The Pen Addict 699/transcript

From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 699. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Pen Chalet. My name is Mike Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad. Hello Mike Hurley, how are you doing? I'm good man, I'm excited. I'm excited, we're heading towards 700. Just obscene, obscene numbers. It's fun to think about. But great the whole way around. Yeah, it still seems like 70, if you said 70 episodes, like I'd, yeah, that seems about right. Episode 69. But it's been 700, nice, yeah.

It's been like, it's been, it's been 700 episodes, which is wild to me. Podcast about pens, Mike, I don't know if you knew that. Nope, that's what we do. That's what we're going to talk about today. We'll kick things off with our favourite topic, price increases. And this would have been a perfect article for me to use last week. And I literally had it in my personal notes to include last week because it would have given context to a lot of the email we got around like the Japanese market as a whole and what's going on.

So this was, this article was sent to me by a kind reader. And this is an article in the Financial Times, Mike. And I'm going to read the headline. And I think this was like a late December article, as best as I can tell. It says, Japanese pen maker raises price of its best seller for first time in 40 years. And so this is a Pilot article. So they're talking to, let's see, who do they talk to? I don't know, one of the, one of the bigwigs at Pilot. Chief executive, there we go. The CEO of Pilot. Pilot implemented a 10% price increase for its friction pen two months ago.

Its first since it went on sale in 2006. The Fumio Fujisaki chief executive said it was the first time during his 40 years at the company that it had raised the price of a best selling item. So this gives a lot of context. That doesn't seem like it could be right. You know what, that just doesn't seem like it could be right. What about inflation? Surely that's not correct. That can't be correct. Well, just wait till we get to some of the other bits here.

This lends a lot to the reader mail that we got last week, right? About how businesses in Japan handle things like raising prices. They weigh every 40 years and then raise it by 40%. That's what they do. If you're lucky. Yeah, if you're lucky. You're probably getting off light, I guess. So the CEO goes through some of the Japanese broader market issues that are causing problems like deflation and inflation and taxes and bank policies and all this. So this is a Financial Times article after all. But based around the pilot friction and the raising of price since, what did it say, 2006?

Yeah, since its launch. Here's the part that I dislike reading. But this is the part that's the most given. This is the obvious part. Pilots, shareholders have been putting pressure on the company to take advantage and set higher prices, right? So this is a publicly traded company. And that's been one of the points I've been trying to get across with some of these companies, right? These are publicly traded companies and the shareholders are mad. So charge more, Pilots, your shareholders say. If they really haven't increased the prices in 40 years or even on this product since 2006, you said?

Yeah. Yeah, they absolutely should, though. Like, 20 years ago? Yeah, this is not a modern business practice, right? No, this doesn't make any sense to me. And that they're sticking to this gets them having to do these interviews, right? And it's like, you know, we could, like, every few years raise the price of the friction 5%. And the friction is like a less than $2 pin, right? It's like $1.50. Like, if my friction goes from $1.50 to $1.65, I'm going to be okay, right? And Pilot can stay with the times and not have to just come in and...

They didn't raise the friction very much. But still, the broader context of this is they refused to do these things historically. And now they're in a bottom. Using one of those inflation calculators, $2 in 2006 is approximately $3.22 today. So they have been just, like, over time making less and less and less money on this product. Yeah. Yeah. And this complete sidebar to this, and I've mentioned this several times over the years, for those who don't know, the Pilot Friction is a monster of a pin seller in Japan.

Like, it is so popular that Hobonichi makes decisions around the Pilot Friction, right, on some of their papers that they use. That's how big this pin is in the Japanese market. It's popular worldwide, but it's a different level in Japan. So it's pretty interesting. So anyway, that article I've had stuck in my notes and I forgot to bring it out last week. But I think it's just super interesting and super telling. And it's a good follow-up to some of the content we got last week. Well, all of this to say, I have a question from Justin who says,

I haven't seen much discussion of price increases beyond the big three Japanese brands. Do you expect the price of gold or whatever reasons are contributing to these increases are going to hit European brands as well? If I had to spend $500 on a sailor, I might be more tempted to explore Aurora, Centini, or other brands I haven't purchased yet due to what used to be their higher prices. What are your thoughts on this? Yeah, perfect timing for this question for two reasons. One, Montblanc's price increases came out yesterday.

Oh, did it? Oh, interesting. I want to say I don't have the document. Flat 10% across the board. And you know why that doesn't sound bad? It's because they manage it every two or three years to continue to raise the price. So your Aurora price has been slowly raised over the past five years to where they don't have to have a huge jump. But you're paying a drastically larger price for your Aurora pen than you were five years ago. It just doesn't appear as bad because the percentage jump is smaller year over year because they're managing it differently.

So, yes, and I think, Justin, you should explore these other brands, right? Everyone should be exploring everything at this time, right? There's no more easy decisions in the higher-end pen bracket. And I'm talking like over $200 and $300, right? That's a very expensive pen. That's where gold nibs used to live to start with. And they're not there anymore. So, yes, you should very much consider that. But their price increases don't make news because they've increased them every year for the past five years, right?

So we're kind of getting to the same place. But if you just go back and read that Financial Times article, you can see what the difference is in how these companies choose to get to these places. So really, for a lot of the Japanese brands, the gold was the price increases and whatever was the shore that broke the camel's back to make their change, right? Yeah. And then when you compare someone like Aurora, they are a fraction of the size of these big three Japanese brands. Well, big two, sailor and pilot.

