The Pen Addict 549/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	549
Title:	Less Caps, More Clicks
Release Date:	February 1st, 2023
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 549
Audio File:	Audio Episode 549
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 549
Length:	5555 min <br />0.917 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 549. Today's show is brought to you by Enigma Stationery and Myke.blog. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad. Shh, be quiet. I think someone's spying on us. There has been a crime committed.

Myke Hurley: There has been a crime committed.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, it feels kind of appropriate, I guess. The spying does feel appropriate, but something's going on, Myke. Someone has bugged the mics.

Montegrappa 007 Spymaster Duo discussion

Myke Hurley: Yes. So, we spent a ton of time talking about the Montegrappa 007 Spymaster Duo on the last episode. Andrew and Sanjin wrote in via our wonderful feedback form, which you can get in the show notes. Go to penaddictfeedback.com. You can write us in your thoughts, questions, all that kind of stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Plus the litany of direct emails and messages I got as well.

Myke Hurley: That now, halfway down the page, next to the imagery of the bullets being refilled with ink, there is a quote that says, The greatest product ever made, the penaddict. Now, I have a selection of problems here. Would you like me to start at the top? Yeah. One, I said this. Yeah, yeah. Give the man credit. I know that technically, this is the penaddict. I know how that works, right? But, we also know that by saying the penaddict and not the penaddict podcast, they're trying to make it sound like you said it, right? Which is funny.

Brad Dowdy: So, we need a Myke Hurley comma, the penaddict.

Myke Hurley: However, I don't have one of these. You know what I mean? I've put it out there to Montegrappa. Now, I know Montegrappa's listening now. Or at least somebody is. I am willing to be the ambassador for this product, right? Sure. Like, I'm all in.

Brad Dowdy: We have the right person.

Myke Hurley: Uh-huh. I'm all in. I'm British. I wear a tuxedo pretty good. You know, like, I'm all in on this. We could do a whole thing. Whole thing. But, you didn't send me one.

Myke Hurley: But, you quoted me. Now, I will not ask you to rescind the quote. I think the quote, I stand by it. I think this is the greatest product ever made. However, I would also wouldn't mind the ability to put that to the test.

Brad Dowdy: Give it a proper going over.

Myke Hurley: I will say bravo, Montegrappa. Well played. Checkmate, I should say.

Brad Dowdy: Checkmate, Montegrappa. But, the astonishing thing was the pace at which this was added to the site. I think it was the same day. It was no later than the next day that the messages started to come in. Yeah. And, how people even discovered this, you know, just from the link of us discussing it. And, someone had to listen. Like, obviously, like, I've let people know that, you know, in the U.S., you know, Montegrappa is distributed by Kenro Industries, and I'm very friendly with the team at Kenro. This is not a Kenro-run website, but maybe they listened and had someone on the Montegrappa side at this end. And, it's perfect from a marketing perspective, because now we're talking about it again, right? Well played, Montegrappa. Well played, because it's perfect.

Myke Hurley: I 100% said those words. That is a direct quote from me.

Brad Dowdy: It is a direct quote. Yeah. But, everything that comes after the butt, right? Or, everything before the butt.

Myke Hurley: But, it's just like, on the product page, it certainly makes it seem like I used one. You know what I mean?

Brad Dowdy: It does. It does. So, um...

Myke Hurley: How do you do it? No shade here. Like, this is the job. This is what you do, right?

Brad Dowdy: This was perfect in every which way. Uh-huh. Minus the... We're going to keep leaning on this acquisition phase that we're now into for the greatest product ever made, right? Yeah. Like, I mean, I think we've got to lean into it fully.

Myke Hurley: I mean, like, how much is a marketing budget? You know what I mean? Right. 5,000 euro, right? You send one to me, and then I'll talk about it again, you know? How many more times do you want it, Montegrappa?

Brad Dowdy: I think we've well covered the price by now, given the size of our podcast. Like, I think we have well covered the time versus expense marketing budget for this, which is hilarious.

Myke Hurley: So, to put in another sports analogy, the ball is back in your core, Montegrappa.

Brad Dowdy: That's right. That's right. Let's see what we can do. We can escalate this greatly. And we're fair game. Let's just say, hey, we can be bought to a degree.

Myke Hurley: And quite frankly, Camera Industries, who rep Montegrappa, have done that. They've sponsored the show in the past. I'm sure, hopefully, we'll continue to in the future. You know? Yeah. They know how this works.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, they've sponsored our live shows before. So, yeah. Yeah. They're good. So, we'll see. I just, also, I would like to state for the record, which I have not mentioned to you, I have had zero contact with anybody on anything having to do with this whatsoever. No, I have no information. I have absolutely zero involvement and no, I haven't even gotten like a little winky text from my friends. Like, I have nothing. So, and I'm not going to ask. Like, I'm not going around. Who did this? Who did this? We'll just let it play out. We'll let it play out naturally.

Myke Hurley: This is a spy thriller that we're operating in real time, week to week.

Brad Dowdy: It's a spy thriller. I love it. I love it. So, yeah. We'll continue down this path. But, again, it was just, it wasn't the fact that it existed. It was the fact that the pace of acknowledgement just is still just kind of breaking my brain a little bit.

Myke Hurley: Very funny.

Retractable fountain pens and their design

Brad Dowdy: All right. Moving on, on the breaking your brain aspect of the show, retractable fountain pens always kind of break a lot of people's brains. Like, how should this work? How does this happen? We've talked, obviously, endlessly throughout the history of the show about the pilot vanishing point.

Myke Hurley: Is that a pun?

Brad Dowdy: I probably, I'm going to go with no because I don't even know what you're talking about.

