The Pen Addict 535/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	535
Title:	A Fine Mist of Yama
Release Date:	October 19th, 2022
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 535
Audio File:	Audio Episode 535
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 535
Length:	5656 min <br />0.933 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 535. Today's show is brought to you by Trade and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Hello Myke Hurley, how are you today?

Myke Hurley: Doing pretty well, my friend. I'm doing pretty well.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, are you sure? You sound like you questioned yourself a little bit.

Myke Hurley: You mean if you're not questioning yourself, are you truly alive?

Horror stories involving pens

Brad Dowdy: Well, it's always a good day when we talk about pens, and especially today when we get to talk about horror stories. Spooky sounds, spooky sounds.

Brad Dowdy: Do you feel like, like, are you ready to just jump right into this? Like, we have two stories to read today, then kind of a third one that I've added on my own. Okay. That was not submitted, but I think kind of fits the category.

Myke Hurley: It was submitted to the Wald when we decided to include it. Before we start, though, I'll remind you, if you hear these and think, I have a story of my own to send in, you want to email it to hello at penaddict.com. We are hopefully reading horror stories for the rest of the month here as we are in spooky season.

Brad Dowdy: All right, Myke, this first one is from Ben. You may or may not know this Ben, but I think once we start reading, you might figure it out. And there is a video attachment, which we are allowed to share, which you have not watched yet. I have. I've read this, so I'm prepared for what's about to take place. So I'm going to give this a go.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: So this is from Ben. Given the nature of what I do, I have to test my pens. The tests usually entail extreme abuse until they fail. I wanted to drop test a pen to see how far I can push it. So I set myself up on the fifth story in my brand new apartment building after doing some of the lower floors. So there I was, five stories up, looking down at Amy, who was set up to capture this test on video. I gave her the signal to start the video and I dropped the pen. The pen started to drift slightly and bounced off something metallic with a loud ding. I knew it was bad. I heard Amy swearing.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, there is some language in this video.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I wouldn't play this loudly in the office, but it's totally worth it. I run down the stairs laughing, trip, and break a finger. But it's worse when I get to the bottom. It's bad. I droppered the pen to the brim with Yamabudo. So that's a pilot of Roshizuku Ink. It was carnage. It hit a metal railing just before it hit the ground floor. A fine mist of Yama covered the freshly painted walls, the carpet, and Amy's face.

Myke Hurley: Brad, there is nothing I want more than pictures of this. Right? Like this video shows a bit. I want pictures of the walls. I want pictures of Amy. Brad, this is easy. This is easy. So if you remember, we have a Hall of Fame. If a story is bad enough, we put it in the Hall of Fame. This is... It was at Broken Finger, I was convinced.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, let me continue here. Straight up, though.

Myke Hurley: What was the point of this test?

Brad Dowdy: It was a drop test. I thought it was a valid test. No, this is... It was a poorly designed test.

Myke Hurley: Yes, this is mad. This is madness. I don't know what was expected to be achieved with this test. This test was way too much.

Brad Dowdy: All right, continuing here, if I can. I'm not sure. Amy didn't speak to me for hours. She was furious. The walls couldn't be cleaned. After hours of scrubbing with bleach, we abandoned trying to fix the damage. The walls needed to be repainted, and I need to get my finger fixed. Always leave some air in your pen. Air can compress. Liquids cannot. A Gravitas Delrin pen will explode if dropped from five stories. Okay. I don't think it's the fullness of the eyedropper that really caused the carnage here.

Myke Hurley: Oh, it is strange to me that they keep leaning on this idea. What happened was you dropped a pen, and it hit a railing, and the cap flew off, and it exploded. Like, there is no, like, eyedropper. Oh, it was eyedropper, you say. No wonder this happened.

Ben Walsh's pen drop test incident

Brad Dowdy: So, if y'all didn't figure this out, this is Ben Walsh from Gravitas Pens, who we've talked about blowing up his microwave. He is a very experimental lad. There are some experimental words spoken by Amy. One of my favorite curse words, which is a very Irish curse word, is in this, which I shared with Ben in my email back to him, and I called him the same name that she called him in this video. Incredible. Poor Amy. Poor Amy.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I feel terrible for Amy. I feel terrible for your neighbors.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: You know?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Who now see, like, essentially blood on the wall. Yeah. And wants to know, like, what happened here. And probably, like, while you're out there cleaning the blood on the wall, they want to know who this person is that is doing this. Like, what actually happened out here. And then you have to say out loud, I threw a pen off the balcony. As opposed to, like, you know, committed a crime.

Myke Hurley: I have so many. I just have so many questions. Yeah, Ben, please provide more information. I feel like, you know, like, you've heard us talk about, like, wow. Wow. So is Ben doing this because he, like, wants to know if it's going to be an issue for his customers?

Brad Dowdy: I guess. But he said he already tested him for lower floors, and it was fine, so he pushed it.

Myke Hurley: But, like, Ben, if somebody wrote to you and told you that this happened to them, would you say, oh, yeah, my bad? You know what I mean? Like, this isn't your responsibility at that point.

Brad Dowdy: I would much rather run the pen over with a car in a parking lot than, like, chuck it off the balcony to test the ability.

Myke Hurley: Or I feel any drop test like this has to be exterior, not interior. Yeah. Right? You cannot do this inside of your apartment building.