Platinum is smaller than both of those other two. But, yes, it's very different. But, yeah, this is a good question because we don't discuss it that much because 10% every year. You know, that doesn't really, you know, like get into my inbox that much, right? It just feels standard, right? So you're just like, yeah, okay. It's like, oh, yes. It goes up. That's how life works, right? Yeah. So, yeah. But everybody should be looking into everything at this point. So, good question. Okay. Colin writes in and says,

I agree that there are clearly large changes to the fountain pen landscape, but I would like to suggest that you have underestimated the role of Chinese pens. While their prices are also increasing, they are far less expensive compared to the traditional fountain pen market. The quality and creativity of these manufacturers is high, especially from Asvine and Yongsheng. The effect of this is that, similar to the electric vehicle global vehicle market, new pen buyers have many more choices. Yeah, this is a good call out.

And I've definitely mentioned this kind of in passing as like the Asian fountain pen market outside of Japan between, you know, China, Taiwan, Vietnam. All of this range of countries make some great products. And it's not really an issue, but the reason why I don't focus on this as much is because this is, despite the inexpensive cost, this is more of an experienced user landscape, I'm not going to send a new user to go buy a pen from a non-traditional retailer, if that makes sense, right? That's just, and that's a me problem.

I'm not saying that's the right thing or the wrong thing to do. But if you tell me I'm getting into fountain pens, and I want to try a couple of things for the first time, I'm not sending you to these pens, unless they are supported by a retailer that these people can make these purchases from and have this support system around these pens. Now, once you discover what you like, all bets are off. Buy all the Asvines in the world. I've never heard of Yongshing. I don't know what they make. But the Asvine is really popular right now.

It's like a $30 acrylic pen. Buy 10 of them. Like, if you know what you're doing, you should go for it, right? But I do tend to not recommend some companies that aren't, that you're not getting from traditional retailers, if that makes sense. And that's a new buyer protection thing that I do by default, right? I'll go buy these pens all day long, and some of them are really good. And I'll tell you, if you know what you're doing with fountain pens, you should go buy these pens. But they don't come up a lot when I'm talking about, like, the Platinum Preppy

or, you know, the Pilot Kakuno or something. Like, they're not the same conversation for me because that's a different person that I'm recommending that pen to. But also a good opportunity for those who are looking for other options to buy fountain pens from. Like, this is somewhere you should look. Okay. I would say it's a complete blind spot for me. Like, I don't really have a sense for what these products are doing. Yeah. I just haven't had anything that I've had to have, right? Yeah.

They're winning on price, and the quality is good enough for the price. But I need a little bit more. Like, I'm not buying anything. What am I going to buy that's better than my Lamy Safari? When I have that list, I'll take a look at it. Yeah. Well, I guess it's, like, the argument I would expect is, like, these things are as good as the Lamy Safari and, like, fit 20% of the price or whatever. Yeah. Yep. So, no, there's good products there, and people should definitely investigate this. But like I said, this is more of an experienced user area, in my opinion.

And despite being a low-cost product, I think you have to know what you're doing if you start dabbling in this market. Yeah. And Tom wrote in and says, I got to the part of the pod talking about titanium nibs. I was wondering if either of you have had the chance to try or look at what Eureka Pens is doing in Korea. They make titanium nibs that are a bit different in design than the Monarch and messes around, and they mess around with engineered plastics and ebonite. Even though tariff and shipping costs, one of their pens can be had for around $200 all in.

While it's not everyone's cup of tea, I'm hoping we see more makers like this fill the void. Yeah. So, I've seen Eureka Pens. I've gotten to try some of them. I've been very tempted to buy some of their barrels because that materials, the engineered plastics and ebonite, is my personal area. I enjoy pens made of those materials. And so, people have been sending me the Eureka Pens links. I haven't tried any with the oddly shaped nibs and the titanium, the long nib designs and things like that. But yeah, I mean, this is a great time to look at maker pens and what individual makers are doing.

I know Ben Walsh with Gravitas is putting a lot of effort in trying different things, which he always has. Yes. Right? So, you're going to continue to see people like Eureka or people like Gravitas and then, you know, millions, not millions, hundreds, dozens, a few other makers. Wow, that really went down. Millions, hundreds, dozens, maybe one. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah. We're pretty small. We're a pretty small voting block here. Yeah. And it's large as far as the world goes. But yeah, like we're going to continue to see these things and you're going to continue to see something like a Eureka Pens pop up.

Or to the previous, you know, email or column, we're going to continue to see the Asvine's pop up. Because what Asvine has done is continue to prove, like continue to release good pens for like 30 bucks. And, you know, you can't just release anything for $30. It's got to be compelling enough for someone to buy. And Asvine's been able to do this here recently. So, yeah, we're going to continue to see these things. And I think this is going to be several different recurring themes throughout the year.

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So, talking about getting paid, you can set up a store with Squarespace. It's super easy to do. They have all of the functionality you might want and the integrations. We've done this on Relay in the past with selling some merch stuff. Obviously, Brad sells products through his website over at Pen Addict, through his Squarespace store. It really is an excellent function to be able to get physical or digital goods out to people. But you can also offer services to get paid as well, from consultations to events and experiences.

You can showcase your offerings of a customizable website that is designed to attract clients and grow your business. You can think built-in appointment scheduling, email marketing tools, or more. You can keep everything cohesive with on-brand invoices and get paid easily with online payments. You can also do things like uploading content, maybe video, text content, imagery, organized content libraries, and showcase them on beautiful video pages, portfolio pages, and such. And you can then sell access to this by adding a paywall to your content.