Myke Hurley: You said we talked endlessly.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, no. That was a really good job by me. Normally, I'm better at that. But maybe it's because the notes had just kind of, you know, been running through my head so much it just came out. So, we're going to be talking about the Endless Creator Pen, which is a new launch pen coming here in the next week or so. And it's, again, a retractable fountain pen along the lines of the pilot vanishing point. So, I'm obviously a huge fan of this style of pen. I'm a huge vanishing point fan. When the Platinum Curie Doss came out, are we on three years now or are we at two years? I can't remember. It was pre-pandemic. Pre-pandemic. So, three years the Platinum Curie Doss came out. And I was, you know, very ecstatic to see something like that, you know, hit the market because this is an area that Pilot has, you know, 99% market share up until, you know, the last few years, right? No one has been able to do anything as well. I mean, you have the Lamy Dialogue, okay? So, maybe 95% market share for retractable fountain pen. So, the Curie Doss came along and I loved it. It has its problems, right? But it was trying to hit a price point, like this sub $100 price point for retractable fountain pens with a steel nib. So, the Curie Doss, we haven't heard anything in literal years, right? So, like this is one of those drums I keep banging. Give me Curie Doss V2. And maybe I'm not going to get that. But until then, we at least have someone else trying. And that's Endless, who a lot of people know from their notebooks, right? So, they made, they came along a few years ago, made some really nice notebooks, still make some really nice notebooks. A lot of fountain pen friendly paper. You know, they were all in on the Tomoe River when, you know, you could get Tomoe River accessible. They have a new in-house paper that they've made called Regalia Paper that we'll be doing some reviews of. That's a very fountain pen friendly paper in their notebook. So, a lot of good stationary products that they're making, just in general.

Myke Hurley: I feel like I don't know this brand. Like, have we spent much time talking about them before?

Brad Dowdy: No, they've only been around maybe three to five years at the most. And it literally started with just, hey, here's a new A5 notebook, right? So, that has been...

Myke Hurley: I know what that's like.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Well, when you start and that your product line is singular, right? It can come and go in your brain like really quickly, right? Yeah. Hey, you make a great product.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: But when the extent of the product lineup is singular, you don't hear a lot about the brand necessarily. Sure. But to their credit, they didn't stop, right? They just kept going, hey, new formats. Hey, new styles. Hey, new paper types. Hey, here's some notebook covers and a soft cover notebook system. And, you know, like the Travelers or, you know, Rotofod and Tasha McGlider type of, you know, here's the inserts and the notebook covers type of system. And now, we have a pen. So, you'll have to go click the link in the show notes. And this goes to an Instagram page, Inlis' Instagram page. And it's of this retractable pen. And kind of like the spy pen landing in my emails. You can imagine, like, I got a lot of links to this, which I love. I appreciate it. Everyone keeps sending the links. So, what we have here is a plastic barrel, steel tip, retractable fountain pen in, I'm not going to say in the style of Vanishing Point. That's unfair to, like, this pen. But when you're designing a retractable fountain pen, there's kind of only one route you can take, right? It's kind of going to look like a Vanishing Point. Even though this one doesn't aesthetically look like a Vanishing Point to me. I'm not saying that. It's $50-ish. So, they say approximately $50 US MSRP. And, like, I'm here for it, right? Like, I don't know if it's going to be good, bad, or indifferent. But I want it to exist, right? Like, this is my initial thought without having tested this is I want this to exist and I want it to succeed just like I wanted the Curie DOS to succeed. Did the Curie DOS succeed? I'd say right now it did not, right? Because they have... I was laughing to it. It stopped. Like, it's just kind of fallen flat and it just doesn't exist anymore. Yeah. If they keep going, I want them to see it. So, this is even less costly than... It's about half the price of the Curie DOS. So, obviously, my full commentary is held until I get it in hand, see how it feels, see how it works. At this price point, I'm mostly curious about the mechanism on the inside and how well it stands up to the idea of what this pen should be, right? Retractable fountain pen is defined by its mechanism in my mind, right? Because you're already limiting the market by the design, right? So, like, when you and I talk about the vanishing point, I like the vanishing point because I can deal with the clip in between my fingers. You and a lot of other people can't deal with the vanishing point because the clip gets in the way of your standard grip. And this is essentially has the clip in the area where you're going to be gripping it.

Pen clips and their functionality

Myke Hurley: So, it's... I don't know why they put a clip on this pen. I don't understand why they put a clip on this pen.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, it's aesthetically pleasing. I don't dislike it from an aesthetic standpoint. Is it a requirement?

Brad Dowdy: I would rather have it with a clip because you're telling people by the retractable nature of this pen, it should be carried, right? And a lot of people who would carry this pen would prefer it to have a clip. Would be... That's my take on why do you design this with a clip or without. It's because what you're telling people how to use this pen is it's portable, right? It's not... It shouldn't necessarily just live on your desk, right? And if it's going to be portable, I probably am going to put a clip on it. Does that make sense?

Myke Hurley: Sure. I mean, that's just my idea. Yeah. Who knows? Who knows? I can't stand it. I'm really intrigued by this because I can't see how it's going to work. You know what I mean? Like I just... They're so cheap. That it's going to be a win. You know how complicated this is. It's made of ABS plastic, which is fascinating to me.

Brad Dowdy: So that's just for people who don't know. That's like essentially like Lamy Safari's pens are ABS plastic. It's like a hard... It's a hard plastic.

Myke Hurley: And yeah, I just... This seems like such a complicated challenge that large companies with lots of experience struggle. Is this their first pen? It seems like it, right?

Brad Dowdy: It seems like it. I can't validate that. I don't know for a fact just because I haven't looked. It seems like it.

Myke Hurley: On their store, they don't have another pen. They don't have another pen that they sell. So I mean, I'm fascinated to see. And if they pull it off and that mechanism works and it's reliable, they could be a force to reckon with later on down the line, I feel like. Like if you can make that work, make a lot of stuff work.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So there's a different Instagram post with a little video. It doesn't really show much more. It's just a little bit flashy.