Brad Dowdy: So in the past, we've given Hall of Fame winners t-shirts. I would like to offer Amy a t-shirt for this. Ben doesn't get anything. No, you can't. If Amy would like a pen out of t-shirt, Ben, let me know. Get in touch. Unbelievable. We will send Amy a t-shirt. Maybe that'll, you know, replace whatever she was wearing that day when you were caught on video acting a fool.

Myke Hurley: We will send a t-shirt's value of paint for you to repair the walls in your apartment building.

Myke Hurley: Oh, my goodness. This is incredible. I mean, you know, once you said it was Ben Walsh, it's like, okay, I at least know why you would have maybe had it in your mind to do a drop test this extreme. But like, I really want you to rethink, you know, like next time, maybe fill the pen up with water. Right? So you'll see if it exploded, but like it won't destroy everything in the vicinity, you know?

Brad Dowdy: That makes way too much sense, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Ben, you need to contact me before your next set of tests. We can talk through some risk analysis.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, let's work on our rule set here.

Myke Hurley: Not great. But you have made it into the Pen Addict Horror Stories Hall of Fame. So you...

Brad Dowdy: And we're going to link that video. So... Rarefied air. Yeah. The video, they edited some noise in there perfectly. Yeah. They edited the Halloween scream. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Well, and also the moment that it repeats. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's really good. It's like a little quick eight second hit. And do not play this in your office out loud. Or you will have people running over to your desk. So you are warned. We'll put a little NSFW tag next to it if we put it in the show notes. So there you go. Yeah. All right. Our next one, Myke, is from Kate. And I like when the horror stories, they come with a title, right? So they've gone ahead and titled their story, My Pen Revealed a Monster. So Kate did a... So I know I haven't read this to you and I've read it already. Kate does a wonderful job spinning this tale. So it was a glorious autumn afternoon in Manhattan, the kind usually relegated to Sesame Street episodes and Nora Ephron movies. I met with a number of clients that day, but none prepared me for this. Into my office materialized a sylph who would make any red-blooded American woman question her commitment to her. Husband. She actually lined out Idris Elba here, which I very much appreciate that. So make her question her commitment to her husband. She introduced herself and her origins, her business, her goals, with the weaponized charisma of someone at the top of her game doing exactly what she was born to do. A full charm offensive. Her name? Nice try. Her origins? A South American nation with longer coastlines than is polite to discuss in mixed company. Her business? To create swimwear concoctions whose dimensions were inversely proportional to their price tags. Her goal today? Secure financing. With me. Fortunately, I had my new lucky pen to help me through. The bronze Lamy All-Star I clutched lent me the confidence that yes, I can make this deal happen. After some discussion, we arrived at mutually favorable terms and I drew up, that's a 20th century expression for printing, some documents for her signature. Pleased to share, after such a successful meeting for everyone involved, I offered her my All-Star, newly loaded with Lamy Tourmaline ink. As she took the pen and her elegant digits to set it to paper, I thought I saw the light falter despite the perfect autumn afternoon. Then just as quickly, I shook the idea away. What could go wrong? A shadow passed over her face. And, no, not a shadow. Certainly not passing. The beautiful face was twisted into a sneer, torn between horror and disgust. What could have inspired such loathing? Looking down, I was confronted with the harrowing reality. Three drops of tourmaline soaking and spreading across her immaculately manicured right hand. Her transformation and my horror were complete. I was shocked to see how upset she was and rushed to blurt out my apologies. Only then did I hear the words that would ring in my ears for years to come. Ink on my hands? It looks like I work. What a conclusion.

Brad Dowdy: So, the gist here, if you didn't get it, this is not a person that we should be handing over our inky pens who might, you know, destroy their beautiful presentation of, their product themselves, their personality. This was not going to go well. And then, this person turned it on themselves. Saying, it looks like I actually work for a living. Which is kind of brilliant.

Myke Hurley: That is so terrible.

Awkward encounters with non-fountain pen users

Brad Dowdy: This is actually my legitimate horror story. When you're posed or you're present in a situation with someone you don't know, who you're, in this case, working with. It could be any type of situation.

Brad Dowdy: And they don't really know about fountain pens or anything. And they are, you know, presenting, you know, themselves in a certain way. And you cause them to basically have a panic attack. And then, you in turn have your own panic attack. Going, oh my gosh, I screwed this up. But then, the person who you were doubting is absolutely on your side. And they're just, like, having fun with it. And, you know, getting you down off the ledge. Which I have definitely been in that situation where, you know, not fountain pen related. But, you know, we've been in those situations where you're just like, I have ruined this thing completely. And then, the person's like, no big deal. Like, you weigh over, you weigh, we're worrying about this way too much. And it's just, like, a complete, it puts you in this horrible situation.

Myke Hurley: Whoa. Well, here's the thing. This is bad. It's not Hall of Fame. But it's real bad.