This could be perfect for online courses, exclusive tutorials, premium workshops, and more. Go and check out squarespace.com slash penaddict and sign up for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use the offer code penaddict and you'll save 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash penaddict and the offer code penaddict to get 10% of your first purchase to show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for their continued support of this show and Relay.

All right, Mike, we got our shout-out of the week. Shout-out of the week. Writing at large. Writing at large. A long-running blog. I definitely think I've given them a shout-out before. And I know Nofar, the writer of the blog, has been doing this for like well over a decade. I'm always ink-slinking them. Oh, you know, I always talk about writing at large because they always do the Diamine ink vents. And like from the very first one, they would do like the rankings. And they were the one that was super adamant this year about the tobacco one.

I was like, yes, get them. So, yes. So, if you're not following writing at large, you should. And I wanted to give them a shout-out of the week this week because they posted an article recently called, How to Use Your Notebooks in 2026 to Improve Your Life. And this is just a good overall tips and ideas post that I think people should find interesting because I think for a lot of people, this is going to be the year where we're all looking inwards and using our stuff more and figuring out how we can do these things.

So, NOFAR just gives like a few tips in a broader sense of the word on how they use their notebooks and how you could use your notebooks. So, just a few of these kinds. I'm not going to read all the definitions of them, but the classic journal, right? Like we all, a lot of people like get a huge benefit from just like a classic journal notebook. A work-in-progress notebook, right? NOFAR mentions they just added this type of notebook into their rotation where they're kind of reflecting on their life, right?

And having a place to, you know, share their thoughts and what they can be working on and how to change. Again, another classic, the planner, right? I pretty much have a journal and a planner is kind of my realm. But then you can have single project notebooks, which I've done in the past. Do you ever do single project notebooks, Mike? No. I used to, long time ago. And then I just found that to be wasteful and less convenient because my stuff would be scattered all over. But I did used to run a single project notebook every now and then.

Daily to-do lists, I keep those in my planner, kind of. Those tasks and daily notes, that kind of goes in my planner. And then a scratch pad. I actually think this one is the most underrated one. I think everyone, if you have a journal and you have a planner, I think you should have a scratch pad out of all these other things. Because sometimes you just need to throw some ink on a page, scribble, doodle. You need to test an ink that you're maybe not sure is this thing working right. And I'm always like, instead of having just a bunch of like loose sheets of paper strewn about the desk,

I literally have a notebook that's full of scribbles that I keep here that I know if I need to just test a pen and see how it's writing, I'll just grab that and then I can write in my journal or my planner and go to town on that. So I think the scratch pad is my favorite out of all this that a lot of people don't use and probably could. You know, we have dozens of notebooks laying around probably. I know you do. I know I do. And like I have one that's a scratch pad. It's a Midori A6, you know, Midori MD.

I guess MD products now, formerly known as MD paper. And it's literally you open it up and it's just full of squiggly lines of me testing pens. That's its job. So anyway, check out Writing at Large if you haven't. And yeah, thanks for this post, Nofar. I enjoyed it. Yeah. Did you know there were lefty nibs for sailor pens, Mike? I had no idea. I feel like, okay, I felt like I'm the only one who didn't know this. I can't believe nobody has told me this before, considering I love sailor pens and I am left-handed.

Because I have a left-handed Lamy nib and really like that on the safari. Okay. Yeah. So someone sent me, I had a question like in my email. And this came up that they were looking at the lefty sailor. They were a lefty writer, obviously. And they just like in passing, it's like, yeah, and I use the lefty sailor. I'm like, what are you talking about the lefty sailor? And sure enough, there's not a lot of them, right? When I was searching for this, it didn't pop up everywhere. But I did find a link at Farnie's and they basically have like your left-handed, like

your oblique style nibs that will have the angle for a left-handed writer, an overriding grip angled nib, right? So it's a very particular, very particular nib. This is me all over, right? Yeah. Yeah. But do you think that's a benefit to you? I mean, I guess singularly. I have no idea how it would feel, but like I am an overrider. So if they've made it for that, I feel like there could be a benefit. But I've never had a problem of a sailor nib with my grip. So yeah, that's my, I guess that's my point.

It's going to have to hit a very specific angle. But maybe I just haven't unlocked that like next level. You know what I mean? Like I have not, Brad, I have no idea how good my life could be. This is the thing. This is what I don't know. So yeah, I do think like there is something to think about for as a lefty for this. You do not have to have a left-handed nib to enjoy fountain pens as most lefties will tell you. There is some benefit to this though. Yeah. I think it's an interesting thing to exist.

Like there are some pens that do benefit from it just because the type of nib just make it like really not very fun to use. Sure. But it's quite rare though, I'll be honest. Yeah. I would think sailor would be one that would be tougher to use, especially in the finer ranges. Yeah. I never really use their fine nibs. Maybe that's why. Maybe. Maybe in general, that's why I tend not to go with fine nibs because I do find them scratchy and it might just be that there's not, I've not used enough left-handed nibs in that.

But yeah, I like, I love that this exists, but fineies only have it in a fine. So that's not going to be, that's not going to be one for me. Like I wonder if this is even like a current product. Can retailers order this product for their customers? I have no idea. Like this is the first time I've heard of this. Well, I mean it costs $392. So you tell me. That's a deal, Mike. That's true. That's it. That like, now we can say that like unironically. I could melt that nib down to make some money back.

