The Pen Addict 636/transcript

• From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 636. Today's show is brought to you by Enigma Stationery and Ooni Pizza Ovens. My name is Myke Hurley and I have the pleasure, as always, of being joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. What a pleasure to be joined by you as well, Myke Hurley. How are you? What a thrill. What a wonder, you know? I'm good. It's like we've never done this before. I know. Welcome to episode one. It's a joy to talk about pens. It's actually episode two of The Pencil Addict.

Pencil usage during October and Ticonderoga pencils

• Well, we might be on like episode three or so. I don't know. But we are knee deep. This is all my fault, admittedly. I wanted to use pencils more for the month of October, so I've been doing a lot of pencil. Yeah, I'm literally using a Ticonder October today. And that's actually an orange one. It's like an orange and kind of cream colour stripe, so it's very pumpkin spicy. A pencil, if you will. I'll have to take a picture of it. It's one I don't use very often, but I've had it out a bunch because it's so photogenic. Like I've worn off the gold stamping, except it's still like a full length pencil because I never use it. Do you embrace the spice in October or in fall? Absolutely not. Okay. I'm not anti. I mean, do your thing. It's just not a flavour I like. It's just like if I enjoyed the taste of it, sure, I'd be like all in. See, I really enjoy pumpkin pie, right? Okay. Which obviously has pumpkin spice in it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But I have yet to find anything pumpkin spice flavoured that I like. Yeah. Yeah. I have many times in my life attempted a PSL from Starbucks, hoping that it's going to be what I want. It's usually followed by me having had a pumpkin pie, but I am never satisfied. No. No. Like it's not a satisfactory flavour for me. My favourite pumpkin thing that I get like during this time of year is we just call it a pumpkin roll or a pumpkin loaf. It's basically like a spiral rolled with like a cream cheese icing. Looks like a cinnamon roll, like a swirled cut. That sounds good, man. It's like a pumpkin cake and then like a cream cheese, you know, like a carrot cake, but pumpkin-y. And that's really good, but that's the extent. Definitely no drinks for me. We have some family visiting at the end of the month and Adina has ordered a pumpkin pie from a bakery here. Yeah. And I'm very intrigued. Oh, I'm all in on that. I love pumpkin pie. I've never had a pumpkin pie in England.
• Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Right? Okay. So like I don't know what that's going to be like. My expectation is they're going to do their best or do a good job of making like an American-style pumpkin pie because that's what people are hoping for. And there's enough expats here, you know, that like. Sure. That there's a good market for that kind of stuff, but I'm just intrigued. Yeah. Now, I will say I do like the fall smells in the air. Like I don't mind. Like if you have the pumpkin spice candle going, like I'm good. Like I'm fine with that. I just don't really enjoy the drinks or the teas or coffees or anything like that. Very fair. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. I think our listeners sort of like the top 10 mechanical pencil content. It seems that we got a lot of feedback. A lot of follow up. We got a lot of follow up on this. So why don't you lead us off here and I'll answer a first couple of these questions. Charlie asked a question that was in my mind last week, but I didn't ask, which is, did you consider the Caran d'Ache fixed pencil in your mechanical pencils roundup? Yeah, that was actually in my notes to specifically call out. And the answer is no, because I don't consider it a mechanical pencil. Yeah. It has a clutch mechanism. Like it has an extra mechanic that a wooden pencil does not have, but it's basically just to extend the lead and to hold it in place. So the fixed pencil would probably be a top one. If we considered it a mechanical pencil, it'd be my top three because I love it that much. And I'm assuming that's why Charlie's bringing it back up because I do rave about it. I don't consider it a mechanical pencil, which makes me wonder where does it fall? Is our clutch pencils their own category? Is it close to like, would you put clutch pencils and lead holders in the same category? Yes. Yes. Probably in those, but that's not really, no offense, an exciting category. I feel like, no, yeah, you could add, there's like two, you either get the fixed pencil or you get one of the engineering like knurled grip, you know, lead pointer clutch pencils. And like, you know, you either have a favorite style of those, you know, like a lot of the classic makers make those Statler, Coenor, Faber-Castell. They all make like your classic engineering style lead holders. And then you have the fixed pencil, which is another clutch pencil. I mean, there's some more modern ones. Lamy has a really nice one. Kaweco has a nice one. I think even Montblanc might do a clutch pencil. At least they've done one in the past. I don't know if they have a current one. That seems like a separate category that doesn't quite fall into the mechanical range because I don't, it's, there's not enough mechanics there to be a mechanical pencil. I don't think. So, yes, I considered it and I felt that it didn't fit the definition of mechanical pencil. I think a good simple way when looking at things like definitions in this, right, is if somebody said to you, oh, can you give me a mechanical pencil? And you gave them the Caran d'Ache fix pencil. They would say, this is not what I wanted. A hundred percent. Right. Like, but you would, you would throw somebody off by giving them that because that is absolutely not the same product type. Yeah. I could not agree more. Yeah. So that's an easy way to answer that. So, yes, despite my love and praise for the fixed pencil, not a mechanical pencil.

