they make something in Japan and it's successful, they make it in the U.S. and change the name, which makes complete sense, right? Okay. Sorry. I'm so negative.

Myke Hurley: It's okay.

Brad Dowdy: Number nine is a pen I reviewed in the first one or two months of the Pen Addict back in 2007, maybe early 2008. And it's still popular. It still sells a lot, and it's still not available in a store and probably never will be. But the Platinum Preppy fountain pen is a really – you're not going to find hardly any fountain – you'll find a few fountain pens under $10 at the store, like the Pilot Varsity, I think, is one you can find at the store. I was not a fan of that pen at all. The Platinum Preppy, on the other hand, it's got a really fine nib. It comes in a lot of colors. I mean, I think for about $350, it's a really good writing pen. It does a good job on paper. It's fun to use. As a matter of fact, when I – back when I was at my current job, but before I went and left for JetPens, I left a bunch of – I brought everyone a bunch of pens before I left. And just this morning, one of the guys was using one of the Platinum Preppy fountain pens that I had left in our meeting this morning before I left work. So I thought that was pretty neat because he's probably had it for a couple of years now, and the ink is just about out of it. I don't think he uses it every day. But I thought that was kind of funny that just this morning he was using the green Platinum Preppy that I left there before. So that was kind of neat. Have you ever used the Preppy? Have you ever? Have you ever? No, I haven't. Just throw one on there? Yeah. It's like a – I mean, it's a complete disposable fountain pen. But it's got nice colors. Like you can get a blue-black one, and they're fine, fine nibs. Very firm, fine nib. It writes very cleanly. It's a really, really popular disposable fountain pen, and it's actually not all that disposable. People have made these into eyedroppers and done different things with them. I've seen it.

Myke Hurley: But I thought this would just be a waste. I'm not going to use it. Like it would just be a waste, really.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. I mean, it's a fun pen to try, but it's not ever going to replace any of my main fountain pens or anything like that. Or I'm not going to use it instead of a high-tech C or something. But it's a fun pen to try if you've never tried a fountain pen. I think that was the first fountain pen that I bought from JetPens. I don't think I'd tried really any fountain pens before that point. So I wanted to just try something out and look where I'm at now. So it's a gateway drug. Be careful.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, totally.

Brad Dowdy: The last one is the UniLive Pigment Sign Pen.

Brad Dowdy: I use a lot of marker-style pens, a lot of drawing-type pens. And this is a really, really inexpensive pen that leaves a really dark line. It's pigmented ink. It's got a porous tip.

Brad Dowdy: You know, it's one of those pens. It's a good spot on number 10 because it's nothing special. But it's one if you used it, I think you would really enjoy it. I use a lot of secure Pigma Microns, which didn't make the list because they actually are available at a lot of retailers.

Brad Dowdy: This is kind of a replacement for that that I've never seen at a store. And it's just something I like a lot. So, you know, it's a good marker-style pen, which I don't think on this list I really had anything like that. Because actually, that's one thing the retailers do a decent job at is the marker felt-tip style pens. You can get some pretty good ones in the store there, you know, like the Micron or the Sharpie pen and things like that. So, yeah, that's my top 10 list of pens under $10 that you cannot buy at the store. So I appreciate Brian sending that question. It was fun trying to put this list together. And like I said, it was harder than I thought. I really had to do some thinking about it. And it actually got me thinking about some pens that I haven't used in a while, like the Kuretake brush pen, which that's an awesome pen. I love that pen. I'm going to go get it out after this show so I'm bringing it to work tonight and use it because that's a fun pen to use.

Myke Hurley: Give us what we've all been waiting for.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. So I've got a rant. And I don't want to be unfair because that's not my intention because I understand where these folks are coming from. But this is in response to a tweet.

Brad Dowdy: Let me give a little background. I made a tweet. I don't even remember what day it was on. I don't know. Is this weekend maybe? I'll have to look at it. I'll link the conversation in the show notes. But I made a post about – these are all my fountain pens I had currently inked up. It's a lot of pilot products with a lot of pilot inks like Iro Shizuku and Blue Black. I don't even – I can't even remember which all I used. Anyway, all I said was – my tweet said currently inked. And it showed a picture of all the little ink samples that I just wrote. Pilot Pen USA responded. They said, now that's some ink we'd love to see. Which pilot pen is assisting you today? Okay.

Brad Dowdy: So let me back up a little bit. I've talked with the – I don't know who runs the Pilot Pen USA account.

Myke Hurley: It's me. No, it's not me.

