The Pen Addict 533/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	533
Title:	Emotional Support Stationery
Release Date:	October 5th, 2022
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 533
Audio File:	Audio Episode 533
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 533
Length:	5757 min <br />0.95 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 533. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and the Candelayer Pen Company. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad.

Brad: Hey Myke, we got all the pens to talk about today.

Myke: Yeah, loads of pens in the show notes today. Hey. Big show, big show. Yeah, I've been using some of my new pens, so I think it's always good to follow up on that stuff. I talk about it like the brand new thing, right, and when I get it in, but then, hey, let's check in a month down the line after some heavy usage, and that's where we're going to get a lot this show. But not before, Myke. One more St. Jude recap for this year. Is that okay? If you wanna, you go for it. I'll do it, I'll do it. So, we, since last episode, we closed out the Pen Addict Raffle for St. Jude. We closed it out, we raised $33,600. And congrats to all of RelayFM, you and Steven, and everyone who put everything on to crack the $700,000 mark race for September.

Brad: Yeah, we raised the most that we've ever raised, which was not what we were expecting, which is unbelievable.

Raffle Results

Myke: Yeah, amazing, amazing. So, for my part, the raffle is complete. I have emailed all of the winners. I have heard from most of the winners. Some of the winners did find my email from hello at penaddict.com in their spam folder. So, if you're happening to listen to this, I will chase down people for a while, but after a month or so of trying to contact people, it's just like, okay, I'm gonna need people to follow up and check their spam and do some things like that. But I think we've heard from, gosh, what do we have, like 19 or 20 raffles? I think I've only heard, haven't heard from like one or two people. So, we're in good shape, but I just want to let everyone know everything is in process to get you your awesome raffle prizes. And thanks again to all of the vendors, the retailers, the makers who provided stuff, and thanks to everyone who donated to help raise money for this. It was fantastic. It was a great, another great year.

Brad: Yeah, it really was. Thank you, everybody, again.

Myke: Yep, yep. All right. This caught me, I don't know why this catches me off guard every year, but the OKB48, which is a...

Brad: Oh, I can't believe it's happening already. I feel like you just did this.

Myke: Right? Yeah, and I'll explain why it's weird, and it kind of hit home this year why it's so weird, but I'll explain it. But for those who don't know, this is a web poll in Japan by this site, OKB48, who takes kind of the temperature of the stationary landscape for most standard pens in Japan, right? And it's followers of this site, they go and vote on their favorite pen, right? And this whole process, I've voted before, and it's kind of a long, intricate process to do. It doesn't take that long, you know, maybe 10 minutes to go through the process. And at the end, they come up with a ranking of the votes of the popular pens in Japan. You know, basically the off-the-store-shelf pens, like your basic gel, ballpoint pens, things like that. So, why it's so weird, and it seems like it comes up all the time without finishing the last one, Myke, is because they'll run the poll for three months. So, it'll go from October 1st through December 31st. And then they won't announce the winner, like, this last year. It wasn't, like, until March. And I don't even know that we covered the winner, because it came so late afterwards. I don't even remember seeing the winners this year. So, we'll go over the winners here in a minute. And then, like, a few months later, they're doing the next poll again, right, for the next year. So, the timing of this is really long and spread out. But it's cool. It's very informational. It's something I personally enjoy being a fan of all of these types of pens in here. So, last year's poll, which I voted in, these were the results, the top 10. There's actually 48 pens. We're not going to go through all that. But the top 10, there's generally some turnover in, like, the top five places. And there was, again, this year. The Jetstream standard is back at the top, which it's been around there a bunch. So, this is the standard retractable, I think, in the U.S. market. I don't know about in the U.K. market. They call it the Jetstream Sport, I believe, is the name of this one. It's the basic Jetstream, which is fantastic. I love that pen very, very much. So, number two is the Uniball 1, which I love how it looks. I don't love the refill. Like, that would not be in my top 10. But this is why this list is good, as we'll see in a minute. Now, I'll talk about it in a minute. It does let me, you know, know what other people are thinking. And maybe some pens I need to investigate. Third place is the Pentel Energel In-Free. So, this specific one is a translucent barrel with a needle tip. But I think just the Energel in-hold as a whole, which we'll talk about later in the show, does belong in third place. But this is a very specific model. Fourth place, the Jetstream Edge. So, this is a little bit of an outlier in the top 10 that all of these other pens in this list are like $2 to $3. Where the Edge is over $20 for a pen. But it's that good of a pen. And I completely agree with this ranking in the context of all these other pens. Number five, in fifth place, the Zebra Blend. Which, this is the pen two or three years ago that caught me off guard. It finished like third in the list. And at that time, I had never heard of it. So, it probably deserves its place there. I don't think it's as good as a bunch of these other top 10 pens. But in Japan, they've done something right with this pen and the marketing of this pen. And this is the ballpoint version. They've come out with a gel version since then. So, number six is the Juice Up from Pilot. That's the needlepoint retractable. It's a very good pen. Number seven is the Uniball Signo. The DX, the pen that I like so much. The pen that we made the spoke pen around. This is always like, that's a traditional top 10 pen. Pen, sometimes it's in the top five. Sometimes it falls like in this category. Like some of the newer, hotter pens end up in the top five. Like the Uniball One and the Jetstream Edge and the Zebra Blend. And that pushes down the classics like the seventh place Signo DX. Eighth place is the Zebra Saracic Clip. And ninth place is the Uniball Signo RT1, right? So, those are all like super hardcore classic pens that have been around. Some of them a decade or more. But that's great for their consistency. But the new hotness tends to crack the top five. And the stalwarts tend to fall in like six through ten. Tenth place is the Tombow Mono Lite. This is a 0.38 millimeter ballpoint that I absolutely love. I don't use it that frequently because I tend to reach for my Jetstream Edge. It kind of fits the same bill. But I reviewed these two years ago maybe. And they're absolutely, absolutely awesome pens. So, they probably don't get talked about enough. So, that's the top ten. I think it's a good top ten. Like the Zebra Blend is probably not a top ten for me. The Uniball One is definitely not a top ten for me. But I like all the rest of this. And, you know, I'd... But like you scroll down the list. It's like what would I push up, you know, ahead of them? You know, I don't know. There's not many. It does drop, you know, kind of precipitously. Once you get into the late 20s, then on down the list. Then, one of the things I do is I do kind of check out the randomness towards the end of the list. To see if there's anything I missed. There wasn't anything that's a real standout this year. A lot of stuff has been around for a long time. There was nothing like super compelling. I'm actually surprised if you scroll all the way to the bottom. The 48th place is the Oto Horizon. I would actually think that would be like in the 20s. Like that's a... If all the pens around it, it is so much better than like the 10 or 20 pens I had. Is it more expensive? It's less than $10, right? It's not like a $25 pen, right? So it's like an $8 pen, I think. So the one weird thing based on what I hear from and what the community hears from Hobonichi is how big the pilot friction is in Japan, right? Where Hobonichi was talking about how good their new paper is going to be from the friction because the friction is so popular. I think the first friction lands in the 40s in this list. Where is it? Yeah.

