The Pen Addict 591/transcript
| The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript | |
|---|---|
| Episode: | 591 |
| Title: | I'm Thankful for Ballpoint Pens |
| Release Date: | November 22nd, 2023 |
| Hosts: | Brad Dowdy |
| Guests: | No guests this episode |
| Additional Information | |
| Official page: | Episode 591 |
| Audio File: | Audio Episode 591 |
| Podcast page: | The Pen Addict 591 |
| Length: | 5858 min <br />0.967 h <br /> minutes |
| Previous Transcript | Next Transcript |
From RelayFM, this is the Pen Addict episode 591. Today's show is brought to you by Wild Grain and Squarespace. My name is Myke Hurley and I have the pleasure of being joined by the Pen Addict himself, Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. The pleasure is all mine.
Myke Hurley, how are you today? I'm looking forward to today's episode. Got a lot of products in the document and there's a lot of notes where you're just like, I have so much to talk about with this one. So I'm excited for today because I feel like while I've looked at these things, maybe I don't, I'm yet to understand the beauty that's contained.
There is one product in today's show notes where I've looked at it and I don't understand what it is. So I'll let you know when we get to that. The one where I yelled. It's the one where there's all caps.
Yes. I don't fully understand that product. So I look forward to getting to that about halfway through today's episode. So my favorite note in our show notes, because we don't do fully descriptive show notes, we'll do like a title, a link, and then I'll say, if I have some specifics that I want linked, I'll put in there.
But my favorite one to always put in for Myke is I have a lot to discuss on this one because Myke doesn't know if that's good or bad, right? I also don't know if it's five minutes of the show or 20 minutes of the show. Exactly. So I do that on purpose because it could mean anything.
And that will be our first product after we deal with a little bit of follow-up. Yeah, I love this follow-up. Andrew. It says, you asked for some feedback on the ST DuPont DeFi. Here you go. This is what we were talking about last week, right? Yes.
Love our listeners that I can just put it out in the world and things happen. So thank you, Andrew. Andrew has one of these and says, the step down from the barrel to the grip section is pronounced and sharp. This interferes with my grip and makes the pen a hotter at best.
I don't know what that means. Yeah, I don't know what that means. Let's just say maybe not using it too much. I don't know. My nib was a bit rough out of the box.
And even though I got a good price on this pen, which usually costs $235, the black and matte black one, in my opinion... No, so it costs like... He got it for $235, which is like $100 less. Oh, that is a good price.
It's like $350-ish. Yeah. So even though I got a good price for $235 on this pen, it's not worth the money. Design and quality control issues sink it for me. Interesting. So yeah, sounds terrible.
Thank you. Thank you for taking one for the team, Andrew. It kind of just sounds like what it is to me. Like, this is what I expect from these expensive executive pens. Well, in an expensive executive pen company making a non-traditional design, right?
They're fine at the basic designs. This is not a basic design. I still feel like I'm not going to like the way that the grip feels and I'm not going to be that impressed by the writing experience. Like, that has been my...
Like, if you take a cross or something, right? Just like, that's kind of how I feel about all their products. Like, I don't fully understand the decisions. Sure. For me, I feel like Mont Blanc is the only one that, like, I think is, like, close enough to worth the price in my experience of these types of brands.
I know. It's like one of those things, one year I should just, like, take it for the team and just get, like, all, like, the main line. Yes. You know, Watermans, Parkers, Cross. Like, literally all, like, the things that pen people know who aren't pen people, right? Yep.
Those brands. You should do that. That is a great idea. To, like, just get all of the, like, one of all the standard kind of executive pen products and, like, line them up against each other and rank them. All right. I'm writing myself a note.
You could tier list. Tier list executive pens. This sounds terrible. Like, I am not looking forward to this except a little bit. Terrible for you. Great for me. Yeah. I'm willing to be pleasantly surprised.
Sure. Pen's tier list. That'll be a tier list. All right. So, we will work on the brands. Okay. What brands fall into that? That's for another show.
So, well, that should be pretty easy. Like, it's very obvious what those brands are. So, thank you, Andrew. Speaking of tier list.
Okay. I'm intrigued for where the Kaweco art sport would sit on a tier ranking of Kawecos for you. Wow. It would be in the, it would be, it would be an A tier. It would be in the A tier. It's up there. It's not an S tier.
It's not an S tier pen. This one has a chance though. So, let me, so this is your question five minutes or 20 minutes? I don't know. I'm just going to start talking because there is a history with this pen.
So, the Kaweco art sport. I did a review. Gosh, I'll have to go back and look at it. I'm not smart enough to put that in the show notes.
I'll get it. Seven, eight years ago, there is a Kaweco art sport review of a brown. 2013, October 2013. Okay. I was thinking it was 13. So, 10 years ago. 10 years ago, Kaweco actually sent me that pen. That was when, like, I was getting stuff, like, straight from Germany at the time.
I don't rate for them anymore, apparently. So, just shout out Kaweco. You know, I guess we talked about the torching of pens at the desk too much. But, yeah, I got that pen and I loved it.
Like, I was like, what is this? I was like, oh, this is a thing they've done before where they take their basic pocket pen design. Let's just call it the Kaweco classic sport, right? The traditional plastic barrel Kaweco sport that everyone knows.
And then they made them in acrylic materials. They do, I don't know, anywhere between, like, four to eight models of this pen. And they had done it previously and they do them in small batches, right? This is like, they don't call them limited necessarily, but they don't make a ton of these, right?