Discussion of the Rotring 800 and personal preferences

• James and Christian both asked, what about the Rotring 800? We spoke about the 600. Right. So a few things. One on the list, and this is going to come up later when we go through this. This was a very, like, personal usage list, right? Things that I specifically like. If I was doing a recommendations list, the list would look different, right? This was a very Brad's list today of his favorite mechanical pencils. And I've never gotten on with the Rotring 800. Number one, when I started loving, like, the Rotring 600, the 800 only came with a stylus tip, right? It was a different pencil back in the day. You had to, it had, the Rotring 800, the difference between the 800 and the 600 is that it has a retractable lead pipe mechanism, right? So for safety purposes, like, you can retract the lead pipe so you don't damage it. So that's the 800's feature. In the past, when I was really enjoying the Rotrings, that tip passed through a stylus tip, right? Because that was back in the time where the, I don't know, the stylus tip was a thing, like, back in, like, late 90s, early 2000s. And then they morphed the 800. They finally took away the stylus tip and kept the retractable pipe. They actually lowered the price, which was good. It used to be a very expensive relative as well. And now it's- The stylus one is now the 800 plus. Yeah. Yeah. Which I don't even know why that exists still. Why not? And I don't- A retractable lead pipe mechanism is not a needle mover for me. Also, the 800 only comes in one color way and it's black with gold trim. And I've just never found it to be a good looking pencil. Technically, it's a good pencil, right? It's the 600 with a retractable pipe, which I think a lot of people do enjoy. It's just never enamored me enough to even own one. Like, I don't even own one because I just wouldn't use it. I would never choose it over the 600.
• But it's a great pencil if you need the retractable mechanism.
• But I just have options in the 600 that I don't have in the 800, which is why I prefer it. And I don't need the retractable.
• Very fair.
• Horn writes in and give their top 10. So I'm going to run through this real quick. Number 10, the Leuchtturm 1917 Dreggerfeld No. 2.
• Number 9, the Pentel Grafgear 1000.
• Number 8, the Papermate Sharpwriter.
• That's a good call-out right there. We'll go over this whole list in a minute, but we'll circle back to that one. Number 7, the Faber-Castell 9715 or 9715 or 9715. Who could tell? Number 6, the Alvin Draftmatic. There's something funny about the name Alvin to me. It's just like it belongs to a dude and his name is Alvin. Number 5, the Unikuro Toga Roulette. Number 4, the Tombow Mono. Number 3, the Rotring 600. Number 2, the Pentel Smash. And number 1, the Pentel Sharp Carry.
• Yeah, I get it. Like the Smash being that high like actually surprises me because I just don't think a lot of people are into the Smash like I am. So that's pretty cool. Back to the Sharprider. So that is the classic pencil looking cheap, you know, buy them by the dozen school mechanical pencil that I would actually recommend. Like it's just fun and unique and it works well and they're just kind of ridiculous in all the right ways. You know, it's probably like a $2 pencil or $3 pencil that you, maybe even less if you buy them by the dozen. Everyone's probably seen the Paper Mate Sharprider, right? Because it looks like a pencil. It's designed to look like a wooden pencil, but a mechanical pencil. Yep. Yeah, I think this is a great list overall. Obviously, a lot of crossover with some of the things that I like. The few additions like the Sharprider, the Faber-Castell, you know, moving some of the other things around. Smash and Carry being very high up there are pretty cool, which I obviously really, really like that. So last one for today, I got a full email breakdown from a listener.
• Let me read you. And I asked this listener, they put so much time in this that I asked. I was like, hey, I think like this is really great and I'd like to do this as a blog post, right? I asked them from this email. That's how long this email in detail this email was. So the working title of the blog post is, I very much disagree with your list. An artist's look at their top 10 mechanical pencils. So they did not like my list at all.
• And so that was a statement from their email. I very much disagree with your list. So we're going to save that hopefully maybe next week. And then the next week or two, I'm going to get, I'm going to basically work this into a response blog post.