Myke: 45th. If this is even the traditional friction. Maybe. I wonder if they even count the friction. I don't think the friction.

Brad: I would have to check. The friction sucks as a pen and I feel like the OKB48 vote is the people that care about their pens. Here it is. I found it. I was wrong, Myke.

Myke: It's in 12th. It's in 12th. The knock is in 12th.

Brad: I still stand by what I'm about to say, which is like, I feel like the friction would do really well with like the generic crowd because it's like, yeah, you can erase this pen and people just think that's really cool. Like, do you want to put your notebook in the microwave, right? Like that kind of thing. And so, like, I don't think, you know, like maybe it's like, maybe it's the most popular pen in Japan right now, but like, I don't think it's going to score number one on this list.

Myke: Yeah. I think that's a valid, valid point. It's a, it's become like a planner and journaling heartthrob pen just with the zebra mild liner marker. There's a few of those that really kind of transcend into like the more like planning and journaling set up as maybe opposed to like the traditional writing, which that's kind of look how these results look like.

Brad: What we're looking at, what you mentioned, this is last year's list though, right?

Myke: Yeah. Yeah. This is the 2021 results. Yeah. What they call it. And again, they do the voting like that. The general election. Yeah. And they do the terminology weird. Like we're voting right now for the 2022 list, right? And it ends in December, but we won't find the winner until like the spring. It's, it's, I have, I get, it confuses me always. So it takes a long time, but it's, it's a fun reference list, especially for someone like me who is like super into this stuff. So yeah, there you go. I will. I have. I remember the blend.

Brad: We had never heard of that pen.

Myke: That's exactly right. Like that's why this, and it, it was like the year that I discovered it. It was like number two or three on the list. And I was like, what is happening? Which that's why I find this site like super valuable for me.

Brad: Incredibly valuable.

Myke: Mm-hmm.

Japanese Pen Culture

Brad: It's a window into the Japanese world that we're not going to otherwise get.

Myke: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Brad: Talking about windows into other worlds.

Brad: Should we take our first break? We should. All right. This episode is brought to you by the Canalea Pen Company. Canalea makes stunningly beautiful pens inspired by images of Hawaii. Canalea's founders, Hugh and Carol, believe that these locations can help recharge our spirit and connect us with nature. And today, we have the absolute pleasure of talking about yet another new pen, another new range in Canalea's offering, the Punakea Collection. This consists of the Punakea fountain pen in the five design profiles that Canalea offer. They have the Punakea ballpoint pen and then the Punakea mailele fountain pen, which is the, is it the classic is what they call that one? And it has the band, right? Yes. Yes. So, which is, that is kind of my one of choice at the moment. The Punakea collection was inspired by a hike that Hugh and Carol took through the Waimea Canyon in Kauai. On the morning that they were there, they saw this beautiful rainbow across the sky suspended above the canyon. And these are the colors. This is the imagery that you're going to see in the Punakea collection from the red of the rock to the gold of the sun with some blue sky and a shimmering rainbow. Now, Brad, I today saw some images of this pen because mine is currently held in customs and they won't let it go. I've been answering emails. I do not know what is going on. It seems to maybe have been pulled up on like some kind of random check because I've never experienced this before. Like I've had people from the courier calling me. I've been filling out forms. It's been like a whole thing. And the thing that annoys me about this the most is this might be the most beautiful pen that Canelina have ever made. And I won it so desperately.

Myke: You have one, right? So, yes. So I got mine yesterday. I had my own delivery issues. Oh, did you? But we won't go there. I did. I did. It took an extra day and I had to go physically pick it up from a location because they didn't do the drop correctly.

Brad: I think that the mail companies, they like did an x-ray and they were like, oh my God, this thing's so beautiful. We've got to steal them.

Myke: So I'll tell you, I love Canalea launch days because we don't know what we're getting ahead of time, right? So it's like this little box and you're going to open up. It's like, am I going to love it? Am I going to hate it? Is it going to be perfect? What is in this box? So I'll tell you, I opened the box and I opened the little gift box and took the pen out of the sleeve and I started giggling so hard that I snorted. And I caught myself. I was like, what is happening? That's how much I, that's how giddy I was about seeing this pen because it was very unexpected to me. The material was a complete surprise to me. I mean, they all are, right? This is like a different level. Yeah.

Brad: Kind of the swirls in this. It's very different. Yeah. And all that kind of stuff. Yeah.

