The Pen Addict 709/transcript

• From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 709. Today's show is brought to you by our fine sponsors, Squarespace and Pen Chalet. My name is Mike Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad.
• What's up Mike Hurley, how are you?
• I'm good. You know, there's some jokes, you know, that I could do that I don't know if they would work because I said fine sponsors. I could say extra fine sponsors, I could say medium sponsors. I think that'd be the problem. If I said medium sponsors, the listeners would get it, but maybe the sponsors wouldn't like it, you know?
• Yeah, no. All sponsors are fine to extra fine. They're probably all extra fine.
• I would actually say, you know, don't tell anyone, but Squarespace and Pen Chalet, they are extra fine because they have sponsored this show for about 100 years.
• Squarespace. Yeah, two, gotta be both the longest.
• Squarespace is the longest. Squarespace is definitely the longest.
• Squarespace has been sponsoring my podcast for basically my entire career, Unbroken, which is an incredible...
• That's crazy.
• You know, I don't even know how many years it is now, Brad, if I'm being honest.
• True.
• It's probably like 12 years or something that they've been sponsoring my shows now.
• Yeah, at least. At least it's gotta be right. Yeah, should be 12 this year.
• Yeah, I think. Sure.
• All right. We have a good show today. We're gonna get Brad fired up right from the jump.
• They literally...
• I'm just checking now.
• Oh, okay.
• Oh, wait, no. I'll come back to you on that one. I typed into you wrong. Sorry.
• But I need you to be part of this first topic, so I need you to pay attention.
• Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
• Actually, I have the answer now, Brad, so I'm just gonna give it to you.
• Let's hear it.
• Literally since episode two of this podcast.
• Really?
• Squarespace has been a sponsor, yeah.
• So that's like 14 years.
• February 2012.
• Yeah, that's like 14 years.
• Wow. No way.
• Okay.
• So that makes them extra fun.
• Yeah. Extra fine.
• Sorry for that diversion.
• Yeah.
• We'll thank Squarespace a little bit more later.
• Are we gonna thank Sailor?
• No.
• For their...
• We're not gonna do that.
• For their updated nib chart.
• No.
• So I wanted to talk about this because I think we referenced it maybe last week or, you know,
• we've certainly referenced it when we would talk about the price increases earlier this year.
• And the changes within those price increases.
• And I couldn't find the chart of the nib changes.
• The nib changes just got dropped here in the last few weeks, right?
• To where, okay, all these prices are changing and they're doing all these weird things.
• Changing the nib materials.
• But you can never really make sense of it.
• Which is, you know, part and parcel with Sailor's history.
• Like, that's what they do.
• None of this ever makes sense.
• So I want to just break down this chart real quick and yell a little bit because I am flummoxed.
• Okay.
• So I'm not going to do this chart in order, Mike.
• What I'm going to do is this is basically on the two most popular lineups.
• The Sailor Pro Gear lineups and the Sailor 1911 lineups.
• Okay.
• And just for the uninitiated, the Sailor Pro Gears are the flat tops pins with the anchor
• finial on the top and a flat finial on the bottom.
• And then the 1911s are the rounded tops and finials on both ends of the pin.
• So they both have an equivalent size, which we'll get into.
• That's been my longstanding frustration again with how they name things.
• But these are the popular ones.
• This is easily their most popular pins, like, by a long, long way.
• So let's start with the small version, Pro Gear Slim.
• Okay.
• Historically, the Pro Gear Slim has been kind of like your entry-level Sailor gold nib pin.
• And it always came with a 14-karat gold nib.
• Mike, if you had to guess, I know you've looked at this chart.
• If you said, okay, tomorrow we're going to make sure everyone's clear on what our Pro Gear Slim is going to be,
• you know, going forward, what nib do you think it would be?
• Well, it would either have the lowest, which is the 14-karat gold, or something less.
• Correct.
• Yeah.
• You would be wrong, and I would be wrong, because it is now going to be 21-karat gold.
• So, I cannot fathom, well, I think I can, but this is super weird.
• This is an incredibly weird thing.
• As I was saying, I cannot fathom it.
• The one thing I'm going to say is, there are other pens that are 21-karat,
• and I thought to myself, maybe it's like, they have like an economy of scale,
• but then they have a bunch of 14 and 18 anyway, so no, it doesn't work.