Because they're expensive, expensive to make, expensive to sell, you know, high price points. So, but a very beloved product. And then they'll just vanish for, like, three, four, five years. You'll never hear anything about the sport again.
Then all of a sudden, boom, we got, like, three or four years ago, another round of sports. And there was, like, a yellow one and a green one and some really cool designs. Might have even been an orange one. But if I'm, if memory serves, they were, like, well into the $200 price point, which I felt was fine.
Like, I was like, this is totally fine. So, before last week's episode, I actually got a link to these new release, Kaweco Art Sports. And there was so little information and the price was so curious to me. I thought it was, I didn't know what it was.
I thought maybe, is this fake? Is this real? Is this some kind of weird thing? Like, the link was on some random site that I wasn't familiar with. And I, all of the information hadn't come out yet on this pin.
I was like, oh, well, maybe it's real. We actually confirmed it with a second link from another random site. It's like, okay, we got two links on these new, these new pins. And right by the time we finished last week's podcast, the, I guess, the embargo lifted for all the regular retailers that we would normally trust, you know, pin chalet for one, to have, like, the pre-release information.
There's four new Kaweco Art Sports and they're priced at $125. That's the other reason I thought it was like, is this real? Because that price is not in line with what they've done in past for the Art Sports. It's much cheaper. So, they're real and they're glorious, I guess.
I don't know what to say. The Terrazzo one is stunning, I think. Yeah, so the one thing that they did this time, so there's four models, Hickory Brown, Mineral Rite, Pebble Blue, and Terrazzo, like you said. the Hickory Brown is similar to the Tortoise one that I reviewed 10 years ago.
The Mineral White is also similar to a color that they've done in the past. And then the Pebble Blue and Terrazzo are both new materials that I have not seen them use before. In addition, they have completely integrated the clips into these barrels, which is new for the Art Sport design.
So, traditionally, Kaweco just makes the classic sport shape. And you can add on a clip if you are so inclined. This one has a built-in clip that's like a screw-in. I think it's a good addition to this particular pen.
That's exactly right. Like, this is the pen that you do this thing on. And they've made good color choices, right? So, they've got gold furniture with the... And gold nibs. I guess gold-plated.
Are they gold nibs? Gold-plated. They are not gold nibs. All right. So, that's gold-plated steel nib. They've got gold on the Terrazzo and the Hickory Brown.
And then they've got silver on the Pebble Blue and Mineral White, which I think, like, pairing-wise is really good. Like, because the Hickory Brown one, that's a very classic. Like, shell and gold is very classic. And just the Terrazzo is quite warm.
So, putting the gold of that and then similarly. Yeah. I think they've knocked it out of the park with this one, personally. I think they've done a really good job. Yeah. So, while it is an expensive pen at $125, this is way less than they normally charge for this lineup of pens.
What they've, in the past, considered the art lineup. Like, back when I was reviewing that one that I had, you know, they went away so quickly. They were, like, the secondary market was, you know, several hundred dollars on these pens. So, I'm glad to see this price point.
And hopefully, they'll have, like, a decent enough inventory to fulfill anyone who wants it. I will probably get one. I don't know. Like, I'm not completely dead set, like, jumping through the screen, clicking buttons to get one. I will, maybe. Like, maybe I'll get one to review and give away or something like that.
I don't need one of these. Like, I'm totally fine. Like, I'm not. There's other products that we'll be talking about today that I will be anxious, more anxious to get. But I'm actually pretty happy about this one for Kaweco fans because of the style is representative of what they've done in the past.
And the price is good compared to what they've done in the past. So, I thought it was really interesting. And I think they'll do well for people who like these pen models. So, yeah. Pretty interesting stuff. Really, really kind of like them.
So, those will be pre-releasing or release date at our good friends over at Pen Chalet on November 29th. So, what day is that? It's like a week from today. So, yeah. That is pretty cool.
Speaking of Pen Chalet, next week is the Pen Add gift guide episode, which I'm very excited to hear. I know you and Anna have recorded it already and it's already winging its way to being edited and published next Wednesday. But Pen Chalet have a gift guide of their own going on right now.
I'm going to put a link in the show notes to this. As you can imagine with Pen Chalet, it features tons of great deals throughout. But what I really like, what they've done is they've taken a bunch of products and grouped them. So, Fountain Pen gifts for beginners, for example.
Unique gifts. Best pens for kids. Best pens for students. Artists. Their overall best sellers. They have a Grail pens, which I think is kind of awesome.
Including the Monte Grappa Warner Brothers Centennial Limited Edition, which is a bananas pen that has DC, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings all over it, as you can imagine. I've never even seen it. You know, you just see these pens that come out from Monte Grappa and it's like, who even knows?
About them, you know? They have a top five retro 51s. So, yeah, there's tons of really, really good stuff here. It's such a huge page.
I haven't really gone through it all yet. So, yeah, it's very cool. So, that will be in the show notes. And so, people can go check that out in advance of our gift guide next week.
Yeah. So, online retailer pro tip. When they talk about best selling pens, one of the cool things I always do when I'm shopping online or even just browsing sites just for information. Is when you get to a, you try to get the broadest product page you can. Just say fountain pens.
And then you sort by, most of them can, you do different levels of sorting and you can sort by popularity. And that's literally like the sales numbers of what is literally the most popular. And usually it's in the past 30 days. Just from the people I've talked to that have run these sites.
Like the last 30 days, or sometimes it might be up to 90 days. The popularity thing is something that I just check, always check in on. So, I think that's pretty cool. So, we're actually going to talk about the number one best selling pen of the year, I'm guessing.