Speaking of which, and I've, I've been, I've been struggling to find the link where I read this and there, there was a link, but the, the prices that we mentioned probably like in late December where sailor was doing the adjustments to having a 14 K and an 18 K price bracket for like a stock version of pen, the 1911 large 18 K nib is going to be like around $650.

So just let that, just let that sink in. Just let that sink in. So that was the, the, the MSRP was like mid, mid to upper sevens, which like when you take 20% off the, the retail prices are around 650. So good to know, good to know, good for you sailor, I guess. Speaking of good for you, Mike, good for you bullet journal. Okay.

Not really. Do you know what bullet journal is these days, Mike? Like if I told you like the business of bullet journal is? Selling the notebooks. Yeah. Except what if I told you they were now a corporate training company to where they want to send their bullet journal experts to, to your corporation to teach you the ways of a bullet journal. That's a fascinating.

Look, I've read Rob's posts, a friend of the show, Rob Knight, he wrote a post about bullet journal. And Rob is, you know, I would say understandably frustrated that the bullet journal website, which used to have a guide for how you would make a bullet journal, actually no longer has that, which is quite surprising. And it's instead trying to sell courses, right? Yeah. And I would say. Starting at $300. I just want to go ahead and get that out up front. But that's what an online course costs these days, whether you want them or not.

You know what I mean? It feels like this is just what all these things cost. And you know what? Well, it's probably $300, but permanently on sale somewhere, you know, because I should sell. And with my code, Mike, you can get 20% off. And it's also selling the book and selling the books, right? So it's like, you know, the method book and da, da, da, da. Yeah. Here's what I will say about this, right? So like, in Rob's post, he references that like, it used to be, you know, a thing for the community and the booja, da, da, da, da, da.

I actually do not begrudge Ryder Carroll making these decisions. Because if you go back far enough, as the old heads will know, it was into the show. Ryder created a thing that got away from him, right? He created bullet journaling to be this very specific thing, and it got away from him. And then he spent years trying to benefit from this thing that he created that he was no longer benefiting from, realistically. That's when he started producing the books, and then over time has done this. It's like, if you want to find his system of bullet journaling, it is all across the

internet now, right? Like, it is incredibly available. Yeah. That's what I want to point people to, is one of the links in Rob's. But like, it's not like it's hidden, you know? Like, it is a freely available thing. And if now he wants to use his name, and the product name, and the trademarks that he has to sell courses, to benefit from his original idea, I don't have a particular problem with it, if I'm being honest. Because it's not like, the bullet journal system is not incredibly complicated. It's not, it's just like a really nice way of doing things.

And you can just Google it and get it. But it doesn't bother me that he has decided to take the thing that he created and turn it into something else. Because I would say that he has been pretty, you know, he, to my knowledge, he's never like gone after people, right? Like, he's not trying to, you know, take down the biggest creators in the Bujo world or whatever. And so I just feel like just, he's just going to do what he's going to do. And it's not like you can't get what you need from somewhere else.

That's kind of how I feel about this. What's your thought? Would you be shocked to know that I agree with you completely? No, because we've been around for long enough that we've seen this. I think that's, and I don't, I don't mean this in shade to our friend Rob, but Rob only found out about bullet journal like a year ago, right? Like, I feel like if you followed this whole thing, like, you know, he references like, oh, you know, Bujo gave the success. Bullet journal was very successful on its own.

And then people took it and turned it into a thing. Like, I don't think he owes anything to anyone realistically. Okay. I will disagree with you there. And I do like a lot of Rob's article because we've lost the simplicity of what bullet journal used to be. Yes. And is that looking at the history with rose colored glasses? Yes. Yes. But this system was so meaningful to so many people and helped so many people get through simple things such as studying to difficult things such as ADHD and other challenges.

And none of that is technically gone away to your point. Yes. It is just not the focus when you're talking about, hey, I want to improve my life and this system might work and it's free and it's simple and it's checks boxes and dates. And it just, you know, show me a way to help lay this stuff out. Right. Like, that's, it's, it's such a non-focus to the simplicity that it used to be that it feels a little bit grosser now. And like, I'm actually longing for the days to where we could just bring back what I called

hashtag Bujo was like, give me the, um, give me the beautiful spreads again instead of like the business aspects. Well, right. The way that I look at it is like, I don't, I don't think that's writer's fault. Right. Like I, I agree because I do agree. It became commercialized before he did. This became a protection racket. Yeah. He ended up having to protect the name and had to take it in a different corporate route. But it's, but this, the whole bullet journal world is full of people trying to make money

on the idea. Yeah. Right. No, I, I have no, I don't begrudge this decision for Ryder at all. Like, I don't know Ryder very well. Right. But we've spoken to him a couple of times. I'm sure he would also like to go back to the world where it was nice and simple like that. Yeah. But now this is like, well, I'm in it now. That's kind of how I see this. And like, I do think it is ridiculous that you can't just get the methods and the things for like 20 bucks or whatever. Right. Like you do not need an ongoing annual course to learn how to do bullet journaling.

