The Pen Addict 522/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	522
Title:	Your Pen Type
Release Date:	July 20th, 2022
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 522
Audio File:	Audio Episode 522
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 522
Length:	6161 min <br />1.017 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 522. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Ooni Pizza Ovens. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad.

Brad:What's up, Myke Hurley? How are you?

Myke: I'm good. You sound in a very bouncy, good mood.

Brad: You know, this podcast puts me in that mood. I'd be lying if I'd say I'm this bouncing in good mood all day up until we hit record. You know, I'm not going to pretend like I bounce around the house like this all day. But yeah, it's always nice to be here. And it puts me in a good mood. I've said that a million times before and it continues on for the 522nd time.

Mood Setting

Myke: I want to see if you can put me in a good mood today. Or if our listeners can put me in a good mood. Because I have a request. Something I need. And I want to see if you can help me with it. Okay. I have on my main working desk, I have like a small collection of like little pen things that I want to put somewhere. So this is a Cortex Mark 1. I have like a letter opener. I have a rotary mechanical pencil and an Apple pencil. And these are like always kind of on my desk doing this little kind of just like resting in this little wooden thing that I don't really like. It's like this little tray. What I want is a pen cup or something to put them in. Okay. Now, this is not like what I put my fountain pens into. Which is like these wooden blocks where everything's kept separate. No, I just want like these pens and these tools can all just bash into each other. Like it's not a concern for me. And I might put some other little bits and bobs in there too. You know, like maybe I'll see if I'll throw the tactile turn GT in there. Just have something like it's just on my desk where these things can go. And just like searching around, I couldn't really find anything that I found interesting or nice. I looked on Amazon and that didn't work. I was thinking of using like Kate's suggesting an old cup, but I don't have any at the studio. So like that could work and I could just bring a cup from home. But I thought maybe there would be something nicer.

Brad: I will say before we dig into like the stationary related stuff, I am very much pro like pick out your favorite coffee cup that you don't want to drink coffee out of. And, you know, that's fun and is either like cool looking or has a good message or, you know, is a neat material or a neat finish, something like that. Like I am very pro just, hey, let's grab a coffee mug to add to my desk accessory appearance. So I will say that. But I saw your question and I would love the listeners to help me pick out one item. And then I have a list of a bunch of other items that I'm familiar with and I use. But the one item that I would like to try, even for myself, is I would like a nice handmade wooden cup type of situation for my storage. Now there's some, there's, I actually linked to one, which we'll talk about in a second. But like you can find like a lot of stuff on Etsy, right? Like there's just woodworkers, you know, everywhere that you can find like cups and bowls and things, you know, like that. Something that might meet your style and aesthetic, you know. Some are just round and simple. Some are geometric. Some are laser etched. You can find like a million different types of wooden cups. But I would be curious if our listeners have anyone in the stationary community that they use for this type of thing. Like in the past, you know, what you're not looking for right now is like things that we would use Myke Dudek for, right? Dudek Modern Goods. But those are very separate. Like everything, although like the walnut had holes in it, right? So everything was separated. Not necessarily like bulk, just everything, you know, together storage. So I would love to, you know, find something like that for myself. Like I've looked for, have you ever seen those skate deck, you know, like wooden type things where it's all layered of the skate deck boards and it's got a lot of different colors and very cool things. And, you know, I've tried, I actually tried to find something like that from a pen cup perspective this morning and I couldn't. But, you know, I found plenty of wood types of cups and bowls. So if you're just looking for general stuff, you know, hop on Etsy, look in there. But I would like to get some feedback from any listeners if they have any like, you know, any of our stationary friends or, you know, people in the community that we could recommend for that. So separate from that, I have a couple of suggestions for you.

Brad: E&M makes some really nice desk accessories and I use them. I don't have one on my desk right now, but I use them in my closet when I have, where I have just more storage, like things organized and put away. They make some very simple like pen pots and cup holders. And then separately from that, storage blocks. But if you're just looking for like a basic wooden pen pot that's very accessible to anyone, anyone that carry any stationary retailer that carries E&M products, like I put the link in here to Cult Pens, Myke, because that's regional to you. And these cups are like, you know, just nice wooden cups. They're very inexpensive. They're like 10 US dollars. And they're well made. I've had good experience with E&M. So that's kind of like your basic. Hey, let me just get a round, you know, desk cup for something like that. One thing I have on my desk right now is the Rhodia pencil holder. And this is my kind of mass storage cup. Like if I pick it up right now, let me grab it. I got to reach around the microphone. So in this container, you can hear everything's touching. I have a letter opener. I have one, two, three, four wooden pencils. I have my Kakamori dip nib. I have a folded dip nib. I have a spoke pen with a drill log nib in it. I have the Loner Bic pen. I have the Bic crystal. I have Copic multiliner. So I have like literally kind of everything.

Myke: Did you say a spoke pen with a drill log?

Brad: I didn't sneak that. I didn't sneak that by you.

Myke: You did not sneak that by me.

Brad: So this cup kind of keeps the ink testing. Like if I want to test a bottle of ink and I need to grab one of the things to test it with, it has my three ink testing items. Kakamori dip nib, folded nib, and then a spoke, a custom insert for a spoke pen that a friend, an unnamed friend of the show made for me to insert into the spoke pen. And it has my drill log, my 0.5 drill log tip in there. You know, then I have a letter opener. Like literally like the type of things that you are talking about. I have a Sharpie marker in here, right? This is the cup that I don't need the things all the time, every day. But when I want the things, I need to know where they're at and you need to go grab it. So when I need a Sharpie, hey, I know it's right here in this cup or I need a ballpoint for a certain thing.