Brad Dowdy: Flashy video for it. But you can see a little bit more of it just between all the marketing words and things like that. But I think just in general, like the design, I have a huge question mark about the step down and its location. It's pretty high up in the barrel. Like it's going to get in. Like you're already dealing with a clip in the grip section and have this weird step down. Like I'm almost certain that's probably due to the internals of the product that you require this. So I'm more interested in breaking down this pen than most pens, right? I want to see the inside of this pen and see what we're doing here and see how this is going to work. So I think it's good. And like you said, if this works at the price point, yeah, they probably have something on their hands. It's certainly, certainly at the top of my interest list, right? Because this is like everything that I like in pens. You know, it's got that retractable cool nature. It's a neat design. The price is fair, like more than fair. Like the price is like crazy. Like that's so, yeah, this one, this is one of those is like, okay, good job on the marketing. Now, now it's, it's, it's time to find out how they really work. And, you know, there are other retractable pens on the market. Like the Mahjong A1 comes up a bunch. And like, I don't talk about that one very much because it's, I don't mind like the idea of this pen. And if you want this pen, that's great. But when you have such little inspiration in your design that you have to essentially copy the visuals of the Pilot Vanishing Point, that makes me less interested in your product. Like these are direct, directly inspired. And I say that very loosely by the Pilot Vanishing Point. I mean, they're virtually identical. And like, I just don't have a place on my desk for that. Like, it's fine. Like if you want the pen and it's a $40 retractable steel nib fountain pen and you, you like that, cool. Like I have no problem with anyone buying these pens. I'm just, I have no desire to talk about this pen because it's completely uninspired. Right. Where I'm at least getting something from Endless here saying, hey, here's our take on this. Not like, hey, we made a Vanishing Point knockoff. Right. Which they're not saying, but Mahjong is.

Endless retractable fountain pen pre-orders

Brad Dowdy: So, yeah. So pre-orders for this Endless come up pretty soon. February 6th. So next week they'll start taking orders for it. I will, this might be my first actual purchase of a pen this year. So I'm ready to, this is one of those pens that will like literally everyone will review. Right. In the market. Just because. Price point. The price point and the uniqueness of it. And believe me, I want this to succeed. Like I want it to be good. Just like I wanted the Kyrdha to be good. Because I was already thinking when the Kyrdha launched, what I want to see next. I was like, hey, great start. Figure out the problems. Take the feedback. Build version 2. And then, you know, hopefully version 2 goes well. And then build me some special editions. And like, you know, like let's lean into this. And hopefully this is a success. And turns out probably not. So hopefully this Endless creator pen. Yeah. Hopefully the creator pen works well for Endless. Like I'm certainly looking forward to it.

Myke Hurley: What do you think of that name, by the way? It's like an interesting place to come at it, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It doesn't add up to.

Myke Hurley: Fountain pen? Retractable fountain pen? Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Like when I saw that, like it could have been like a mechanical pencil. That's a mechanical pencil name, right? The creator and the design of it. But I don't know. We'll see what the marketing is. I mean, I don't love the name. The name is a name, right? Like whatever. The name is a name. I just thought it was interesting. Yeah. But now I have to keep calling it the creator pen. And I always feel like if you make a product name that requires an explanation after I say the product name, then I think you might want to rethink that. But no, it's fine. Like, I mean, there's probably a lot of products like that if I think about it.

Myke Hurley: It's like a sound to curatus in my brain, which messes me up.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So, could be. So, I don't know. I mean, name's a name. It's, I don't, I don't. I thought about it. The name is incredibly hard.

Myke Hurley: I'm not throwing shade at the name. No, no, no, no. It's just like an interesting choice.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. When I first saw it, I really, I thought, what am I missing about this? I was like, where's the app? You know? It's all I could think about. And then once I got over that part, I was like, fine, it's just the creator pin. But I literally thought, okay, where's the app for this? Because that's kind of how you've gone with the naming here. But whatever. It's fine. Now, I'm already, like, beyond that point. But I get that because I had those same thoughts.

Myke Hurley: All right. This episode is brought to you in part by our friends over at Enigma Stationery, a family-owned and operated business that offers unique items made from in-house designs along with collaborations and products of top brands. They also have a new exclusive pen released this week, Brilliant Bunny. Brilliant Bunny is a celebration of the Lunar New Year and the Year of the Rabbit. It features a bright red blank filled with teal, blue, and purple sparkles. And the gold accent on the outside of the pen are complemented by Navaleurs. Is that how you say that, Brad?

Brad Dowdy: Yes, that is how we're going to say it. And I think that's how everyone's saying it, even though there is an Icelandic pronunciation that none of us can say. So, yes, we're going to go with Navaleur.

Myke Hurley: Navaleurs, 14-carat gold nib in medium point. I believe, Brad, that you have one of these.