• No, for them to reply to me. Like I'm not going to editorialize. I'm worried for you. No, no, no. It's good. It's all good. It was, they're very, very strong in their beliefs about mechanical pencils and how wrong I am about my list, which it's really hard to be wrong about your list. I'm not recommending these pencils to them. You have been apparently, so I don't know what to tell you. I'm not recommending. But here we are. I'm not recommending these to anyone else. This is my list. And I'm very, very wrong. But it's all in good fun, just to be clear. This is not. This is a long-term listener. You have been writing online for long enough to know what the truth is in that situation, in that the world can tell you you're wrong, even though it is very clearly your opinion. Yeah. No, this is just a person. This is a long-time friend just having some fun with me. So I said, we have to make this into a blog post. And they were agreeable to that. So I'm going to work on that here coming soon. So stay tuned. We will go over this list whenever I get to publishing it, which won't be that long. I'm going to try to do it here in the next one or two weeks. So there we go. Wonderful. Good stuff. I appreciate all the feedback on this list. That was a fun episode last week. I knew it was good when we finished last week, and I love seeing all the feedback. So keep the feedback coming.
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• Yeah, I really need to experiment with the non-pizza cooking in my Uni, which I super love. And despite Christian's love for the Rotring 800, I still need to try a few other things out there. So, yeah. Love the uni. Yep. All right. Shout-out of the week, Myke. Shout-out of the week. Multiple shout-out of the week award winner. What's an award now? I didn't know how to... I got stuck there.
• Our friend Jacob over at Food A Fan, he always is first on the scene with a lot of things.
• He was not... Notably, he was not first on the announcement of the pilot of Roshizuku Inc.'s The New Colors coming this fall, which Jacob and I got... I'm good friends with Jacob, but we got a good kick out of that the U.S. market was notified of Pilot's new Roshizuku Inc.'s probably about 30 days, he calculated, before the Japanese market was. Like, we were talking about the new colors over here, and it's like, I sent him, like, the details that we got sent and everything like that, and he just thought it was hilarious that the Japanese market was last to know. But they are first with the inks on hand. And so, I know I have been looking forward to these three new ink colors in the Roshizuku Inc. lineup. It's Toro, Rika, and then Shungyo. So, I think these are going to be a hit. I mean, Rika... Rika's the blue. It's, like, it's blue. It's fine. Like, it's going to sell well. But the other two inks are real strong additions to an already very strong ink lineup. Now, I know we can go out and probably find similar colors to these right now, but something about what a Roshizuku does and how they put all this together. I really, really like the output of these. So, I'm looking forward to getting these. So, let's see. We're probably... We're almost a month away here in the U.S. or the rest of the world, probably, from getting these colors. But they're out in Japan right now. So, take a look at these. I'll be getting these when they come out. And I'm looking forward to test them out. So, thank you, Jacob, for always sharing what you find over there in the Japanese market, especially, like, these very popular lines. Like, we can all find, like, super unique, niche, small shop type of exclusives. But this is, like, a big product release for our little world. And I think it's going to be a good one. So, I'm looking forward to it.

Impact of Hurricane Helene on Origami Inc. in Asheville

• All right. Up next, I want to talk a little bit. I kept... I wasn't meaning to skip over this. But I wanted to talk about Origami Inc. in Asheville, North Carolina, which is a brick-and-border store that was absolutely devastated from Hurricane Helene, which happened, I don't know, three or four weeks ago now here in my part of the country. And Asheville as an area, and that whole area, part of North Carolina, my parents have lived up in that area in the past. We got friends that live up there still. It was devastating. And Origami Inc. basically lost everything.
• Apparently, just reading, like, some of the recaps from the store owners, that it's, like, a two-story building. And the water was up into the second floor, like, through most of the second floor. Like, that's how bad it was. So, like, it's a total loss, total write-off. So, a lot of people in the Penn community, stationary community, have come together to support Origami Inc. The latest being a Retro 51 collaboration. Well, not even a collaboration. It's just basically something they're doing to raise funds to go to Origami Inc. All the profits of the Hopping Frogs Rollerball, which is a really awesome design that's based on the story of the owners of Origami Inc. They had, you know, a framed art piece in their house that featured this Origami Frog. And, you know, obviously, the name of the shop ended up originating from this. And they've done, Retro 51's done a design where all the proceeds will go to support Origami Inc. So, go check this out. I think it's a really neat pen. I think I'm going to order one. I just love the design of this, regardless of being able to help someone out, which we all love doing. So, I love helping them out, too. But it's a really neat pen. It's pretty heartbreaking, man. It is. Like, I went and looked at some of the pictures, and I couldn't believe it. It's just done. It's gone. Like, it's just gone. It's gone. Oh, God. So, they're still doing online work, right? They're still, you know, you can still purchase things from Origami Inc. They're doing a few online things, keeping orders going. But the shop is just, like, wiped out.