• It doesn't work.
• So, let's deal with this now.
• The complimentary 1911 size is called the 1911S.
• Ostensibly, two style pens that have historically ridden together.
• You know, they're always priced the same, you know, outside of special editions.
• They do weird things with that.
• They're the same pen.
• They are the smaller version of the standard one.
• Yes.
• 14-karat gold if you want 1911S.
• So, the 1911S is 14K, and this is from Sailor, which is what it was before.
• So, it's actually saying it remains 14-karat gold,
• but the same product lineup on the ProGear side is going to 21-karat gold.
• So, they're going to have a big price disparity in what's ostensibly the same pen.
• The other perplexing one to me is the 1911 large, which is the standard size,
• is changing from 21-karat gold to 18-karat gold or 14.
• And I don't...
• That is actually maybe more...
• In what scenarios, Sailor?
• Do I know?
• Are you going to tell me?
• This is, like, unbelievably complicated.
• So, is the ProGear Slim getting more expensive?
• Is that what's happening here?
• It has to be, but it just puts it out of line with the same pen on the other side of the shelf.
• I mean, at least...
• Which they've always been together.
• It standardizes the ProGear.
• All the ProGear's are 21-karat gold.
• Okay.
• So, ProGear, Slim, Standard, and King of Pin are all going to be 21-karat gold.
• Yeah.
• Then the 1911S, so the small one is 14.
• The 1911 large, which is the regular one, is 18 or 14.
• Which used to be 21.
• The 1911 King of Pen is 18, which is different to the ProGear King of Pen, which is 21.
• And historically, the King of Pen's been 21.
• Because you spend the most money, right?
• Yeah.
• Like, the King of Pen should not have an 18-karat gold nib.
• I'm sorry.
• Just charge more for it.
• Yeah.
• Right?
• It's a status pen.
• Yes.
• People buying King of Pen's don't care about how much it costs, right?
• I think we can say that pretty safely.
• Yeah.
• If you are buying a King of Pen, price is not a thing.
• If you're in that market, yeah.
• You're buying a King of Pen.
• Whatever they cost is whatever you're buying.
• Right.
• Because that's what you want.
• So, why diminish the King of Pen?
• Diminish is an unfair word.
• Like, it's the proper word in my head.
• 18-karat gold nibs are fine.
• It's actually probably a better technical nib for that size of nib to be a little bit firmer, to be quite honest.
• Yeah.
• Yeah.
• I will say the ProGear nib is very soft.
• Yeah.
• It is very soft.
• But they're going to leave the ProGear 121K.
• So, I know me and Mike are yelling about this, and y'all are going, what are you talking about?
• Just go look at the chart.
• But the issue is, again, and this has historically been Sailor's thing, they have no product lineup continuity.
• Like, none of it makes sense.
• It's never made sense.
• But they at least had the same price brackets for the same level of pen.
• Yeah.
• And now they're not.
• The continuity only exists in the ProGear.
• And if anything, they have made it more continuous now, because the nibs are the same across all three.
• King of pen, standard and the slim, all 21-karat gold, right?
• But you're making the same nib for the 1911S.
• I know.
• They're compatible, right?
• I know.
• So, why are you, you're basically rug-pulling the ProGear slim from the entry-level market, which is, that's my biggest problem.
• Because now you're going to charge me, what, I don't know, $100, $150 more.
• Yes.
• For what should be a match.
• I feel like this is saying something about the popularity of their products, and that the ProGear line is just out on its own, right?
• That's how I would see this.
• I agree.
• And that the other ones, they're just not a priority, and so they're putting their resources into the ProGear line.
• They should actually move the 1911 to the steel nib lineup completely.
• I don't disagree with any of this.
• If I was in charge, sure, I would make all the ProGear's 18-karat gold, because 21-karat gold is just more expensive for no reason.
• Like, not great benefits, right, in the difference of feel.
• And save the money on what is already something so expensive.
• Mm-hmm.
• Yeah.
• And I guess I'm just, I'm hung up on the ProGear Slim.
• It's so weird.
• Likely price increase for people trying to get their first pin.
• I mean, it has to be, right?
• There has to be a price increase.
• Yeah.
• You can't go from a 14-karat gold nib to a 21-karat gold nib, and the price remains the same.