Or at least the recent times. The Twisby Eco is what's on this gift guide. And I just so happen to have a new Twisby Eco that, Myke, I am getting this one. This is going to shoot those numbers through the roof, probably.
Yeah, what's funny about the Eco? So, Twisby has always done some like pretty bright, some pretty standout colors. And then they'll mix in some more muted standards. And I remember it was probably two years ago at this point, they did a gray cap Eco.
That was one of the coolest Ecos I'd ever seen. Like, I love the Eco. Just like the Kaweco Sport. Like, you either kind of like the Twisby's or you don't.
You like the Kaweco Sports or you don't. Like, I'm in the camp of liking both. And I have, you know, my bright orange Eco and my bright blue Eco. But then they do mix in these subtle ones.
Like, the one that they did. Just like a simple gray cap. These are not complex pens. They're not changing the world of pen design here.
But they're putting together like a really classic color in this cream and rose gold. It's like, I think this is great. Like, I really love this pen. It's very classy. Yep. So, I don't think this one's out until December.
Like, again, we're, yeah, December 4th. So, everything I'm talking about is coming soon. Which is tough towards the end of the year. To see, like, new things coming in.
Because, like, you've already budgeted for other things. And things like that. But this will be in that $50 price point range. So, they do a basic Eco.
Which are a lot of the standard colors. And just the silver trim. But when they do the more limited ones with the rose gold trim. They charge like $45 to $50 for these.
So, I think it's cool. I don't know. It's kind of spectacular. I really, really like that one. It's a good look.
Like, this is, I think this would be a very popular, probably mainstay. If they want to do it that way. I could imagine this is. Honestly, like, I would, I would replace the white with this.
Totally. They do, like, a white with rose gold. And, like, a white with gold. And I think this is a, I think this is a nicer pairing. Yeah. And so, I expect it will be popular and we'll probably stick around.
Yeah. And, like, literally every ink color will go with this, right? Like, it matched with those, the demonstrator clear barrel. It's going to look good. This is going to be a popular one, I'm pretty sure.
And I actually, one I think I'll get for myself. I don't have any. I only have, like, a few Ecos that I keep. I usually buy them all and give them away.
Because they're just, like, the perfect item for that. But I think I'm going to get one of these and keep one for myself. Just, and use it because I like it. Yeah. Saying about that with the colors.
This is, like, a good, I think, a good rule of thumb for custom keyboard stuff. Like, an off-white or a cream is a really good base to show off any type of keycap color. Yeah. Everything's going to look good with that. Like, it's just, it's almost just like a canvas.
And so, like, whatever ink you put in that shows through that demonstrator window on this pen. It's going to look awesome. It's going to pop. Yep. Great. Love it. This episode is brought to you by Wild Grain, the first ever bake from frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, fresh pasta, and artisanal pastries.
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Yep. You haven't got to get the stand mixer out. No, no. Wild Grain, do all the hard work, and then you just have to throw it in the oven and just enjoy the good bread. Yeah, I always talk about the products like this, especially, like, the, like, household use items, you know, like you use around the house, you know, between our different sponsors and having a food item like this.
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All right. We got our shout out of the week. Shout out of the week. A gathering of curiosities. I love the name.
I love the content that R.B. Lindbergh is putting out. They are a wonderful, wonderful writer. They are really like digging into the more than the stuff concept of stationery, right? Like they're very thoughtful.
You know, it could be a product review, but like taking it in different directions than like, say, I would. Or, you know, just a traditional product review. And some really cool articles. I know that a blog is good when I actually get texts with pull quotes from other articles saying, did you read this?
So, yes. You should go. I'm specifically, I'm not going to read the quote, but I'm going to make you go read. Or our listeners go read. There's an article called Pen Frustration, Pen Magic out there that y'all should go read. And I've literally got like a text.
It's like, hey, did you see this? Look at this quote. And yeah, that's like what we believe in. So, it's very cool stuff.
Make sure you go check out a gathering of curiosities and give them a follow. So, I appreciate RB putting their words out there. It's fantastic. All right, Myke. I, again, stumbled like the Twisby on Instagram, stumbled across a post from Yuni Mitsubishi Pencil, which I follow very closely.
Obviously, for many obvious reasons. They put up a plethora of posts about a collaboration with, as best as I can tell, Karimoku is a furniture store. Okay. If I'm reading this correctly and trying to decipher what Karimoku is, there are, so, Japan's leading wooden furniture manufacturer in both quality and technology.
Right. It's tagged as an industrial company on Karimoku official. And it looks like, you know, from office to home type of furniture. Right. So, lots of things you can go through and see. So, Yuni did this collaboration, a Jetstream collaboration.
So, one of my favorite multi-pens is the Yuni Jetstream multi-pen. I have used one with a bamboo grip. I've used them in various colors. And I've never seen two Jetstream multi-pens better looking than this collaboration with Karimoku.
Oh, it's a multi-pen. And I need to have them, yes. Okay. So, this is the product we're talking about at the start of the show. And the thing I was confused about is it seems so chunky.
And now I understand why it's so chunky. Because it's a multi-pen. This is their biggest chunky one, too. This is a 4 plus 1, which is four refills, one pencil.
Which is, I actually have one sitting here on my desk. That the creator of the designer of the Uniball Signo RT, who I met in Chicago earlier this year, gifted me. Not one of these models, but an all-aluminum model. It's a 4 plus 1.