Brad Dowdy: I have it right here in hand. So, I want to talk about this pen. But first, I want to talk about just Enigma as a whole, as a company. They're reasonably new. And I got to meet the whole Enigma crew at the San Francisco Pen Show. And they are one of the companies that is bringing fun into stationery. And that's the way I've said it. And I've talked to Dan, one of the owners of the company. And they have such a joy to talk to and the positivity that they bring around, you know, having fun stationery and cool items and just really, like, leaning into those aspects of this hobby. Like, I couldn't be more excited when Dan told me that they were sponsoring the podcast. Just because I love them as a brand. You know, I got to know them by making acrylics for different pens and different pen models and seeing all these fun acrylics that they were doing. And then they come up with something like this. Like, the brilliant bunny. So, let me tell you. So, the Nautilus is one of the classic Novelure shapes, right? It's the large piston-filling fountain pen. It's the one with the porthole design on it. And you've seen Novelure do different acrylics, do different ebonites. And this is a blank made by Enigma. And you know I love red pens, Myke. Like, I'm one of those people who, like, a red is a very underrepresented color in pens. And you know that when I come across a good red barrel pen, like, I really tend to fall kind of head over heels for them. And what they've done with this pen and this material is they have these sparkles in here. So, they're teal, blue, and purple. And it's, it's, I'm having a hard time describing it because when you look at it at one angle, you see it's loaded up like a galaxy full of sparkles.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: But then you hold it at a different angle and it looks like a solid red pen. Like, you really have to hit the angles right, which I think is cool. Like, so, when I'm writing with it, right? So, it's literally here in my hand right now. At the writing angle that I have on the page, it's like, oh, this is a cool red pen. It's got this great gold trim. You know, it's, it's wonderfully designed and made.

Myke Hurley: Oh, it was not war pens. I remember now. Yes.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Oh, you're just getting on that now?

Myke Hurley: I just remembered. Yes, I remember now.

Brad Dowdy: I'm sorry. So, no, well, they have really ramped it up, which I'm going to talk about that in a second. But the material here, like, I write with it and then I look at it and it's like, oh, look how cool this stuff is. So, it's, the, the shimmer is, it's, on one hand, it's subtle at the angle, like at your writing angle. And it looks like just this really killer red material. And then you look at it closer and it's like, oh, yeah, look at those sparkles. And the sparkles are cool. They're, they're very thin and like small little, small weight, little, little sparkle. So, it's all throughout the barrel from the, from the tip to the end and it works out great. So, the pen, Narwhal, a.k.a. Novelure, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Well, Narwhal, a.k.a. Narwhal.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, true. I guess I just said that backwards.

Myke Hurley: Because they, they had the whole thing where they did the renaming. I remember that now. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So, they just came out with their 14, 14k gold nibs. So, this is a newish nib for them. I just saw on their Instagram, like only like a week or two ago that they were starting to make 14k nibs. So, they make their nibs in house. I've always used their steel nibs in the past. And in the past, they have always had like this really broad tipping on their pens, even for like a fine nib. It would be a broad tipping. They have kind of reeled that in a little bit to where they're now like size accurate from what you would expect. Like, I would always expect with my old versions of Novelure pens, if I got a fine nib, it's going to write like a medium. If I got a medium nib, it's going to write like a broad. Now, they have it dialed in to where it writes exactly as a medium as I would expect, like a western medium nib. And the 14k gold nib is soft. It feels great. So, it's been perfect right out of the box. So, I've only been writing with this for like a couple of days now, but it's staying right here on my desk. I have it inked up with a bright blue ink. And it's fantastic. So, I just really appreciate the support of companies like Enigma. They're a small family company, right? And they believe in this whole stationary craze that we're part of, right? And they believe in making fun things and cool things. And this brilliant bunny, Fountain Pen, is an example of their creativeness, their fun, their joy. And I just really, really appreciate them supporting our show. And I hope everyone likes to go support cool companies like this.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I've met Dan before a few times too. He listens to a bunch of our tech shows too.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. And so, like he's brought in the game. Before, yeah, long before Enigma, Dan was a fan. Dan was a fan of the network. And now they have this company. And it's pretty great.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So, like, obviously we're talking about the pen. And I like what they're doing where they do some product curation so you can buy stuff from them. The previously mentioned Endless Observer is on their website. Exactly. Curation is sell product. But then they also make their own blanks, right? Which is awesome. But then they also do collaborations too. Like, I think I know of one. Another one they've got coming up soon, which I'm excited about. Nice. But yeah, so they're doing some great stuff over there. You should go check it out for yourself right now. So, there are just 50 of these, the Brilliant Bunny. So, they're not going to be made again. So, if you like the look of this, do not delay. Go to enigmastationary.com slash penaddict. And if you use the code penaddict to check out, you'll receive free shipping on all orders of over $40 or more, along with a free gift as well. What a fantastic thing for penaddict listeners. So, that's enigmastationary.com slash penaddict to check out the stunning Brilliant Bunny. And use the code penaddict, all one word at checkout, to receive free shipping on all orders of over $40 plus a free gift. Our thanks to Enigma Stationary for their support of this show and RelayFM. Choose only one, Brad. Yeah, topic of the week. Brad, choose only one.