• So, I'm always trying to champion, like, when people are discovering this stuff and finally getting to a point where they want to buy a gold nib pin, man, their options are just getting, to pardon the pun, their options are getting slim.
• Like, it's no longer the slim.
• Um, and it's, it's a little bit frustrating, um, because it defies logic.
• And I'm trying to be logical on an illogical, like, publicly traded company that has to make money for their investors.
• And I'm trying to be logical, and that's just, like, a fool's errand, right?
• Like, so, anyway.
• Well, I do believe there's a reason.
• They're just not sharing it.
• And when you look at this, it doesn't make sense, right?
• But I bet if you could ask someone at Sailor, they could give you an answer.
• You might not like the answer, but you'll get the answer, right?
• And you'd be like, okay, then, you know?
• It's like, I now know why you're doing this, for whatever reason it is that you're doing this.
• Like, I think that there is an answer that they could give you.
• Sure.
• I can't imagine they were just like, hey, gang, you want to just, like, bump this one up?
• And everyone's like, yeah, I'll go on then.
• You're so silly, Jeremy.
• I think we'll just, we'll just have to, we'll just have to see.
• Come on, Jeremy.
• We'll have to see what the, we'll have to see what the marketing's like in the future, right?
• Because I haven't seen these prices, like, in effect.
• Another issue that companies like Sailor has, Platinum's having it now, too, is they have
• so much old inventory at old prices.
• Like, you can't, like, it's so confusing right now.
• Yeah.
• Like, because things have changed so much in the last two years, but there's still two-year-old
• pens that are just as good as the current ones that are going to be, you know, hundreds
• of dollars less than these new ones, so.
• Super interesting kind of thought.
• But, like, yeah, my thing, I think, like, if I'm Sailor, right, they're, again, this goes
• back to, like, the price gap problem, right?
• Where they're just not having, like, they have a big price gap.
• Just move the 1911s to steel nib.
• They're starting to make some good steel nibs.
• Just give me, the gold nib lineup is all the pro gears, and then, because apparently
• that's the most popular one, it's, it's, that's the way I read that chart as well.
• And then just move the 1911s out.
• Move them, move them into a different product category.
• And then what happens to the Compass?
• The Compass is super cheap.
• Like, they, they take away some of the parts on the Compass and make it, like, $50, right?
• The Tuzu is really their new entry-level pen, I think.
• The Compass is, it's not that good, but they've improved the nibs since the Compass came out.
• But, so, it would go, in, in my dream sailor scenario, it would be the Tuzu in that $50 range, you know, give or take.
• The 1911s in the $150 range.
• And then the pro gear starting at, like, $350.
• Yeah.
• But, that's just me.
• That's just me dreaming.
• I mean, they're busy making food delivery robots, so, really, they don't care.
• Just for the record.
• Yeah.
• None of this matters.
• Yeah.
• They want to make food delivery robots, so we're good.
• They need the gold for the robot.
• We're good.
• Speaking of precious materials, Mike.
• Yes.
• We are never, ever getting rid of the Kaweco Titan.
• No, why wouldn't we?
• On this show, which I love.
• Like, it's the new, like, field notes.
• Again, we've already had our sailor note.
• We're going to have a field notes conversation.
• Like, let's bring it back.
• Let's put the Titan.
• The Titan is almost there, Mike.
• So, there's a maker I follow on Instagram called Makar Tools.
• I guess it might be even Maker Tools.
• Been fascinated with Marcin's work for years and years.
• Finally got to meet him at the DC Pen Show last year.
• Wonderful guy.
• Amazing creativity with the metal work.
• And it looks, he hasn't outright said it, but for, like, four days in a row, he's doing his handiwork on a batch of Kaweco Titan fountain pens.
• And they're awesome.
• Yeah.
• Like, this, this is, this is, this is the ticket right here.
• These are going to be insanely expensive.
• Like, his, his, his handmade pens and machine pens are already very expensive, like, to begin with.
• Rightfully so.
• One look at him, you go, oh, yes, that's, that's going to be expensive.
• I'm here for this.
• What do you think about this?
• What's going on here, do you think?
• He is basically, like, hammering and torturing, torching, uh, the Titans.
• No, like, um, torturing.
• He's doing the old Gubberley on these, uh, pens here.
• No, like, do you think that these are, like, he's going to, they're going to resell them?