Sits here on my desk. I really, really like it. These, I mean, like, this is what I, if I had the opportunity to design something, this is hopefully what I would come up with. They're so good. Like, I love these designs.
I need both of these. I'm going to have to figure out how to get them. If they're promoting them this hard, certainly they're going to be somewhat accessible. You know, not just like at a Karimoku store or through Karimoku somehow.
Like, there's literally six images, including like one, what do you call it when you kind of link the three, the multiple images together? Like two, three images together. Yeah. Like a trip ditch, right? It's like a trip ditch on Instagram where they, those posts stay together.
As long as you have the right, the right quantity of posts on there. As soon as you don't, it breaks them. But I am in love. This is what I love about stationery is that these things, like something this really small gets me like completely jazzed up.
Like way more than like the TWSBI Eco or the Kaweco Art Sport. This is what gets me excited. So I just wanted to share that because I thought these were pretty great. For people that are keeping record, maybe paying attention, they did the something by something, the correct re-round, in my opinion.
Okay. So Uniball X Karimoku, right? Or Jetstream by Karimoku. Because you can see a difference in design. So like, this is like, how would you take our product and make it look different?
So Karimoku's concept of the Jetstream. Yes. To me, this one makes sense. It's just a feeling that I have in my bones. I feel like I need to make sure that I let people know.
And I think this one was right. Because if it was Karimoku by Jetstream, that wouldn't make any sense to me. But also, I like that they work with Jetstream and not Uni. Because if they would have gone with Uni, that would have made it a little bit more complicated.
So I actually think that they chose the right way around for this. And I think the logo looks good. Never forget, this is the way people need to remember to do these things properly, in my opinion. I don't know if I said this already.
Or if it was just in my brain. I don't like that thing on Instagram where people put up multiple images and it lines up. I don't like that. You have to commit to literally your entire feed of posting three images at a time.
And also, you just ruin the experience for people that follow you. I actually switched our link because I grabbed one of the between pictures. And I didn't realize it until I went to the entire page and saw, oh, I can get a better singular image than this one image.
The single link that I put in there was the middle of the trip titch. So, yeah. I don't like it. Yeah. I don't like it. But as soon as they make one post, it just messes them up.
Yeah. I don't like it. Like, it would be acceptable. It's like when you're looking at the feed, it could be like also multiple. So, you could scroll through it and see it, right?
At the same time. But then you kind of ruin in the whole point of doing it. But I'm not a fan of it. I don't really like that kind of thing because I just – I don't even really know who it's for.
Right. Maybe it's – It's for the creative director of the company to keep their job. Look at this. I think probably. This feels to me like one of those things that's kind of just like gotten into blogs and it's just like polluted search results of how do I grow my Instagram.
You know? That's what it feels like to me. I also – the countdown now is on until Cortex Brand does this because now I've said all of this. It's going to happen, you know? I mean, there's some products that you have that would span three images quite well. Just saying.
I don't want to do it. I'll resist it. But I'm also – you're also an Instagram influencer. Also, I'm kind of letting go of the reins of the Instagram a little bit now. We have – Carrie's helping us out.
Oh, nice. Carrie keeps suggesting things to me and I'm like, Carrie, I don't know about that. But I do it anyway and she's always right. Well, I owe Carrie a reply to a message. So, I'm going to make sure to say, hey, by the way, have you seen – Don't worry about it.
Yeah. I was like – I'm going to add in. Hey, have you seen how these companies do these three panels on Instagram and you can just do them across? I was like, y'all should try that. Don't you do it.
If she recommends it now, I'm going to blame you whether it came to you or not. We have a small topic that was a question sent in and I thought this was more of a topic-based idea than just a general STPA. Did you not want to talk about the Y Studio?
Oh, I missed that. Yeah. I put it in here. I did. Because I saw it on your blog and I was surprised it wasn't in the show notes today because I know that you love Y Studio products. Probably because I've been talking about it so much and using it.
It's literally just – it's this thing I do, Myke, and I've done this for as long as I've been doing the job. The more I love a product and the more I use a product and the more I talk about a product, the less chance there is that I actually review the product because I'm just busy using it.
And it's this funny thing and it happens with Y Studio a lot because I love their product so much. I think it's the facets on these barrels that are just done right. It's sized right. It's weighted right. It fits my hand right. And they have two different types of pens.
They have all metal pens that are your brass bases and then like different lacquers and paints over them. Or they have some resin barrels, which in the past have been just a standard, you know, resin, you know, non-recyclable resin. Well, they just introduced the sustainable resin from Ocean Fishing Nets off Taiwan, which is where they're based.
We spoke about this when they announced it. I remember having the conversation about it. Which is probably why I didn't put it in here because we kind of talked about it. But because we talked about the recycling and the different names of the pens were kind of funny.
And I enjoyed that thoroughly. So I reviewed it glowingly. Of course, I am just a big fan of this pen. I like this pen so much.
I purposely didn't put it in the gift guide because it would just seem like I was on like the big Y Studio payroll or something. So I purposely left this out of the gift guide because I won't shut up about this pen. So I figured I've talked about it enough that I didn't know I didn't need to go further.
But it's literally in my hand right now. It does not leave my eyesight when I'm working at my desk. And I'm thinking about the only thing I have to think about with this review is they use a little bit of a different refill. And it's a rollerball refill.
It's called the a lot of people have seen it before. It's called the Schmidt ceramic roller. And it's just a very, very wet refill, like much more so than the Schmidt P8127, which is the retro refill. And that's a rollerball ink refill.