Brad Dowdy: They are very nice. They talk to me. They DM me all the time. They've sent me the acroballs in the past. They're very, very good. This is not a knock on them because I just don't – my rant is basically I just don't think they know everything. And it's not to be expected. So it's – I don't want to be unfair to them. I think the people behind that account are totally fine. But what happened was I said – they said, which Pilot Pen is assisting you today? I said, I love the Custom Heritage fountain pen. That's my P.O. Niv pen. I said, bring it to the U.S. And then I had someone chime in. It's like, I second that. And so Pilot Pen's response, and this is what got me on the rant. It says, thank you for your suggestion. In the meantime, they're available on Amazon here. And that really upset me. And maybe I'm reading more into this than I should. But number one, this is a product – so they linked me to the Pilot Custom Heritage 92. So I wasn't specific in the number that I asked them for. So they said they're available. They linked me to the Pilot Custom Heritage 92 on Amazon. That rubbed me the wrong way for two reasons. Number one, if they're linking me to a pen that their company carries and sells in the United States, they should be able to link it on the Pilot Pen USA website. That's number one. Number two, they have several vendors, several vendors that I support and you support and that are my friends like Jet Pens and Goulet Pens and Anderson Pens and Richards Pens that carry the Pilot 92 that they linked on Amazon and they didn't link to these fine retailers carry this product. So I got a little – I didn't respond, obviously. That just – it rubbed me the wrong way, I guess. You know, my response was – you know, I was very passive in my response. I said that's just the 92, the 91, the 912, and the Roshizuku color demonstrators are needed. And the Goulet Pens chimed in. And that's when it really got me thinking about this whole topic. Like it says – Goulet Pens correctly responded, said it's already here, though just in clear right now we would love to see more colors. That means Goulet Pens like, hey, we're a customer of yours. We carry this pen and it's getting linked through Amazon. Maybe I'm wrong. You tell me if I'm wrong. But it just – it rubbed me the wrong way that number one, they couldn't even link a product, a fountain pen product that is very awesome on their own website to show me more about a product they carry in the U.S. And then number two, they link to it on Amazon when there's all these vendors out there like the Goulet's and like JetPens that carry this product. So I didn't say anything to them because I'm not an extremist. I don't want – I'm not going to – I'm not trying not to be that guy. But it – just those two things about it really kind of rubbed me the wrong way. And it's not the people behind the Twitter account. It's not – it's by no means their fault. It's not an indictment on them. They just maybe not – don't know. But it just kind of solidifies my thoughts about the state we're in with pen products in Japan versus pen products in the USA and what the beliefs of these companies are in supporting bringing over products that are great from Japan and then supporting the vendors here in the U.S. that purchase their products from them. So that's my rant. I don't want to – it's not an indictment on the people behind the Twitter account themselves. It's just more the overall topic of importing pens and handling the products that you carry and knowing your product lines and things like that.

Myke Hurley: So the seller that they linked to is some mom and pop shop called Premium Japan. And they're a husband and wife team that sell Japanese products on Amazon. So they will buy things for you and ship them to you.

Myke Hurley: This is not the people they should be linking because they are not – they sell everything. I'm on their page now. They sell a bunch of pen and paper stuff. They sell knives, like cutting knives for food. They sell small action figures, cameras. What they should have – and as well, more than anything, they shouldn't be linking to a specific vendor.

Myke Hurley: Pilots should not be doing that unless they have one vendor that they sell through. They should be linking back to a Parker page that says you can buy it here, here, here.

Brad Dowdy: Right.

Myke Hurley: That's what they should be doing.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I thought the link should have gone – that's the first thing I looked at. It's like, why are they telling me this pen's available in the U.S. And then don't send me a link to the Pilot Pen USA website that shows this pen.

