The Pen Addict 577/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	577
Title:	They’re Generally Covered in Ink
Release Date:	August 16th, 2023
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 577
Audio File:	Audio Episode 577
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 577
Length:	6060 min <br />1 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 577. Today's show is brought to you by Enigma Stationery and Squarespace. My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: I feel like you had that realisation when you said 577, that that was a very large number and it caused pause in your introduction.

Myke Hurley: I accidentally closed the tab that had the episode number on it. So I had to reopen it halfway through me saying the number to make sure I had the right one. Because my show document says 577, right? That's what we have. But the tab name says 576. Yes, which is how we roll. Right. No, but the document is named correctly. This is a Google Docs problem. I don't know why it's doing that. I see what you're saying, yes. Right. So I had to go to our ad system to confirm the episode number.

Brad Dowdy: And this is how you know we've been doing this a long time because I could tell when Myke did not read the number correctly, something was up.

Myke Hurley: Well, I think it was last week or the week before, I did say the wrong number because the wrong number was at the top of the document, which wasn't my fault. And so I introduced it incorrectly.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we keep a rolling doc and sometimes I, I will admit, hand raise, I forget to change the actual doc title even if I change it correctly in the document.

Myke Hurley: But I can't complain because you do such a good job of our show notes every week. So I'm not going to complain about that all because you do a great job and I just want you to know that I appreciate you.

Pen community updates

Brad Dowdy: Well, I appreciate that. And I appreciate our pen community, Myke. We got a lot going on this week, so let's get into it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we have to talk about something. I want to talk about this. I think that the pen address is the best place to talk about it. The last week has just been absolutely horrific for the people in Maui, in Hawaii, Maui especially. But there's been wildfires throughout the Hawaiian Islands and Maui has been devastated. Maui is a place that is very special to me personally.

Myke Hurley: Like there are tons of tragedies in the world, right? There are especially wildfires like they're happening all the time now. But every now and then I think we can all kind of understand this. There's something that happens in a place that you have a personal connection to. So it hits you harder because it hits not just like your abject emotion, but it also hits like your personal emotions, like nostalgia, memories, those kinds of things. And me and Idina have spent some of the best weeks of our life in Hawaii. You know, we spent our honeymoon there and we went there as our first kind of vacation after lockdowns. And we've truly had some wonderful times there. And I feel like Maui is a place where we have taken from, you know, like we have been there. We have enjoyed that place. We have taken energy from it, from the people and from the land itself. And Hawaii is a very special place. I think everybody that has been there understands that. It is a place full of history and character. It's unlike anywhere I've been in my life. And Maui, like most of Hawaii, its entire economy is on the back of tourism. And Maui is kind of like broken up into two main tourist areas. And there is like the part of Maui that I have spent the most time in, which is called Wailea, which is one of the towns, which is more modern in the hotel construction and stuff. And Lahaina is the other one. And it's more of the historic area. And there's, you know, there's kind of like the old town and a lot of more of the history of Maui is there. We spent a little bit of time there, but never got to actually, I always wanted to go like when we would go again to go and spend a bit more time in Lahaina. Well, unfortunately, Lahaina has been absolutely destroyed now. It is horrific and so heartbreaking.

Myke Hurley: The entire area has just been burned down. And so, obviously, one of the reasons that I wanted to talk about in this show is because we have such a great partnership with Canalea. Canalea is panzool inspired by Hawaii. And, you know, Carol and Hugh, they do a lot to try and give back to the Hawaiian people because similarly to the way that I feel, you know, like they in their lives are taken from Hawaii. And they've taken like images from Hawaii to help produce products. Like it gives them inspiration. And so they make sure to give back to the community, which I really enjoy and think is good. And obviously, they are wanting to increase their efforts right now. Canalea have a thing going on around this and we wanted to promote it. So we're going to share. This is from Hugh and Carol. So they say, our hearts are with the wonderful people of Maui. In addition to making a personal donation, we will donate a portion of Canalea's proceeds from our August sales, both online and from the DC and upcoming San Francisco pen shows to Maui's ongoing disaster relief. Please consider purchasing this month to support the Lahaina community and this beautiful island. In addition, at the upcoming pen show in San Francisco, we will have a no purchase necessary Maui collection envelope at our tables. All funds collected will be sent the week following the show to these three Maui disaster recovery and relief organizations, the Maui Food Bank, the Hawaiian Red Corps and the Maui Humane Society. These three organizations are excellent options for pen addict listeners wishing to donate directly. I also donated personally to the Hawaii Community Foundation. They've set up kind of like a Maui strong thing. This is like when I was looking around because it's so difficult when these kinds of things happen and you want to give. And it's like, where do I give money to? And on a lot of like Hawaii government accounts and stuff, they were linking to this, the Hawaii Community Foundation. So I wanted to share this. I hope that pen addict listeners are aware of it. And I hope that people that feel emotionally towards this can see it in their hearts to give to, you know, however you give. You know, like it's a good excuse to buy the canalea pen you've been eyeing. So you and Carol are going to donate. Or if you just want to give, you can do that to a number of great institutions. These people may know how to help.

Brad Dowdy: Historically, the stationery community has always been a really good supporter of the causes that are important in the world. Causes that are important to a lot of people. Causes that are important that impact like our friends and families and everyone directly. So it's always great to see the rallying around the causes. We also have some good friends in the community doing fun stuff. So Hello Tello Studios is, John has always been a huge supporter of us at Relay FM when we do the St. Jude's coming up next month, you know, providing products to give away. He's doing a, we'll have a link in the show notes to this. He's doing a pen collaboration similar to like he did to raise funds for the efforts in Ukraine. Getting several makers to collaborate, you know, different makers making different parts for the pen and putting it together and raising funds that way. Also, Pens by Pasquale is doing something on Instagram as well. Raising funds, auctioning off a pen. I've also, you know, I do a quarterly donation through the Panatic members, you know, newsletter that I do every quarter. I do a donation. I also donated to the Maui Food Bank. So that is, you know, my recent contribution to them. And if anyone has any other, you know, community driven, stationery community driven projects that they're working on that are raising funds for the devastation in Hawaii due to the wildfires, definitely let me know. You know, reach out to us either through the contact form, me directly. There's a million different ways to get in touch with us. So, yeah, definitely let me know if you got things going on and we would be happy to share them because this is important to all of us. And we really, really appreciate the support.