But that ink feels different than it doesn't feel as watery as this ink. So this ink can spread and bleed a little bit. But the bonus of using this refill in this particular Y Studio is that this is the Pilot G2 shape. So any Pilot G2 compatible refill can fit in this.
So I could just put in like a blue black cartridge in here, which would look good with this pen that I get from the Pilot Juice blue black .38 millimeter cartridge and put this in here. But I'm kind of you have to take it what it is for what it is to begin with.
And it's kind of like a marker, essentially. But I have use for that. So I've been using it as the marker and haven't had a need to swap out the refill yet. But I probably will at some point.
So that's kind of the only catch with this pen. It's a super, super, super wet refill. And it will bleed and feather on bad papers. But otherwise, like that's kind of the only thing.
So it just depends if you like the style. I, of course, really do. Because, yeah. It's funny. I posted that image on Instagram. And like the first person to, and maybe the only comment was a company called Cozy in Amsterdam.
And they were where I had to hunt down my original Y Studio Brassing Fountain Pen. If you go back in the history of the podcast, I fell in love with the Y Studio Brassing Fountain Pen from my friend Patrick Ng's description, blog, and Instagram handle. And he's based in Hong Kong.
Had an early look at this pen. And I said, I have to have this pen. And that was the first place I could get it was I emailed Cozy in Amsterdam. And they were one of the first Y Studio retailers.
And that's where I ordered my very first Brassing Fountain Pen from. And now, at least here in the U.S., they're distributed by Kenra Industries. So it's been nice to see the story of Y Studio continue to grow because I'm just a big fan, if y'all couldn't tell.
All right. Let's hit this topic. So ink cartridge sampler packs, Myke, is the question I got. So from my friend Lisa, possible topic question for the podcast. Why don't more manufacturers sell packages of different colored cartridges?
I saw this Kaweco one, and I had to buy three because I was so excited. Do they think they would sell fewer cartridges if folks could just buy a selection? Anyway, I want more mixed cartridge sets, preferably complete ones, like the complete lineup, I'm assuming. I accidentally acquired one from Panider, but I've never seen any others.
Are there any others? I'm a cartridge fan. Like we've talked about this before. I'm literally just talking about a recycled pen in the previous segment.
And now I'm talking about the least recyclable, most wasteful part of the entire hobby that we have is like a wasteful plastic cartridges that are expensive and, you know, terrible cost. Brad, these Panider cartridges are a work of art. They are a work of art. Are you kidding me?
Everything Panider does is a work of art. My word. Yeah. So they do a good job. And like Kaweco's is the same way, right? Like it's very color.
It's a super marketable product. When you're selling someone a pen, hey, why not try this rainbow sampler of ink cartridges that we have until you figure out the color that you want? Or you could just buy this blue pack over here. Your call. So, yeah, I don't know why more companies don't make them.
It seems like there would be a market. It doesn't seem like it would add really any cost other than one more package item to make. Right. They're making the cartridges. They're making packaging for all the cartridges.
What if they took their six stock colors and made a six pack or a 12 pack, you know, two cartridges each? I don't know why more companies don't do this. The Kaweco one is brand new. Like within the past year, maybe two years have I seen that one.
I've never seen the Pinnider one before. The only other thing I can think of as an option. So for people that go to pen shows, you will sometimes see retailers offer some mix and matching. That's probably not something they're supposed to do, right?
Like this is the benefit. And I'm actually going to talk about this in a minute. One of the benefits of going in person to a pen store or a pen show is that retailers might can sell things a little bit differently than they're officially required to. Say, for example, black wings pencils are supposed to only be sold by the dozen, right?
Not supposed to be sold individual. But if you go to a store or to a pen show, you can find like some loose black wings. Same thing with cartridges, right? So Pilot Orochizuku cartridges, when they came out, they were a popular item.
They were very expensive and super wasteful. But they're also kind of cool. So people would take, you know, say like the six colors of Pilot Orochizuku cartridges and make six sets of one cartridge each of all six colors. Like you could buy that at a pen show.
Just kind of like, you know, and off the website type of purchase. So yeah, it's cool. Diamine definitely does one. So thanks to Evan in the chat.
I have actually bought this set before from Diamine. So they have a 20 ink sampler set. So yeah, I would like to see more companies do it. I don't know why they don't do it.
Like I don't have a good answer of why someone wouldn't do this because it doesn't really seem like a cost thing to me. Like it doesn't seem like an inefficiency, you know, from a manufacturing and a business type of thing. So I don't know why I'm like, why doesn't Lamy do this or, you know, different, different companies that have stock items.
So yeah. Pilot, now that I'm thinking about it, Pilot's Mixable Inks is what they call them, but they're their regular fountain pen inks. Those you can actually get in a six, eight or 10 pack. I forget the colors, but they actually do have a random pack. So maybe that's one to check out from Pilot.
So they call them their Mixable Inks, but it's really just their regular fountain pen inks. Right. So yeah, I would love to, I'm always for like sample kits and things like that. So yeah, I would love to see more, but I just don't have a good reason why more companies don't do it.
Maybe they do and we just don't see them as much. I don't know. I think it's like a hard thing realistically. Like you're not really trying them out in that way, like in the way that you imagine. You try the pens out, like you're using an entire ink cartridge is what you're doing.
Like you're not like quickly comparing red to green to blue. You know what I mean? I think it's like it to me anyway, this feels like something that seems more useful than it realistically is. I think that's fair.