Brad: You know, I use that. So it's just all right here. So, and that's another little inexpensive item. They're colorful, you know, in rhodia colors. It's, I bought an orange, an orange or an orange one. And the links I saw this morning were basically the black and orange, you know, rhodia stuff. I don't like the rhodia ones. Yeah. Yeah. They've made some colorful ones, some more colorful ones, but I don't see them right now. They were making like purples and blues and things like that, but I didn't find them. You know, maybe if you searched a little bit more, but that's your traditional classic. Like this is what you'd think is like a classic pencil holder, right, for your desk. So those are the things I look at for bulk storage. Um, I do like, uh, our friend, friend of the show, Evan at Penquisition. He makes more block storage, but he does a lot of custom type stuff. It might almost be worth, um, you know, seeing, uh, if we could get something like in these layered blocks, some of them are 3d printed. Some of them are wooden. Um, could we make like a larger rounder type of pen holder situation? That is specifically what you want. Like what would be your ideal, what are you picturing in your head is would be the ideal thing.

Brad: Material shape size would. Okay.

Myke: So that's, that's not going to help with the 3d printing, but we're not 3d printed anyway. Um, no offense to 3d printing. No, no, no, no. I think just something circular. I'm looking on Etsy now, Brad. I don't know why I hadn't considered that. Yeah. Um, but obviously there's a million things, but then I come back to the same issue of like why I didn't buy one on Amazon as well, which is like, I don't really know the provenance of these products because my issue with some of summit stuff on Etsy is it's like, we bought this stuff from Alibaba and now we're going to charge you four times the price. Right.

Brad: That's why I was asking for the listeners to, Hey, give me someone you vouch for.

Myke: Yeah. Cause it can be hard to like work out. Did anybody make this? You know what I mean? Right.

Listener Recommendations

Brad: Exactly. So that's why, that's why I mentioned that. And then second, like mentioned, Hey, someone recommend us something, you know, uh, related to that. So wood, small round. I mean, the E and M looks right up your alley. Like it actually kind of looks right up my alley too. I was like, huh, I probably need one of those. It's, it's really nice.

Myke: Yeah. I think, I think this, I think I might get one of these cause it's only nine pounds.

Brad: Yeah. And I think if you look on their page, I think they actually do some different sizes, uh, height sizes, uh, not necessarily like diameter sizes. So I think there's like some talls and some shorts if I'm not mistaken, but I don't have that page pulled up. Yeah.

Myke: I'm going to think I'm going to poke through. They've got like a page on Colt pens.

Brad: Yeah. Um, have you considered Lego?

Myke: I mean, I, you, I built a Lego pen cup years ago. Do you remember that?

Brad: Yeah, I do. And once I thought of that, I was like, I think Myke's done this before. Um, did you see the one I put in the show notes? Yeah. It's kind of, it's kind of amazing.

Myke: Is it though? I'm not sure if it is. It's maybe amazing for the person that wants it. This is, it couldn't be further from what I'm looking for.

Brad: So it's from the, the dot series. Is this a cat or a dog going to space? It's, it's, it's definitely a kid's thing. Yeah. It's a cat. It's a dog cat going to space and it's pretty rad and it's going to hold like three pens. Like it's not very functional for what you need.

Myke: To get to the pens, you have to reach all the way back around the spaceship that you built on the front.

Brad: Yeah. It's a reach around situation. So yeah, we're not going to do that. But how cool. It's cool. It's great. Um, I was actually surprised.

Myke: It is great for the person that wants it. That's not what I'm looking for. It's not for you. It's not for you.

Brad: I was actually looking for, since they've done more collaborations with like, um, Moleskine and doing some other more like serious stationary type stuff. I was looking to see if they had like a bigger storage situation, but I guess they just figure everyone could just build their own at this point. That would talk about something simple to make would be a Lego block and brick, uh, pen cup. So I think the E and M stuff is the way to go. Like I said, I use their blocks, the, the larger blocks, not the cup styles, but they have some, they have these neat, larger brought blocks with like random, um, sized holes throughout them. So there's like some big wide holes and there's some small narrow holes. It's just kind of this real kind of funky, uh, looking holder and they're good quality. They're well, well made and reasonably priced. So like, I, I think that's where you go unless we get some, Hey, what's the Toyota craft of pin wooden pin cups. Right. I believe me, I went to look at their site to see if I could find anything. Uh, do they make anything cup style that's, you know, for storage and they don't, but, uh, you know, who knows something like that would be like right up the, the alley of what I'm looking for and maybe some listeners out there, uh, know.

Myke: Yeah. I'm going to get this E and M one. And if, but if you listeners have a better option for me, just let me know.

Brad: It's a good, it's a good start, especially for the price and the quality. Like I can recommend the quality and, uh, the prices.

Myke: I mean, it's easy, you know, that's why, because it's, it's nine pounds. It's 11 pounds 65, including tax and shipping that like, I would, be able to find a use for this no matter what.

Lego Pen Cup Discussion

Brad: Right. Right. And, uh, and there's a couple of different colors, right? It's got, you know, some, some different colors depending on, you know, what you're feeling for your desk.

Myke: Okay. Sent in the discord, a banana Lego pen.

Brad: I saw that one and I opted for the spaceship when thinking I could tempt you with that. I prefer the banana. The pineapple. Oh, I, so I found the, uh, uh, okay. All right.