Myke: Like, you know, talking about like the, the, the rainbow like image. It's not like the traditional like brightness you would see. Like if we were going to make a rainbow pen, you know, it would be just all like super primary colors and like the strongest colors. It's not, it's like mixed in with like the Canyon coloration where it's all kind of muted and dusty and it's awesome. Like the coolest thing that I, I didn't even notice the gold swirl in mine until I, I even uncapped it. And then I didn't notice it till I was inking it up this morning. That's, that's another comment I have. There's like this huge girl gold sparkly swirl in it, which I did notice. And it's actually all through the pen, but I was just noticing like the reds and blues and whites and some of the blue areas are translucent and it was really pretty. Um, and so like, this is one of the first times that I've ever thought, Hey, what if Canalea had an ink to match this pen? Because like, that was my first thing is like, what am I going to ink this up with? Right. Because it is such a different colorway. And I, I did end up finding the, the, the perfect ink for it. Um, I, I think at least I'm testing it out.

Brad: I think I know what I will put in this when I get it. It depends on, cause like I'm looking at the images. Like one of my favorite things about Canalea pens because of the way they make them, right? They all look different. Every single one of them is different. They're unique. Right. And it's one of my favorite things about this kind of pen anyway, that you can spend. It's, you know, it's a, it's a, it's an amount of money, but it's not an obscene amount of money considering the idea that your, every pen is one of a kind. Like, I just like that kind of idea. I've always loved that about like this style of pen. Like there's more maker pens, you know, uh, that we talk about all the time on the show, but looking at some of the images, right? The gold is quite prominent in some of them. And if I have the gold prominent in mind, then I'm going to fill it with Ibisu gold. Cause I think that will be a nice like carry through, but it all depends on like what, what kind of color mixture I get if, and when I ever received this pen that they sent me to try.

Myke: So one of the things I was thinking about with this pen is, is what I love seeing about makers in our space is when they are operating like fully in stride. And that's what I feel like this release is like, there's been this buildup of Canalea pens recently. And that's just like, everyone's better than the other or the one before. And that doesn't discount the ones that came before, but do you know how hard that is to do? And watching makers, you know, it doesn't have to be Canalea, it could be any makers, like watching all their, all the makers in our space when they're operating at just like, you know, like peak creativity. Like I love seeing that happen. And you can tell that's kind of happening with Canalea right now, the way that they execute it on this pen. I think it's fantastic.

Maker Trajectories

Brad: Yeah. They're on like a whole new trajectory right now. And they have been like, right. It's fun to see. It's fun to see. Yep. So. But Canalea Pound and Pens, they feature your number six nibs. You can buy a steel or 18 karat gold nib direct from Canalea. They offer sizes from extra fine to 1.1 millimeter stub. Hue will smooth and tune every single nib before it leaves the shop. Even when you buy online, it's like pen show service with online sales. They're going to make sure it writes fantastically every time. And they ship it to you in their beautiful black walnut keepsake box. And once again, Canalea are giving back to the Kawhi community. Which is where this pen draws its inspiration. By donating a portion of the launch proceed to local food banks and preservation charities for Waimea Canyon. Go and see these glorious new pens for yourself today at Canalea Penco.com. And say a little prayer for me that I'll get mine before next week's episode. I hope so. And say a little prayer for their support of this show.

Myke: Last thing. I don't think I fully got out the name of the ink. And I know people will ask. I got Robert Auster, Australian Opal Mauve. Which kind of hits at some of the... Mine has a lot of kind of like this plum colored reddish purple in there. And it kind of matches along that line. So it's really pretty. I think I did a good job picking the ink. It was the first ink I thought of. And the only ink I could think of that I own. That would be just like the ideal match for this. And I think it's good. So I'll take some pictures of it later. It's great.

Brad: This is one of those words. The name of this color. It's like so different. The way me and you would say it. Right? So you say... What did you say? Mauve? Mauve. I'd say mauve.

Myke: Yeah. See, I wouldn't know. If I didn't know you were talking about color and said mauve, I wouldn't know what you're talking about. Of course. I would figure it out if you were discussing color. But I don't think I've ever heard you pronounce that.

Brad: Well, it's a very particular purple mauve.

Myke: It is. It is. It's dusty. It's not like fully saturated. Right? It's a difficult color to be perfectly honest. Right? It's a difficult color to pin down. And it's kind of the ideal match for this. That's the other good thing about this pen is like, I like, you know, complimenting my pens with inks. And you have a lot of choice with this one because it's all kinds of swirly in there.

Brad: That's a good point. That's a good point.

Myke: Yep. Yep. On the very specific ink front, Myke, my Fujiyama Blue, the Bungu Box Pilot 823, I went with a very specific matchy matchy. As a matter of fact, I went with Fujiyama Blue from Bungu Box. It's a sailor ink formulation that they made. Do you remember the Bungu Box? They did the Fujiyama Blue sailor pro gear that I have. It's kind of the translucent blue, metal section, little Mount Fuji rod and finial.

Brad: Yes, I remember it now. I don't remember that it being blue, but I remember the Mount Fuji rod and finial. Oh, that's beautiful. Yes.

Myke: So this 823 is kind of in this, I don't want to say it's in the same series, but it features the same colors, right? And it's the same Fujiyama Blue idea. And I'd already had that ink with my sailor pro gear. So I figured, I know long term, that's not going to be the ink for this 823. I'm probably going to go with a traditional blue black in this pen, but I wanted to like honor this pen from the jump. And I was like, what better ink than Fujiyama Blue? So you asked me, I don't know if it was last week or two weeks ago about the process for getting this pen. And, you know, I said, hold that thought because it was about to show up. And it has, it's, it's fantastic. Like it's everything I wanted in 823, right? It's just like super, super neat looking. It's so unique in that all the different little things that Bungu Box got Pilot to do for this pen kind of shocks me that this is even possible. So I'm super lucky that I got it. I was in the queue just like everyone else. We had to sign up for a queue one night, like at 11 PM at night, Eastern time. So all around the world, people had to set their alarms. And there were a lot of us talking in the pen out of Slack, like, Hey, are you up to, to sign up for the list? And the, the list, the initial list for the option to hopefully buy like the initial lottery list closed in like, I don't know, it was less than 10 minutes. So I don't know how many hundreds there was 200 pens. So I don't know how many hundreds of people signed up and they closed the list. And then like a week later, 30 names at a time. They would send out an email saying, Hey, you have the opportunity to buy this pen. You now have five days to complete your purchase. So that's when everyone started sweating because a very small number were getting in that amount of time. And it was kind of fun to watch, you know, am I going to get the mail? Am I going to get the mail? And I was like in the, yeah, I was like in the fourth or fifth batch is like, I was like, I stopped looking at the mail for a while. And I was on Orlando at the Orlando pen show. And I hadn't checked my mail for a day and I got home and checked my email. It's like, Hey, don't run out of time to buy your pen. I was like, wait, what? So it was an interesting process to go through. It seemed, you know, as equitable as it could be for like one of the hottest pen releases of the year. I'm very fortunate to have gotten one. And people thought that I already had one before I even signed up. I'm like, no, I'm just, I'm in the queue with everyone else.