Brad Dowdy: It's bad. This is, like, my nightmare. This is the stuff that would keep me up at night. So, Kate, I guarantee, Kate, if, like, if I'm anything like Kate, which it sounds like I am. Like, I literally played this over in my head for, like, weeks. Right? Like, it would really keep me up at night. It's like, oh, this could have gone so bad. You know, I could have ruined the deal. Like, this is, like, completely, like, the nightmare situation. Not horror story. Right? Like, not horror story Hall of Fame. But, like, this would actually keep me up at night for weeks. I would continue to think about this. And it would bother me. I would replay it over and over and over about how much poorly it could have gone. We could have, you know, they could have scrapped the deal. They could have been embarrassed. They could have been anything. Like, these are, like, those personal tales that we can all relate to that truly makes for, like, nightmare situations. None of us are chucking pins off the fifth-story balcony of an apartment building. Like, Kate's story is absolutely relatable. Right? And that's what keeps me up at night. So, it's madness. So, thank you, Kate. Not Hall of Fame. I'm with you. I agree. It is really close. That's a true horror story. Nonetheless. It is a true, absolute horror story. Right? Like, that is, like, legitimately, I have ruined my day. I have screwed up my business. I have embarrassed this person. Right? It's all of our worst nightmares.

Myke Hurley: And also, the awkwardness of dealing with what the, I think, really terrible thing that that person said.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's like, okay. I'm glad we've already signed this paperwork. Or not. Or not. Yeah. Or not. So, amazing. Amazing stuff. All right. The third entry, Myke, is something I added to this list, but it was not submitted to us as a horror story. Okay. But I let the creator of this video on YouTube know that I was submitting this in the horror story segment today. So, our friend David at Fig Boot on Pens created a video named The Worst Fountain Pen I Have Ever Reviewed. It is a, what, like, 13-minute, 14-minute post on a video review of a pen called the Acreve Blender. Okay. So, did you watch this video this morning, Myke? Sure did. Okay. So, let me set this up, and then I'm going to get some feedback from you. So, the short version is this is a new pen to the market where David was at the DC Pen Show, and this company, Acreve, from India, I believe they were, was at the DC Pen Show selling these pens. And a lot of people, you know, saw their table and had experiences with them. So, David, at the time, who's probably, he was definitely, like, one of the biggest pen reviewers on the planet. Certainly the biggest, my, you know, like, maybe the biggest YouTuber around there with Stephen Brown on, like, just reviewing pens were all respected. They knew David. They gave him a pen to review. So, at the DC Pen Show, David took it home. But before he even got it home, before he even left the show, he noticed a couple things with the pen. And that happens, you know, when you're testing out new products and, you know, you're getting handed a product. And, you know, sometimes, maybe in, like, David's situation, he saw the tines were misaligned on the nib. It's a titanium nib, but we'll get to more of that in a minute. So, he gave them the opportunity. Hey, can we, it looks like this might be a little bit messed up. Can we swap this out? They did that at the show. David took the pen home and, you know, worked with it from there. So, once he got it home, he found more issues. So, we're going to have to show you the, you'll have to go look at this in the show notes to understand what Myke and I are about to talk about. This is essentially the scribble pen for fountain pens, right? What Akrav has done is drilled three ink reservoirs into an ink barrel. And the idea is that you put three inks in there and they mix into a color. And that singular color comes out the nib. So, David tested all this and it was a complete failure, right? There's a million obvious reasons why this failed. Not only just in the idea, the technical aspects failed. Like, literally nothing worked on this pen. And that's even just from a basic writing aspect. So, what were your thoughts as you went through this video? I was yelling at the screen. Like, I was like audibly gasping. Like, you got to be kidding me. Like, what is happening here? Like, this is ridiculous. So, what were your thoughts on this as you watched the video, the worst fountain pen I have ever reviewed?

Myke Hurley: I mean, there were things that happened in this that I didn't know were possible, really. Like, it has those three filling chambers or whatever, right? And the ink wouldn't actually flow properly through them. It would get stuck halfway. Like, I had no idea that that was, like, a thing that wouldn't happen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so there was a surface tension problem, and it was aggressive. Like, it was physically unbeatable. Like, no matter how much David shook this pen, the surface tension grabbed onto this ink, and it would not progress down these little filling areas.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it was very strange. I mean, and it also just seemed like this, I mean, no disrespect. It's a company that just doesn't know what they're doing. Like, they're kind of in over their head.

Brad Dowdy: That was my biggest takeaway. This is, like, where this pen is to ask for money for this, this company is not in the right place to be able to, like, make people or to ask people to pay money for this product. This is, like, a pre-alpha version. I have this idea, and from that point, it went to the market, and there was nothing in between. And it's absolutely 100% broken. And, you know, I was reading through other people had bought these pens at DC and were experienced. Like, there was, it was consistent. So, one of the reasons I'm bringing this up is it's a great horror story video if y'all want to go watch, like, what a, like, really bad product is. But I wanted to praise David for how he handled this. One of the things we've historically talked about here is, like, personal biases, right? Like, we're biased. I'm biased. I'll speak for myself. I'm biased towards good stationery, right? I really enjoy good products. And when products are bad, I don't avoid talking about them, but I try to be fair and open and honest and equitable. And, you know, my goal is to help educate consumers, or in this case, maybe David, you know, help educate the company that's really trying to, you know, bring a new product onto market. And he gave them ample opportunity to fix, correct, comment, everything. And at some point, he just had to go. Like, he's like, I've spent so much time dealing with this, and they don't have the intention of changing this or discussing this or commenting on this, but yet they want to keep charging people for this product. I'm going to release this video. And that's why you don't necessarily see tons of negative videos here, because if I get a product and it's exceptionally poor and uninteresting, I don't want to spend my time on it. This was someone trying something new. Maybe it could work. Maybe it couldn't. But I would like to work with them and try to figure out, hey, why doesn't this work? Is this possible? Here's the problems I'm seeing. And it didn't, it was a very one-way street. Like, there was nothing coming from this company. And David just, like, essentially throwing his hands up. It's like, this is just bad. And, like, I would have released this video too, right? And just, like, I support his idea of, like, giving someone every opportunity to do the right thing and then just failing at that, but not being self-aware enough to, like, pull the product. And, like, recreate it and, you know, say, hey, this doesn't work. This is, we're going to try to, you know, fix this and do whatever. So I haven't seen any follow-up from that. But I thought it was a worthwhile share for people to understand people who, like David and myself, who review products and, like, how we try to approach things. And he could not have been just more fair to this product. And it was just an abject failure. And it was really interesting to watch because we don't get this a lot in our community.