Retro 51 discussion

Brad Dowdy: All right. Harsh left turn. Harsh left turn. We're going to get into the show. So we have our classic. We have some classic notes in this show, Myke. We have some field notes to talk about. We have some, you know, some.

Brad Dowdy: Retro 51s to talk about, I guess, let's start with the retro 51 because I mentioned it most recently. The Segea waves collection, the classic waves pattern that I mentioned that I got at the DC pin show from Rickshaw. This collaboration has dropped. So I just wanted to mention that since we mentioned it last week. It hadn't gone live yet. It's gone live now. And every time I show off this pin close-ups like on my Twitch streams and stuff, people are like, ooh. They did a really good job. They did a really good job with this one. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: When you explained it last time, maybe I didn't understand that it's like, it's almost like their Metal Smith series rather than a print. Like they've etched this in rather than printing it on. And I think that probably adds a lot of fanciness to the pin. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. And I added my own fancy by swapping into a blue P8126 refill, which I think this pin is just screaming for a blue refill aside from the traditional black, which they ship with. So I have been using this pin a lot over the last week. And then also there's, you know, different cases and different pin sleeves and things like that for the project. And it also has a pencil component. So I just have the pin, but you can get like a collaboration with the pin and the pencil set. So go check that out now that it has finally launched. The other thing that launched, Myke, are the Plotter 2024 refills. And this is not normally something I would discuss except one. I'm in the pocket of big plotter, clearly. No, I'm just kidding. I'm obviously a huge fan. Like it's not, it's no surprise that I'm into the plotter system. But when you're thinking about what you're currently using for your planners and journals, and in my case, I'm using a Plotter narrow. And it not being the most popular size item, I don't want to wait until like December to get my next year's refills because I know this is exactly what I'm going to be using for the next year. Right. Sometimes it's hard to know this time of year, what you're going to be using in 2024. Not everyone is consistent from year to year. Hand raised. I have definitely swapped in and out of plenty of things over the years, but I'm really kind of. No. We have this show, Myke, called the Panetic Podcast. You're going to do it for your work, Brad.

Myke Hurley: Do it for your work. That's it.

Brad Dowdy: No, I'm not changing next year. In fact, I've already bought the 2024 refills, just the weekly and monthly refills. Right. I don't have to buy like any of the notebook paper. I just have to buy like the calendar dated stuff. So I wanted to go ahead and get ahead of that game because I did not want to forget to to I didn't want them to become unavailable. You know, when I forget to order them come December or January going, oh, yeah, I probably should order these. And boom, 2020 for refills are gone because that's how planners work. Right. They can't make these infinitely because they're not going to sell them once 2024 rolls around. So I just wanted to bring that up because I got that email. And yeah, so I've got my that and that's you'll be proud of me, Myke. Listeners, you're going to be proud of me. That's all I bought. I just bought the refills. I bought the weekly calendar and the monthly calendar. And that was it. That was my entire order.

Myke Hurley: Let me tell you, Brad, Daddy, I will do everything in my life to avoid printing fixed dates on a product. Yeah, that sounds terrible. Let me tell you, I don't want to live this life. Right. Of like. Yep. It's too much. I mean, maybe one day. Right. Like, basically, I don't want to do it for as long as my company's running the way that it does, which is like I'm keeping track of the inventory. You know, like maybe one day in the future, somebody else is keeping track of like inventory forecasting and it will be easier. But like the thought of like trying to guess how many to order for that. Oh, it seems horrible. Like the bets on it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Just when you look at someone like Hobonichi. Yeah. It just gives me such anxiety. Yep. But they clearly know what they're doing. Right. But the variety in systems that they have in sizes and patterns and colors that are almost all of it is date stamped. It's not blank. They have a few blank products.

Myke Hurley: Maybe I'm weird. Maybe I'm different. I don't know. But like I don't need things to be date stamped. Like I can write the date in. But like. Yeah. Obviously, people like it. Right. Obviously, people like it. But I don't know. Like so part of my thinking, like part of my personal reasoning for why I don't like to date stamp products. And I have multiple products now that take that are like expected to be used on certain days. And I have more coming is that like I know for me that it would be wasteful. Like that there would be days where I wouldn't use. Mm-hmm. And like so for me personally, like if I had a journal, which I did have, or like I had like Obonichi, I didn't write in it on weekends. So it's like a page wasted every single time. Yep. And so like, yeah, I just like I like being able to date things myself.

Brad Dowdy: I agree. And like that's how I got into the format that I'm in now with like the half page having like seven days on it. Right. I can't do a one page per day thing. Like I've tried and failed that many times just for the reasons that you were talking about. And the original format that I got into was Midori's Traveler's Notebooks format. So it had the seven days, except you just wrote in the dates. Right. So they could sell it year round. Yeah. See, I like that. That's what I do.

Myke Hurley: Right. Like. So, yeah. So I used. It's just different people, different things. And like. Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's normal. Right. Like people, you know, they make their people that make products. They make them based on the way that they use them first, I think.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So this is this is both Myke and I freaking out as people who have made products going. This sounds like a nightmare because it really does. So get your get your dated refills because they don't last forever if you're into whatever system you use. But, yeah, I look at Hobonichi Midori and Leuchtturm are the ones that stand out to me is like that is such a huge volume of this. And you just have to really, really have to go strong like for the next three months to get all this 2024 stuff sold. And then poof, it's going to vanish. And then you're left with hopefully not much, but you never know.