Like you don't need that. Then you're getting, when you started getting crossing over into like the self-help racket, like there's a lot of good stuff out there, but the volume of bad stuff is like, if he wants to make a self-help course that is, that is built on bullet journaling and charge $300 a year for it. I kind of don't care about that. I would like it if he offered a way to get bullet journaling online quickly. Right. Like, like, as in like, I could just go to the website, give him 10 bucks and learn bullet

journal because you can do that by going to buy the book. So why not just offer like some kind of digital thing? Right. That, that, that's my thought on that part. But yeah, it's just like the whole thing is just a mess at this point. And I, and I think, I think it's hard to really at this point track down how we got here. Yeah. Cause I don't pay attention to it that much. Right. It's no longer the bullet journal as a business is no longer in our purview to be quite honest. The bullet journal as a system that you can use in your notebooks to help you organize your

day. That definitely is. And those are two different things now. Right. And there was always a challenge of that separation because it's such a simple system. So, yeah, I don't know. I just thought, I thought it was interesting cause I haven't been keeping up with them. And so I'm just catching up to this news now. And like, I, yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting. It's like, I have no problem with it. It's just not for me anymore. People could see that original website. Cause it was so good.

Oh, I saved, I pulled the, I meant to put that in the show notes. I got one, I have one of the archive links. It was so amazing. Show notes. Show notes. So it was like a 2014. So if y'all want to just know what the original bullet journal system is, I'll have a link in the show notes. I did save this. I just didn't put it in here. You know, it's like a archive.org link. So just go back to the archive.org. Um, and, uh, check, check that out. And you can see like that page that I linked literally goes through step by step.

So of the, the whole system. So, and I was like, oh man, look, I was like, oh, look at this. You know, so good stuff. But I'm sure there's a thousand YouTube videos that can tell you how to do this now. Yeah. But in Rob's link, he links a free reference guide from, um, tiny ray of sunshine. And it's just like a, like a one page PDF. If you're interested in like the bullet journal as a system, like that's what you should be using. Right. Yeah. So everything else is just like self-help courses, which, you know, maybe, maybe you need

that. Maybe you want that, but like, it's just different than like all the things that we've ever talked about. I've got to say though, that like just this reference guide existing makes me understand what he wants to charge $300 for a course. Yeah. That's like two things can, this is one of those where two things can very much be true. Yeah. Because like, what does he got? And you don't have to agree with both. What has he got? If he, if this is how he wants to make a living, right. On the, on the, on the bullet journal, which he clearly does.

What has he got to sell anymore when people just made their own version, you know? Yeah. The, all the, all the products, the notebooks, the pens, um, and you know, the, those types of things, the, the books, you know, you go to the book page. I was browsing around since I hadn't been there forever. Like the book is available in like every language ever. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like, so like as an individual, like you're doing fine with, you know, the notebooks and the pens, like the launch term collaboration.

And then the authorship and the continued updates of that. Um, but then like now it's like a corporate training session, right. Which is, I mean, I do stand by that. It's perfect for that. It's, it's a shame that it's the only way you can get it. Like, I just want him to have like a $20 ebook, PDF, EPUB thing or whatever on his website where you can just get the simple system. Right. Yeah. Like, yeah. Let me walk you through everything. And you know, it's $10, $20, whatever. But then it doesn't surprise me that somebody of his name would now be into training.

Like, it just makes sense to me. It's logical. This is a logical path. Like, I'm surprised like the GTD company doesn't own Bullet Journal by this point, to be perfectly honest. I mean, all lunchtime. Yeah. Like someone else is going to own this brand eventually. Yeah. And it's going to be just absorbed into like GTD, like David Allen or one of those type of companies. Right. That's, that's the path we're on. Yeah. You know, or in the Atomic Habits system or whatever that guy's name is. God, they have a version in Slovakian.

They have a Romanian version. Look at that. So, yeah. So, yeah. That's what I see. Like, that's the way this looks tracking to me is like, I, you know, at some point it's just going to be bought up and used as coursework. A quote from David Allen right on the page. I know. That's what made me think of it, honestly. I was like, why doesn't GTD own this? Because that's their business. Their business is teaching you GTD. Yeah. And I don't think like Bullet Journal could, it could be part of that system.

Right. I don't think it's a competitive system. Right. I think they're complimentary systems. Yeah. Yeah. So, who knows? Anyway. Who knows? Good stuff. Long time no talk writer. But yeah, that was interesting stuff. I hadn't paid attention to any of this and I was like, that is definitely not the Bullet Journal I used to know. No. So, yeah. Okay. Following that, I want to change tune a little bit and ask the readers for something for next week's episode 700. So, one of the things, if you couldn't tell, dear listeners, I get pretty wound up about

like all these price increases and I've been, you know, thumping my chest a little bit and just being like, ah, I hate this and like this sucks. And like, I get it. Like, there's, I don't want to talk about this. It's the nature of the game. This is, it's a new playing field out there starting in 2026 for like pricing purposes. So, I'm trying to tell myself, you know, like, what am I focusing on? What are the smaller things that I want to find enjoyment in, find usage in? So, I want to take next episode to focus on what excites you the most about stationary in

2026. So, Mike and I are each going to tackle, you know, we'll put in what we think and, you know, talk about things that excite us in 2026 about stationary. And then I would like to hear from y'all and know, like, what are you looking forward to in 2026 from a stationary perspective? How are you using things? Are you using things differently? Um, are you trying, you know, to use more fountain pennings in an artistic way? Are you trying to write more in your journal? Like, what is getting you excited?

Because like, I'll be honest, like the thing that makes me, gets me so like wound up is it's really hard to get excited about a $600 fountain pen, right? That does not excite me. But as I sit at my desk every day, I literally love everything that's sitting here from I'm looking at like looking down on my desk right now. I have, you know, a dot marker from Zebra. Like that excites me. Like I get excited about this stuff. I have expensive pens too. Don't get me wrong. They're sitting here. I'm sitting here looking at a Pilot Custom Vermillion 845.