Brad: And like, didn't they give you one at the pen show?

Myke: No, no. That was just their example that I got to take pictures of.

Brad: I thought that you were given that. Shoot, no. Huh. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough.

Myke: Well, apparently you are. Apparently I'm, apparently that's what a lot of people gathered from that. I don't know how that could be, but maybe I misspoke or something, but I definitely did not.

Brad: I think the image just looked like it was a gift, right? Cause like you were kind of holding it and showing it to the camera, you know?

Myke: Mm-hmm.

Brad: I thought that they'd given that to you.

Fujiyama Blue Ink

Myke: No, cause I didn't even release the pictures until they announced it. Right. Cause they asked me not to share them cause it was like kind of a.

Brad: But then I thought, I thought it was yours. Plus you are Brad Dowdy. So.

Myke: I think people just think that I get all the stuff and like, you know, sometimes I do. I'm not going to lie.

Brad: Sometimes I do get all the stuff. A lot of the stuff. If maybe you get a lot of stuff.

Myke: It was a fair, it was a fair question, but, um, I've been using this pen for a few days. The Fujiyama blue is a great ink in it. It's a little bit light for like long-term usage. I honestly think I'm going to go really, really traditional with this ink and use like a Waterman mysterious blue, which is a fun blue black. That's got a little bit of brightness in it. Um, so it's great. I couldn't be happier. I couldn't be happier with the, with the pen and, um, you know, congrats to Bungu box for doing such a good job, um, with the pen. And it seemed like the process went, I mean, as well as it could be like there, they were never going to have enough pens for everyone. And I'm sure some people were, were sad that they couldn't get it. And I would have been okay if I didn't get one, you know, it just is what it is. I am flush with pens right now. And now I've got this can of lay. I got to decide if I'm going to buy it or not. So, you know, we have all these things, all these things going on because Myke, another pen that we talked about, the Pinniter homage to Armand pen. Do you remember this pen, the portal pen?

Brad: I remember it from refill.

Myke: Yeah. The display, uh, of this pen is just ostentatious. It's, it's ridiculous. I almost, I kind of actively hate it just because it is so not my thing to care about that type of thing. And I do not care about this thing whatsoever. It's already like stored away back in the box and thrown in the closet. I had it on my desk or behind my desk for a little while. And I was like, this just annoys me. Please go away. But I bought it for the pen, right? And this pen I love, but. What color pen do you have? It's all black, all black. Black one.

Brad: All right.

Myke: Yeah. So if you search it now, um, there is a version out now that's a three pen set that has some like, um, like a blue and like a kind of a brownish coppery color one. And I can't remember all the colors. I think mine came before that and it's just all black. Like everything is black, completely blacked out.

Brad: It's like, I don't understand this. I find this pen so ugly. Like I don't. Really? Yeah. Why does it go so many holes in it?

Myke: Oh man.

Brad: I kind of dig it. It looks like a bad version of the Batman pen.

Myke: See, I think it's a better version of the Batman pen. That's actually what I've been calling it. I don't like it. Yeah. It's just like the, um, so Mont Blanc did, oh gosh, I'm going to, I didn't think of the name beforehand, but Mont Blanc did like, like this spider kind of, um, kind of look. And then Visconti kind of did this really aggressively cut out barrel that I've looked at before in the past. I don't know why those.

Brad: Visconti did something aggressive, impossible, impossible, normal for them.

Myke: They did a normal pen that looked like this. And like, I was very tempted by this. I don't know what it is about these cut out barrel type of situations that I like so much, but this one just kind of really, really, I was really attracted to it. And I like, I like the clip. I like the filling mechanism. It's like got this built in, it's a piston, but it's like physically like implanted. They call it a mystery filler, which it's, that's the marketing on that. So that's, it's a little rough on the marketing. I'll be honest with you. It's just basically a piston. Yeah. It's a, that's a great question because as hard as I searched, it was really, really difficult to find, um, an awesome, an awesome description of it, but it's basically, it's kind of a piston, a piston converter thing that's physically built into it. It's got like a plunger, but the plunger has like extra mechanics to it to where it kind of helps fill it a little bit better, whatever. It's all great. Oh, and it's got a, uh, flexi nib. Um, I forget the name of, of their, their nib, but it's a very bouncy flex nib and it's nice. The problem that I've run into so far is it's a magnet cap. Okay. So when you cap it, it just kind of snaps onto the front end of the grip section and like it meets, you know, a piece in the cap that is magnetized and they attach right there. Well, what I found out is when I'm using this pen and I cap it, I will sit there and hold it in my hand and fidget the magnet, like snap, snap, snap, snap. I ended up shooting ink into the cap so much. Like I made a mess because the seal was so tight.

Brad: I knew you were going to say that. Yeah.

Myke: So it, it is, it's not a fidget pen. Like I have to actively not fidget with the cap because like my spoke pen, I'll just sit there and fidget with it just like crazy. Right. And I ended up like filling the cap with ink and getting it all over my hands and haven't, it was like really difficult to clean out. So I'm a little bit frustrated at it right now, but it's self-inflicted. Right. So I've got it cleaned up. I have to re-ink it.