Myke: But still not what I'm looking for. It's pretty great. It seems like a lot of work.

Brad: Yeah. It's pretty great. Maybe we build that for me next year.

Myke: Might not be a bad idea.

Brad: Yeah. We'll keep that in mind.

Myke: No, the problem with these is that I don't even know if they have instructions. You went to like customize it. It's this dots range that they have, right? Oof. Where like you, you kind of make your own thing, I think is part of it, which is why there's so many extra pieces. This is this, that they're using this as like a platform for art kind of creation stuff. Gotcha. Gotcha. So like you're supposed to do your own thing, which I've never liked that with Lego. Like I was never one of the kids that like took, you know, you'd see on the Lego box, you would see like, oh, you could also build this with this kit, right? And they would show like another thing that you could do if you were smart enough. I would never attempt to try and do those things. I just want to build the set, the image on the front of the box. I don't want to take this car and try and turn it into a robot instead. I was never interested in that.

Brad: Yeah. I'm with you on that. Same thing. I was never a creative Lego builder. I'm with the model instructions.

Myke: Yeah. I mean, like, you know, like old kids, like I would build my own things completely, right? Like my own complete things. But I never wanted to try and build something else from the model. Like if I bought a model kit, I just wanted to build the model kit and that's it.

Brad: Yep. Yep.

Brad: You asked me, do I keep a set of tools always at hand? And that's kind of what I went through in that, that Rodia cup.

Brad: So I have that also have, you know, pin cubes and storage, right? I use some Dudek modern goods and some Karas customs. Like they did that machine cube. It's just like this huge block of aluminum. I have one of those on my desk and I have a Dudek, you know, where I keep some other pins, just, you know, in individual slots in those holders as opposed to the bulk holder. But there's no real, I don't have any real rules between these accessories on my desk. Sometimes I pull something out of the block and it ends up back in the pen cup.

Myke: Yeah. Like for me, I kind of think of those, like what I'm doing here with this pen cup is like just a bunch of daily use stuff. Like that I kind of imagine is kind of a little bit more ruggedy or whatever, you know? Like it's just like, it just is what it is kind of stuff. Right. But then I use those like blocks with the individual holes for like all my really nice expensive pens.

Brad: Yeah. I did want to point out one desk accessory that I really love. And I don't think we, we may have talked about it on this, on the show before, but I talk about it on stream all the time because you can see it when I, when I stream and I keep it behind me on a shelf. It's the Yoseka Hachi collections, walnut pen tray. I do like trays for a desk situation where a lot of times I'll have, you know, multiple fountain pens inked up. And if they're not in a pen case and I'm on my desk a lot, I like it's as opposed to just like setting them on my desk. I don't rewind a little bit. The pen cups and pen holders, I don't keep any fountain pens in those. Right. So my fountain pens are kept in pen cases or like in this tray. This would be like the inked pens tray. So like I have cleaned pens that aren't inked, you know, that's in the storage in the, in the pen box. And then if pens are inked or maybe I've written them dry and I haven't cleaned it yet, they live on this tray. That way I can just, you know, as opposed to using a pen case at my desk, I can just reach on the tray, grab the pen that I know is inked. So it's kind of like the active pens. Something needs to happen with these pens. Either I write with them or clean them. So that's, that's been, it's a, you know, it's a expensive, essentially just flat wooden block, but I get a lot of enjoyment out of it. I'm, I'm very pleased that I bought this. I didn't think this would be something that I would be interested in, but it's kind of cool and I use it pretty much every day.

Myke: It honestly looks like something you would have if you had a store.

Brad: Yeah. They, I wonder if they, I haven't read all the directions, but I wonder if they had a bunch of these built for their store and then, yeah, it looks like that's what they did. So this was part of their displays at the shop, at the Yoseka shop. And then now they're selling them individually as well.

Myke: That makes sense considering the way that they look.

Brad: I mean, they're, it's just like a beautiful piece, you know, for, for a desk. And like I said, I just, I keep it like kind of right behind me, but within arm's reach and my inked pens go there. If they're not in a pen case, my fountain pens. Cause like I said, I don't keep any of the fountain pens in the, in the other storage on my desk. They're all generally laying flatter in a pen case.

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Buying Decisions in Stationery

Brad: I have a big topic I would like to discuss today, Myke. Something I'm trying to figure out for myself. Something that's come up many times over the years, but I've never really spent too, too much time digging into it. I'm wondering, Myke, what's your pen type?

Brad: Yeah, that's kind of how this idea started in my head with an um, to be honest. I had a friend I was talking to earlier this week who is extremely into fountain pen, like very in-the-know fountain pen user. And just as part of our conversation, they asked me what my favorite pen was. And I just, I froze, right? I like, hmm, like I, I, I can't tell you. Like I don't, there is not an answer to that. And so in the, you know, way of trying to figure out, do I actually have an answer for that? I started thinking about what I like in a pen. Like what are my pen preferences for me specifically? Um, you know, I'm thinking about this in a lot as far as, I think about it in two ways. One, about what I currently own, right? Do I own the right pens? You know, I'm going to be selling some pens, right? So how do I decide what pens to sell? Um, and then buying new pens. Like why would I decide to purchase a new pen? You know, what is the decision-making process that goes into that? So later on, I'm not looking to sell that pen, right? I'm not someone, you know, I'm someone who tries to manage their, their budget as far as buying pens to where I want to spend my money wisely. And I don't, I'm not a catch and release person where, you know, I buy it a try. And if I, knowing that I don't like it, I can sell it immediately. That's not my, really my move, but sometimes we make mistakes too. So I'm trying to figure out, you know, where, where my biases lie in an effort to make the right purchasing decisions, right? And make a decision to sell a product that I already own easier. So I kind of came up with this checklist of what I like, what makes me like a pen, you know, what makes me consider looking into it more or making a purchase or what don't I like that makes me think about selling a pen. So I kind of did these in order of importance. I could argue that maybe there's some, a little bit of flexibility in that, but the first item on the checklist is the size of the pen.