It's beautiful, gorgeous pen. That excites me too. So I want to know what y'all are getting excited about this year. And let's have like a good, good positive. We're going to have a love in. Positive episode next year. We're going to have a love in next week, chat. Throw your keys in the bowl. No, no. Come on in. No, no. Not that kind. That's not what I mean. Maybe I don't know what it means. That's not what I mean.

So yeah, like seriously, like yeah, I do get kind of wound up. I apologize if I've been like overly negative. It's just how you're never going to get anything from me except how I feel. And, you know, I'm, this is why I don't work for corporate, right? This is why I'm not Ryder Carroll and going to sell my class to like IBM's, you know, 500 offices around the world, right? Because they're not really going to want to hear what I say. So I want to hear what y'all are talking about or what y'all are using this year, how you're going to use it, what makes you happy about using stationary, what gets you excited.

And yeah, I thought that would be a good opportunity for episode 700 to just kind of like, let's reboot real quick. You know, we're going to be continuing to talk about price. Every time before we start the show, I tell Mike, I was like, all right, maybe this is the last time in Mike that we talk about price increases. And Mike's like, you know, that's not, you know, we're going to talk about next week. I know. All year. Yeah. But there's a balance, right? Yeah. Like I can't do this every week if I'm only going to complain about prices.

Yes. Right. So let's try to fix that. And it starts with me. And I want y'all's help next week. And I think that's a good like episode 700 like idea. So how can people best get in touch with us for this, Mike? Just go to penaddictfeedback.com and leave your feedback there. You can leave it as follow up or whatever. If you want from the drop down, it doesn't really matter what you choose because I see it all anyway. So yeah, and then you can leave your thoughts there as to what you're most excited about or what you're already enjoying.

Most in 2026. We'd love to know. And we're going to talk about our own thoughts on this as well. I'm really excited to have this conversation. This is one big thing that I'm really excited about. We'll talk. Maybe we'll talk about that next week. Yeah. So yeah, I think this will be great for episode 700. Yep. And if y'all run out of space on the – we are character limited on penaddictfeedback.com. If you have like a really long one, go ahead and send it to hello at penaddict.com, my email. And I'll make sure to put them in with the rest of the content.

Although I will say I recommend trying to get your thoughts within the character limit. Yes, please. Like that is – yeah. We've got to read these things on the show. We cannot take like essays. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, yeah. I'm also going to do my yearly theme for 2026 next week because it kind of sort of fits into what I want to talk about, like the topic. But it only came to me in the last couple of weeks. As you will fondly tell everybody, Mike, the theme of the year doesn't have to start on January 1st, right?

Correct. And the theme can change throughout the year depending on the changes of what you're trying to accomplish in your life. And I was going into 2026 with like a pretty basic theme, one that I've used before that worked well for me that I stopped and I wanted to get back to that. And then I've actually already pivoted from that in the first couple of weeks of the year. Oh, exciting. Okay. So it's just the way I want to think about my year this year as we had in 2026. So I'm going to write that up for Panatic members this weekend.

That's why I didn't – No, wait. Because it's just kind of like solidified here in my head in the past week or two. So I'm going to get all those words down and then I'll talk about it next week on next week's episode. I'll put a link in the show notes to the blog post I wrote about mine. Yes. We can talk about it next week too. I enjoyed reading that. Thank you. Exactly. But in case people want to get a jump on it, I also made a YouTube video, you know, multimeter experience. I know, right? If you want to catch up in advance.

But I'll talk about my year lithium a little bit next week too. Cool. All right. This week's episode is brought to you by Pen Chalet. They sell the products that you are looking for from the brands that you love. Whether you want a new rollerball, fountain pen, ballpoint, mechanical pencil, or maybe you're looking for a bottle of ink or you want a nice case. Maybe you want a new pen, a carrying case. Maybe you want some refills. You know, maybe you just want some little bits and bobs. They got it.

But your brands, I would like to list the brands that Pen Chalet have available to you. But unfortunately, we do not have an hour for this ad read today because there are so many and they're adding new products. Every single month, you're going to find new stuff being added to Pen Chalet as well as fantastic discounts as well. They have the fastest, most reliable customer service in the land. And they do free shipping on orders of over $75 in the US. They sell internationally too with very reasonable shipping rates.

Pen Chalet has low prices on high quality pens and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So take yourself over to penshalet.com slash penaddict where you can get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet, but also to save some exclusive offers because you listen to this show. Yeah, one of the things you'll notice if you go over to our page, the Pen Addict page over at Pen Chalet, is they have some mystery boxes going. And I think this is, they've done this in the past, but I'm wondering if this is going to start being a new regular-ish thing

because they're calling this the January 2026 edition. And, you know, it's, this is a box that contains, you know, one fountain pen, like reasonably pretty expensive fountain pen, one full-size bottle of ink, one pen case, one journaling writing accessory, then stamps and stories like all the ephemera and stuff that goes with it. And the neat thing is you can choose your nib size up front, which is always one of like the question marks. I would have if I was going into like a mystery box situation is like,

well, I want to make sure I like the pen, right? The big value, like if I'm going to spend a lot of money on this, I at least want to have like a nib that's going to fit my writing style and being able to choose that at least for these boxes is pretty cool. So I'm interested to see how they do these. So this is like the Pen Pals edition, right? So I'm wondering if there's going to be a continued theming and some interesting additions. Yeah, they have one called the Stash, the Pen Stash Mystery Box,

which is 50 bucks and that has like different value products in it. Yeah, yeah. So there'll be all different ranges of these. This is more of a high-end one, like with the big fountain pen in it. So yeah, I think it's interesting and I think it's going to be cool to see what's in these and how these goes and if people are enjoying these because I do like the concept of the mystery box. That's always a fun thing for customers. PenShallet.com slash Pen Addict. That's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. It's H-Pen Addict where you can find more information about all of this.