• So, there's a couple of fundraisers that are also going. And, like, just, like, all that stock.
• Yeah. Like, the devastation in this area, like, people weren't prepared for it, right? This was, like, this was not in the models. This was not. You know how a lot of times you get to plant, and, like, you know, devastation happens. And, you know, hopefully you can plan ahead and evacuate and get out. Like, a lot of these people couldn't get out and didn't know this was going to happen. Like, this was not in the model. So, like, it's really, really devastating. So, there's also a couple of GoFundMe fundraisers going. We'll have links in the show notes. Our friends at Luxury Brands are running one to help them. And I think some locals there also to help Origami put up another GoFundMe. So, check all this stuff out. This is important. We support our wonderful retailers in the community. And I love seeing different companies come together and put something together to help them out. Because, yeah, I just can't imagine it. Like, you just wake up one day, and then, like, everything's gone. It's, like, it's unbelievable to even think about.

Release of the new Lamy 2000 in Pine Green

• Changing tune a little bit, I want to talk about the new Lamy 2000 in Pine Green. Have you seen this yet, Myke? I saw it this morning. Yeah. So, it got teased a couple weeks ago. I wanted to wait until the official, like, retail details came out. And they have. Now, Lamy's announced them. A bunch of the retailers have announced them. Have links up. So, on the Lamy Global Instagram, they launched it. I think it's really stunning. Like, I really, really like this one.
• Now, there's also questions, right? It's $540, which most of their... So, they've done blue, brown, and now green.
• And they've all been in that $540, $500 range. Blue might have been a little bit cheaper. I think they called it navy. Might have been, like, $450. Like, I get it. Like, it's fine. Like, I don't really necessarily have a problem with the price. It's funny to me that on Lamy's marketing, at least in their Instagram, they call it strictly limited. Do you know how many units strictly limited it's strictly limited to, Myke? Go on. $5,058. Well, look. Strictly limited to $5,058. If they're not going to make $5,481 under any circumstances, then, you know, that's strict, I guess. It's strictly limited to 5,000 units. Strictly limited. Absolutely limited. I find that pretty funny.
• Like, you've been able to get the other versions. Like, if you like this, like, a lot of people like this and are going out to get it. Like, you're not going to, you don't have to, like, queue up at midnight to make sure you get your Lamy 2000. You're going to be okay. You'll be able to get one. And that got me thinking. Like, a lot of people are liking this one. A lot of people are buying this one. Is there any color that would make you go, yes, I'm going to spend $540 on a strictly limited Lamy 2000? What color would make you spend that money? So, to recap, they've done navy, and they've done brown, and now they've done green. And then those are all darker colors, right? The only bright color we've ever seen them do, which is the first one, which was very limited, that was strictly limited, Myke, to one. The project red one that they did with Johnny Ive. They did a red one.
• That's strictly limited, Myke. I'm going to call that one strictly limited. Did you figure as well that they can never do that again now? Right. And I'm curious. I'm curious. So, navy brown and green are darker muted colors. I wonder if, like, Macrelon has, like, is it a challenge to do a brighter color? I have no idea. But what color, if you could pick, like, I mean, everyone's screaming at me right now. It's like, oh, Brad, orange, of course. But, like, what color would make you actually get one of the Lamy 2000s special editions? I feel like I'm going to be really boring, and I'm not playing the game very well. That's fine. I don't. There isn't one. I mean, I own Lamy 2000. Lamy 2000, and I'm happy that I own one. I'm happy that I own one for what was probably, like, $250 or something. Probably less. You know, like, around $200, whatever, right? Yeah.
• There is not a color that would make me want to pay $540. Like, I love the Lamy 2000. I said it before. I'll say it again. Lamy 2000 is, like, this, like, cursed pen. Like, because if you get a good one, it's, like, as good as pens can be, but then it's not as simple as that.
• But it's fantastic. It feels like nothing else. But I have just moved so far past this taste-wise now.