• Or do you think they're working with Kaweco on something?
• I think they're working with Kaweco.
• Right.
• Because in one of the earlier pictures, he said, he talked about meeting, uh.
• The CEO.
• Michael Gubberley.
• Yeah.
• And since Marcin already works with Titanium and does all this really creative stuff with it,
• they must have had a, uh, a conversation.
• Yeah.
• And so these last, like, four posts all say to be continued at the bottom.
• Yeah.
• And it's been, like, three different, or I guess it's two different models, four different pictures so far.
• Um, and each one of them says to be continued.
• This is going to be, like, a run of 50, and it'll be sold at, like, the fancy Kaweco shop or something like that.
• Right.
• That would be my guess.
• They're really beautiful.
• Hammering them?
• It looks like it.
• Yeah.
• And then torching them or doing some kind of treatments.
• They're really cool looking.
• Yeah.
• And, like, the, the, the Makar tools are just so beautiful to begin with.
• I don't own one.
• I, I, um, I looked at them at DC.
• You know, maybe one of these years this would be one.
• Like, I would, this is a Titan I would be interested in for sure.
• Oh, yeah.
• Yeah.
• Like, I would pay the premium for this.
• Yeah.
• I mean, you know, maybe, I mean, there's obviously a limit.
• I would, there's a certain amount I wouldn't pay, but I'd pay a reasonable amount for, for one of these.
• They look, they look really, really good.
• Yeah.
• I mean, it'd be, also, you know, you'd be safe in the knowledge that it could get run over by a car and it wouldn't be a problem.
• So that, what kind of packaging it's in?
• No, it's fine.
• It doesn't matter.
• It's always just going to live it.
• I was thinking about this when I started asking you this.
• Do you have a metal Kaweco fountain pen?
• Like, this doesn't seem to be, yeah, this is, do you even have a plastic one?
• Do you have a plastic?
• Oh, yeah, I have a bunch.
• Yeah.
• Okay.
• Okay.
• Like, this is not totally your jam.
• This is, this is my jam.
• No, I mean, I try, I know you respect the beauty of it.
• The metal Kawecos and I don't like the, I just don't like the way they feel that heavy at that size.
• Yeah.
• It's a little stockier of a pen in just like the weight of it.
• Yeah.
• So yeah, but the metal ones are some of my favorites.
• It's, they just, they're just so, so good.
• So yeah, keep your eyes peeled if you like fancy Kawecos like I do and like definitely
• Makar Tools, like that's who I want doing this, right?
• Like with their level of craftsmanship and style, this, it looks, looks crazy.
• So yeah, that would be my guess is that we're going to see, they did, was it engraved one?
• They did like 10 engraved ones like a year or two ago and put them in like the Kaweco shop in,
• not in Heidelberg, but they have like a, they have like a flagship store,
• like a physical store where you had to go to the store to get one of the 10 pens.
• I imagine this is going to be somewhere along those lines, but hopefully more than 10.
• It must be a thing they're doing together if they've had something before, right?
• Yeah.
• It was not this, not with Makar, but with a different company.
• Oh, I'm sorry.
• Okay.
• Yeah.
• Yeah.
• Yeah.
• I forget who it was.
• Someone did engraved like brass engraving.
• I'd have to go look at it, but it's very, very nice.
• But yeah, limited edition of 10 and you only physically in store kind of thing.
• So we'll see, but I'm, I'm super interested, super interested to see how this shakes out.
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• All right, Mike, we got our shout-out of the week.
• Shout-out of the week.
• Pilot Pen Nepal, Mike.
• We have shouted them out before because that's such a funny outlier to me, like that I see them
• on Instagram and I've been following them for years.
• They're one of the two pilot country subsidiaries, the other one being Pilot South Korea, that
• does really neat and fun stuff on their Instagrams that are kind of outside the standard corporate
• pilot stuff.
• One of the things, if you follow like these, the Korea, Pilot Korea or Pilot Nepal, they'll
• do some sneak peeks on there that seem to be kind of ahead of the game.
• And I was like, oh, that's new.
• I haven't seen that before.
• And it's like, that's funny that I'm getting that from Pilot Pen Nepal and not Pilot Corporation.
• But the reason why I wanted to shout them out this time is because of a neat kind of little
• concept store that they have.