Myke: Okay.

Brad: And everyone's going to have their own list, right? This is kind of why I'm doing this. Everyone's going to have their own list. Some people are going to start with different things further down my list, you know, might be the number one important thing, but the size of the pen always grabs me first. And in general, I like smaller pens, right? I do have plenty of large size pens or pens that people will call oversized or bigger pens. And there's reasons why we have that. But in general, I start with a smaller base pen, right? And the size includes a lot of things. It's not just the overall shape. You know, what does it look like on the table or in my hand? It's, you know, it's the length combined with the diameter combined with the weight, right? Like all of those things are the size of the pen to me. So I like something either short to medium length, narrow in diameter, and light to medium weight on the barrel. So not big and not heavy. And I was trying to think, can I pull an example that would kind of check all of these boxes? Kind of like the sweet spot pen. And I had to think about that. Like the first pen that came to mind was honestly the Platinum 3776. But I would say that's lighter than like the kind of the middle range of what I'm looking for. So the Sailor 1911 Large is kind of the sweet spot where it's not too small, not too big. It's kind of the just right spot as far as size, length, shape, weight, diameter, all of those things. I pick it up and it just fits my hand, right? So something like the Platinum 3776 is smaller, but then we can go bigger into like the Pilot Custom 823. Like that's a little bit bigger than the 1911, bigger and heavier. So I'm trying to sort out my tendencies and the way I think about the pens. What are the pens that I pick up the most to use? And that size and shape tends to be kind of like the main, one of the main driving forces behind my decisions. Next up would be the appearance and the materials of the pen, right? Like the aesthetics outside of size, right? Size does matter, right? To the appearance of a pen, right? Well, I did not mean that. This is the traditional talking about pens has a lot of innuendo into it. I think there's probably a lot in this section. So it matters in how the pen looks, right? With you have a bright, crazy acrylic, it's going to look different in a small pen to a big pen or an Arushi finish. It's going to look different in a small pen or a big pen, but it does matter. But it's really like the combination of that first topic, size, and then secondly into appearance and material, right? The combination of those two things is going to make me go, oh, let me look at that more, right? Or if I'm at a pen show, oh, let me pick up that pen and inspect it, right? So materials, though, like specific materials outside of just like appearance of materials, I don't really have a favorite, right? I'm good with plastic pens, right? Lamy Safari, all day long. You know, I don't necessarily care about is it solid color, opaque, translucent? You know, I do have a tendency to choose translucent pens, like, but I'm not like just completely dead set, you know? Oh, I'll never buy like a solid construction pen. I only use translucent pens or vice versa. Yeah. You know, I love custom acrylics. We both love custom acrylics, right? Give me the swirls. Give me the brightness. Give me the rainbows, whatever. Celluloids, ebonite, Arushi finishes, Makie finishes, metal pens, wood pens. I'm not super particular, right? They would have to just check my personal boxes of taste, you know, as far as size and appearance and materials and how all of that works together, right? That's kind of like the personal aspect of this list where it actually, it matters to me, right? Like if you look at the pens that I own, it's not a lot of standard basic things. I like to play around with materials and colors and sizes and shapes and things like that. But they all kind of generally check, you know, a few boxes as opposed to being like super broad in those decisions. So I wonder for myself, and part of this topic is me trying to figure things out for myself. Does how it look come before how does it work?

Brad: And I giggle because that's how I think I get in trouble, right? I was like, oh, this is beautiful. Look at this material, Myke. And then I've discounted maybe it's overly large for me, right? Maybe it's too big of a pen.

Myke: But you won't, you have to, I feel like with these kinds of stuff, you need to start with the look because you can't use every pen. Right. Right? Mm-hmm. So like there's no way to know how it feels to use it until you've used it.

Brad: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so what I'm trying to narrow down with this topic and maybe help other people is maybe I have a baseline of, hey, I think, you know, as we get to the end of this, it turns out I really don't like oversized pens, right? Like, and I've bought large pens by how they look or an external feature of the pen as opposed to, hey, does this work for me when I write with it?

Brad: And I overlook that second part too much sometimes and maybe don't make the best buying decision. So this is like what I'm thinking about. Like, you know, if this is not a black and white situation, we're not going to get to the end and there's a definitive answer here that Brad only likes this type of pen X. And if it doesn't fit in this category, Brad cannot own the pen. That's not what we're doing. You know, it's, there's, there's gray areas and, you know, exceptions. But in general, what stands the test of time for me? And that's what I'm trying to figure out here. Those two things, size and appearance slash material come before the nib.

Brad: It was funny. I, I, I'm going to read, I'm going to read this. It says, what am I looking to get out of this pen? A fine line, inky expression, something to modify later. For me, the nib size and the pen size have to complement each other. In general, I don't use an extra fine nib on a wide diameter or a heavy pen. The opposite is true. I also don't use wide nibs on small pens. Those things work against my handwriting. So I wrote this little section when I was talking about nib because it kind of matters and it kind of doesn't, right? So because I always know that I can do something later with the nib or I can swap it out or, you know, I can change the size. Or if I just buy what I'm used to, it's going to be fine. Things like that. But the funny thing was, Myke, it wasn't until I was reading the show notes later that I didn't even mention the nib material.