• Like, when I got it, you know, it was like, wow, this thing is incredible, and I loved it. Used it all the time. But now it's just kind of, like, it's a classic, you know? Like, I see this as, like, you know, if somebody wanted to buy a gift for someone, you know? And it was, like, a really nice pen. It's like, Lamy 2000 is a fantastic option. But for me now, I have zero interest in the Lamy 2000 for adding another one to my collection. Yeah. I don't even own a Macrolon one. I own the stainless steel one. It's the only $2,000 I have. I would buy one. I think the green's my favorite so far. Sure. I really like this one. It's going to take a little bit more. It's going to take a really audacious, bright color for me to get this. I think turquoise, like, a really bright cyan blue with the stainless steel would look killer. I think even more so than orange. Like, orange, I would buy. Like, whichever one came out first, turquoise or orange, I would buy. And that would be the one I get. I would want a burnt orange for this. Like, I wouldn't want a bright orange. That I could see. You wouldn't want bright. You'd rather have a darker orange. Yeah. I could see that. There's something about this pen. I actually do think it seems the darker or more muted colors. I think it's too classic in its shape, right? It's a serious-looking pen. To me, it would seem peculiar to have it be all bright and colorful.
• Yeah. So, I think with navy brown and green, I think dark purple is probably the next in line. That would be my guess. Or a burgundy. Yeah. But I would like to see one of the bright ones come. Even a yellow, which would be too much. Like, that wouldn't do as well. But I would like to see, like, turquoise and steel. That would make me... I would have had an order in. You know, if we're not counting orange. But I think dark purple or a burgundy is probably what we're going to see next in this range. And then maybe we can get a bright one after that. I would love to see, you know, one of the CMYK colors besides the black. Like, the turquoise, pink, yellow. I just don't know that they will do that for this pen. It doesn't seem right. Which is kind of to your point. It doesn't seem right to have, like, a pink Lamy 2000. Like, I get it. As much as I would want one, I would prefer.
• So, hopefully we'll get a... I think maybe something in, like, that turquoise. Maybe even teal could work. But I don't know. They just did green, which teals can get kind of close to that. So, it's interesting stuff. One of these days, I will have one of these strictly limited pens. But not yet. Not yet. I'm holding tight. And we'll get a better color down the line.
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Comparison of pencil sharpeners, including the Uni KH20

• All right. Continuing our pencil talk, Myke. Let's talk about pencil sharpeners. So, I was noticing when I was going through all my pencils and using different pencils every day this month and having to sharpen these pencils that I never reviewed my two most used pencil sharpeners, and that is the Classroom Friendly Pencil Sharpener and the Uni KH20 Pencil Sharpener. So, I would actually, I assumed I had reviewed one or both, but, you know, this is how I roll sometimes. The most, my most favorite items, a lot of times I'm using them so much I forget to actually review them. So, I tried to correct that and did a little mini combination review comparing the pros and cons of each. Because I think, I mean, they're mostly the top two desktop sharpeners. I think there's a, these are Dahl model, D-A-H-L model, that's pretty popular. And there's a couple other popular ones out there as well. But these, I use, have used both of these for years. I love them. I wouldn't trade them for anything.
• And I wanted to get a few words down on each of them. There's some slight difference. I recommend the Uni KH20 just to like cut to the chase out of these two. It's my favorite pencil sharpener, my favorite desktop pencil sharpener. Because it's, it's super consistent. I like the plastic body. It's a plastic barrel, plastic bodied built pencil sharpener. The classroom friendly is metal, which is, is nice. And you can get some good colors on there, which is one of the features of the classroom friendly. You can get some purple ones or pink ones. The Uni comes in black, blue, and red. And that's it. Both of these are expensive. The classroom friendly is like 25 bucks. The Uni is like 32. But if you're a heavy pencil user, that's, that's picking one of these out to, to have as your desktop sharpener would be great. But again, I prefer the Uni because the classroom friendly, you need to add something to the teeth that clamp down. When you put in the pencil into the pencil sharpener, there's a clamp that holds the pencil in place. So the blade can rotate around the pencil. And with the classroom friendly, the teeth that clamp into that are not protected. Like on the UniKage 20, it's kind of like got a rubber seal that goes around the pencil. So it looks like teeth marks into your pencil, like someone was chewing on the pencil. But it sharpens the tip into like a more, I don't know, better looking tip. Like it's really not that much functionally better. The way that both of these pencils sharpen is, you know, perfect. There is a little bit of a concaveness in the KH20, which is hard to see visually. But you can pick it up in person. And I tried to show it in one of the pictures.