Brad Dowdy: I can do it. I can do it. We're going to do this? All right. So, there was, along with the Spymaster update in our emails, there was a very popular social media thread where, I don't even know who this person is, they put out a tweet with seven pens. And the tweet says, okay, you can only write with one type of pen for the rest of your life. Which one are you picking? And it had one caveat, ignoring the ink color. So, we'll have a link in the show notes so you can go look at the picture. But I can describe all these pens. If you've listened to this show, you probably know what all these pens are. So, number one is the Uniball Vision. In your area, Myke, it's known as the Uniball Eye. So, it's a traditional rollerball, Uniball pen that's been around for probably 10 to 20 years. So, these are all mostly classic pens. There is one reasonably modern addition to this list, which we'll get to in a minute. So, that's number one is the Uniball Vision. Number two is the Pilot Precise V5. So, that's the Needlepoint Rollerball. Again, a pen that's been around for 40 years in some form. You know, it's a classic, classic pen. So, this is what you're going to be dealing with here. So, these are store shelf classics. The newest pen on here is the Sharpie S Gel, which has become a popular Pilot G2 competitor on the shelves. It's a pretty nice pen. Like, it's a good, solid gel ink pen. So, that's number three. Number four is the Uniball Vision Elite. So, take your spot number one, which is the Uniball Vision, and make it better. That's what the Elite is. I think it writes better. It's got better ink. It's got a nicer barrel, but it's at a little bit of a premium price compared to the Vision. Like, for example, the Uniball, I'll go ahead and tell you right now, the Uniball Vision, number one on this list, is far and away my least favorite pen of this list. It's a terrible pen. Number four, on the other hand, is actually a very good pen, despite sharing the same name. It's just completely different. So, number five is your classic Pilot G2. So, yeah, there's really not much more to say about that. The, literally, the most popular pen in the world. Popular gel ink pen. Number one selling gel ink pen. Number six. Do you know what number six is, Myke? Paper Mate. Paper Mate Flair. Yeah. So, I wasn't sure. I mean, it's a classic, right? Again, 30, 40 years in existence. The style, the exterior style has not changed. Like a felt tip kind of pen, right? Yeah. It's a plastic tip pen. And they used to be really soft and more felty-like, and now they've obviously improved a little bit on the tip pen. That's probably what I remember to feel like. Yeah. I haven't used them in a long time. Like they would last about a day, right? Like if you took one into class and took notes, you would want a fresh one tomorrow because now your line is completely different. So, they had to manage that. And then number seven is maybe the oldest pen design on here, the Bic Crystal. The classic, you know, museum piece Bic Crystal. So, you know, everyone knows what the Bic Crystal is. So, those are your seven choices. And this is a good kind of cross-section of if you just went down to the store, you know, a stationary store, a convenience store, a grocery store. You're going to find most of these on the shelf. Which one are you going to pick? So, it's not just which one are you going to pick today, Myke. Yes. You only get one of these for the rest of your life. Can you pick one?

Myke Hurley: So, here's the thing, right? If you're saying to me, just go pick one of these, right? You should say, pick one of these. I'm going to go number five, Pilot G2. That's what I'm going to go with. But if you're telling me, pick one for the rest of your life. Yeah. I'm going Pilot V5, the Precision.

Brad Dowdy: I can't believe you picked that.

Myke Hurley: Why?

Brad Dowdy: Because that's what I'm picking too.

Myke Hurley: It's the most fun of all of them. That's why I picked it. If I'm only going to use one of these pens for the rest of my life, I want the one that is the most fun to use. And that's the one.

Brad Dowdy: So, there is a key aspect of pen addictness to picking number two. is that in this picture, it is specifically the V5 model, which is the finer tip of the two. The other one, Myke, is the V7. It's a wider tip of the two. This one is very specifically the V5. That is the one I too would choose to use if I could only have one of these for the rest of my life. It's a great dark ink. It's a great needle tip. Even though it's rollerball ink, which out of this whole list is probably my least favorite ink. This one manages the ink very, very well for a rollerball where number one, the Uniball Vision is really poor at managing the ink. It basically floods the page. The Precise V5 manages it very well. So, yeah. And really, there was only two choices here for me. It was either going to be that or it was going to be the Bic. I think that's probably my second choice. Just because I can use it anywhere, anytime. It's, yeah. It's just going to work and it's going to be nice. I will enjoy using the V5 more than the Bic. Like, after that, like, if I was going to piggyback off of what you said, if I walked into the store shelf today and had these seven pens just to pick to use today, I'm going to grab the Vision Elite because, and that's number four in this list. That's the one. That's just a cool pen. It's really nice. This was famous in our world. This was Barack Obama's favorite pen at the time. I don't know if you'll remember us discussing that. Yes, I do. But it's just a, it's one of the best, like, off-the-shelf pens that's kind of different from everything else. And, yeah, these are all really good choices except number one. Number one can just go in the garbage. I hate that pen. It's, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I have used that pen.

Myke Hurley: I spent a lot of time with that pen and liked it at the time, but now it's not for me. It's very popular, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I would take the V5 over that and the Vision Elite over that every day.

Myke Hurley: Putting a cap on a pen like that is wild. Wild to me to put a cap on it. It's just like, why? It should be retractable.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Do they make a retractable version? No. Pilot makes some retractable versions of the V5, but I don't think they make a... Yeah, they did a Uniball Vision, or I think they did an RT model of it. I do think they have one that I did enjoy a little bit better, but they never really took off, right?

Myke Hurley: Just looking at this image makes me think that Pilot too often put caps on their pens.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I haven't really thought about it that way. I mean, it's hard to say that when you're looking at the G2, and it's the most popular retractable pen on the market.

Myke Hurley: Well, that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm thinking, is the G2.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, you're saying do that more? Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Gotcha, gotcha. Less caps, more clicks.

Brad Dowdy: Well, they...

Myke Hurley: That's my campaign slogan.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Less caps, more clicks. I'm with you on that. Well, I mean, that's what the V series has a very popular click pen. It's not as popular as the Precise, but they have the V5, the V5 RTs that are great. So, those are still popular. So, anyway, this thread blew up. I think a lot of my friends, like Andy Wellfleet, was really hitting hard for the Bit Crystal, and I appreciate that my friends are really down with the Bit Crystal, because I think it's one of the great pens. But I would still, like you, I can't believe we picked the same thing, the V5.

Myke Hurley: That's the thing. This really changes, because it's the rest of your life. Yeah. I feel like that's where this question takes a turn.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. I mean, I sit here and stare at this, and like, it's really hard to beat a fresh Paper Mate flair right out the box, like a black ink Paper Mate flair right out the box. Those are killer, but they last, they don't, they just don't last, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, exactly.