Myke Hurley: That's what it should be.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So that's when it got me thinking. And then the Goulet's responded. And I was like, well, yeah. If they didn't link them to on their website, they should at least be linking to say, here's some vendors that carry it. You know, Goulet, JetPens, RichardPens, things like that. It just struck me as very odd the way they did that. So anyway. And like I said, this is – gosh, this is not an indictment on the people that run that account. I mean they just may not know. So – and like I said, I've talked to them online and offline and they're super nice. But it really struck me as odd and it kind of fits in with a lot of the thoughts I've had about – Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Well, this is a problem that me and you keep coming back to, which is the issue of the Japanese companies that set up United States subsidiaries who then don't carry the same products or even acknowledge in some instances that they exist. Right. This is a problem that is across the industry and it's not the fault of the person who's operating the social media account because they don't have – clearly don't have an official line from Pilot about this because Pilot doesn't even talk about it on their page. So what can they do? Right. They have to make a choice. Whoever they choose, you know. If they chose Goulet, then there's going to be other places, you know, JetPens and places like that. They're also going to be out of luck.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right. So on Pilot's page, to their credit, they do link to the Nakaya brand and then they link to a bunch of the pens that fall under the Nakaya brand, which is a higher-end fountain pen line. And it's got a lot of the pens that I'd love to see more of in vendors across the U.S. And a few of them carry, like Richard's pens goes a little bit deeper in this product line. But like the pens specifically that I was discussing and that we discussed, it's not listed on that page either.

Brad Dowdy: But they do list a lot of other similar pens on that page. So there is some fountain pens, some rare or some higher-end special Japanese pens on that page, but not the particular one that we're talking about.

Myke Hurley: Where is that on the Pilot, Peg?

Namiki Pens

Brad Dowdy: You should look for a link called Nakaya. Nakaya. I'm sorry, Nakaya. Namiki. I have a Namiki. I have a Nakaya fascination because I was just reading an email about another person saying I needed to have some more higher-end pens on my top five list. And the Nakaya pen is the one that is on the top of my list. But it's Namiki. Yes, I'm sorry.

Myke Hurley: See, that was the funny thing. Like, I knew you were saying that wrong. But I still don't feel like I can correct you. I feel like I must be wrong.

Brad Dowdy: No, no. Well, you already said Parker instead of Pilot once on this episode, so I'll let you off the hook there. I know.

Myke Hurley: I always do that. And I could feel myself double-checking and triple-checking.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, sorry. Namiki, not Nakaya.

Myke Hurley: And I mean Pilot, not Parker.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So, yeah, I'm pro at mixing up the brand names all the time. This is like three out of the last four episodes probably I've done that. Sorry. But yes, Namiki. There's a cool Namiki page. And it's got a list of collections. And it's got a lot of the things like the Vanishing Point on there, the Pilot Custom 74, which a lot of vendors carry, like the Goulet, which is a cool pen. And I'll probably get one of those one day. And they have the Preras on here. But not the Custom Heritage 92s and the 91s and 912s, anything that we discussed. So whatever. They do have a link to some. But it was just a telling conversation, if you will.

Rant Conclusion

Brad Dowdy: Cool. That's all. That's my rant. It was good. I got to have at least one rant a month, I guess. So that was my rant.

Myke Hurley: Awesome. I love the rants.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I mean, you know, I don't want to. I don't know. Right. We're at an hour. So we should probably wrap up.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Well, I just want to say, you know, I have opinions. My opinions are my own. And I'm not going to shy away. I'm not going to ignore what I think is, you know, some of a fair discussion point. I think things like this are fair discussion points. And I have an opinion on them. And I'm going to state it on the blog. And I'm going to state it on the podcast. I'm not just going to, you know, I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to paint everything in, you know, rainbows and sunshine. You know, sometimes, you know, I get frustrated with when I see things like that. So I just I try to tell you how I feel. And, you know, maybe I'm wrong, but that's that's still how I feel. And I feel like I got to get it out sometimes. So anyway, I'll let you wrap this up. I know you're trying to, you know, if we were in the same room, if we were in the TV studio, you'd be pointing at me and swinging your hands and trying to get me to trying to get me to stop yapping. So I'll stop now.

Myke Hurley: I'm doing that winded up motion.

Brad Dowdy: Yep.

Myke Hurley: You know?

Brad Dowdy: Yep.

Myke Hurley: So you don't know this, but I'll apologize to listeners. There's been some slight Skype difficulties during this episode. It's not been crazy, but just you.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, just know that it's Myke's fault.

Myke Hurley: It's always my fault. Everything is always my fault. It's not been crazy, but, you know, sorry, guys. But thank you for listening, though. We always love we love that you're here and we'd love it when you get in touch with us. So social networks are always good. I am iMike, I-M-Y-K-E on Twitter and app.net. Brad is dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M on Twitter and dowdy, D-O-W-D-Y on app.net. So get in touch with us there. Or you can email Brad. Brad loves to get your email. He is thepenaddict at gmail.com. It's best, right? Yes. Excellent stuff. And we'll be back next week for episode number 53. Until next time, enjoy your pens, one and all. Goodbye.

Brad Dowdy: Bye-bye.

Brad Dowdy: Bye-bye.