• It's a little bit hard to see. But yeah, these are both great choices. So I wanted to point those out that I finally now have a link on the blog where you can go look at some results of these. The one thing, the advantage of the KH20 besides not chewing up your pencils.
• Which you can, like on the classroom friendly, I'll wrap washi tape around it if I really want to use that sharpener. So the teeth don't bite into the pencil. That doesn't feel ideal though. It's a little fidgety. It's very fidgety. So yeah.
• But the KH20 does have a color pencil, like a blunt tip option, which I have used quite frequently because I like color pencils. And you don't need color pencils because they're clay-based cores. If you sharpen them to like the ultimate pointy tip, they just snap off, right? Which, as long as that's your expectation, like you're going to snap off most of these pencil tips anyway, like right away. But you don't need that on a color pencil. So the KH20 actually has just a button you press to where it blunts off the tip for that type of pencil. And that's really, really useful. I find myself using that quite a bit for when I'm using color pencils for different projects and things like that. So no wrong answer here. I prefer the KH20 just from ease of use and variability with the two different finishes on the tip. So I just wanted to throw those out there. And I haven't done another comparison of the handheld sharpeners, but I wanted to mention a couple that I do enjoy. If you've been playing along with pencil month and you need something to sharpen it and you don't want to commit 20... I think you'll find it safe. Yeah, Ticonder October. Yeah, you're really good at that. Yeah, I just can't get that to roll off the tongue like you can.
• But you may not want to spend $25 on a desktop pencil sharpener. A good handheld option is the Kuhm Automatic Brake Long Point Sharpener, which is just one of the best sharpeners all around, period. It's $6. It's handheld. It's got a little self-contained window for the pencil shaving. So if you're not sharpening over a trash can or somewhere where you can dispose of the shavings quickly, it contains them in there. It's only $6. And you get the long point that I prefer. It's two steps because it has two holes with two blades in it to where you sharpen the length of the barrel first. And then you can kind of fine-tune the graphite core in the second little hole that it has in there. This particular sharpener also has a lead pointer. If you're using like 2.0 or like we talked about the Caran d'Ache fix pencil, I could sharpen that with this pencil sharpener as well. And it's only $6. We've reviewed the Blackwing version of this one that doesn't have the little pointer thing for the 2.0 millimeter pencils. I would just skip the Blackwing one. Like I love Blackwing pencils. Blackwing's accessories are generally just like white label stuff that, you know, is doubled and tripled in price because it says Blackwing on it. It's still the Kume, you know, long point sharpener, but at like three times the cost. So I would just buy the Kume version. And then if you're a real pencil nerd, and there's a few handheld options that fall into this category that I didn't list, but the Kume Masterpiece takes this, the Kume Automatic Break Long Point Sharpener and turns it into just like an aluminum block that's just kind of really beautiful. It's also like 20 something dollars for this handheld sharpener that requires a lot of work. But if you're like a real pencil geek and want to really lean into like the handheld sharpener aspect of it, it's this one or the Pollux, which is another popular handheld sharpener. And these are all like $20 fancy, you know, hipster sharpeners that are, in my opinion, worth it. I keep the Masterpiece around in my pencil box with all my sharpeners because I enjoy it so much. It's portable. It has its own little case. It's just really cool to look at and it just works wonderfully. So a couple of reviews in there if you're interested in these handheld sharpeners. But really, all you need is the $6 two-step version of the Kume Automatic Break, which is probably one of the best pencil sharpeners on the market all around. So if you have other pencil sharpeners, send us an email. Y'all like sending us emails on the top 10 mechanical pencils list. So mechanical pencil sharpeners are a category I haven't gone deep in, right? I figured out, I got some recommendations for the best, and it turns out that these recommendations were really solid. So I've just kind of passed them on, you know? My brain got very confused there for a second. Why? Mechanical pencil sharpeners. Oh, sorry. Yeah.
• Pencil sharpeners that are mechanical, not sharpeners for mechanical pencils.
• True. Yes. That was why I got confused. I was like, wait, what is he saying? I'm surprised I haven't called them pen sharpeners as much as I like to transpose those two pencils. I mean, the phrasing mechanical pencil sharpener is correct, right? I mean, there's electronic pencil sharpeners too. That's a whole different category. So it's funny. I don't think I remember. I think I don't know if I mentioned this on the Tennessee Red when we talked about it. They actually recommend using an electronic sharpener on that Tennessee Red cedar because it's such an interesting wood and it doesn't always sharpen smoothly. So I've never seen a pencil company recommend that. No, it's pretty wild. Pretty wild. All right. Let's rewind it back to some pens, Myke. Specifically, these pens suck.