Myke Hurley: Which I actually sometimes think is a bad thing. I think a lot of pen reviewers are too nice. Sure, sure. Right? I think there has to be a balance. And I think David struck the balance perfectly here. I don't think he needed to excuse himself as much as he did, but I understand why he did. And I don't think that it was like, aha, I gotcha. Like, he spoke very clearly about all of the ways that he tried to help. Right. And then showed, like, all of the problems with the product. Right. Like, you know, I don't want there to be, like, just a bunch of negativity in the hobby. But I do think that maybe sometimes, like, I know you do this, right? Like, sometimes you just won't review something if, like, you know you're not going to like it. But maybe sometimes you should.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, just like the diplomat that we talked about last week with that weird filling system or, like, the eyedropper filling system. You know, I'm not, like, personally interested in that pen. But from if I'm putting on just, like, my reviewer hat, like, that should be, like, a pen at the top of the list that I review. Right. Because it's different. Right. And it might be interesting. But, you know, like, I tend to say, well, I don't want to spend my money on that because I don't know that I will like it. Right. Which is what we all say, you know. But also, if I just put on the reviewer hat, I was like, well, that's kind of, like, the exact product you should be reviewing, Brad. Right. So I have to think about that type of stuff, you know, from time to time. And I try to do it. Like Evan in the chat says, more of us need to just chuck stuff off five-story balconies and record it. That's a fair point. That's a really good point.

Myke Hurley: I mean, it works for tech on YouTube. So, like, you might as well.

Brad Dowdy: So anyway, I thought that was kind of a good tie-in to our horror story segment this week, Myke. So good job by David on that video.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it was a really good video. I recommend people watch it. Just so you can kind of understand, like, how bad products can be made. Right. Because this one is just up and down, like, poorly executed. It was like an interesting idea. That wasn't. That wouldn't work anyway. Like, as David points out, you mix three colors, they're going to turn into black. Like, that's just what happens. But, like, whatever. This person had an idea. And instead of actually seems fully testing it, they just made a product out of it. And it fails at every step of the way. Like, every part of it is bad. The nib is bad. The system for filling is bad. They give him a medical syringe. Oh, yeah. I didn't even talk about that. Yeah. Every part of this process is bad.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And their fixes were bad.

Myke Hurley: They didn't have any, realistically.

Brad Dowdy: Well, the snipping the tip off the syringe. That tells you a lot about the state of mind of a company, right? Yeah. When you bring up a problem. So, the issue, for those who haven't watched the video yet, we talk about syringe filling pens all the time and ink chambers. So, there is a blunt tip syringe, right? Which is much safer for us in the ink hobby, which are readily available. And then there's your medical grade. Hey, you know, I'm going to get a shot at the doctor type of syringe. This is very pointy and very sticky and pokey. And that's what they used. That's what they provided for this, which is honestly dangerous, right?

Myke Hurley: I mean, not only is it dangerous, it also just really isn't fit for purpose because you can't move liquid quickly. These things are intended to move liquid slowly. Like, it's the design intention of a medical syringe.

Brad Dowdy: Right. It's a much narrower gauge tip. Yeah. Right. Right. So, David mentioned that. He's like, hey, y'all should probably, like, look into blunt nose tip syringes. And so, what they did was the next shipment they sent to Dave, they physically clipped off the pointy ends of the medical syringes. You know what I mean? We did what you asked. They blunted it. They snipped them off with, like, wire cutters, which just mangled the tip. Anyway, it was, that was, that says a lot. That's all you need to know. I don't know what your problem is. That's kind of all you need to know. That's a horror story in itself. It's like, if that company thinks, like, that's the solution to anything, it's like, what else are you going to get? That's like, that's like that half-baked. So, it's, it was maddening. It was maddening.

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Brad Dowdy: Thank you for keeping me going, Trade. Yeah, man. The best, the best. All right, Myke. I have been, as we've mentioned here on the podcast here recently, reworking the top five pens page on penact.com. Definitely the most popular page on the site and long past time for an update. So I started just going down the line and you can click over to the top five pens page. We'll have a link in the show notes or you can just find it at the top bar, top navigation bar at penaddict.com. And I've been going down some of the categories and I finally hit the category that I was the most anxious to get into and to change it up a little bit. And what was previously known as the top five fountain pens under $50, Myke, I have scrapped that idea completely and made it, I'm calling it the top five beginner fountain pens.