Brad Dowdy: Like you, I mean, I get an unlimited amount of them, so I could use one a day, I guess, for the rest of my life, but I still wouldn't pick it.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: So, anyway, these pen things tend, what, every, I don't know, twice a year, we get just these hugely viral pen topics, and it's so amazing that people go, oh, people like pens? Continuing to see this, being like knee-deep into this for decades, people are still just like astonished that there's pen people out there that might have an opinion on what their favorite pen is, so it's pretty funny, so. All right, let me get our shout-out of the week, Myke. All right. This week, this is a newer blog, and it's called Analog Office, and if you follow me and, you know, you're a pen act member, you'll notice that I've linked to a bunch of their posts and shared the links to their articles on Missville on Sundays, because Anna, who writes Analog Office, always has some really cool ideas about using stuff, so, like, you know, using index cards for systems, and, you know, the most recent post is making pre-printed postcards, you know, waiting for you to go out and, like, design your own postcard, and, you know, just organizing files, and just, there's an all kinds of different stationary slash analog tool content on analogoffice.net, and y'all should go check it out. If you aren't already following this blog from the things that I've sent out, definitely go give them a follow, and, you know, they might also share a lot of this on a certain sponsor site of ours, which you may not even know that, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Let me talk, should we talk about that sponsor?

Brad Dowdy: We should talk about it. We should talk about it.

Myke Hurley: I want to thank our friends over at micro.blog for their support of this episode of The Pen Addict. If you are a pen addict who wants to share your love of pens, ink, and stationery, go over to micro.blog where you'll find kindred spirits. Micro.blog is an easy-to-use personal blogging platform where you can write short or long blog posts, share videos, photos, or even host a podcast of your own. But more than a place to just post your stuff, it's also a friendly community of people with a wide range of interests who share and comment via micro.blog's social timeline, backed by strong community guidelines that are enforced. Micro.blog is different. There are no ads and no behind-the-scenes algorithm choosing which posts appear in your timeline. If you've always wanted to share your love of pens but have felt lost or discouraged by larger social media sites, go to micro.blog and meet fellow enthusiasts and the rest of a community who share interesting things that they love. micro.blog hosting starts at just $5 per month and you can use your own domain name. You can even cross-post to other services like Tumblr, Mastodon, and Twitter. You can also follow and be followed by Mastodon users directly with conversations threading across both micro.blog and Mastodon. Brad, what were you going to say about micro.blog?

Brad Dowdy: So I found Analog Office. I'm almost certain from like a blotter, like the desk rocker blotters, you know, the traditional like ink blotters you find on desks that there was a post on Analog Office. I found that and shared either, you know, in refill or something that I wrote and shared this post. And I started following the blog. And then I happened to notice on Analog Office, I was like, hey, this Anna Havron on micro.blog sure does seem to talk about like analog tools a lot. Then I realized it's the same. They're the ones writing Analog Office and Analog Offices on micro.blog. So yeah, it was a really cool like, oh, like I found this blog. And then, oh, look, like the cool person that writes this blog is right here in my timeline. And it's been nice to talk with them on occasion and see all the cool stuff they're up to. So yeah, micro.blog is just comfortable. I like it so much. I enjoy being there. It's cozy. It's comfortable. Low friction. It's low friction. It's not, it's never too much of anything. You know, it's just the right amount of everything. So I'm really enjoying my time on micro.blog. I have to think about it. Like I think about like where I post things and I really do think of it when I post things there to have it more of a blog style. So even though like I have a social feed there of people I follow, you have a feed. The text that I type or the content that I write could, it goes directly to basically my blog page that you get for micro.blog. And any comments I then get on my posts or in those social feeds of other people end up as replies on my micro.blog. And it just kind of works. It's like this whole system that just kind of works on its own and it builds like this thing that's exactly what I want. So it's really cool. It's really nice. It's really comfortable. And I love being there. So I'm very, very much enjoying my time on micro.blog.

Myke Hurley: Go and check it out for yourself today. Go sign up. If you're ready to try a different blogging and social media experience, go to micro.blog and sign up for their 30-day free trial. And you can use the coupon code RELAY, R-E-L-A-Y, and you'll get a special deal of your standard subscription. You'll get a premium account at no extra charge. That's $5 a month for hosting that includes premium features like podcast and video hosting, which is a 50% saving. Thanks to micro.blog for the support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Before we do this little next hit and we'll do some Ask TPA, I got to give them some behind the scenes, Myke, that you don't know what I'm going to talk about. And I'll probably get in trouble. I'll probably get in trouble. So people might think I set this up for the shout out of the week at the analog office. I write the entire show notes without knowing what sponsors we have. So it just so happened that it happened to be. Yeah. It was just like totally random. And then I didn't know that Enigma Stationery was going to be a sponsor today until I started emailing Dan. And it's like, hey, by the way, it's like, oh, cool. That's awesome. So I love, I don't know. I love what we do.

Myke Hurley: Separation of church and state, baby.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So like we definitely try to keep it that way.

Myke Hurley: Brad, even I didn't know the Enigma Stationery thing was happening. I didn't know.

Brad Dowdy: Carrie told me. I was like, oh, great. That's how I talked to Dan. I was like, Dan was talking to Carrie. And I was like, oh, that's cool. So yeah, that's great. And yeah. Anyway, we keep it real here at the Pen Addict, Myke. We keep it real. Get at us, Monograppa. All right.

Myke Hurley: You know what I was just thinking about too? I don't know why that like specifically popped back into my head. I was like, yeah.