Our thanks to PenShallet for their continued support of this show and Relay. All right, you want to hit some Ask TPA this week? And then we'll start writing our notes to get what gets us excited for next week's episode. First comes from Brad. Not you. Nice. Maybe, I don't know. You tell me. Oh, not me? Brad says, my wife's favorite pen for years has been the 0.38 Uniball Signo. She has recently discovered that she loves the way Energel pens write. However, she prefers pens with caps instead of knocks.

I'm looking to get her a pen that can take the Energel refill and has a cap. Do you have any suggestions? Luckily, Mike, I know a guy who makes a pen that exactly fits the Energel. And it's called the Spoke Rhody XL. That's the company I'm involved with. Me and my partner, Brian, make fun pens. One of them is specifically built around the Energel refill because that is our favorite gel ink refill for, you know, just like traditional writing. It's a 0.7 gel refill, but it does fit some finer ones.

I like a finer point. My favorite pen is the Signo DX 038. We have a different pen for that that I use. With the Spoke Rhody XLs, I switch in the Energel Euro needle, which is 0.35, I think. 0.4, something like that. That's the only, the Pentel Euro needle is the only stock type Energel that's capped. And it only comes in black, blue, and red. And it only comes in sub five millimeter sizes. So maybe that actually might be something that Brad should look at as an option to keep that fine 0.38 size like the Uniball Signo has.

You're not going to get that in the traditional Energel. Well, the traditional Energels are 0.7. They're very wide and they're very, very high quality, right? This is why it's such a popular pen. It is this Brad's wife's favorite pen as well, right? But she loves them. Oh, so it could have been you. She loves them. Yeah, it could have been me, technically. What would have been funny is if you would have written this question not knowing that you made a pen to solve the problem. That would have been funny.

So I have tried to give her one of these. And to question her, Brad, she may not like this pen because it's metal, right? And it has a magnet cap. A lot of people love that. A lot of people don't. My wife does not like, does not want to use our spoke pen because she's afraid she's going to lose it or get it stolen at work, right? Um, and it's, it's a little bit heavier than a traditional inner gel and she doesn't want to have to keep up the cap. She likes a knock pen, like a retractable pen. So she likes the traditional inner gels for a capped classic inner gel.

You pretty much have to go with the Euro needle model and maybe you can, maybe you can, um, swap those refills into the Euro needle body. Like if say Brad's wife wants a violet inner gel refill, would that fit in the, hmm, maybe not. I'd have to look at that. Anyway, look up the, uh, Pentel inner gel Euro needle. We'll put a link in the show notes. Mike, I'll grab that for you. Uh, if you need me to, it's a very, very good pen. Uh, otherwise, um, yeah, you're gonna have to look at something like a, a spoke design

roadie XL. And, um, you know, we're gonna, we actually have, um, a restock of those coming here in the next month or two. So we only have a few of them right now.

Uh, Marcelo asks, I'm going on a big trip to Italy this year and would like to get an Italian fountain pen while in Florence as a souvenir. I currently own Caveco Sport in extra fine, AL Sport in extra fine, Alami Vista in fine, a Montblanc Meisterstruck, a Pilot Coccuno, and I'm looking for a pen that feels distinctly Italian for around the 300 Euro price point. Is there anything that you could recommend? Yeah. Yeah. You're going to have good luck finding something, Marcelo. If you go to like one of the, one of the stationers in Italy and they're reasonably common and

accessible. And you're going to go to, you're going to want to look at, uh, Montegrappa is probably my first recommendation. Um, they're an Italian pen maker. They make super, super high quality, fun, beautiful designs. Um, really good quality pens. Also Leonardo, um, the official name is Leo Leonardo officiana officia italiana. I apologize for butchering that. We just all know him as Leonardo. You're going to find those there. Um, those are going to probably your, those are going to probably be your best bang for

your buck in that price point. And then you're probably step up pen. It's probably going to be Aurora from there. That'll probably be like in another hundred to 200 Euro above like your budget, but you might have some options and you're also going to probably find some pretty unique things that you may not see in like a traditional retailer. Right. But I'd be going into an Italian stationary store and looking at Montegrappa and looking at Leonardo, but don't be afraid to go off script there because you're going to be pleasantly

surprised with all of the options you have and all the brands between, I mean, there's going to be Scribos and Deltas and you know, there's just a lot of good Italian pen makers. So you'll find something for sure. Um, but I'm starting with Montegrappa and Leonardo if it's me and then, uh, keep in my eyes peeled. I think it'd be really fun to, to buy a pen like this when on a vacation. Like totally just a nice thing you'll have that you always remember the trip that you had, like all that kind of stuff.