Brad: I didn't mention steel or gold. It didn't even register with me when I was writing this. And I think that says a lot about how I think about products. It did not even register. Is this pen, does this pen use a steel nib or a gold nib?

Myke: Well, that doesn't matter to you really, does it?

Brad: Yeah, and that's kind of my point. It's like, okay, that actually does not matter to me. It never has, right? Like, I like my steel nibs. I like my gold nibs. But is that going to drive a buying decision or a selling decision?

Brad: When I think about, you know, what's my pen type? The nib almost never comes into play. But a lot of people, it does. I need a gold nib pen. That's where we start. And, like, that's fine too, right? Like, I'm trying to sort this out for myself. But I thought it was funny that I actually had to circle back on these notes when I wrote this little nib section that, huh, I didn't even mention gold or titanium, whatever you want to do for nib. It almost doesn't matter to me, which is funny. The other thing, it's harder to say. It doesn't matter because it does. But price. So that's the next on the list. So we have the size, the appearance of material, the nib, and then price is next.

Brad: Price is a very, very personal thing, right? Like, some of us have the budget for, you know, that can afford, like, a Nakaya. Some of us have a budget to afford a Platinum Preppy. And, like, it's all good. So, like, none of that matters, right? So I think a lot of people who listen to me or see the things I use know that I love the lower tier pens, like the entry-level pens. I get so much enjoyment. Like, I haven't stopped using Platinum Preppy for about two weeks straight now, right? It's just, like, my thing, right? I really enjoy it. But then I'll sit that down right next to a, you know, I'm trying out, like, a $250 pen sitting right next to this. I'm looking at my desk right now. And on the other side of it is, like, a $400 or $500 limited edition vanishing point. Like, all those things work together. So I'm not going to say price doesn't matter because it does in the budget. But it's going to be more about the fit and feel of the pen before I get to the price. You know, the more expensive it is, the more I have to think about it, right? Like, hey, is this in the budget? I'm going to blow the budget. Is this too expensive? I do feel, and I don't know how you feel about this and other people feel about this. I have a lot of very expensive pens. And I, right now, like, I don't even consider buying another, like, say, like, over $500 pen. They just don't appeal to me more than, say, the over $500 pens that I currently own, right? Like, I feel like I've done a really good job sorting out the higher end of the budget and have spent that money well because that's a much more stricter budget decision. So maybe there's more clarity when I make those purchases. I don't know. That's certainly probably the case. But you can get in just amount as much trouble as buying 10 $50 pens and only using two of them, right? So that's not money well spent either, even if it's a less expensive pen. So you want to spend money on products that you use, whether it's a $5 pen or a $500 pen. So it does matter in the broader scope. Like, I could not put price in here, but it's just so dependent on the product, on the budget, and just so many different things. But I appreciate, you know, every level of pen. You know, like I said, the $5 pen, I can appreciate that as much as a $500 pen, which is a weird thing to say. But if anyone knows me, you know it's the truth. And I'm saying that, you know, like because that's something I believe in. I just get so much joy out of all types of stationery.

Brad: So when I'm thinking about making a buying decision, kind of in the same category as nib is filling system. We've talked a lot over the years about, you know, what's people's favorite filling system. Should I buy a fountain pen that's not a piston filler? You know, that comes up a lot. You know, what about eyedroppers? Are you okay with only cartridges and converters? And a lot of people, this is one of those, maybe again with nib, would be more towards the top of someone's list, right? Some people will only buy a piston filling fountain pen or maybe a VAC would fall in that category. And like, that's cool. I like that you have rules on how you spend your money, right? This is kind of what I'm thinking about in a broader scope to spend my money well. Filling system doesn't matter to me. Like I'm completely filling system agnostic. It just does not matter. You know, I will use a cartridge pen right next to an eyedropper pen right next to a piston filling pen. It just almost never pushes the needle one way or the other for me in deciding what to buy a pen. This last one might be the most important for me, but it can't go at the top of the list because it's kind of a combination of all the things. And it's probably the hardest to define. And that's why this is a personal list and it's uniqueness. So I have a category called uniqueness here.

Brad: I don't want too many of the same thing. And I say this from experience. As someone who has bought too many of the same thing, I don't benefit from that, right? Because I don't look at the things I buy as a collection, right? I don't need all the things. In the past, I used to buy all the things. Give me every Lamy special edition color. Give me every TWSBI limited edition color. Give me every Sailor limited edition. Well, the next thing you know, I have 10 Sailor limited editions. And again, I use two of them or three of them. So what have I done besides added to a collection of pens? And that's not something I personally want to do. So I don't mean uniqueness as in, hey, this pen has to be like the most stunning, unique pen on the market for me to consider. It means that I don't already have several of this pen. And now I'm just not going to reap the benefits of money well spent from a usage perspective, right?