USPS stamps and related products

Brad Dowdy: That's great. One random thing that I ran across yesterday. I am a United States Postal Service stamp buyer, Myke. So, you know, stamps are two things. Like they're utilitarian, right? You need them for one thing. And then separately, people will buy them to collect them or check out, you know, cool stamps and cool styles to help, you know, their letter writing or postcards look cooler, right? And supporting some of these artists that make these designs. So anyway, I buy stamps directly, usually by how cool I think the stamps look. So I'm on the catalog list for the USPS, which their little catalog is called Philatelic. So it's like the stamp collecting idea. And I opened this catalog to see which stamps I need to order because they just kind of list out everything. And the first thing I did, like right out the mailboxes, I just kind of flipped through the pages and it's like, oh, look at this field notes. That's pretty cool. Like, what is this field notes doing here? Then I flipped another page and there was a different field notes. Then I dipped, flipped another page and there was a different field notes. It's like, did I miss something here? Did I miss some announcement? That field notes is completely tied in. Thoroughly embedded. Thoroughly embedded. Yeah, that's a good way to put it with the United States Postal Service. Now, I know they had done stuff before, but now they're doing these cool things where, think of it this way. So their basic craft notebook, right? So the brown cover craft notebook. They are now with certain issues of stamps. So let's take, for example, women's soccer, which is on the cover of this magazine, this catalog that I'm looking at. So you go to the women's stamp page, women's soccer stamp page, and you can get a three pack of field notes of the craft style. But on the front of that notebook, there is space for the stamp and then like the Frank, the cancellation postmark. Yeah. So the first day of issue postmark. And they're like completely fairly priced. Like it's clearly designed for like the collectability of it. Like it's a good, it's a good add in, right? For like people who are buying stamps, sometimes buying to collect them and do things like that. Then you have this little thing. You can get a three pack of field notes with a stamp on each one and then a cancellation for the first day of issue. And it's like $14.95. It's like practically the same amount as like a regular field notes these days. So for a three pack. And I don't know, I just, it really caught me off guard that it wasn't just like a one off. Hey, let's do it for the railroads. Yeah. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Like it's a good way for field notes to create like basically an addition for every stamp set, like this addition that comes out without a lot of work. Right. Because it's just the base field notes and then whoever's doing this puts the stamp on it and puts the cancellation stamp over the top of it. Yeah. Right.

Brad Dowdy: And yeah. And then the cancellation stamps are all designed around the stamp. They're not just not generics. Like the women's soccer has like the soccer ball kicking and like the Toni Morrison one has like a whole bookshelf stamp on there. Like it's, it's wild. And like, there's a railroad one. And I couldn't believe how many versions there were of it. So anyway, I thought that was really neat. I may be way behind in noticing this and, or how deep the, the, the ties run, but Hey, that's pretty great. I love it.

Myke Hurley: I think it started with like the peanuts one maybe, and maybe it did well enough that they're just.

Brad Dowdy: I think, yeah, I think that's when I saw it and I thought, Oh, that's a cool, like a one-off type of deal. So now like the peanuts one is here and then there's like 10 other ones in there. It's crazy. It's really, really smart. Really smart.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: I might, next time I order some stamps, I might order a set just to see what those are like. Probably the women's soccer ones. Cause I want to order those stamps anyway. So anyway, cool stuff.

Ask TPA segment introduction

Myke Hurley: Do you want to just some ask TPA? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Let's hit a few.

Myke Hurley: All right. We've got a bunch sent in via the new feedback form. Thank you to everybody who's doing that. You can send us in at penaddictfeedback.com or click the link in your show notes. It goes to our form. Some comes from Matt who says, I'm new to fountain pen converters and using bottled ink. And there are any specific techniques you use to clean the nib after dipping it into an ink bottle for filling. It seems that when I try to wipe the nib clean, I just pull more ink onto the nib. I really want a clean nib when I'm finished with the filling process.

Brad Dowdy: Matt, welcome. You are officially one of us now. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So I used to, back in my formative fountain pen years, be driven crazy by the exact issue that Matt is having right now. So you dip the nib in the bottle, you draw in the ink with the converter, you pull the nib out of the bottle. And generally I'll just use, and to this day, I'll just use a, a paper towel or like a wet paper towel to just kind of wipe the grip section, you know, dab off some of the extra ink. And then there's always some remnants, usually like around the tines, you know, if you try to wipe the tines while you're just drawing more ink from the feed out of the nib and you can never get it clean. I remember having Lamy, Lamy Safaris were like, are like notorious for, you can never get those tines clean, right? You just have to own it. You just have to, you just have to be okay with inky nibs to a degree, right? You can like, you can fine tune the cleanliness of your nib. Like if you get a paper towel and you twist it into a point and you kind of like really like, you know, microscopically wipe the ink off, that's as good as it's ever going to get. Like I still do that to this day. Like if I get one that's really bugging me, I will like really, really try to clean it off. But at some point I end up with more ink on my hands and like, I'm totally cool with ink on my hands. So why am I not cool with ink on the nib? Just a little bit. That's in a place that's driving me crazy. So Matt, there's no great answer. This is part of the beauty of fountain pens. Sometimes they're a little bit messy and it was a learning process for me to get over that a little bit, just on the nib, like the aesthetic of the nib, right? I obviously clean it off the grip section, anywhere I'm holding the pen. Any excess ink around like the feed and the housing, like I'll dab that off. But like the nib, it's just like this Sisyphean task. Like you're just never going to win.

Myke Hurley: I feel like this is one of those things that we all go through, right? I tend to dab a nib rather than wipe for this reason. But I'm also not particular about the cleanliness part because I know it's not an attainable goal. Eventually, like you eventually get to a point where you're like, well, I can clean it. But then I put the pen in my bag and a little bit of ink gets onto the nib anyway because it's just like being shaken around in there. Eventually, I find, and I assume for most people, it's just a thing that you get used to and get over. And you, as Brad said, the very nice thing, I think you come to like appreciate the messiness of the hobby that you're in and you just come up with it.

Brad Dowdy: But yeah, yeah, I mean, just, I mean, perfect example, this, the Enigma pen I inked up a couple of days ago, dipped it in a bottle of Robert Oster. I think I'm using Blue Lagoon, so a really bright blue on this gold nib. So I dipped the nib, dipped the pen in the bottle, drew up the ink, and then just took a paper towel, got it off the section. And then there was like, you know, a little bit extra on the nib. So I just made sure I got it right around the tines. And now there's like a couple little dots like right around the tines that I just don't care about. I got the majority of it off and I'm good to go.