Myke Hurley: Perfect. Because I think it's important maybe to remove the pricing necessarily from this conversation.

Brad Dowdy: Yes.

Myke Hurley: I think it can weigh things weirdly, right?

Pricing and categories of beginner fountain pens

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So pricing and fountain pens, we can do that in different categories. I think for beginner fountain pens, I mean, the concept is, hey, I've never used a fountain pen before. What should I try? Right? That's where I want this list to be. And the top five fountain pens under $50 didn't really answer that specific of a question, right? It was just more of a general, hey, here's something you can try. But I didn't, but it wasn't necessarily, hey, here's the very first fountain pen you should try to even see if you like it before you start exploring further down the line. I think it needed to be fixed. So this will actually trickle down into the next list, which was the list $50 to $100 fountain pens. I think I'm going to scrap that list too. And like the next category will be something, I don't know the exact title, but it'll be the top five next fountain pens or the top five second fountain pens or something like that. Right? So I really wanted to categorize this for people who were looking for a recommendation for their first fountain pen ever to see if they like something like this. Number one on this list and really the entire reason for this list to exist and to break it out of the top five pens under $50 is the Platinum Preppy. It's far and away the number one, hey, pick up a fountain pen to see if you like it pen. Right? It is high quality. It is something I use not daily, but it lives on my desk. Right? It's a pen that I have, you know, other pens that cost a hundred times more than the Platinum Preppy, but I still reach for the Preppy. It's that good of a quality pen.

Myke Hurley: So much fun too.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's cool looking. It's a great writer. It costs five bucks. You're not going to, you know, break the bank in a test. Right? You're thinking about this from the mindset of someone who's never used a fountain pen before. Which one would be good for them to test to see if they can even write with a fountain pen nib? Right? Because it's a completely different experience. What pen answers that question for that person? And it's the Platinum Preppy. And honestly, we could have just ended the list there. It should be the top one beginner fountain pens Platinum Preppy. And then move on to some other list. But I've put some other options in there. Just from a gifting perspective or an aesthetic perspective or a feel perspective. Like the Platinum Preppy is, you know, a translucent plastic barrel pen. You can see all the interior. You know, it may not be the best style for someone. Right? But the technical aspects are as good as any pen on the market, no matter the price. But it might not be someone's style. So that's why the Pilot Metropolitan jumps in at number two. That is a more traditional dictionary definition of a fountain pen that people might have in their head, I believe, while being extremely high quality. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Because I guess one of the important things to note about the Preppy is it's like it's disposable really, right? Yeah. Like it's just like a one-time use fountain pen.

Brad Dowdy: Well, you can refill it. You can. It's cartridge refillable. Oh, is it cartridge refillable? Sorry. I was thinking of a different pen. It is. Okay. Yeah. The Pilot, the King Charles Pilot is not refillable. Okay. But the Preppy actually does take cartridges. So... I think I have...

Myke Hurley: Is it called the V5? I don't know. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: The V... It's a V-Pen. V-Pen, I think is what it's called. V-Pen. I think it's actually a regional name. And that one does not make the list for a couple of reasons. We can actually talk about that one towards the end. I would actually like to mention that one. But yeah, the Metropolitan is, you know, a cartridge converter pen. It's a brass barrel. So it's got the weight of, you know, maybe a more serious fountain pen. Even though it's kind of... You can buy it in fun colors or traditional colors. And there's a lot more options. It's style-wise than the Preppy. While being on par with the quality. All of these on this list, fortunately, they wouldn't be on this list if they weren't just exceptional quality pens, right? I'll keep saying how good all of these pens are. Well, they wouldn't be on this list if they were bad, right? So...

Myke Hurley: I don't like this one, but I put it on there anyway. Right, right, right. Exactly.

Brad Dowdy: It's terrible, but, you know, maybe it's number five, but whatever. No. So the Pilot Metropolitan is really a feel thing for me. Um, and it's kind of... When you... When I've seen people pick up the Pilot Metropolitan for the first time who aren't fountain pen users, it just kind of clicks in their head. It's like, oh, yeah, that's what a fountain pen should feel like. And that's kind of what the Metropolitan brings. And then we switch it right back to the Preppy style in number three with the Pilot Kakuno. It's cheaper than the Metropolitan. I still would put... I would still recommend the Metropolitan second, just from a style perspective. But the Kakuno from Pilot is more of the preppy visuals, right? Clear acrylics, fun style, interesting colors, right? It's the same nib and the same filling system. It's just a lighter weight, more of that disposable feel, despite not being a disposable pen. Um, so I would recommend the Metropolitan first if, you know, someone's just going in completely, like, unaware of anything. But the Kakuno is also a very fun, you know, you know, a more youthful energy to that pen. So I really like that. The fourth on the list is a pen that I don't think gets enough love. And that's the Kaweco Perkyo. So it falls in that Metropolitan price range, like that $15 to $20 price range. So, like, the Preppy's around $5. The Metropolitan's $18 to $20. The Kakuno is about $12. So none of these are expensive. And the Perkyo, I think, is around $15-ish, $15 to $17. So it's a little bit, you know, more of a stylish pen. Definitely has that German style, you know, from the origins of Kaweco in there. And it's a newer pen for Kaweco. And it's a full-size pen, unlike their Kaweco Sports or the Classics or any of those pocket-style pens that I personally love. But, like, I would never recommend those to a beginner. This full-size pen, I would. And that's the Perkyo. And it's got some cool colors. It's got some basic colors. It's got some cool colors. And it's a good writer. It's a good full-size pen. Full plastic barrel. The Metropolitan, the only one being a metal barrel here. Everything else is plastic. So it's really, really kind of underrated, I think. I wouldn't rank it ahead of these. Obviously, I didn't. But I don't think it gets talked about enough as an option.