• And this latest post that caught my eye was about them opening their fourth exclusive store
• in Nepal.
• And I didn't know there were like little pilot like standalone shops.
• Like in the past, we've talked about the Lamy ones, right?
• That are very boutique-y and, you know, in big cities around.
• This is like a little, I don't know, almost like a little, not really like a pop-up shop,
• but like a half unit type of store, you know, like one little kind of hallway in the store
• was surrounded by all of Pilot's products.
• And I wonder if this is like a popular thing like in the Asian market, you know, like do you
• see this in Nepal or like Singapore or, you know, China or Japan?
• And I really hadn't seen anything like this.
• And this being their fourth store, I just wonder if there's like other regions are doing this.
• Like does Korea have this?
• Korea does the pop-ups, right?
• Those are the ones I share a lot because they do these fun, like they did that movie ticket
• pop-up one a couple of years ago.
• That was super fun when they were doing the Barney Pens launch, the ILY, whatever they
• are.
• I love you.
• I love me.
• So, it's cool to see these, this variety of how these different regions handle like products
• we know and love.
• Like you look through this, you're like, oh, I know like literally every single product
• in here.
• That was a big G2 display.
• Oh, and there's the Metropolitans and, you know, all the stuff, I'm sure frictions, you
• know, abound and things like that.
• So, anyway, I just thought I wanted to point this out, give them a shout out.
• They're always very, very cool to see things like this.
• It's stationary companies we know and love in other parts of the world.
• So, very cool.
• All right.
• This topic is a follow-up from last week's STPA, I believe it was, where we had a question
• about where are all of the fountain pen friendly pocket notebooks?
• So, I said I'd do a little research on that because this is an area where I've dabbled in
• a lot over the years.
• But when the question was asked last week, it's always difficult to pull out a definitive
• answer for this topic, despite there being quite a few options, to be quite honest.
• Once I started to put together this list, I ended up having to stop because I could keep
• finding more and I was like, oh, I've actually tried this and oh, yes, this is pretty good.
• And then we even have follow-up with one that I missed, right?
• There's more than you think in this category.
• So, in my head, this was what I was trying to list here and what we're going to go over.
• A small pocket-sized notebook, whether that's A6 or what I call field note size, three and a half
• by five and a half, you know, they're going to be either staple bound or stitch bound.
• They're not going to have like the thicker squared off covers, right?
• They're going to be, you know, like in that 48-page range, not 100-page notebooks.
• These are not thick notebooks.
• That does vary in these, but most of them are thin and that the paper is fountain pen friendly.
• So, those were kind of my catch-alls.
• Anyone can go and type in A6 notebook and find a billion A6 notebooks with, you know,
• thicker binding, more pages, all of that stuff.
• But the thin fountain pen friendly ones don't always like populate the top of those lists,
• but they're out there.
• There's actually more than I thought.
• So, let's go through a few of them.
• I think most of these I have personally tried and I'll be able to comment on them,
• except this first one, which was actually the biggest surprise.
• And this is one I got an email about.
• It's called the Leuchtturm Jotbook.
• And I don't know that I've ever seen this one before, but it looks like a standard product lineup
• product.
• But maybe I just, I'm kind of walking past the Leuchtturm sections because like I'm good.
• Like Leuchtturm is fine.
• I think they're very much better than Moleskine.
• They are fountain pen friendly in their standard paper notebooks.
• Their standard A5 notebooks are great and very, very popular notebooks and deservedly so.
• The Jotbook is their smaller, I guess you would say the Moleskine, the Pocket Kaye notebook.
• But they've actually done like a bunch of fun, colorful versions of these.
• So, what's interesting when you look at the market on this, and I had to double check,
• they lean so strongly into the color that they edge color the notebooks.
• It makes it look like the interior of the notebook is, in this case, green or purple or yellow.
• It's not.
• All the pages are white.
• But it's just, it's so meticulously done that it looks like the interiors are matching colors,
• right?
• Like it's very well done, but it's just, it's basically just.
• Very hard to show in the imagery what's actually going on here.
• Yes.
• Like, but, but beautiful.
• Like that is a really nice detail for a product of this price.
• Yeah, exactly.
• So, it's like a, it's $12.95, is it a two-pack?
• Yeah, it's a two-pack.
• $12.95 for a two-pack.