Disney-themed stationery

Myke Hurley: Speaking of volume, let's talk about something with not a lot of volume. This is sent in to us by Daniel, who says, here is a pen exclusive to Toya. It is the Disney 100 capless. Only 300 pens will be made and available. So it's Disney's 100th this year. Did you know this?

Brad Dowdy: I did not know that. 100 years of Disney this year.

Myke Hurley: So you're going to see a lot of this stuff, Brad. Gotcha. A lot of things are going to be around. And this is a Steamboat Willie pen. It's like a white pen with like very subtle printing on it. It's got to be $500 or so. Which I think is a pretty good price for something that's going to be so limited. But yeah, this is, it looks cool. I've got to say.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, what I find interesting about this is, again, back to the business brain working, is how big a Toya is to be able to pull off a pilot plus Disney collaboration that only they get.

Myke Hurley: How do you bring these two together? How did they manage this? And now you said that. It's like, yeah, how did a Toya, who did this come from? You know what I mean? Like, did a Toya bring these companies together? Did like Disney speak to Pilot and then Pilot spoke to a Toya? You know what I mean? Like, how did this happen? That's fascinating.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So that's all I see when I see this product. Like, it looks cool. This, like, giving the popularity of Disney characters, even in Japan, in the Vanishing Point and the size of a Toya, this would be like an instant sellout at any price. But it's kind of wild. I like it. It's pretty subtle.

Myke Hurley: It's pretty subtle. Do you know what's funny to me? Like, this is no shade in any direction. All right? I'm just saying. Yeah, leave the shade to me. So this is like $400 or something, right? Okay. Can you imagine how much this product would cost if it was the same product, but made by, like, Montegrappa?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I was thinking ST DuPont, but yes. Right?

Myke Hurley: Like, if this was an American brand, this thing would be like $1,000, even like the same kind of idea.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, for sure. For sure.

Myke Hurley: But I hope to see that. I want the Mickey Chaos pen. You know what I mean? Give me it. Give me it. Could you imagine? Give me it. Why not, man? Give me it.

Brad Dowdy: Do some Mickey Chaos. Yeah, baby. I want it. Give it to me. Get on it, Montegrappa.

Myke Hurley: Honestly, if Montegrappa have not worked this out, I don't know what's going on. You know what? Like, if they don't have some kind of Disney pan coming out this year, like, I love you, Montegrappa, but you failed, right? Like, you do so many, right? Like, I would be flabbergasted. I don't think they've done any Disney stuff yet.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So who knows?

Myke Hurley: They do Warner Brothers stuff, but I haven't seen any Disney stuff from them, but like, yeah, they seem to have a Warner Brothers deal because they got like Batman and they did Harry Potter and stuff like that. But like, come on, you know?

Brad Dowdy: HBO deals. So they have some of that stuff. So yeah, we will keep an eye on that. But yeah, that's all I think back to when I see this pen is like, how did this meeting happen to make this pen exist? That's what I want to know. I don't care about the pen. And I want to know how it came into existence. So that's what fascinates me.

Myke Hurley: All right. Talking about great pens. Yeah. Talking about beautiful design. Let's take a moment to thank one of our sponsors of this week's episode, and that is Enigma Stationery. Enigma Stationery offer unique items made from in-house designs alongside top brands and hard to find imported products. Starting today, they are offering a limited online pre-sale of their newest exclusive pen, Special Edition No. 8 Fogged In. Fogged In was made by Rich Paul at River City Pen Company using his Elliott model as the base. The inspiration for the pen was a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge partially covered in fog. They created three new materials to represent the foggy waters of the bay, the bridge, and the fog itself. This pen is sick. Not only can you go to Enigma Stationery's website, I'll tell you the URL in a minute, but you should also go to their Instagram because they put a little video of fog together. Yeah. Super good.

Brad Dowdy: I can't let you get through this because I keep giggling. I can't stop watching the video.

Myke Hurley: So good. Really good. This is a real beauty. I gotta say, this is an excellent looking pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So not only is it a cool looking pen when you're writing with it with the blue and the red section and the fog colored cap, but when you have the pen capped and you can see the red peeking through, the concept really stands out when you see the pen capped and then you get into it and uncap it and get to writing with it. I'm fascinated by this whole thing. Really great job. Let me tell you. Between Enigma and River City.

Myke Hurley: More people, this should be a thing, right? Yeah. The cap is its own part of the design, right? Which I think is rare. Caps seem to usually just take on the form of the body, but this is like, the cap is its own unique design element that changes the visual of the pen when it's capped from when it's uncapped. It's like the fog rolls in and then when you use it, the fog goes away.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, there's plenty of two-tone and three-tone pens, but to have the concept of the fog and the cap being the fog and you bring it in the fog, like I'm just, again, I'm completely fawning over this. I think it's great.

Myke Hurley: Unbelievably, and I think dangerously, this edition will only be 30 pens. In total. So if you want one, act fast. It will be featured at Enigma's San Francisco pen show tables, where you can get yours for $180 and it includes the choice of your number six nibs. So head down to the San Francisco pen show and find Enigma Stationery from August 25th to 27th, where you'll find Fogged In, along with other exclusive pens and so much more. For those who can't make it to the show, do not worry. New items will arrive on their website by August 30th. Go now to enigmastationery.com slash penaddict for the limited online pre-sale of the special edition number eight Fogged In. To get it while you can, remember, just 30 of this awesome pen are available. Use promo code penaddict at checkout and you'll receive a free gift and discounted shipping on orders of over $40 or more. That is enigmastationery.com slash penaddict with the code penaddict. I will put a link in the show notes for that info. A thanks to Enigma Stationery for their support of this show and RelayFM.

San Francisco pen show highlights

Brad Dowdy: So if that wasn't enough to get you excited about the San Francisco pen show, my shout out of the week is making the trip for the first time to the San Francisco pen show. And this is the wonderful Hiroko from Bocamundo Studio.