And I, I mean, I guarantee if all things being equal, they're going to sell more blue. They're going to sell more black. They're probably going to sell more blue black. They might even sell more red than the sampler kit.
But I think the sampler kit is obviously more fun. Good stuff. This episode is brought to you in part by our friends at Squarespace, the all-in-one platform for building your brand and growing your business online. Of a beautiful website that lets you stand out from the crowd.
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Yep. And you have a store built in there too. I do. I do. You're all over it. All the good stuff. All the good stuff.
Speaking of good stuff, Myke, I want to talk about thankful stationery, what we're thankful for because it is that time of year in the US. It is our Thanksgiving holiday. As we record this, it is tomorrow. I know you were a Thanksgiving food fan, so I figured like, well, maybe we can at least get Myke in on the like what we're thankful for in the stationery world as well.
This came up as a topic on Twitch. The idea of Thanksgiving as a holiday is good. Like I think it is a good idea for a holiday. I think that there are parts of it in America where we already have like an allegory.
So like Christmas dinner is basically Thanksgiving dinner in the sense of how important it is and how it brings everyone together. And like it's like a big family affair. But what we don't have is the practice of being thankful. And it's one of the things that I honestly I wished that this was more prevalent outside of America than Black Friday has become.
Right. Right. Black Friday is the export of Thanksgiving. Which I kind of wished that thankfulness was the export of Thanksgiving. But that's just kind of where we are. Yeah. So like if you're if you're not in the US, we have a lot of international listeners.
You know, our Thanksgiving holiday. Like we literally just have family over to our house. We have it at our house. You know, we'll have like a dozen people over.
And, you know, we'll just share a meal together. I'll sit around a table. And we will literally before we eat, everyone goes around and says what they're thankful for. And like I think Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday just because it's it's honestly it's pretty chill.
Right. Like I don't I don't do you you just you cook stuff and people get together. There aren't gifts. Yeah. There's no there's no stress, you know, of well, I don't know about stress. Well, I mean, there's a different kind of stress that's always ever present, especially in the US right now.
But yeah, just in general, it's just a pretty chill holiday can be. So I got asked since we're on Thanksgiving week. You know, what are you thankful for in stationery? And I thought that was a really good question.
Let's let me take that to the podcast. So I put down a few things. And this happened recently. And I actually put it, you know, Stephen asked our Relay FM co-host, you know, for our upcoming newsletter, you know, what we were thankful for this year.
And one of my biggest takeaways of the year is that I'm super thankful for brick and mortar stationery stores. Going to Atlas Stationers for Fountain Pen Day kind of reset my thinking. It's not that I hadn't thought about this before, but it had been a while since I've experienced the community building.
Yeah. That an in-person place for people, like-minded people to get together and discuss the thing that they love and have the buy-in from a retailer, which is not always the case, right? And I'm not talking about stationery stores, but like other stores or things like that.
But what I've seen for the stationery stores that I've traveled to, they are these community hubs for people who are into the smallest thing in the stationery world, like ink and washi tape to like the biggest things, you know, the pens and things. And all these people can come together from all different backgrounds and, you know, just have the time of their lives talking about this stuff that they don't get to share.
And having that opportunity in your town, you need to take advantage of that because it's a rare opportunity these days. So that really came to light this year when I was at Atlas Stationers in Chicago, how important these places can be, just not for stationery fans, but for the communities that they reside in.
So I thought that was kind of one of my big, like, overall takeaways from the year. So I'm very thankful for those stores because that's got to be a tough business, right? Not only just being a retailer, but also having a physical building. Man, that's tough stuff.
So, all right, that was my big overarching. The rest of my things, Myke, I'm thankful for is stuff. So this one's kind of funny. I was looking for a notebook the other day and I was talking, I was having my own conversation in my head.
I was like, if I could pick out any notebook off the shelf that I have right now to use, what notebook would I pick? And I love the Midori A5 notebooks, the Midori MD A5 notebooks graph paper. So I was like, I want to test this paper. I want to play around with it.
I want to do something with this notebook. So I went into the closet of doom where my stash is. I had no Midori notebooks and it made me sad. So clearly, I'm thankful for Midori notebooks because I wanted one and I didn't have one and it made me sad.
I chose nothing instead of sacrificing and not having Midori. I literally chose to do nothing and I'm going to have to go order myself a Midori notebook. So clearly, I'm thankful for Midori notebooks as the best all around notebook out there. Sorry, Myke. I'm fine with that.
I don't plan to make the best all around notebook. I'm just playing with you. I'm just playing with you. But I thought it was this funny experience.
It's like, okay, I'm just going to go grab one. I was like, huh, I don't have one. It was like the only thing I want out of like, I could choose like 20 other notebooks right now. It's like, nope, I just want the Midori.
I'm also thankful, Myke, and this could be a questionable choice for a lot of people. I'm thankful for ballpoint pens, Myke. Okay. They're the best all around writing instrument out there. You can use them anywhere.
You can take them anywhere. They work in most situations. They're super functional, super portable. You can find ones that actually write well, right?
That's always been the knock on ballpoint pens is, oh, they're terrible. And you know what? A lot of them are. But I'm sitting here with a Jetstream ballpoint refill and a Caran D'Ache ballpoint refill right next to my fountain pen and rollerball refill.
So I have two ballpoints, a rollerball, and a fountain pen sitting next to me. Ballpoint wins. They are just, they rule the day for ease of use. And now that you can find quality ones, like I'm very, very much into ballpoints these days. And I always have been.