Brad: So, and I will probably buy too many of a certain brand or a certain pen again. You know, it's experimentation. It's learning about what I like. Like, you know, I try to, you know, keep a broad outlook on things and then I'll refine it. And then maybe I'll have to broaden it again. But I'm trying, you're always, I'm always trying to like still continually work towards narrowing it down to making the right decision in the beginning. Right? So I'm kind of loose with the rules in the beginning and then tighten them up as it goes. And then next time they'll be a little bit less loose. Right? So like the Leonardo Memento Zero is like a really good example of this. Like that's one of my favorite pens, period. I don't need another one. Right? And I have like three and I think I've sold two or three of them. Right? I don't need six Leonardo Memento Zeros. Right? That's not how I operate. But some people do. Like some people enjoy having 12 of those. And that's cool. You know, there's a lot of reasons to have that. But this is, again, trying to sort out like what is my pen type and how can I make the best decision possible? So that's something, uniqueness, when I like open up my pen tray and look, you know, do I have some variety in there? And that's important to me, you know, in style, in color, in materials, in brand, in shape, in all those things. I like that. So that's kind of my overall group that I'm thinking about as I have a pen type. Right? The size, the appearance of material, the nib, the price, the filling system, and the uniqueness. So can I take all these categories and kind of refine that into either a purchasing decision or a selling decision? I found the biggest mistake I make repeatedly, and I mentioned it a minute ago, it's pen size. Right? That's my bugaboo. That's kind of the thing I can't get past. Right? If I love everything about a pen, right, the materials, the shape, the nib, the filling system, the uniqueness, like something new, something I haven't seen before. But from a usability perspective, it's outside my normal comfort zone, right? Like the diameter is wider or it's a little bit heavier. I talk myself into saying that I'm going to make myself use this pen, right? Just look at it, Myke. Look how cool this is. I'm totally going to use this. And I don't. Like secret, I don't. Those are the ones I end up buying, and I don't ever regret buying pens, but I do think that that really wasn't my best decision from a usability perspective, and here's why. And it always comes down to size. So I'm trying to learn to manage that on the front end, right, as I get ready to go to the San Francisco pen show in a month. And as I get ready to sell some pens to narrow down how many pens I own, like these are the kind of things I think of. And then you know what? It's going to be a lot of big pens that are going to go this round because I just don't choose them to ink up when I'm looking to experiment with the nib or test out a new ink. When I go look at the pens that I have, which pens am I going to choose to use today? And it's almost never the biggest pens that I own. So I have to try to stick to my rules a little bit better in that aspect. So, yeah, I don't know if this is helpful for anyone. I don't know if I can completely define my pen type, right? Like I wrote down in here, so what's your pen type? Can you define it in one sentence? Can you say, hi, my name is Brad and I like small pens and fun colors with fine nibs? I think that's a pretty good rule set, right? Small pens, fun colors, fine nibs. Like that's my pen type. And like that bias shows in the things that I buy and the things that I choose to review and the things that I love long term, right? Like I'm looking at this from a long term perspective. What are my most favorite pens? Well, they're smaller, they're fun, and they write fine. So it's kind of cool. Like I'm trying to, again, think about this from like a purchasing, it's like a purchasing decision tree, right? I don't have like a chart that I'm going to go down and a checklist. Like when I go to San Francisco Pen Show, I'm not going to bring out the checklist, Myke, and go, okay, what boxes does this check? Because, you know, it's, we're shopping for like creativity, right? A lot of, there's a lot of creative stuff out there. So you don't want to be too rigid in your rules. At least I don't want to be too rigid in my rules. But it's like maybe just like a mental checklist. Like maybe, maybe skip the giant size pen, Brad, because you know long term that's not going to be something that you keep. So why not do a better job in the beginning and maybe figure out which ones to sell. So that's kind of what I was thinking about, thinking about your pen types. Myke, do you have a pen type?

Myke: I mean, looking at the list that you've got, like, as I think what you're saying about, it isn't really a type so much. It's this checklist of broad buckets, right? I think that we're pretty similar. I would maybe move a couple around. So size of the pen, definitely. Appearance and material, definitely. Uniqueness, I think, could maybe sit higher for me.

Myke: Then I would go to nib. Because, like, this is kind of what I was alluding to earlier, right? Before I pick up the pen to try and see what it looks like, it's got to grab me. And so then I would see what the nib experience was like. And if that wasn't good, then I wouldn't be interested.

Myke: After that, I go to price. Because price, I feel like, is then just an equalizer, right? Like, I've tried it out. And so I have in my mind, how much do I want this? And then I can stack it up in, like, a value question when looking at the price.

Myke: Then I would be filling system last because I kind of don't really care. Like, I can use – I can and have used basically all of the popular ones. Like, I'm set up well enough to do that. Right. So it doesn't bother me.

Brad: Yeah. So it's interesting. And, you know, the end result of this little – Little path I went down here. Yeah, exploration is – I don't have an answer. I can't – Like, the question is, can you build the perfect pen? And, like, it's an impossible question to answer, right? So, you know, I'm trying to figure out, like, what's the sweet spot for the things that I like? And then what are the branches off of that, like, really kind of perfect situation that I'm willing to, like, you know, play on and decide if those are the things for me? Without getting, like, too far away to where, like, I'm making poor decisions.

Brad: So, like, I think that – I think it's important to think about that just from, like, a budget and, you know, a money well spent type of thing because we talk about this all the time. This is, you know, a very capitalist hobby that we're in, very consumerist hobby. You know, it's – a lot of people spend money, you know, to buy stationery and you just want to make sure you're spending it well. So, I think it's a fun little exploration. I'd be interested if anyone has, like – if anyone has, like, any, like, real shopping rules that they keep for themselves, right? I know we all have our favorites and our types, but have you ever really defined it in a – I hate to use the word rigid fashion, but just in a more, like, checklist fashion. Like, hey, let me make sure that I'm actually making the best decision I can here when I'm choosing to spend my money. Again, whether it's $5 or $500, am I spending it with good intention and spending it well? So, I think that's something to always think about, always consider.