Myke Hurley: Damn it. Come on. Why? This isn't fair.

Brad Dowdy: So if you're active on pen Instagram, you have seen Bocamundo, the work that Hiroko does.

Myke Hurley: This is heartbreaking.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And they are making the trip over to San Francisco. And this would be, so for me personally, this would be the first place I would go.

Myke Hurley: This is going to be danger.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And it's just going, you have to budget accordingly for your visit to Bocamundo.

Brad Dowdy: Oh my God, Brad. Just go look, right? Just go look because this is not stuff you see. And this is one of the great things about pen shows, which we've been talking about for years, right? You get to see stuff in person that you may have only seen online. And Hiroko's artwork is just amazing. And the craftsmanship is out of this world. And you definitely just want to go see it, right? Like the artwork, the Arushi art, the, you know, all the different inlays, all the different styles, all the different colors, um, and just the craftsmanship is, is unbelievable. So make sure you find a Bocamundo if you're going to be there at the San Francisco pen show and check them out. So that is the shout out of the week. And it is again, between the Enigma stationery pen and now this, like we're, we're just getting into like the full jealousy phase of not, not being there this year. So I will get yelled at, uh, a bunch during the show, Brad, look what I found. And I'm going to be, I'm just going to have to, I need, I just need to go out of town and like into the, into the world wilderness during, uh, San Francisco pen show.

Myke Hurley: Well, honestly, I'm just happy that we're in this one together. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Like we're both not going to be there.

Field Notes product launch

Brad Dowdy: Yep. We're both not going to be there, but Myke, we are both, uh, field notes fans and they launched a new, they launched a new edition foiled again, Myke, which I think is a great name. Um, and relative to the foil stamped edition that they did, uh, for their 59th quarterly editions using, um, a hot foil stamping process from their printer. And I got to say, I'll just go ahead and come out and say it like, this is a knockout edition. What do you think?

Myke Hurley: Oh, it's fantastic. I said, it's fantastic. Look, so honestly, most of my favorite field notes are when they bring Draplin in to do something, right? Cause he doesn't always contribute, I believe an artwork to a product. But this one, this is an Aaron Draplin illustration, which has then been foil stamped of a process that I cannot even begin to imagine how they pulled it off. And like, they even call out the fact that like the, the foil stamping company that they use is, they're from St. Paul, Minnesota and studio on fire is the name that like they, this is what they do like detail. Right.

Brad Dowdy: The video is, the video is just strictly a process video, like print process video. And I'm just staring at it like with my, my jaw dropped. Like this is intense.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. This is, I know very little about this, but I know enough to be dangerous. And this, I don't even, I don't know how they've done it and charged $15. I cannot fathom how this makes sense. Like, and they, they even said like, this was complicated. And so this is a smaller print run than normal. Okay. I think there's like 26,000 packs, which is significantly less than what is a decent field notes like order these days. And it's due to the fact that this is like a, this is hard. This is hard. And they're using a new paper too. That looks fun. It's like a shiny indigo paper. Like very cool. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I'm all about this. And in the, this is subscribers parts with the, the add-ons for the subscribers, but the, the different colors that you get. I mean, that's, they did a good job of, Hey, this is a classic design with a highly technical print process and a completely sick subscriber bonus. Like you should have all the things like they checked. Yeah. In a box of pocket notebooks. Like they checked all the boxes on this one for me. So it's, it's fantastic. I, I might even have to get some of these to check them out in person. I haven't bought field notes in forever.

Myke Hurley: Or yeah, I think I need to own a pack of these just to like see it. So I'm going to buy it in person.

Brad Dowdy: Especially like the, like these are the traditional pockets. These are the three and a half by five and a half. This is not a big notebook. Like that's even harder to print something this detailed on. Like, it's just, I kind of want to see it just from a technical perspective because I appreciate that kind of, that kind of work so much. Like a lot goes into this. So good job by, by field notes and everyone involved in, in this one. It's a really, really nice one.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Speaking of paper, um, my good friends over to Johto over in your neck of the woods, you know, I'm sure Manchester, like you're friends with everyone in Manchester, right? That's just how it works. Right. Like, you know, everyone. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Oh, okay.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Um, not exactly close to you, but, but, um, yeah, so they're coming out with a paper, a notebook and, you know, you may have known a Johto for a long time. I've been a long time fan of a Johto's pens. I'm a huge Johto pen fan. We've done a pen addict edition because I like them so much and they just do great work. And some point last year, like it's been a while, they sent me a bunch of paper samples. I think I talked about it on the podcast. Gosh, I didn't even, I didn't even have to find it just about paper testing. I might not even, I probably didn't even call them out by name because I didn't want to, you know, allude to anything. So I probably just talked about paper testing. And I think I had, it was either 25 or 30 individual paper samples. They asked me to test and it was like, all right, I'm going to take this seriously and go through this process. And they're like, we want to make a notebook, but we're sending a lot of paper. We're out to a lot of people and we're just getting feedback right now. And again, this was last year. Like I can't even remember how long ago it was. And so I did it. I did all the testing, did all my feedback, filled out all the information. Like it was a good thorough process. So now the fruits of their labor are actually launching today. As you listen to this podcast, I believe 1 p.m. Eastern time, if I have the time correctly on this day that we are dropping this podcast. So August 16th for those future listeners. And it's cool. What they ended up doing was not choosing one paper to try to solve everybody's problem. Is they made three different types of paper. And they've done a good job at describing the features of each of these paper and each of the paper types and what those types of papers, what medium will be best for them. So there is a number one, a number two, and a number three paper. So for example, Johto Pocket Paper number one is good for pens, graphite pencils, and ink. It has a nice texture to it. It's smooth, but textured. And then paper number two is recommended for fountain pens and ink pens. And, you know, it's a smoother, brighter white. It's going to, your inks are really going to pop off the page. And then paper number three is your watercolor sketchbook type of paper, right? It's made for pencils and pastels and graphites. You know, that really thick texture. It's going to be able to handle water and, you know, different types of heavier media more than some of the paper number one or number two. So I got to test all these out. I have them in hand and I tested them out on stream yesterday. So we can put a link into the show notes of me going through. I tested paper number one and two. I didn't test the watercolor paper because that's not really my thing. Like if you're into that, you know, that's something to consider. But paper number one and two are exceptional. Like they did really, really good with all of the fountain pens and inks and pencils and things that I threw at it. Number two is definitely going to be your fountain pen. Winter type of paper. It is spectacular. It does a really good job with the ink colors. It shows shading and sheen. So I know that's what a lot of people want to know. How does it handle my fountain pens? Number two is going to be your fountain pen friendly paper. Number one is also fine for fountain pens, but it handles the traditional pens a little bit better. It doesn't quite show off the ink properties as much as number two, but I think they're going to do pretty well with these. They're smaller pocket notebooks. So excuse me. I'm not going to say pocket notebook. They're bigger than that. They're like a B6 ish size. Again, Myke, they're just, you know, they're smart sized or whatever. What do I call it? They're 172 by 105 millimeters. They're lay flat. The binding's great. So they're beautiful. Something to check out when they launch. I will be first in line when the Kickstarter campaign goes live today. So yeah.