Myke Hurley: I realize that there is one thing which I think potentially is an issue on this list of Pilot Kakuno coming in third. I forgot to mention this when we talk about the Pilot. It has a smiley face on the nib, which I think should ultimately make it number one. And that's the end of my story. My statement is over. It has a smiley face on the nib, therefore number one.

Brad Dowdy: I will. You're going to make me say it now. There is a limit to the smiley faces. Now that we have the family on the smiley faces, they start to lose the plot a little bit. The traditional smiley face Kakuno, that is definitely more of a number one with a bullet. A family? Wait, what? Just go look it up. You can do it while I'm talking or I can send you a link afterwards. But yeah, there's a mom, a dad, and a baby in the smiley faces now.

Myke Hurley: Okay, now you pushed it too far.

Brad Dowdy: See? Okay. You've gone too far. Just stick with the smiley face. Yeah. Yeah, that was a little much on that Kakuno. But yeah, they're optional, right? So you can get the standard smiley face with the Kakuno.

Myke Hurley: I mean, the baby is a bit odd. But I mean, it's funny, but it was fine as it was. You know what I mean? Yes. Oh, you know, you see what I don't know? They've ruined it. Do you know why they've ruined it? Why? I'm looking up Pensachi, right? Uh-huh. You've got baby, boy, girl, mama, papa. Guess what colors?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You ruined it. It's like, we didn't need to go there, Pilot. Like, it was a very confusing release. I was like, what? Do we have to do this? It's like, just make some more cool barrels and keep the smiley face and do some weird stuff with the barrels. It's like, come on. It's like, all right. So there you go. Sorry to burst your bubble there.

Myke Hurley: It's gone from one to seven.

Brad Dowdy: That was a bridge too far. Yeah. A bridge too far. We'll do a Kakuno smiley face. One. Kakuno family. Not listed. Correct. There you go. All right. Number five on this list. The Faber-Castell grip. So this is a really, again, like the Perkyo. I think it's underrated for your first fountain pen. Now it's a little pricier. I think it might be the most expensive one on this list, which actually does push it down from a recommendation perspective. Again, these are recommendations. These are, this is not my personal list. This is what I would recommend to a new user. This one's more like $20, $22, which puts it more expensive than the Metropolitan. So it's more in that, hey, I want to give someone a gift type of thing, or I want to treat myself to, hey, this is a really unique, cool looking fountain pen. The style is not for everyone. I will admit that. It has the, the fabric, anything in the Faber-Castell grip series has those dots on it, on the barrel. See, I do. I don't like them on the wooden pencils. I don't like them.

Myke Hurley: That's why I don't like them in general, because I don't like them on the pencils. It's like, I really don't like them on the pencils. And I think it then like gives me a bad taste for wherever I see it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, because in the non-pencil category, it's just a barrel accoutrement, right? It's just a design. It doesn't actually get into your grip. Like on the pencil, it is part of the grip, right? Because you're sharpening through those dots as you go. On the fountain pens, on the traditional pens, the ballpoints, the mechanical pencils, it's just a barrel style, right? So the grip is more of just a traditional rubber grip, slightly molded to where it's not like a Lamy Safari that's like heavily molded and shaped and forcing you into a grip. It's just slightly done. But I think Faber-Castell's nibs, they're probably better than the Kaweco nibs, even though I don't know that they might be the same, might be the same thing. Same manufacturer in the end. I don't know for a fact. I love Faber-Castell nibs. Now, they're not the Japanese style fine nibs like on the Preppy, the Metropolitan, or the Kakuno. But for a wider nib, for someone who's looking for like a medium nib type of experience, like a broader line, these pens are really, really workhorse level beginner fountain pens, right? Like this could be like your one and only pen. Not that any of the ones listed above it couldn't be, but the Faber-Castell grip could be like your one and only fountain pen, and it could be like your starter pen as well. So it's really, really high quality. And you're paying the price for it, you know, in relation to the rest of this list, right? It is more expensive. But I just think it's cool, and the nib is just amazing. So that's my five. I do have a couple of notes that I always add in this because people will ask, what about this? What about that? And especially with this list being switching from the top five under 50 to the top five beginner pens.

Brad Dowdy: Platinum has two other models that are essentially interchangeable with the Preppy or the Pilot Metropolitan or the Pilot Kakuno. They kind of fit in these different price brackets, which I'm very confused on what Platinum's doing overall from an SKU perspective, how many different products they have that kind of cannibalize each other. The Prefounte is like $11, and the Plaisir is like $18, and they're all the same nib. It's just the Prefounte has a little bit less gaudy barrel than the Preppy and just, you know, more of a solid color translucent barrel. And then the Plaisir is an aluminum model. They're awesome. Like, they're just as good as any pen on this list, but the Preppy is $5, and these are just more, and I don't get it. So it's a little bit strange, despite being a good pen. Then you have things like the Twisby Swipe, which I think is probably close to being a beginner recommendation. But there's a couple little extra things with the Swipe, like with the spring loading, that I think would confuse people for the first time, right? I don't try to go to little extra things on, you know, a very first fountain pen where people have to worry about what's this spring for, or this converter, or, you know, having a cartridge, you know, putting the spring above the cartridge, between the cartridge and the barrel type of setup. So, you know, maybe the Swipe goes into, like, the different category, like your second fountain pen type of thing. So, with a lot of the pens that were moved off of this list. So, like, the previous, just for record-keeping purpose, the previous top five fountain pens under $50 were the Lamy Safari, Pilot Metropolitan, Twisby Eco, Kaweco Sport, and Platinum Preppy.