Brad: I wouldn't necessarily, I think magnets and fountain pens is a bad idea all the time because the force of the cap going on will jostle the nib and could do exactly what's done there. Like even if you weren't fiddling with it, like that's just going to happen more likely than if it was a screw cap. I don't really understand why people do that.

Myke: I just never thought about that. I guess I've never had a real magnet cap fountain pen before, but it was a problem. So I am now more aware of it. So we're going to ink it up again here with a different ink and hopefully be a little bit more careful with the magnet cap situation. But if it keeps being an issue, I'm going to be really mad because it was expensive pens. So we'll see how it goes.

Brad: So what is the deal with the name and the stand?

Myke: So it's based on an artist, Armand. And for someone who's really into the arts and loves art, I had never heard of this artist. And I went and looked. Really beautiful, really cool artwork. And it's basically like a modern art piece to go along with this Armand's work. And what surprises me the most is that it wasn't just like a one-off pen, like the pen that I got. It's like a bunch of different pens and all these portals and all these crazy stands and things like that. You know, it's meant to, you know, feature the artist and be part of the modern art representation of the artist's work and all these things like that. And so, like, you're paying for all this extra stuff, right? Which that's like, I wouldn't, like, you probably looked at the price of this pen. There's no way. I probably paid, like, less than cost for this pen. I wouldn't pay, like, the full retail version of the pen. You know, I don't, that's just out of my wheelhouse. But, like, I was comfortable with the offer that I got for this and it was great. But the, I would have been completely fine being handed the pen and leaving, right? Just put the pen in my hand and keep all the other stuff. Like, I, because you're paying for all that too, right? You're paying for all that, that packaging. The box is, like, bigger than, like, take your biggest, it's like a boots-sized shoebox, right? It's not even like a sneaker-sized shoebox. It's gigantic and annoying. So, like, I don't even care about that stuff. But the pen, I'm digging so far and I want to get it re-inked up to see, see if I can not make a mess of it.

Brad: Man, this is quite a pen.

Myke: This is quite a pen. I would be anxious for you to try it. You would probably still dislike it. I don't, you might like the nib, though. You might like the feel. I don't know. It's a little bit bigger than some of my normal pens, so it might be more your style. I'd be interested for you to try it. But I get the aesthetic idea of it. This is not a pen for everybody, right? Not even remotely. So, I'll have to find that Visconti. It probably wouldn't take too long. Because I've actually been tempted by this Visconti that was a similar type of cutout situation. So, I don't know why. You wouldn't think that I would like that type of stuff. But for some reason, this particular one is pretty cool.

Brad: Do the cutouts make you write faster?

Aerodynamic Writing

Myke: Yeah, they do. Like, my aerodynamics are really good. We're going to have some wind tunnel time this off-season with the pen. And we're going to see if I can improve my qualifying time.

Brad: Make sure you don't spend too much money.

Myke: Okay. I already did. And I feel like this is my, the holder, the portal that I call it, is like my qualifying winner. It's like my little tire.

Brad: Oh, it's like your pole sitters trophy.

Myke: My pole position tire. Yeah. That's what it feels like. I feel like I won something with this pen. You should sign it. Right now, the only thing I've won is inky hands. So, we're going to see if we can fix that. We're going to fix that. Last one of the kind of new pens I've been testing out that I haven't been able to spend much time with is, I don't know. I love the 823. And it's probably my favorite. But this Scogsie micarta pen that I bought from my friend Zach Scogsie at the San Francisco Pen Show is really cool. Like, I'm digging everything about this pen. And what it is, I don't have a link to my exact pen. But if you go to their Instagram page, I have a black micarta, which, for all intents and purposes, makes the pen look gray. Right? Because you can't get, like, a stark color micarta. Right? It's not designed that way. So, you can imagine, you know, your traditional brown micarta. If you made that black, what the color would look like? And it would look gray. Right? So, there's a couple images where you can see different pieces of what the black micarta looks like. It feels so good, Myke. Like, I love this pen. I love how it feels.

Myke: And I got an architect nib grind on it from JC at NibTaylor. This is the coolest architect I've gotten because it is a really, really sharp edge. So, it's a big pen with kind of a big architect nib and a real edgy architect nib and just kind of the combination of all these things. And I wanted a simple ink in this, so I chose Montblanc Petrol, which is kind of a deep blue. I kind of wanted a blue ink for this. And kind of just like that whole figuring out the pen, the nib, and the ink, I am using this pen just exclusively here recently. I just love how it writes. I love how it feels. So, it's a really neat pen. You know I love micarta already. I do have to be a little bit careful with it. Right? If you get ink on it, it's going to stain it. And, like, that's fine. I just don't want to do that today. Like, give me a few months with it, and then it can look ridiculous. And I'm fine with that. Like, you're never going to dip this in an ink bottle, like, for example. Right? It will just, like, completely color the grip section. So, it is a very particular pen as far as, like, maintenance goes. Right? You got to be extra careful. But in the hand, it feels so good.

Brad: Unless you want it to go all, like, messed up over time. Yeah. And I don't care about that.

Myke: Like, but I want to work myself into that. Right? Just like my G10, my orange G10, I've used it so much, it's starting to get, like, ink running through the threads. Like, it's a fiberglass material. Right? And it's just going to happen, and it's cool. Because you know what? I used it, and it caused that. Right? Like, I'm down with that. I don't, I just don't like having an accident, like, on the first day. And going, oh, I got blue ink everywhere. I bet there's, like, overly careful.

Brad: A really great Japanese term for that idea. Yeah. Of, like, something changing over time because of its use.

Myke: Yeah. Exactly. Like, the wabi-sabi.

Brad: Mm-hmm. Like, that's what it is. But I don't think that counts so much, necessarily. Yeah. Yeah.

Myke: So, some people, like, I've seen, it's not a micarta pen, but, like, the antler pens, like, I've seen people, like, splash ink on them on purpose. Right? Because it just, it holds ink. Right? And it would turn these colors into the pen.