Mickey Mantle's "These Pens Suck" autograph story

• Go ahead. So this is a contribution this morning. This is a late addition to breaking news. My wife sent me a link this morning. She's like, check this out. And it's called these pens suck. And it's basically so the story goes. So there's a baseball player. So this is this is right up my alley. For those who are not baseball inclined, there was a baseball player in the 50s, 60s, maybe into the 70s. I can't remember when he retired. I think in the 60s named Mickey Mantle. Even if you're not a baseball fan, you might have heard of Mickey Mantle. Very, very famous baseball player.
• Played for the New York Yankees. Was a superstar. One of the best. One of the best to ever do it. Hall of Famer. That kind of guy. And he, you know, like a lot of athletes or stars, they'll do autographs and sit for autograph sessions and, you know, sign a bunch of autographs to be used for a lot of different things. So Mickey Mantle is one of the most famous sports athlete autographs because he has a very nice signature. You can actually read what he does when he signs his name. And it's very consistent. So we'll have an image in here where he's gone through a sheet of 100 signatures that he's using a black marker of some type. And so there's 100 stickers on here. It looks like 20 rows of five stickers each. And he's writing his autograph. And it's just beautiful over and over and over again. And so consistent. And then let me read you what he does here. So on the 47th segment, Mantle wrote a change up. Instead of his signature, Mantle wrote, these pens suck.
• Then he signed 53 more segments, still as neatly as scripted as ever. Mantle was a perfectionist about his signature. And despite his protestations about the quality of his pen, his signatures are absolutely gorgeous. So it's a sheet of 100 signatures. It is a good piece of art, man. Yeah. 99 signatures say Mickey Mantle. And one of them says, these pens suck. And it's just glorious. When you zoom in, like there's images that are zoomed in, you can see that these pens do in fact suck. They do. So it's not a Sharpie because the black ink is grayish. Like that's how you know the pen. There's a lot of variation, like a lot of color variation going on, which you wouldn't necessarily expect or like want from something that would be akin to a Sharpie, I guess. It's just amazing. So it's like, all right, 43, 44, 45, 46. These pens suck. 48, 49. It's just hilarious. I love this so much. What is great about this is he did this protest before even getting halfway. Like he's not even halfway done.
• I don't just, I'm tripping out over this. So this whole sheet's being auctioned. It's how much? It's up to $77,000. So if you're interested in this piece of history, it's going to cost you a little bit. But I just buy a better Sharpie for like $2 or $3 and just then just go with that. Maybe practice your own signature instead of going bidding. What if we pull together? You can have it on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
• We could share it. We just ship it back and forth. Yeah. Just one day for shipping in between. That's why we'll split it into the seven-day week. Yeah. Yeah. So I obviously got a huge kick out of this and my wife loved it this morning. So that was our enjoyment this morning. Hilarious stuff. All right. Let's finish out with a couple of our CPA questions. Let's do it. Raylia asks, do you have any suggestions for a multi-pen of colors vibrant enough for somebody with red-green colorblindness? The Jetstream multi-pen is too muted for me, though it writes and resists smudges really well.
• Yeah. I love this question. So I'm thinking, so what we want here as someone not totally familiar with colorblindness, we want to keep the red and green, but we want them to be a more saturated color so there's some separation, right? Yes. We're not looking to change. We don't need a blue, right? Correct. We need a red and green to be better. So that's the way I'm answering this. Hopefully, I'm correct. And if I'm not, please let me know. Red-green colorblindness, just by doing a little bit of Googling here, can actually make certain shades of green look more red. So I think what we're looking for is very saturated, therefore separated colors. That would be my expectation of what Rielia is asking for. Yep. Yep. So the problem that they're finding is the Jetstream is a ballpoint ink and red and green ballpoint inks are generally flat, right? They're just green. I'll straight up. Y'all know I love the Jetstream. You know I love the Jetstream multi-pen. The Jetstream green refill in the multi-pen is horrible. I hate that color. It is not a good color. You have to go to Gel Ink to get a good color saturation. That's hopefully going to get you some separation for colorblindness to see the visually different red and greens. So you want to go to like a Pilot High Tech Sea Coleto where you can build your own and you can pick the red and green.