Exclusion of Lamy Safari and Twisby pens from the list

Myke Hurley: I think it is an absolute travesty that a Safari has fallen off this list. That's my own personal opinion. But I think it's super sad that the Safari is not on this list anymore.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. As one of the biggest Safari... And the Twisby, too. One of the biggest Safari proponents out there. I think it is a challenge as your number one first, I don't have any experience with a fountain pen fountain pen. Believe me, I'm the biggest Safari fan I know, and we're going to talk about Safari in a second.

Myke Hurley: More than anyone else. But, like, the removal of the Lamy and any Twisby from this list, I think is sad. I think that makes me sad.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So they're going to be in the second list. I think they're a second fountain pen, honestly. I really do.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, you know what, Brad? That's actually why... I mean, I know we've spoken to touch on this already, but I think that this is maybe the key reason to break it out of the price thing. Right? Because you... I think that's a really good point, because then, like, well, now we can go wild, right? Now we'll get a Twisby Eco, which is, like, fantastic. But you don't want that as your first fountain pen. Right. Because you've got to get an ink bottle. And that's, like, such a commitment. Yeah, okay. Beginner and then second is, like... That's, like, a really cool way of doing it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And that's actually... I mean, that's a pretty sizable gap, like, between, like, what you're doing there. And, you know, regardless of cost, or regardless of cost, excuse me. You know, it's... The difference between, like, your beginner first fountain pen and your second fountain pen can be, like, a huge gap, even if there's not a big price difference. Like, the difference between the Faber-Castell Grip and the Twisby Eco is, you know, five or ten bucks. But I think from a recommendation standpoint, which is what I'm trying to deliver with this list, I think there's a much wider gap than, like, the price point would indicate.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Same with the Safari. Like, a bunch of pens fall on this second list. Mm-hmm. Right. The same with, like, the Kaweco Classic or the Sport. You know I love that pen. Like, that's a really hard recommendation for a first-time buyer.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: You know, just because of the compactness of it and trying to explain to someone, you know, how you use this pen and having a smaller ink capacity and all these different little things that, while it's a great pen under $50, it's not a beginner fountain pen in what I'm trying to accomplish with this list.

Myke Hurley: This is a good list. I like what you're doing here.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Good. I appreciate it. So, yeah, I'm open to feedback. I've got some feedback on that.

Myke Hurley: I mean, who can even? You know what I mean? True. True. True. It's so complicated. I think this is really cool. Really cool.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So, yeah.

Myke Hurley: Brad, do you know a place where you can go and buy basically all of these pens?

Brad Dowdy: Ooh. Where, Myke? I'm not sure.

Myke Hurley: Pen Chalet! Pen Chalet!

Brad Dowdy: Get out of town.

Myke Hurley: I will not get out of town, actually. I'm going to stay in town and tell you about Pen Chalet. They sell your favorite products, all the products that you want to be your favorite products, your future favorite product from all of the best brands out there. They have fast and reliable customer service, and they're always adding new styles of pen. Every time you go to Pen Chalet, you're going to find something new. And if you don't find a new product, you're going to find new prices because Pen Chalet are also running discounts. Every couple of weeks, you're going to go and see some new fantastic prices over at Pen Chalet. So, it's always worth poking around and seeing what you might find. Pen Chalet, as well as selling your fountain pens and ballpoints and mechanical pencils, they're also doing limited edition products and accessories like carrying cases, refills, converters, all of the little bits and bobs that you might need for your next pen purchase. They do free shipping on orders of over $75 in the US, and they sell internationally with great shipping rates. Pen Chalet has low prices on high-quality pens, and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So, go ahead over right now to PenChalet.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password PenAddict, where you will get this week's special offer and the code you need to save 10% on anything at any time at Pen Chalet.

Discussion of Pen Chalet's custom exclusives and discounts

Brad Dowdy: So, I've clicked over to the special offers page, but before we get there, you mentioned specific custom exclusives. There's this Leonardo that's on their homepage, the Cosmic Dust Supernova. Even at the normal price, it's not on the standard page. It's a really good pen for a really good price. I just love Leonardo so much, and it's a really neat material, and the hardware on this Leonardo is a little bit different from what I've seen. So, I really, really like this one. So, y'all should go check that out. It's right there on the homepage when you go. But then when you go over to, you know, you put in the, hit the radio YouTube podcast button and put in our code, you'll see a beginner fountain pen that is actually a pretty good one that I don't think actually lands on my top five list, but it probably deserves to be in the notes section, the Diplomat Magnum. People rave about this pen. I thought it was pretty good. Like, it didn't quite meet those recommendations. But for the price that it's listed on here, it's categorized with all these pens I just discussed. And so many people love this pen. And it comes highly, highly recommended. So, definitely, that's worth checking out. And then there's some random Pelicans that just jumped up out of nowhere. The Smoky Quartz Pelican M200. That is an interesting find. There is, you know, another Pelican Petrol Marbled in there. So, there's lots of good stuff if you scroll up and down this list. And find all these great deals over at penshelly.com.