Myke Hurley: Probably by the time you're hearing this. Yeah. Probably by the time you'll hear this. That's a big lie. That I don't know if you can answer, but I would be interested. The paper. Yeah. Is it their own?

Brad Dowdy: No. So there's every paper.

Myke Hurley: Paper supplier.

Brad Dowdy: Paper supplier each. Okay. So number one, number two, and number three. I actually prefer that in a way. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: But like, I'm pleased that they're not trying to do it on their own because that just feels like an impossible.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So they're all Italian papers. So I don't know if they're all the same studio. Like they don't list the specifics, but the paper origin of edition number one, number two, and number three is all Italy.

Myke Hurley: Okay. So. Let me ask you a question. Yep. This can be, you know, devoid of this particular thing. But like, how do you feel when like a company doesn't name the supplier?

Brad Dowdy: I am fine with that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. This is interesting.

Brad Dowdy: As someone who's had to do it myself. Yeah. Right. There, there's, I don't want to say there's a fine line, but there is a balance with that. Right. Like you don't want to give all the secrets. Right. But at a point it's like, well, it would be nice to share this information. So like field notes is a good example. They've always listed the paper source, but the thing about, and, and, well, I'll explain the difference between like the field notes and a Johto is field notes has never been necessarily about the paper, right? The paper is like just a tool for them to deliver their design processes. Yeah. Yeah. And their designs and their creativity. So it's like, Hey, we're going to use this and we're going to change it a bunch. Right. We're not sticking with one thing in a more proprietary sense, even though like a Johto is not saying, Hey, this is a proprietary paper, but we're making this notebook and we believe in this paper. And yeah, like, like we're not going to list out like the pure paper specs for that, but that's going to be our thing. And like, I'm completely fine with that. Like our not code note cards, we were very specific not to point that out. Um, because we, we put in the work to make something that we thought separated itself. And, you know, eventually over the years, I would say like which paper it was, but I went out there like publicizing it because I honestly, I didn't want someone else to use it. So it was like, you know, I found the thing and it was through a large, you know, paper manufacturer. And, you know, it's sometimes like when you're doing your business stuff, you like you, you give plenty, you give enough information, but you don't have to give all of the details. And I'm totally fine with that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It's interesting. But that's the difference. Yeah. That's the difference I see in like a field notes where they're, they're making notebooks, but they're not going, this is the, we put everything into this paper. Like they've never said that. Right. Where Johto is saying, we're putting everything into this paper, you know, and you know, we're going to keep that closer to the rest.

Myke Hurley: So it's like field notes, they're like, what they're selling is the design. Right. And like, and that is from the manufacturing that they've chosen and the part that like products that they've chosen and the way that they've themed it. But what a Johto is selling, their like unique selling point is the paper and the quality of the paper. And so maybe you don't want to be as forward with that. Yep. Which I'm okay with that. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It's, it's okay to have like those type of manufacturing things closer to the vest. Like I think so. Okay. With that. Even though people don't want to hear that answer. Yeah. Like people want to know, but like some of it, you don't get to know. You get to know where it's from and you get to know where we make it and you get to know how it was designed and all that stuff. But the actual physical component, you generally, a lot of times you're not going to get that source.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It's interesting. My, you know, I'm exposed to two kind of maker communities, right? The other one is keyboards. And in the keyboard community, people demand to know the manufacturer of products.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: And I find that strange that, that like companies give it. From like a switch perspective, say? Everything. Something like that? Everything. Who makes the keycaps? Who's making this keyboard? Like people want to know.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, really? Like even like they say like the molds, like. Who's made it? Yeah. Like who, like. Interesting.

Myke Hurley: There's, there is a lot of like transparency required and that comes from like when the hobby was a bit, was quite a bit smaller than it is now. And like there is an element that of like mistrust, it feels like in the community that like people won't just trust that the product will turn out well. This is changing more because there are some companies who have started more recently who are just like won't give the information. Like, and they're just like. Yeah. Like we, we've worked it out and it's kind of like, it's up to you to trust that, you know, like if you want to buy it, buy it. And then that's like the trust that you're giving rather than necessarily the, the manufacturer. Cause I kind of fall personally in the middle. Like some stuff I will be open with and some stuff if I think it's like proprietary, then I wouldn't share.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. Right. Like a lot of people will tell you where the thing's made, but they're not going to tell you the factory. Right. Yeah. Cause they don't want you going to call and calling up a factory somewhere, you know? Yeah.