• There's even some lime greens, which I don't know how that would work, but I would stick with the regular greens. Zebra makes probably like the best gel ink multi-pens. I just don't know right off the top of my head if they do a four color with a green option, but they might offer a green refill that's separate that could fit into those pens. But basically you want to go and look for gel ink multi-pens because the red is going to be really vibrant with the gel ink much more than the Jetstream. And that's going to give you a lot of separation, I think, from the green gel inks, which are also going to look much, much better. And then you can get that separation. So I would skip ballpoint multi-pens completely. You're not going to find anything that's going to be good enough. And I would go to the gel. And I would start with Zebra. If you can find something there, if not, I would go to build your own with a Pilot Hitec C Coleto or a Uniball style fit, depending on which one you might prefer aesthetically. So go to gel ink multi-pens. And Helen asks, listening to your conversation about the wing back with a clip, my thoughts were, and I wondered, if you prefer a pen with no clip, how do you secure it to a pen loop? Which then had me wondering, do you even like or use pen loops? I always look for clips on pens so I have the added security when using a pen loop on my leather cover. This is such a good question. Like, we could just do the whole podcast on this. I use pen loops begrudgingly. Sure. Right? Because I'm not a pen monogamist. Right? Yes. Pen loops are so restrictive. Yes. You have to. This is your pen choice, right? Yes. Yeah. You have to pick the pen that fits the loop, not the other way around. And to me, that's a challenge for me as someone who uses, you know, six pens a day. That if I'm going to have the one notebook with the one pen today, that's fine. But that pen is going to be different tomorrow. And then the day after that. And I'm still stuck with the same loop. And there's some, I think Leuchterm has, I think their loop is a little bit flexible and it's stretchy, right? You can get some, get a few different pens in there. So like those add-on loops, those tend to be good. But the ones that are built in and come with like the leather notebooks, those are almost always too tight for any good thing. So I secure it in my pocket or in a pen case. I'm actually very okay. And this is totally personal, right? For Helen. Like this is totally personal. I'm good if I'm going, let's just say I'm going to a cafe and I'm going to write. I'll bring a notebook and a pen case. Like I'm okay with two things in this scenario because I'm just going to fight with the pen loop and it's not going to hold what I want it to when I want it. And that's just a me thing. I get the convenience of them, but I find them overall too restrictive. So I don't have to, clips are not a deal breaker for me.
• If they have a clip, I'll use the clip, you know, I'll clip them to the cover of the notebook, right? Instead of using a pen loop. If a case has a pen loop and I have a pen with a clip, I'm more than likely going to stick the clip in the pen loop and not the pen in the pen loop because it's not going to fit. And if I prefer to use a pen or a pencil without a clip, well, I'll just find a different case to use it there because they're just not universal, not universally available to fit many, many different pens. So I don't know. I, I guess I have strong opinions on pen loops, but it's just, no one's made something that's just really perfect because there's too much variety out there in the pen world to fit many different pens. It's got to be like my Caran d'Ache 849. That's an awesome pen loop pen because it's skinny and it has a clip. I, that, that pen goes in most pen loops that I have, um, just to, just to fill them up just so I'm using them. So there we go. Yeah. I don't use pen loops. Um, it's just not really something that I find to be satisfying to like clip a pen in like that. But if I was going to use a pen loop, then I would want to secure clip. Yeah. Like, cause I agree with Helen. Like if you are using a pen loop, 100% your pen needs to have a clip on it. Like, cause you need that security of it not falling out and they always can, but they're less likely to fall out if it's actually clipped to the loop. Right. So that makes sense to me. That's why from a design perspective, I'd almost always design with a pocket or a pouch or a sleeve than a loop. Just, you're, you're going to have more options. Okay.
• So, but there's still like, it's, it's, it's hard to get a pen loop right. And it's hard to get a pouch right. That's internal to a case. Like, um, we should have a, we should have a design episode, uh, crossover with thoroughly considered one day.
• We all have opinions. We all have opinions. So yeah, it's yeah. There's, there's always, there's always a give and take and pen loop. If I'm designing a product, it, it wouldn't even make the initial feature list because you're not, you're going to make so few people happy that it's not, it ends up not being a feature at all. Yep. I agree. All right. If you would like to send in a question for a future episode of the show, you have some follow-up or feedback from today's episode, just go to penaddictfeedback.com and you can send that in. There's also a link for this in the show notes, which you can find in your podcast app of choice or at relay.fm slash penaddict. Go to penaddict.com, spokedesign.com, twitch.tv slash penaddict and at penaddict to find Brad Dowdy. And you can find me here on relay at cortexbrand.com. And I'm at imike, I M Y K E. Thank you to Enigma Stationery and Uni for their support of this week's episode. And we'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.