Myke Hurley: I will say as well that they still have some of those Wise Studio pens. I love that pen. I need to ink that one up. I kind of can't believe that they still have stock available to them. Yep. At this price.

Brad Dowdy: That's a great pen. And it's, like, way discounted. That's one of my pens. That's a Brad pen. Like, I actively avoid talking about it because I have an irrational love for it. So, there you go. That would be on my list.

Myke Hurley: C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Our thanks to Pen Chalet for their support of this show and Relay FM.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Brad's list of top five pens between $50 and $100. That would probably make the top five. I would have to think about it. That's a hard, that's a very, very different personal category than recommendation category, right? That's the challenge with these lists is trying to remove the personal out of the top five lists. I can do entire articles on just, like, my top five personal, which I should probably do, like, in these categories because they would line up a little bit differently for sure. All right. Also, at Pen Chalet, Myke, this is a post-ad topic. There are, I saw this link from them on Twitter the other day, and it's titled Lamy Special Edition Retro Safari Fountain Pens. So, if you'll recall, what, a year or two ago, they came out with the Terracotta and Safari Green, the OG of the OG safaris. So, they did, Lamy released a remake of those pens, which I was very happy about. Like, I didn't have a problem with that. I wanted those pens. I love those pens. They're still some of the best safaris ever made. And the re-release or the rethinking of them, I thought was great. I thought it was valid. I thought it was a great product and still some of the best safaris that have been released. So, Lamy, I guess, is drinking their own Kool-Aid with continuing down that line for the Lamy Special Edition releases that they're going to do now. There's this collection that they're calling Lamy Special Edition Retro Safari Fountain Pens. Blue Barrel with a red clip. This is not the Smurf one. The Smurf one had a light blue barrel. This is the traditional, it's almost navy, but it's kind of royal blue with a red clip. And then white with a black clip. So, the story Lamy is telling us is that these colorways were from the 90s. And they're awesome and worthwhile to put in this retro category. We're going to bring those back again. Except they're not very special. They're basic safaris. And, I mean, they're priced, you know, like basic safaris, you know, about 30 bucks or whatever. But the story of calling these the retro safaris, when they fit the product lineup that they currently have, loses the plot a little bit for me. I don't know what they're doing with this idea. When they had such a huge win with the terracotta stuff and the safari green stuff. And there's other things they could pull. So, I guess my idea here is put these in the basic lineup and then do something really special for your special edition retros. Even if it's not like a retro model. You don't have to call it a retro. You could call it something else. Do something different here, right? This is a re-release of a basic pen. And that's very boring. And that's very telling to me from a product, like, release perspective. I don't understand why this is a thing. This is a current product that is just no different from what they've always done. And I'm just kind of, it just falls flat. It's disappointing, right? Because they're trying to call it something that it's not. I mean, technically, sure. It's from the 90s. But if you put this product in with their current safari lineup, no one would blink. Not a single person go, oh, look at this one from the 90s. No. It's like literally a current version. Yeah. It's like literally a current version safari. And it just kind of ruins the idea of, you know, when they do do a real retro or something really special. You know, that's the one thing that I don't like this at all, just from a marketing perspective. So it really kind of fell flat with me when I saw this. I was like, oh, cool. You know, I'm reading the title, Lamy Special Edition Retro Safaris. I'm like, oh, that's cool. It's like, wait. Don't we have this or something close? Isn't this like a modern pin? So I think they could do a better job with that. Lamy's doing a lot of things right these days. You know, I'm as hard on Lamy as anyone because I love them so much. And this just like just just falls way short of my expectations for them as a brand. And so I just wanted to put that out there. It's like this is a normal product line safari. Let's just put it there and then save our retro marketing for something else that's like really moves the needle like they've done in the past. So I just wanted to throw that in there as it relates to like our top five pins that, you know, moving the safari off and, you know, safari being probably in the next list as we go down the line here. It's like, come on, Lamy. You know, I love you. You can do a little bit better than this. So I still have to get the glossy red. Myke, I have not ordered that one. That's the one we've talked about. But the red AL star with the yellow grip section. So I'll add that to the list. That was a that was a huge win. Good job by Lamy on that one. This one, Lamy. Bad job. Bad job on this retro release.

Myke Hurley: So you heard us do our horror stories at the beginning of today's episode. If you have one that you want to share with us, maybe you think it's terrible enough to be included. Maybe you think it's terrible enough to maybe get yourself into the Hall of Fame. Please send them in via email to hello at penaddict.com. And we can talk about some of the terrible things that you've experienced with your pens in this spooky season. If you want to find Brad online in the meantime, you go to penaddict.com. You can find Brad on Twitch. It's at twitch.tv slash penaddict. He's Dowdyism on Twitter and penaddict on Instagram. Thank you so much to Pen Chalet and to Trade for their support of this episode. I am at iMike. I am at YKE. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. I want to say goodbye. Goodbye.