Myke Hurley: It's something that I changed with like with the psychic notepad. I'm very open because I'm very proud of the fact that it's made in London. And so I wanted to share like who our partner is in London. Exactly. Because like there was like a source of pride, but with the theme system journal, it's not important and I don't share it. Right. But they're made in Europe, but it doesn't really, it doesn't really benefit me in any way to talk about the manufacturing of that product where I feel like it is a bit more beneficial. But with the psychic notepad, it's just like more of the story of the product. Right. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: So like there's, you know, good benefits to share as much information as possible, but there are limits that I'm fine with companies not sharing.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's take a second break and thank our sponsor, which is Squarespace. They are the all-in-one platform for building your brand and growing your business online. With Squarespace, you can stand out from the crowd with a beautiful website, engage directly with your audience and sell your products, services, even the content that you create. Squarespace has got everything you need all in one place. You can take advantage of their new next generation website design system over at Squarespace. It's called Fluid Engine. This will allow you to unlock your creativity more easily than ever before. You get started with a best-in-class website template, and it allows you to customize every single design detail with a reimagined drag-and-drop system for desktop or mobile. You can stretch your imagination online with Fluid Engine. It is built in and ready to go on any new Squarespace site, which, you know, you can make a Squarespace site like Brad's, right? It's like it's a blog. You can share your information about your business. Maybe you can set up a Squarespace website for an event or something like that, or a portfolio. But you can also sell products in an online store with Squarespace. Whether you sell physical or digital goods, they have all of the tools that you need to start selling online. And your customers can even get flexible payment options. By making checkouts seamless for your customers, but simple with powerful payment tools. Accept credit cards, PayPal, and Apple Pay, and offer customers the option to buy now and pay later with Afterpay and ClearPay, all with Squarespace. Go and check it out for yourself right now. Go to squarespace.com slash penaddict and sign up for a free trial. Then you'll see why both me and Brad have been using Squarespace for like 15 years for our various projects. It's so easy, so awesome to use. Then when you're ready to launch your own website after building it in the trial, go to squarespace.com slash penaddict and use the code penaddict to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash penaddict and the code penaddict when you decide to sign up to get 10% off your first purchase. And to show you support for the show. Thanks to Squarespace for the continued support of this show. Real AFM.

Brad Dowdy: Random Squarespace comment that I was just thinking about today is like you said, as long as I've used them. The best thing that I like about Squarespace is I know what to, I know what's going to happen when I show up to do something there. Right. And what I mean is like we publish, there's something getting published on my site, penaddict.com almost every day. And, you know, I'll do a lot of the work outside of Squarespace, you know, the writing, the editing, you know, the taking pictures of all that. But when it's time to actually publish something, like I don't have to worry about anything. Like I do all the work outside, then I go to Squarespace, you know, open it up and I'm able to just like finalize the article like pretty consistently knowing like what time, how much time it's going to take me, you know, where everything is that I need to, to, to push to get, to get the article set up and scheduled. And like, I don't know, it's just, it's nice to not have to worry about that. Anytime I open up the site, it's just going to be, everything's going to be good to go and I can publish easily. Like I never have issues with that. So that's, that's pretty cool. I was thinking about that this morning.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, this is what they do, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And they are going to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting for these projects I have coming up, Myke. So I am, uh, I am flush with review products, right? I've got pins, I've got inks, I've got paper, I've got new storage. I've got all kinds of things. I've got like months and months worth of reviews to do, but I have other kind of project articles that I am working on. These are things I've been mentioning for a while. And I just wanted to give a quick update, like over the next few weeks, like, I don't know that I'm going to do a lot of product reviews. I'm going to be doing these project type articles. So the first one coming up on Monday, and I, did we talk about this? I guess we talk about this. Um, I'm assuming you know this, but I, I built 49 ink samples for the San Francisco pen show. And that was a kind of a big project for me, um, to number one, agree to like, what was I thinking? It was like, Hey, can you make 49 ink samples for an ink testing station? Um, so I'm writing that process up, right? So like, I'm going to write up an article. I wanted to do it before the, uh, before the pen show hit, because I did a lot of this work on Twitch and every time I would do it, people were always asking like, what are you using? How are you doing this? The chat helped me like even buy products to make it go easier for me. So I know ink samples are very popular in our community. They're a good way to try test and test inks without having to commit to like the, the larger price of in larger volume of the bigger ink bottles. So I think people will like that on top of that, like right on top of that, I have all these pilot nibs, which we talked about, I don't know, several weeks ago when I got them. So I'm close to publishing an article for that. That might be the following week where I have all 15 of pilots nibs that they offer in the nine 12 series. And there's some really cool stuff in there that I want to talk about. So I have that coming up. Then you asked me, I don't know, again, a month or so ago, Hey, what's the Panatic 100 update? Well, I think I'm changing that. I'm moving the goalposts on that mic, but I think it's going to work out. Okay. Um, I'm going to change this into more of a top 100, uh, personal collection pins. So that is something I'm working on. So for that is going to come up in the next, I don't know, month, probably in September. And guess what? September is Myke. That's when we, and you and Relay FM really focuses on all of the great work we do, uh, for St. Jude. I know you're going to have a lot more to say about that coming soon. But one of the things that I've been working on already is collecting, uh, donations for the big raffle that we do to raise funds on the pen addict. So like I have all of these things coming up and this is, um, an interesting place to be when I just generally worry about reviews and I'm doing all this other stuff and I'm pretty happy about it. Right. This is some neat stuff that I'm doing. So I'm also at the same time going, well, I'm sitting here and using this pen or that pen or this ink and I want to talk about that. So how do I share those two? So I don't know, maybe I'll double up on reviews some week. Um, we'll, we'll see. I don't, I don't want to write a check that I can't cash, but, uh, like, I don't know, I guess it's just a good time to be a pen addict right now. I'm excited about everything that's going on. Um, you know, even with the San Francisco pen show that we're not going to be at and, and seeing all that excitement, like I'm excited for everyone going there and having a great time. I've got one more pen show this year, Orlando at the beginning of September. So I'll be talking about that. So like my next two months, I'm thinking, how am I going to review any of these pens or inks that I have here? Because I have so much other stuff to talk about and that's a good place to be. Like I'm feeling like pretty positive about the work and the community and just the whole stationery space. Like things are, uh, things are going pretty well and it's nice to be able to talk about like not just always a review, even though like that's my favorite thing to do. Like give me, give me the next big ballpoint pen to review and I will be a happy camper, but it's kind of neat to be able to talk about some of these bigger, broader topics as well.