But, you know, when you have the new products and turnover that you get like in fountain pens and inks, like they kind of get left aside. There's not as much you can do with ballpoints, right? So don't forget about your ballpoint pens. I like desk trays too, Myke.
I'm very thankful to have places on my desk where I can sit things. It's one of those weird things to be thankful for. But as I was doing the gift guide episode, spoiler alert, I realized how many desk type of tray options I have. Things I can set my pens down that are fun and enjoyable and provide a function.
And I kind of really, really like desk trays. So that's just one of those things that I'm very thankful for the cool opportunities of desk trays that we have out there right now. And there's more than you think. And, you know, I'm not talking about like pen cases or boxes or storage.
I'm talking about like literal trays with either grooves or, you know, a little place to set pens. It's just something I really enjoy. Last one for me, Myke. I am very thankful for Platinum Chokuro.
This is the, this is an ink from the content gods. This is the gift that keeps on giving. As far as pen content goes this year, I think that was like the most popular product released this year. Just in terms of talking about people wanted to know about this ink.
And I'm thankful that Platinum made a really ridiculous ink that is actually good. And it got a lot of people talking and a lot of people won't use it. And that's okay. But it's the ink that everyone wanted to know about. So in the world of having to talk about stationery, Platinum Chokuro gave me endless things to talk about.
And I will continue to talk about. So I'm very thankful to Platinum for making this ink. It was very fun to play around with this year. So that's what I'm thankful for.
You know, I like pens, Myke. And I'm very thankful for all of them. And of course, you know, and I know you're going to say this and I'm going to say that. Of course, we're thankful for all of our listeners and all of our supporters.
That goes without saying. We love you guys. Goes without saying. So I wanted to take it in a more silly route with these little things that I'm really, really enjoying and really thankful that I have the opportunity to play around with this stuff. So what you got?
Mine is mostly kind of focused around choice, which I think is so good in the hobby. So I love that pens come in so many styles, like visual styles. Like I'm just looking at my little pen storage here. And there's like a purple pen, a green pen, two orange pens, a pen with a bunch of lines all over it.
One that's made of hammered steel. I just love that there are so many different types of pens and so many different types of designs to kind of meet every person's individuality. And so they can express themselves. I love the fact that fountain pens are much more resilient than some people might claim.
And they can stand up to a long time of no cleaning and they work perfectly fine. And everyone else can just shut up about it. Stationary lovers vote with their wallets and are generous when something is good. That's very true. I really liked all your topics you have in here.
I thought that was a pretty neat thing to be thankful for because it's true. We're a very particular set of consumers, right? Yep. And it is pretty clear when something works and everyone appreciates either the craftsmanship or the design or the style or the functionality. And you can see that directly, like instant feedback, right?
And also that people will support it. Like if the product looks good or is good, people will support it, which I think is great and is, you know, for us especially good for where we are in our lives, selling these products and stuff like that. Exactly. And every particular need and use case is taken care of by something.
It's very important. Yeah. That we can, it's not always immediate that you find these things, but the beauty of this hobby is that it exists. Like solutions are out there for you. Like for example, like yesterday I was streaming and someone was having frustrations with their planner layout.
You know what I did? I just got out a notebook and we started drawing planner layouts until we could find like a layout that worked for them. Right. It's like, how could we do this? So yeah, like it's, it's really cool.
And I am thankful for the community that helps with, helps us figure out all this stuff. Right. Like I don't know everything. Myke doesn't know everything, but just like, Hey, we asked a question last week. We got feedback on a pin we were curious about.
Right. I'm super thankful for that. So yeah, really cool stuff. So thank you, Myke. It's a community. I'm very happy to be above.
Very much. So it's the best. It's the best. All right. Speaking of community, you want to tackle a couple of STPA then we'll, we'll get out of here. All right. Let's, let's, let's do our job. All right. Jamie writes in to say, do you think more pen, pen manufacturers should offer alternative prices for pens supplied in just a simple case rather than the fancy boxes and packaging?
If you do not keep them, then the savings might just be enough to unlock a next tier of pens for some people. Also environmental benefits come into play. So I'm thankful for all of our listeners. I'm most thankful for Jamie today because this is a great, great question.
I, it'll never happen. I'm just, and, but I could be talked into this so much. So Jamie, it's the way brands choose to represent themselves in a bigger picture is why we end up with this often times too much packaging, right? There's a baseline of packaging required, which I think Jamie like is alluding to here, right?
Hey, we need protection. We need protection. Yeah. We need protection. We need delivery. We need shipping and we need the product to withstand those things. Then there's another level that's usually outside of that. Do I need a lacquer box for this pen?
How much could we actually save by trimming down the extraneous packaging for these products? And I'll let you into a little secret, Jamie. There's probably a decent profit margin for those companies on this. They're looking at this as a line item that they can invest a small amount and add a premium to the product for because, hey, look at this packaging that it comes in.
And now that is a next level. I would maybe attack this from a slightly different perspective, which is effectively saying the same thing, which is that for some companies, if a product is an expensive product, having a premium product, having a good packaging unboxing experience is important because it adds to the consumer's feeling that the money they spent was good.
And that's just like a psychology thing. And I feel like I appreciate what Jamie's getting at here because I know I've had far too many pen boxes in my time that have either stacked up or been thrown away or been recycled or used in something else or whatever.
But the other part of it is realistically how many people are going to do that. And then the pen companies have to deal with like an extra skew, right? Right, right. So it's more complication for people than will probably be worth it. It would actually make more sense if they were to just be like, we've made a commitment to sustainable.