Brad: Kind of like a patina, right? That kind of idea. Yeah. That's what it's doing.

Myke: And that's actually what I was going to say next. Just my hand oils and using this pen will turn the pen, like, different colors. It's actually probably going to get darker with use, right? The light areas of the micarta will get darker and smoother. And it's a pen that ages with you as you use it. And I just love that about it. But I kind of love holding it and feeling it because it kind of, it warms up to the touch. It's such an interesting density compared to, like, the Armand pen that's, like, an aluminum pen. And then picking up the micarta pen right after that. They're so vastly different experiences. And that's one of the things I love about fountain pens the most. Where can I buy a bunch of new fountain pens if I was interested in them, Myke?

Brad: Let me tell you. Our friends over at Pen Chalet, they sell fountain pens. They've got the fountain pens from your favorite brands. You can go there. You can get great deals. But they also have rollerballs and mechanical pencils. They have ink. They have converters. They have all the accessories that you're going to need to satiate your stationary hobby. They have fast and reliable customer service. Every couple of weeks, they're adding new products to the site as well as closeout specials and discounts. You're always going to be able to find new things at Pen Chalet and new great deals. They sell internationally with great shipping rates. And if you're in the U.S. and you spend over $75, shipping will be free. Pen Chalet has low prices and high quality pens. And they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. As a listener of this show, you can get 10% off at any time on anything at Pen Chalet when you use the code that you will get by going to penchalet.com and clicking the podcast link at the top of the website. You enter the password, Pen Addict. You'll get your code there and be taken to a special area of discounts just for Pen Addict listeners.

Myke: Would you believe the Penider Armand is on this page? I would believe that, actually, yes.

Myke: Because it is on major sale. This is the weird one you saw with the three-pin set. That's a lot. That's a lot going on there. But the discount, though. The discount. I paid. So if you divide that by three, that's close to what I paid. It's crazy, crazy. Like, that's got to be hard to sell, like, a three-pin set for that much money. But, man, that's pretty cool. So this whole page is loaded today. Y'all should buy the Y Studio resin fountain pen. Yep. Fantastic price. If your tastes line up with mine at all, like, you will be shocked at how good that little plastic pen is with, like, it's got a brass grip section. And, you know, it's kind of got a funny-looking cap. But, my goodness, I love writing with that pen so much. And it's practically half off right now at Pen Chalet. Like, you should buy that pen. I highly recommend it. One of my all-time favorites. It's the special edition Pelican M205s. I haven't seen these colors on sale from Ron before. So it's a green one and, like, the burgundy red one. Those are also a great price. I also rave about the 205 as kind of a great, like, step-up steel nib piston-filling fountain pen. You know, Pelicans are just, you know, practically bulletproof. I love those pens. And probably literally bulletproof is the Diplomat Arrow. There is a special edition Citrus Gun Metal one. That is an absolute steal. It's one of my highest-rated, like, pens for its price point. And this is at a price point I can't even, like, chart because it's so low. Like, it wouldn't be fair for me to say, hey, this is how much these cost because they're never priced this low. So if you've ever been interested in the Diplomat Arrow, like, that is the price point you want to hit.

Brad: All right. If you want to go and check all this out for yourself right now, go to penshalet.com. And click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password penaddict to get your hands on these deals. Our thanks to Pen Chalet for their support of this show and RelayFM.

Myke: I mentioned probably a month ago, probably before San Francisco, that I'm starting to go through the top five pens page between then and the rest of the year. So I've made my second update, Myke. I'm going in order. So the first update was the top five microgel ink pens. This week was the top five pens in the store. I release all these to the penaddict members first. I write about, you know, my thoughts a little bit deeper, my thoughts in the refill newsletter that I publish. And then I update the site with the information. So the top five pens in the store, this is basically my version of the OKB48.

Brad: Yeah.

Top Five Pens List

Myke: And I'll admit that it's definitely more of a U.S.-centric list, right? It's the stuff that I see physically in stores, you know, grocery stores, office supply stores, convenience stores, things that are just hanging, you know, on the pegs, on the shelf that, you know, passersby might try to figure out, hey, I might want a little bit better pen than, you know, the junkie ballpoint that I stole from the bank or whatever, you know, things like that. So that's what this list is. And I think it's an important one because that's how a lot of us get started with determining that, hey, there's certain pens that make my handwriting better or there's certain pens that I can hold that are more comfortable or, you know, hey, this one has great purple ink and all kinds of things. And this eventually you buy you buy fake Batman pens like I do. And you've you kind of graduate from this, but you never leave. You never leave these pens behind, right? There are just classic standby pens, primary use pens for a lot of people, including myself a lot of times. So the Pentel Energel is number one. And as I said in my write up, I don't find it to be particularly close. So that's my hot take on this when you're comparing it to what most people would say prefer the Pilot G2, maybe the Sharpie S gel. Maybe one of the Uni balls, things like that. So everyone has a favorite pen they go in and buy from the store shelf. I think the Energel is better than your favorite pen. That's my stance. I'm sticking to it. It has the best refill. It is the smoothest, most consistent refill. And again, a lot of these pens on the shelf, you're starting at 0.7 millimeters, right? Like this isn't my like perfect pen for me. This is my recommendation for you, for a lot of people trying things out. It's the best gel ink. It's the best performing pen from a quality and consistency standpoint. They have the best color range and the best color performance. And the barrels are built great. They're just good, right? They have almost no questions, you know, or no sacrifices you have to make compared to like some of these others on the list. I think they're probably like the perfect off the shelf pen. Historically, I've put Jetstream here at the top a lot and we'll get to why I've moved it down the list here in a minute. But I found myself for the past year or two just always saying, if you're going to go to the store shelf or if people ask me, like, what's your favorite pen? You know, I know they're not asking me like, hey, what's my favorite, you know, fountain pen? And, you know, hey, did you get that new limited edition sailor? No, they're asking me like, hey, what's a pen that I know that is your favorite? It's always the Energel. That's the answer.