Myke: I have one last question for you on this. This list that you've outlined seems to be very much focused on how you choose to buy a pen. But you also mentioned that you wanted to think about this as a way to choose which pens to sell. Yes. Do you start from the top for that or the bottom?

Brad: Hmm.

Myke: See what I mean?

Brad: The top. You still start from the top? Yeah. Because I'll almost – so, let's say I look at a tray of pens, and there's 20 pens, and I look at it, and my first thoughts looking at it is, what pen has been the longest since it's been inked up, and why? So, why haven't I chosen this pen to use recently? So, a lot of times, it's just what I'm comfortable using is a smaller, lighter pen. Again, those things also tend to benefit my writing style, right? So, all of these things work together. Like, again, I just keep pointing it out. This is a very personal thing, right? These things that I like tend to make my writing look the best and are the most comfortable pens to use and enjoy, right? So, that's kind of the end game here is I want to enjoy writing with this pen. Well, what are the things that make me enjoy writing with this pen? A lot of times, it comes down to size, and I will just choose the smaller pen next to the larger pen a lot of times. There's exceptions for sure. But, the general idea is that, yeah, I tend to choose the smaller, finer pens. So, yeah, that's what I'm thinking about as I'm getting ready to, like, sell some pens. I'll be selling some pens. People will be surprised at some of the pens that I'll be selling. But, yeah, it's okay. Like, that's the way it should be, right? I should own the things that I intend to use the most.

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Brad: I'm sitting here as you're talking. I'm going, man, what if I could build, like you were talking about building a perfect pen. What if you could build your perfect pizza? What's like your perfect toppings on your pizza, Myke? And I'm thinking about using my Uni and how crispy those toppings get. Like, I like a good pepperoni on my pizza, not going to lie. Easy. I mean, that's going to be the number one most popular topping, but the way the Uni cooks the pepperoni, where you get the crispy edges. I stay on the way to go, man. It curls up, too. It makes little cups. Yeah. Little curls up, and then you throw in some onions that get, you know, little brown edges. Throw in some mushrooms, and then you remove it, throw on, like, some fresh basil. Oh, my gosh. Like, this is problematic.

Myke: Brad, I want to encourage you, all right? Pineapple and pepperoni.

Brad: I'm not opposed. Like, I'm not going to- I am very much down the middle on that. Try it. Like, I am- So good. I have tried it before. Like, it's perfectly fine.

Myke: Or pineapple. No, sorry. Pepperoni with some honey that's got some spiciness to it, like some chili oil and some honey.

Brad: That's interesting. I could see that. I could see that. Okay. Super good. I would be behind that. So, yeah. I am not anti-pineapple pizza. I'm just not going to go bang the drum for it, either.

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Brad: Staying on the pizza thing, real quick, before we get into STPA, I did enjoy the pineapple pizza scene in this season of Stranger Things. If anyone has watched that, there's a good pineapple pizza scene in there for all of you pineapple pizza lovers.

Myke: Never seen Stranger Things. It's good. It's good.

Brad: It's good.

Myke: It's got some creepiness to it, right? It's got some scariness to it.

Brad: This was far and away. I don't do scary. I dislike horror. However, I had a hard time watching this season. The previous seasons, I could get through. This was another. I have lots of comments on this season. Not my favorite season. So we'll leave it at that. But still, that's like my least favorite pizza, right? It's still pizza.

Hashtag Ask TPA Questions

Myke: All right. Let's finish out today's episode with some hashtag ask TPA questions. First comes from Jamie. It says, I applaud Lamy for their widely available left-handed nibs. But then I look down at my Southpaw writing style and see the upside down logo mocking me as I write. I'm looking at you too, Blackwing. Do you know of any pen company that has gone all in with a true left-handed pen? I love this question.

Brad: Such a good question. I was sitting here going, yeah, that's a great question.

Myke: To put a bit of context in this, just because like, you know, me and Jamie write similarly, where we are not on the left-handed, but we are, I think, what is known as like an overhooker. So like we kind of, our nibs are the other way around. Yeah, you bend it around. Right-handed. Right. So when I'm writing, I'm looking at the nib and the Lamy is upside down, right? To my eyes. So like, I think that this is a cool idea. And I don't, honestly, like if you're going to make a left-handed nib anyway, just do that. Why not? It's like upside down land.

Brad: Yeah, you're already doing the extra work for the nib, right? To put the oblique or whatever. Oh, and also, you know. Whatever grind you're going to put on there.

Myke: I know this much. We can reference what we were just talking about. It's the upside down, right? Yes, yes.

Brad: Also the upside down. You did know about that. That's good. That's good.

Myke: I don't know what that means exactly, but I think it's some kind of alternate reality. It is a stranger thing.

Brad: It is. It is. It's a good way to put it. Yeah, like no one, no, I don't know anyone that's going all in, but I think the, what you're discussing is exactly right. If you're going to go partway for a single skew in your product line, go all the way and make the aesthetics left-handed friendly as well, right? So we talk about, you know, I've talked in the past when I broke my wrist, I had one pencil that was left-handed, right? Where the stamping on the barrel was correctly oriented for a left-handed writer. And this is out of like a hundred, say a hundred pencils. I found one that was oriented for left-handed usage to look cool, right? To look appropriate. And like, I do think it should be more of a thing, especially like in the stationary world, there's left-handedness is so common because people are actually searching for the good things to work the best with them for their left-handed writing and to not have a company like lean into that a little bit more. Like that would be cool to see.