And they just like a new sustainability commitment around packaging and just do it that way rather than like, hey, let's make a choice every single time you buy. That's why I completely agreed with Jamie and said it's probably not going to happen because when people are paying certain prices for pens, there's an expectation that comes along with that.
And while, yes, it would be better if we could kind of peel those layers back a little bit, it's probably not going to happen. But hey, one can hope, right? Like I think you will definitely get a lot of people agreeing with you, Jamie. But I would be shocked if we saw some like announcements like in the next several years of someone.
I'm not going to call out any specific brands, but like it's pretty obvious. Like when you see certain packaging, it's like, yeah, that's a lot. That's really a lot. So yeah, great question.
And Keith writes in to say, I've been a huge fan of the Maraman Nemesine notebooks for years. The paper is great and does a fantastic job of my fountain pens and oversized ink collection. I'm really keen, though, to try a disc bound planner, but I don't know which ones have good fountain pen friendly paper.
Any recommendations would be much appreciated. So Keith, to solve this problem, to answer this question, I'm a huge disc bound planner fan. And if you want the paper you want to use, you buy a disc bound punch. You invest into the system.
The one I have is the Staples Arc hole punch. And these disc bound systems are kind of like the same kind of layout. So you can kind of have a universal kind of hole punch for these. And that's what I did.
So I will say just in general, I used William Hanna disc bound planner. And their stock paper that I got their planner pages on was very fountain pen friendly. So, I mean, that's an easy recommendation for me. The Leveringer ones generally have pretty good fountain pen friendly paper.
And I think even people like the Staples Arc one, but I am not totally sure on that one. But the William Hanna that I've used. The problem that I think Keith is really getting at is the pre-printed pages for planners. That was a lot to say.
Is yeah, like I had a good experience with the William Hanna pages. Those were great. Those were my favorite. Those were pre-printed. But if you want blank pages or just something like if you're going to like bullet journal type of planner.
Get a hole punch and you can put your Nemecine paper in there. You can put any paper you want in there. Which is what I have a William Hanna now that has like 15 different types of paper in there. It's like my paper sampler notebook.
But I'm not using it as a planner right now. So I can only speak to the William Hanna. They're great. And I think I've heard good things about the other brands like Levenger and Staples as well. So but if you want to roll your own, definitely get a hole punch and pick out your favorite paper and go to town.
All right. If you would like to send in a question for us to answer on a future episode of the show, it's very simple. Just go to penaddictfeedback.com and you can send us in a question there. Don't forget next week's episode is going to be the gift guide episodes.
All the questions will have been answered that could have been answered because the episode has already been recorded. So you don't need to send those in anymore. This has now been a good reminder for me to remove gift guide from the options on the feedback page. Don't do it yet because they have allegedly all been answered, but there might be a day or two I might have missed.
So I just I do want to double check because I will email some people or try to handle this. All right. You're going to be a good man, I suppose. I may have cleared some out already, but hey, you know. We got most of them.
We got most of them. We got most of them. I just had to prep like a day or two ahead. So I grabbed the batch of questions and there might have been one or two more that snuck in.
We're probably good. We're probably good. We're probably good. Maybe if we don't, if your question is and answer is, you could send it in as an ask TPA. Maybe we'll get to it again later on in the future, you know. Yeah. Literally later. Like we don't know what date.
If you'll allow me for a moment, Brad, trying something new. We're doing the first ever Black Friday discount for Cortex brand. Nice. I don't know. We're just trying it. This is what I was talking about earlier on, right?
Here we go. We're trying it. You sound like me. Look, I know this is like a thing. I want to get serious about these things. So it means that there's new things we need to try.
So we're doing it. I actually did want to do this, but like it's complicated. These all these things are complicated. But you can get 20% off a theme system journal.
The code we shared on Instagram. So if you go to instagram.com slash cortex brand, the code is in our stories. You can get 20% off of a theme system journal. The code is like too long for me to say.
I'll say it. So like, I don't know if people want to like just type it in. The code is 68VWNTSA. That's the code. So you can use that. Get 20% off the theme system journal from now until I think the 28th of November.
So if you want to do that. Thank you for indulging me there. If you want to find Brad online, please go to penaddict.com. He's over at twitch.tv slash penaddict.
Penaddict on Instagram and all of the social media places that you'd wish to find him. You can find me. I'm iMyke. I-M-Y-K-E. Don't forget to go to spokedesign.com as well to see what Brad's working on over there. You got anything that you want to talk about over on Spoke Design?
Yes, our most recent release, we did the Rhodey and the Rhodey XL with this swirly acrylic cap, which came out really, really nice. It's a weird, interesting take on like a metal pen and then having like these swirls on it. It's like you don't think. It's like you say that out loud.
It's like there's no way this is going to work. And it looks amazing. Like they came out so good. I'm very happy with those.
So, yeah, that's been the most recent thing. And then Brian said he might be up to something this week or next week. So, he tends to surprise me and the box has not shown up yet. But like I'll know as soon as everyone else does.
So, keep your eyes peeled on the Spoke Design Instagram. All right. I'll put that in the show notes too then so people can follow along if they want to. Thank you to Squarespace and Wild Grain for the support of this week's episode. But most of all, thank you for listening.
We are thankful for you that you continue to tune into this show every single week. We appreciate it. And the show will be back next week. I'm going to be away, but it's going to be gift guide time and I can't wait to hear it. Yes. All right.
Thanks for listening. Say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.