Myke: The Pilot Precise V5 has been on and off this list for years. I think it probably deserves a permanent home and that home is at number two on this list. That could change, you know, if one of these other pen makers makes like a little bit of an improvement in their offering or their product lineup. But I think the Pilot Precise is almost, yeah, it's so ubiquitous. Just like the Pilot G2, like Pilot has a stranglehold on this category. Like there's no doubt. It's the Pilot G2 and the Pilot Precise. And then anything Pilot V series related. Those are, most people will be very, very familiar with all of those. This pen has been around at least since the 80s, maybe the late 70s. And it has changed very little. And that's a testament to just how good it is, right? It is legitimately good. It's a rollerball ink, right? So it's a liquid, water-based ink, unlike the gel or ballpoint ink. So it can bleed on papers. But for some reason, this formulation, it does a lot better job than most pens with that. This is a lot of people's favorite pen, right off the store shelf. The V5 is the 0.5mm tip. The V7 is the 0.7mm tip. They come in a few different colors, if you like. But the basic black of this pen is just rock-solid workhorse. Works on so many different paper types. You'll see a lot of these around offices, just because they're just so good for what they are. Number three, the Uniball Signo 207. So this is another pen that's, it hasn't been around as long as the Precise. But it's been around more than a decade, maybe 15 years.

Myke: I actually thought it was going to go away when they launched the 307, which is the newer model. Because the number says so, Myke. That's the rule. But the 307 has a different ink formulation, and I don't like it as much. It's good. Like, it's perfectly fine. If the 207 didn't exist, I'd be thrilled with the 307. I think the 207's better. The one flaw, if you will, of the 207 and 307 is they probably have the worst clip on this list. It's a very cheap feeling for what's a very good pen. And a lot of people don't like that. So I will tend to, that's the second gel ink pen on the list, but I would always recommend the Energel first. None of these are going to have like rock star clips, right? Like you're in a price point that doesn't allow for that. But I think the 207 is probably the worst clip of the bunch. But I like the line of the 207 better than most right outside the Energel. Up number four is a new entry, the Paper Mate Ink Joy. It's really close to the Energel. Like, it's a new-ish gel ink pen. It's been around less than five years. That's pretty new for this category. There's not a lot of turnover in this category. That's another topic to get into, right? These things are pretty static. Pilot Precise has been around for 40 years. Cigna 207, you know, 15 plus years. All of these things. Jetstream has been around for forever, right? There's not a lot of turnover here. So you're hoping for some new, some company to like rethink what they're offering. And Paper Mate did that. Where traditionally, like I would dismiss Paper Mate because I've had just poor experiences in the past. Um, I got to try some of these Ink Joys years ago. And I was like, huh, I can't believe I'm saying this, but this is great. Like, it completely surprised me. They have a great range of colors. I love the feel of their barrel. They kind of have that rubberized texture on the outside of the barrel. I personally like. I think some people don't like that. But, um, they're really good. They have a retractable model. They have a capped model, depending on what you like. All the same refill. And it's really, really good. Number five is the Jetstream. The Uniball Jetstream. That was formerly number one on this list, which hadn't been updated in a couple years. And like, it's, I'm totally fine with it being number one. The reason I moved it down is just strictly a recommendation from a recommendation perspective. If I'm thinking about what's the order of operations here, if I'm talking about this to someone who doesn't know anything, what am I going to tell them to check out? Well, it's, the Jetstream needs to be not number one on that list because it's kind of particular, right? It's a ballpoint-ish ink, right? It's the hybrid ballpoint ink technology. It's really smooth. It's really awesome. If you come to me and say, hey, I'm a student. I write, you know, dozens of pages of notes a week. And I need a pen that's comfortable. Looks great. It's legible. It's not going to run out of ink quickly. My number one recommendation is going to be the Jetstream, right? It's never going to be a gel ink pen. But in the category, I think it's further down the list, right? So that's my, that's why I moved it down. Even though, like, I could, it's going to still be a number one recommendation for certain situations. I think in the general sense of things, it's probably deserves to be a little bit further down the list. So that's my top five off the store shelf. This is a pretty broad category. Like, even though I say there's not a lot of change in here, the Sharpie S pen was the only real change or the real new product in the last few years that got anyone interested in this category. It's pretty, it's pretty good. Like, I thought it was okay. You know, it's not better than the Energel or the Signo or the Ink Droid of me. But that still puts it like in a top five gel pen category. I think the Pilot G2 is probably a top five gel pen category, right? I just think, you know, there's a few that are better. That doesn't mean those pens are bad. Like, and they're certainly a valid choice. I didn't count store brands. Like, here in the U.S., most of the big office supply retailers have their own store brands. Some of them are shockingly good. So the Tool Pen, which we've talked about years ago. That's an OfficeMax special, I think. Is that OfficeMax? I think so. So it's a fantastic gel ink pen, but it's only at that store, right? Like, you're not going to the grocery store and finding that on the shelf. So I didn't count those.