Myke Hurley: Very cool. I look forward to the pen addict 100.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So that's just a quick update on all the things I got going on because I couldn't like completely define like one thing. I was like, oh, let's just talk about all the things I got coming up. So it's a lot. It's a lot.

Brad Dowdy: Should we do some last TPA? Yeah, let's do a few because this list keeps getting longer every week. Um, and I am actually here for that, but I do feel bad if we don't get to some of these questions in a timely manner.

Myke Hurley: I think this first one you should ask me.

UK pen shows overview

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Hey, Myke. Hello. This is from Peter. This is from Peter. Hey, Myke. What UK pen shows have you been to and what were the differences to the US shows?

Myke Hurley: I mean, I've only been to the London pen show and I've been a few times and this is the, is it tips?

Brad Dowdy: Tips is the Tokyo pen show, international pen show. Okay. What is it? The London? London writing. No. London writing.

Myke Hurley: Writing. Writing. Equipment Society. LWES. LWES. LWES. LWES. That's it. The LWES shows. They've, I've been to this a few times and having been to the shows that I've been to in America. The London show does not compare, which frustrates me because it should. Um, the London pen show feels like it is the pen show that it has maybe always been. And the, at least the last time I went and the wider, which was, I don't know, probably 2019 or something. And I, and I've went a few times before that. There's way more vintage stuff. Like the vintage room that you find in most pen shows is basically, is the largest room in the London pen show when I was going. And, you know, the, the more times I've been, the more like smaller creators were popping up, but it was nothing like even the smallest, like it was nothing like even Atlanta the first time. Right. Um, and so there's a very different vibe there. It's, there isn't like, people aren't like traveling to the show and like staying over, you know, it hasn't.

Brad Dowdy: It's generally a one day. It's generally been a one day show.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And they do it, but they do it a couple of times a year. Yes. Yeah. I just, it's not really my thing. Like I like the shows that we talk about the American pen shows and, you know, I'm sure even Tokyo has the same vibe, but yeah, there was going to be a show. Uh, there was going to be a new London pen show and it was going to be in the summer of 2020 and it looked really promising. Yeah. And it's going to be a couple of days. It's going to at least be a couple of days. They were bringing a bunch of creators in from all over and like the, you know, they were having events and like, it looked like it was going to be the start of a pen show that was like the ones that I'm more used to, but you know, something got in the way and it, and it never got off the ground.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. Um, so yeah, I, I, the best thing I can say about the UK pen shows or the, at least the, the L West, um, is that they seem to be growing a little bit from what I see on Instagram and from the different UK bloggers that I read. And like, they're getting like some of like the post COVID mojo growth a little bit. You know, I definitely would like to see like, could it be a two day event sometime or is it just going to stick with one day? I do appreciate that they have it twice a year, you know, instead of just one day, once a year, there's, they'll have like a spring and a fall. Like I don't have the schedule pulled up in front of me, but you know, like six months apart, they'll have the show. I was like, Oh, that's cool. So, and I think we're starting to see like some of the vendors that I see going to those shows just, you know, from, like I said, Instagram and things like that. It's like, Oh, okay. Like this is getting like a pretty, like they're, they're catching up to the, to like what you would normally have been saying, like about like some of the US pen shows and you know, maybe we'll, we'll just keep going and hopefully, hopefully see that continued growth and continued support, um, uh, of the shows in and around London and the UK. So yeah, it'll be good.

Myke Hurley: One day.