Myke Hurley: This is an interesting one to me. I feel like there's more to this story. Eric says, two issues later, I need a capped pen for my Pentel Energel refills so that I don't have to frantically get blue ink out of my khaki pants before I get on an airplane. What do you have, Brad? So this is the part. So what I don't understand about this, Brad, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So specifically, why are the Pentel Energel refills leaking before Eric gets on a plane? You know what I mean?

Brad Dowdy: That's true. It wasn't, I landed. Exactly. And then found the ink on my pants. It was before I got on the airplane. What are you doing, Eric?

Myke Hurley: What's Eric doing in security? You know what I mean?

Brad Dowdy: The security, yeah. I guess, I mean, I guess you got to empty your pockets. I guess just the banging around and the thing.

Myke Hurley: Wouldn't it be happening all the time?

Brad Dowdy: So the bigger question is, hey, is there a capped pen for the Pentel Energel? Because the Energel is one of my favorite gel ink refills. It's awesome. There are not a lot of capped options. There's a certain brand spoke design that makes some pens that might fit the Pentel Energel. So actually, our spoke pen, we built it around the Signo DX, and it fits very few other refills, right? Like, it is specifically not Pilot G2 compatible. Well, guess what other refill it accidentally fits? It's the Pentel Energel. Wonderful. In fact, Myke, I will let you and Eric and everyone else know, we're working on a different type of pen. Well, not a different type of pen. It's very similar to something we're making right now. And that I already have the refills here in stock for when we're ready to sell the pens. And those pens are going to be Pentel Energel, and it is going to be a capped pen. So yeah, that's how much I like the Energel refill. We're going to use it as a stock refill for an upcoming pen release, you know, probably in a few months. But like, I literally have, you know, like a thousand refills sitting here already of Pentel Energel. So there's not many other options. Most of the Energels are retractable. The only one that's not that I know of that you can just go buy, and they're still kind of hard to find. You got to get them at JetPens, is the Euro Needle, which is probably my favorite. But it's very, very limiting in tip size and ink color. One of the big highlights about the Energel is you can get purple and teal and all this. So the Energel Euro is capped, and it's a needle point. And I think they just have black, red, and blue refills. And most of them are like 0.35 millimeter and 0.5 millimeter. So it kind of, it's the micro version of the Energel. And they didn't really expand on that lineup. So that's the only capped one I can think of offhand.

Myke Hurley: And Chaya asks, how do you keep track of cartridges, converters, nibs, and other various parts of pens to know which pens they fit into?

Myke Hurley: Like I do that. I know. For me, my answer to this is kind of just like, I remember? And I don't know if that is a reliable answer.

Brad Dowdy: And most of the times I forget. Related to remembering, I often forget.

Myke Hurley: It's a great notion that one of us would be keeping track of these things with like, I don't know, some kind of spreadsheet or just boxes.

Brad Dowdy: So I'll give you a couple of tips that I actually have some, a slight amount of organization for the generic parts. So I have basically, I don't know, a little hardware tray. It's like for screws, for like loose screws, you know, like one of those, or like a fishing tackle box, right? So it has like a 20 compartment, small little plastic tray that I keep converters and nibs organized in because I can sort the converters by brand. So I do do this to a degree, Chaya. So like I'll have a platinum section, a sailor section, a pilot section, an international converter section, an international converter with thread section, you know, things like that. And then I'll have some generic nibs kind of stashed in there. Nibs that I've had like replaced with a, you know, like a custom grind. And so I'll have like a stash of number six nibs and then a stash of number five nibs. And they're just, because there's nothing else to do with them really. Other than to just like have them, have them sitting there in case I'm going to replace something else. So I do have like a little fishing tackle box that I sort and organize those extra parts. Now, what I don't have is the next level where I've have a pin and I'm swapping the nib in and out, say like a Yovo nib in a Franklin Kristoff pen where the nib might have a grind on it. And now that grind is in this pen. And then I enjoy it and I use it. And then I want to use a different pen barrel. And I move that nib again. And I don't have a way to track that. Most people will track that by spreadsheet. And I've seen some example spreadsheets because I've been working on my Pen Antic 100 spreadsheet a little bit on stream. So people have sent me their example spreadsheets. And some of them are very, very detailed to track that stuff. But as far as like the loose bits, I actually do use. I have some organization there. And it's very helpful. Like I'll say I need this converter and I know right where to go on this little tray. I probably, I don't know if I have a picture of it on Instagram, but I can put one out there. Chaya, if you want to email me directly, hello at penantic.com, I can show you what I use. But it's very simple.

Myke Hurley: All right. If you would like to send in a question of your own to be answered on a future episode of the show, just hit the feedback link in the show notes. You can send an email to hello at penaddict.com. If you want to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com, spokedesign.com. You can go to twitch.tv slash penaddict where Brad streams multiple times a week. Three days still? Three days, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays? Exactly. 10 a.m. Eastern-ish, Tuesday, Thursday.

Brad Dowdy: 10 a.m. Eastern, Tuesday, Thursday, then 11.30-ish on Wednesdays. Post show. Post show. Post show.

Myke Hurley: We mentioned Dolly, but Brad has a micro blog. You can go to micro.blog slash Brad if you want to find that. You can find me here on RelayFM along with this podcast. Go to relay.fm slash shows. Find something new to add to your podcast. Cue today. And you can find my products over at cortexmerch.com. Thank you for all the lovely feedback that I received about last week's episode and talking about the sidekick notepad and stuff. We got a lot of great feedback on that. Yeah. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much to micro.blog and Enigma Stationery for the support of this episode. And thank you for listening as always. And we'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.