Myke: This comes from Franz. One of the grapevine is the pilot's going to release the Hiroshizuku inks in the smaller pilot 30 milliliter bottles. What do you think will happen to the other, to the even smaller 15 milliliter bottles that they sell? I imagine that that price point would be far too close between the two sizes.

Brad: So I haven't seen this and I don't know exactly what's going to happen, but this is completely a shrinkflation move, right? Right. To charge more for less, you know, relatively, it'll be a lower total price, but you're getting less. So it's actually more per milliliter type of situation. It's interesting for pilot because they are one of the few companies I recall ever lowering a product line price. From when I started buying Hiroshizuku inks to now the 50 milliliter bottles, they lowered the price and it was great. It's one of the best inks and makes it one of the best values. And they haven't raised the price as, you know, all of this has been going on in the world, right? Where everything is increasing a price. The Hiroshizuku inks have stayed the same. So now I'm wondering if this is, you know, kind of their solution to the raising prices issue to change. So my hope is that they're still going to be one of the best value products out there. I really, I don't see how the 15 milliliter glass bottles is a great product line for them. Those have to be, they're already like not priced well. They have to be just really expensive to manufacture and make in the profit margin. They're really small. Not great. Yeah. Like they're comfortable. It's a, it's one of, it's a great concept, right? Like let's make all these inks for you to try. And I love having less ink. Like I love not having to buy, you know, 50 or 60 milliliters sometimes, but I'm not sure that the 15 milliliter bottle needs to continue as I'm literally staring at one of my desk right now because they're so cool. Like I am totally pro these 15 milliliter bottles, but I could see how those are just not cost effective whatsoever. So will they combine everything into a 30 milliliter bottle? Who knows? We haven't seen the cartridges yet. They're apparently delayed release. We were hoping that we're going to get Orochizuku ink cartridges by now. It might be next year at this point. So I imagine it's just a cost type of situation. If they're going to rearrange the Orochizuku ink lineup, we'll see. But I imagine it's going to be just like a shrinkflation move. But I'd be okay if the 15 milliliter bottles went away.

Myke: And from Willem today who asks, whatever happened to the stark fountain pen stolen from the Montegrappa warehouse in the great Game of Thrones heist of 2017? Please update us and then maybe Netflix can make a documentary like the one about the Isabella Gardiner Museum unsolved robbery.

Brad: How great was that story? I'd forgotten about that. That's my favorite. It's one of my favorites. It was a great all-time pen story. Again, another show Myke has not watched, which is totally... Look, Myke actually ended up playing the long game in that one and won. Game of Thrones? Yeah. But there were several houses that Montegrappa made pens for. Lannister, Stark. I'm completely blanking now because I haven't watched it in years. But say like five houses for the families in Game of Thrones. And when they went to launch the products, do like the worldwide launch, the pens got shipped to the warehouse to be distributed out around to all the Montegrappa distributors and dealers. And the Stark models, it was probably one of the two best looking pens. The group of Stark pens got essentially hijacked. They got stolen from a truck. And so all the Starks were gone and they only had like four, the four of the five houses. They ended up having to remake them, I believe. But whatever happened to the stolen ones, I don't know. I'll have to follow up on that and see if I can find anything out. But that was a good times in the pen world because we're all just like, what? And it's like, how is someone going to move these pens? Because they're very specific, right? It's not like, you know, you've lifted toilet paper and it's just generic, right? This is a very specific item that was now lifted. Or even like an iPhone. Like, I mean, I know those are tracked like serially and stuff like that, but that's a way more generic market. What is the secondary market for a Stark fountain pen?

Brad: So it's pretty funny. So I'll have to do some follow up, see if there was any.

Myke: I would love to know if you could get more to that story.

Brad: I'm going to write myself a note and I will email when I'm done here.

Myke: That would be hilarious. If you'd like to send in a question of your own, just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA. You can use question mark AskTPA in the RelayFM members Discord, which is probably the best place to listen to the show live. We broadcast the show live every week at, what is this? We start at 10?

Brad: 10 US Eastern.

Myke: It's 10 Eastern we start at. 10 Eastern. We record live every Wednesday at 10 a.m. Eastern. You can go to Relay.fm slash live and you can listen there, but you can also listen in our Discord and we have a live chat in the Discord as well. If you want to hang out with us while we record, you can. If you want to find some more information, some of the links for this week's episode, you can go to Relay.fm slash PenAddict slash 522.

Myke: You can find Brad online. He's over at PenAddict.com, Spokedesign.com. You can go to Twitter where he's at Dowdyism. He's PenAddict on Instagram.

Myke: What was the... Wait. Jenny's something. Jenny's.

Brad: Photo Jenny. Photo Jenny. That's it.

Myke: Photo Jenny on eBay.

Brad: Hey, the auction's done. Auction's done. I'll be shipping out thousands of dollars worth of Black Wings today.

Myke: Yeah, buddy. Cha-ching.

Brad: That's crazy. That's awesome. That's crazy. So yeah, I'm working on that today. So I don't know if any listeners were involved in that, but yeah, we were shipping Black Wings today. Surely some.

Myke: I doubt it. I am at iMike, I-M-Y-K-E, and I make some products you can find at CortexMerch.com. A5-ish.

Brad: A5-ish. It's too late for me to yell at you. Too late in the game for me to yell.

Myke: A5-ish. A5-ish. You can go and check it out for yourself. Thanks to Squarespace and Uni Pizza Ovens for the support of this episode, and we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad: Goodbye, Brad.