Myke: The Paper Mate Flare and Sharpie Pen, like the non-permanent Sharpie. Both of those are great pens for very specific uses, right? They're felt tip or plastic tip pens. So they don't have the durability, but they're going to handle the one job well that you need them to do. Whether it's like marker, drawing, even writing. But they're not going to last as long as, you know, your gel pens and your Jetstream tips and things like that. My only wish is that I could rank Zebra somewhere in this category, right? They land at number two in the top five micro gel ink pens because that's kind of an open shopping category. I'm telling you to go online and find a 0.4 millimeter Zebra psoracic clip. I can't tell you to do that at the store. And Zebra's ballpoint and gel pens and rollerball pens just aren't better than the rest of these. And they could be. Like, I think Zebra in Japan, you know, maybe we'll see the blend more over here. We're starting to see it. They introduced a gel pen. They have, like, the little blister packs you can buy at the store now. They're just not prevalent enough to get up there. I don't know if the blend would crack my top five if it was more readily available. Even if it, you know, even if you could walk out the door and fall into a blend, I don't know that it would be. I still don't know that it would crack this top five list. It would at least be in the top ten, though. And I don't know. I wish Zebra was a little bit better in the U.S. market, you know, with their offerings. But they're just not quite there. So that's the top five pens in the store. The next two lists are going to be very challenging, and I'm going to rework them completely. The next two lists on my top five list, because I'm going to order the top five fountain pens under $50 and the top five fountain pens between $50 and $100, I'm going to change those categories. We're going to take a, we're going to do, we're going to do, like, a strict beginner category, first fountain pen category, and then we're going to do, like, the next fountain pen or the step-up fountain pen category to kind of solve the issues that I have in the 0 to 100 price point. Because there's some weird stuff. There's so many great pens that range from $5 to, say, like, $80 that answer so many different questions. That's such a huge range that I want to kind of describe my recommendations in those groups a little bit better than just having a strictly price point-based list for those. But, yeah, we'll see. That's something I'm going to tackle here in the next couple of weeks, and we will definitely spend some time talking about that. You'll probably have some commentary when I finish up with that.

Brad: I like that you're going through all of this.

Myke: It's long overdue. It really is. It's one of those, you know, it's one of those on the permanent list of things to do. And, you know, I gave myself a format and a process to get it done. So hopefully I can do the whole thing before the end of the year. So it's going to be a lot of updates. But now that most of my, like, my travel's done, I can schedule out this writing a little bit better and thinking about these different categories, you know, and spend a few hours a week thinking about them and getting them updated because some of them haven't been updated in years. So it's well past due. So we'll get that done here hopefully by the end of the year. And I'm actually looking forward to it because, you know, I want to see what's changed.

Brad: You know the idea of the Golden Gate Bridge always being painted?

Brad: Right? That, like, as soon as they finish it, they have to start at the start again? Right, right. That's what this is like. It's what the top ten's are like. As soon as you finish the last top ten, you have to start back on the first one again.

Myke: Exactly. That's why if I can, like, condense it into, like, four or five months, they're at least all relatively close. And then I could probably take, like, a year off. But then I would have to do, like, the entire thing again in about a year. So I used to do it once a year to update it. And then that some, the problem was some lists just didn't change in a year. Right? It wasn't a wide enough sample for anything to happen in there that would cause change. So then I would just start picking them off, like, one at a time. And then it just kind of got all discombobulated. So it's due for a full refresh. We're going to, we've started painting, Myke. I don't know when we're going to finish. Hopefully by the end of the year.

Brad: All right. What have we got lost up today?

Myke: I thought this was an interesting little thought experiment, accidental thought experiment I had on Instagram the other day. And apparently it's not a unique thought because everyone was like, yes, I do this too. So what I did the other night, I was done with work. Right? So whatever my work day was involved. I think this was Monday.

Myke: And I didn't really have any plans. Or maybe it was Tuesday. I don't know what day it was. It was one night. Sunday night, maybe. Whatever. I didn't have any plans that night. So there wasn't really much on TV to watch or really anything to do. Or I was going to do something else. I wasn't interested in writing or reading or watching entertainment TV. So I think I just honestly, I think I just got my phone out and was just scrolling. But I went before I did that. I didn't have any plans on using my pens or paper or anything. But I went and grabbed a notebook, my plotter, and two cases of pens and brought them with me to where I was going to sit and watch TV or just be mindless scrolling on the Internet and sat up next to me. I was like, I had to have these things next to me. So I took a picture and put it on Instagram. I said, do you ever just want your stationary stuff nearby, even if you have no plans to use it? Yeah, me too. And the whole reply was that this is your emotional support, right? This is your comfort zone. This is a ritual. You know, like Anthony said, you know, I've accepted that pens are a comfort and a control ritual. A hundred percent. I was like, I didn't I didn't think of it this way. But like everyone is like replying the same thing. And I've just wondered, like, did you do you have any of this stuff? Like Eric from Amarillo Stationery is like emotional support stationary. That's why I said that, you know, like I was like, yeah, it's like emotional support stationary. And like that's all this journey that we're all on together. Like we're all kind of tied by these same things, but we all use them in different ways and have different use cases and different thoughts and ideas. But sometimes I don't need to use any of it. It just needs to be near me and I need to be have the idea that it's there and therefore I'm comfortable. So I don't know if you've ever experienced anything like that in anything. It doesn't have to be stationary. But it's like, yeah, like just have it nearby and everything is right in the world.

Brad: I mean, I used to do this more when I was a kid and I still do it to a point now. Like I remember specifically when I was a kid, if I got a new toy, that toy would sit next to me. Like I would like even like sit it down. Like if we're watching TV and like it sits next to me. And I have a kind of kept this in my life since. Like if I get something new, something that I'm excited about, I kind of always want it around and in reach. It's like part of the appreciation process for me.

Myke: Right. And that night that I took this picture, I never opened any of the cases, never opened any of the notebooks. They literally like they were just there. And like I thought, I don't know, maybe I'll use something later. They never did, but they had to be there. I promise you. Because where I sat this stuff in my house is not where any of my, I'm not nearby any of my stationary stuff. So I brought it with me, sat it next to me and it just sat there and I did other stuff. But it was there. So there you go. I thought it was interesting because I didn't really give too much thought into it. I was just like, oh, this is something that I do and it makes me feel comfortable. And is this normal? And it's like, I guess it kind of is. Like everyone's like, yeah, I kind of do it too. It's like we all have our little things and our little comfort zones that we'd like to be in. And apparently mine is having my stationary sit right next to me, even if I have no intention of using it.

Brad: All right. If you would like to catch the show notes for this week's episode, go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 533. If you want to find Brad online, he is at penaddict.com. He is at Dowdyism on Twitter, penaddict on Instagram. And you go to twitch.tv slash penaddict where Brad streams three times a week. Thank you to Pen Chalet and the Canalea Penco for the support of this week's episode. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.