Myke Hurley: Rob. I've been into the fountain pen hobby for a few years now, but I've yet to venture beyond stock fine nibs. I'm going to my first pen show in San Francisco this year. I wanted to get some nib work done, but I had some questions that I hope you can answer. So there's three questions here. We can go through them all. Maybe you like, I'll go through all of them or do you, would you like me to go through one at a time? All of them. Okay. Do I need to get on a nib worker signup sheet before the show? And is that typically limited to one nib? I want to take advantage of this show and maybe get three or four nibs done. I should take the pens empty, right? Or any other tips are greatly appreciated.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So love this question. I'm glad we got this one before the San Francisco pen show. So hopefully Rob will listen before then. So getting nib work at a pen show is obviously a huge highlight, right? That's a huge reason. A lot of people go to pen shows. So Rob's specific question. Let's, let's break it down a little bit. Do I need to get on a nib worker signup sheet before the show? If you can, yes. So a lot of nib workers are very busy at the show, so they will take signups ahead of time. That way you can go ahead and lock in your time. If you know you're going to be there for multiple days, I would definitely take advantage of anyone who's doing signup sheets prior to the show. Because that way you can, you're not getting stuck on like a Saturday trying to force your way into like a list that may be full, you know, that may have filled up this morning. Some don't do advanced signups and you do have to sign up at the show, but I'll get to that in a second. And is that related to that, if you get up to a nib worker for their, their signup, is that typically limited to one nib? If you're look, if you're going to sign up, they will usually have the details. A lot of them will allow for two nibs and they're kind of booking in 30 minute increments. And that's generally you could get two nibs done in that time frame. But if you're having a single signup, like if you just sign up with one nib grinder, you're basically signing up for a time window and you're not going to get three or four done. And that would be actually too much to ask for. So I would limit it to one or two per, but you could sign up for two different windows. You could sign up for two different makers. You know, I've been to shows where I've had three or four nibs done by three or four different nib grinders. So if you're sitting with one nib grinder for one appointment, you're probably not getting more than two done, but they will let you know whether they're going to limit you to one, two at the most, I would guess. And almost never going to be three or four. So you would have two different appointments for that or use two different nib grinders. You should always take the pens empty. That is correct. If you do have them inked, like they will flush them out. Like I never put that on them. Like if I have a pen that's inked and all of a sudden I have a whim to get a nib grind and I'm able to get an appointment, I will actually go try to flush it out myself. Like in the hotel restroom, I've done that plenty of times. Because I don't want to waste my time with a nib, with a nib meister having them clean out my pen before they work on it. So yes, they're generally covered in ink, but they don't need it from your pen. So definitely take it clean. So the nib grinders who don't take advance appointments, what you want to do is go find them first thing in the morning on whatever day you're there and get on their list that morning. So say you have four nibs you want to get done and you're able to get one appointment ahead of time. So you can say, hopefully you can get two nibs done from that one appointment. Now you have two other pens that you want to get done. I would go find the other nib workers who didn't take online appointments and say, can I ask them, you know, can I get on the list for later today? And they will usually have a sign up sheet at the table where they will take your name, your cell phone number to call or text you when your appointment's ready. But they can give you a general, some of them can give you a general time. Say, hey, if you're signing up at 10 o'clock, okay, come back at 2. You know, I'm going to put you down for this 2 o'clock spot. Or some will say, okay, you're 8th in the list. We will call you when the person ahead of you is sitting down. So that's the kind of things you want to look at on the day of. And you're not going to be able to sign up on a Friday for a Saturday appointment, usually, unless people are taking online appointments. So a lot of them will just have the day of sheets. And they will be able to give you some good guidance on when they can see you, how many pens they can work on for you. But you want to do that first thing in the morning. Like if you're there Saturday, and if you haven't signed up for nib work, like in the first hour or two Saturday, you're probably not getting nib work done. And especially at a show like San Francisco, that is huge and busy. So just a few things to keep in mind there. Hopefully I got all the questions out there. But yes, that's generally how I think about it when I'm getting nib work done.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I mean, this is one of those things that's always so popular, right? Like you've got to prepare for it in that way.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So an example from the DC Pen Show. I bought my Monarch nib from Ian Schoen. And I knew I wanted to get a grind on it. But I wasn't, I didn't pre-book a time to get a grind on because I wasn't, I hadn't bought the nib yet, right? So I wanted to wait. So I got that done on Friday at 1 o'clock. I bought my nib or like at 2 o'clock I bought my nib. So right then when I had the nib, I walked over to Gina from Custom Nib Studio. What appointment do you have between today and tomorrow? Do you have anything available? And at 2 o'clock on Friday, I got 4.30 on Saturday was my appointment. So just got to keep that in mind. Like it's tough, right? To do something like on the fly. So you want to take care of that stuff as early as possible or ahead of time if you can.

Myke Hurley: And last question comes from Peter. Just wondering, in the aftermath of a pen show or large pen purchases, how do you store your pens, ink, paper, and other items? Do you keep track of what you've bought in some way? I currently track what ink I've got so I don't buy ink again when I see something I like and I've already bought it.

Brad Dowdy: So Peter is clearly way smarter at this than me. Like I am just like a whirlwind. I have no clue what's going on, generally speaking. But no, I generally have an idea going into a show what I'm looking for. And if I've thought about that at all before I've attended a show, like I'm not going to duplicate things. Like I'm not looking for like 10 new inks to bring home with me that I might have before. Like at DC, I was looking for new inks, but I knew they were all show specials. So I knew I didn't have them. And, you know, they were all just being launched at the show. So that was easy. The pens I definitely don't track.

Brad Dowdy: So yeah, I am. I'm trying to think like what other people do. So I know deaf people will bring up different type of ink spreadsheets that they're keeping or they will bring up their fountain pen companion link. So that's if you're thinking about inks, I would highly recommend to fill out a fountain pen companion profile. Just go to FBC dot ink and enter all your inks and you can just pull that up and you will know. And I will be sitting with people who will be trying inks and looking at samples. Then they'll go, hang on. Let me see if I have this already. This is for people with like hundreds and hundreds of inks that just can't keep up with all of them. And they will I will be sitting with people who will pull that up like on their phones and say, oh, yes, I I would. I already have this or oh, no, I would like to try a sample of this or whatever. So if for inks, I would do that for pens. You know, it's a little bit different. You just have to know your personal collection a little bit better. And how I store things, Peter, we're not going to discuss that in public. It's called the closet of doom for a reason.

Myke Hurley: We don't talk about the closet.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we don't talk about the closet of doom. But yeah, but it's Peter has great points. Right. And you should think about these things ahead of time to, you know, have a list of what you're looking for. Right. I don't have a shopping list per se for a pen show, but I haven't basically an idea list. I want to see this. I want to test this out. I want to try this pen. I want to look at this ink and have that kind of list going. And you should be covered as far as like being careful about, you know, buying duplicates, things like that. And I definitely can't recommend FPC.ink highly enough to to go fill out what you already own. And that'd be a good way to track that.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. If you would like to send in a question of your own for a future episode, just go to penaddictfeedback.com and you can send us in stuff there. If you would like to find out what Brad's up to in between now and the next episode, go over to penaddict.com. You can find Brad online on all the social media. He is penaddict on Instagram and threads, right? And Mastodon. Mm-hmm. I'm iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. You can find Brad streaming multiple times a week over at twitch.tv slash penaddict. Are you back to normal schedules now?

Brad Dowdy: Normal schedules for the foreseeable future? Yeah, I guess my Orlando pen show pre-leaving will be a little bit weird. But yeah, pretty normal schedule from now through the rest of the year.

Myke Hurley: Wonderful. Thank you so much to our sponsors of this week's episode, Enigma Stationery and Squarespace. But as always, thank you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.