I think it's really great. So it's a nice idea if a little daunting, but at least you're going to somewhere that has like good brands that you can, I guess, kind of have a little bit of like experience with before, like as in like making some decisions about the kinds of things you might like before you go there. Like it's not, I guess it's not like a country where, um, they don't have like a really established set of products that are worldwide used. Right. Right. And they have like specific pen shops that are going to be able to help you and help you

pick out something as well. Like you're going to have a good experience shopping for a fountain pen as well as just buying a fountain pen. James asks, what is the best process to store unused fountain pens? Clean out the ink? Yes. But is it safe to leave them unused for many years? Is it different for a cartridge or a piston filler?

I think mostly it's safe to leave them unused for many years. Like I think the piston filler question does come into play a little bit because there is oftentimes some lubrication around that piston filler mechanism that allows it to like traverse the pen barrel like easily without like really getting stiff. Um, so maybe there's some thought behind like managing a piston filler. I've never particularly thought that like, as long as I've cleaned my pens well and I store them like, you know, out of the sunlight and you know, not a sauna.

Um, I have had never had an issue going, Oh gosh, what has happened to this pen that I haven't used in three or four years? Right. It hasn't come up. I like, yeah, with the, maybe with the more mechanism intensive pens, I would maybe think about using them a little bit more frequently. Pistons vacuum fillers, just because I I'm honestly not sure. And it would make a little bit of a logical sense that that piston might get a little stiff and harder to turn. Um, if it's just not being engaged or it may just have to have maintenance, you know, down

the line, it might have to have, you might have to figure out either yourself or have someone else do it. You know, you might have to get, um, like the, the piston mechanism lubricated, right? Like that's a thing. These are designed to be taken apart for that reason, right? Because over time, when you're running ink through it and cleaning and running ink and cleaning and running ink and cleaning, that lubrication just goes away, right? Just, it's just going to happen over time. And I wonder if sitting there is also going to negatively affect that.

So piston fillers, I would think about everything else. I don't think it's ever crossed my mind. I've never seen an issue. Uh, it doesn't come up a lot. Like I've never really heard anyone say, oh yeah, for this product, you really, you know, if you haven't used this in five years, you should probably run this maintenance program on your fountain pen. That's not, doesn't seem to really be a thing. Yeah.

All right. Next question comes from Harry who says, this is a question about gold nibs. Yeah. This is actually a great question. I read this yesterday. I was like, oh hell yes, let's do this. I understand that they make the writing experience smoother, but I don't know by how much. I have a Lamy CP1, not a love of an extra fine nib. Would I notice much difference if I upgraded it to a gold extra fine nib? Do you know if quality control is better on gold nibs? So let's take the first question is, would I notice much difference if I upgraded to a

gold EF nib? No, like absolutely not. And I'm adamant about that fact. And I think people will disagree with me to a degree, but in this context, if you're taking a Lamy EF nib that you enjoy, it's a very smooth kind of rounded nib. It's not like an ultra extra fine, you know, where you're like scratching the page. It's a really good quality steel nib. And if you switch to a Lamy gold EF nib and you also use it in your CP1, you're going to tell such little difference that you'll wonder why you spent the extra $150, right?

It's just more of a, I don't know that it's, it's just not necessary for like a pin like the CP1 and switching to a gold nib. Now, if you say, I love the Lamy CP1 and it has a steel nib and I'm thinking about getting a Pilot Custom 912 that has a 14K nib, am I going to be able to tell the difference? I actually think you would, right? Because when you're stepping out and stepping across brands and into maybe some different nib shapes and sizes, if you're defining in Harry's case, the experience is the smoothness.

There's not a lot of difference like between steel and gold. Like there's some, there's some stiffness differences, but smoothness, I'm, I'm hesitant to say that there's a great difference. And I'm, I'm very much on record as being a huge steel nib fan, but I'm a huge steel nib fan because I like a fine firm nib. I don't care as much about smoothness, right?

I, I just don't think it makes that much of a difference. Do you know if QC is better too on gold nibs? I think that's irrelevant. Um, I think it's good on both or bad on both. It's QC, it, it just is. It can be good on both. It can be bad on both. There's not, you can't just say universally QC is better on gold nibs because if I, if I said right now that yes, QC is better on gold nibs, you're going to run out of space on penaticfeedback.com. Um, like, because it's just wrong. Okay. I guess it's dependent on the brand and the product more than just like a blanket statement

you can say about gold nibs. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So like there's good QC and there's bad QC. The, the nib materials are relevant. I think in this case, a lot of people have had a lot of bad QC on gold nibs and bad QC on good nibs and vice versa. So I think, so to answer the overall question, I personally do not think that gold is this hugely different performing upgrade than a lot of people think that it is. I do think there's differences and I do think there's variety and there's a lot out there

that gold nibs might offer that a steel nib doesn't. But if you're asking me like, where am I going to get the best, am I going to get a better smooth writing experience with a gold nib than a steel nib? I don't think it's a cut and dry answer that I don't think the answer is definitive. Yes. I think it's actually very close and very similar.

And that's, that's just how I see it. If you would like to send in a question for us to answer in a future episode of the show, you can go to penaddictfeedback.com and you can send in your ask TPA question, but we would specifically like for you to share with us what you're most excited about in stationary in 2026 so we can celebrate episode 700 of the pen addict together. Remember, just go to penaddictfeedback.com and let us know what you are excited about this year. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the pen addict.

Thank you to Squarespace and Penn Chalet for their support. If you would like to find Brad online, you can go to penaddict.com and spokedesign.com and twitch.tv slash penaddict. You can find me over at theenthusiast.net and here on Relay as well. And my products are available at cortexbrand.com. We'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Bye. We'll be next time.