• So, that's the other thing about these notebooks.
• They're, they're relatively inexpensive for, for what they are, and they provide a good, good
• purpose.
• But yeah, I had to go find some like actual imagery, just make sure that the insides were
• actually just standard white pages, because they do such a good job with essentially
• the gilding, right?
• You normally, we see like the gold or bronze gilding on notebooks.
• This is, if it's a yellow notebook color, it is yellow on the edges, and it's, it's
• pretty neat.
• So, this is the only one I haven't tested personally, but someone emailed me and said they swear
• by these for fountain pens, and they're nice and pocketable.
• And historically, Moleskine larger notebooks have been fountain pen friendly, and I enjoy
• them.
• Next one, this one got, I got a lot of emails on this one.
• This one got several votes in, in the email inbox, the Lockby pocket journal.
• And this is, again, one I forget about sometimes, because they just do these pocket journals,
• and it's just Lockby and this brand.
• And they're known more for their pen cases, and their small folios, and their carry and
• storage.
• But they've always done like a folio product that had a notebook inside.
• And usually they were, historically, they were like the A5 size is what they were probably
• most known for, but they do make a pocket size, the three and a half by five and a half
• with Tomoe River, the 68 GSM Tomoe River.
• So, this is like a Sands and Tomoe River product.
• It's excellent paper.
• And what is, how many pages is this?
• 72 pages.
• So, slightly thicker.
• But it's like, it's a $6 notebook, right?
• And it's a pocket notebook.
• And this would be perfect for fountain pens, fountain pen friendliness.
• They have several formats.
• As I go through this list, you'll find a lot of these products will have grid, line, and
• blank.
• I think that's what they have here.
• Oh, this one has a planner style, too.
• If you like a small planner, it's got a planner style.
• So, Lockby's one.
• I forget about their notebook products.
• I'm always thinking about their pen case products.
• But this is a very, very well-recommended notebook.
• One I have used, and this is the one that always jumps to the top of my list when people
• are asking, but they're a little bit particular.
• This is the Life A6.
• And they just call it by the color of the paper.
• This one does have color paper.
• So, pistachio.
• So, it's a light green and vermilion.
• I'm just saying this one doesn't.
• Yeah.
• Yeah.
• This one is, this one, Life Pistachio, is green on the inside.
• But it's still kind of light, right?
• It's not overwhelmingly green.
• It's very enjoyable.
• I've used this one many, many times.
• And it's, like, faint.
• And, like, the grid lines, if you grid, like, the grid lines are green, right?
• So, it's super, super faint.
• And the vermilion is more of the cream color one.
• These are A6 size, but they're thin.
• You know, they're $4.50.
• And how many pages are these?
• 64 pages, right?
• So, this is all in that same category.
• These are probably my most recommended one.
• But they're not the easiest to find.
• These have been around a while.
• And I don't know if Life is actually, like, I'm sure they still make them.
• But it's not, like, a premium product for them.
• Like, Life, you know, they weren't in the video.
• This was not the notebook they were making in the Tippy Taps video, right?
• This is just a staple bound.
• Or this is a stitch bound, stitch bound book, but still.
• Very, very high quality.
• Life's paper is one of the best.
• Next one.
• This one's kind of like the Lockby one, but even more popular.
• That is overlooked.
• The Traveler's Passport System.
• You just buy the passport notebook.
• Look, this is one of my best tips for this category.
• Because the paper they use is exceptionally fountain pen friendly.
• One of my favorites are fountain pens, actually, which is why I like the Midori paper.
• But they use, they call this Traveler's Paper.
• But it's very, very similar.
• You can just go buy one of the passport inserts.
• Passport's, and the passport sizes, how big are they?
• What is the dimensions on these?
• Because it's a specific, it's a, you know, it's a, what do we call it?
• Smart dimensions, or whatever we want to call this.
• Let's see.
• It's basically three and a half by five.
• So it's not as tall as like a Field Notes.
• It's just shorter on the vertical than a Field Notes.
• But if you, you don't need to get the cover for this.
• You just buy the notebook.
• It's $4.
• It's, you know, 64 pages.
• Again, pretty standard for like the Japanese brands.
• You saw Life was the same one.
• This one's fantastic.
• This one is a little bit easier to find than the Life ones.
• And has, you know, lots of different layouts.
• You know, grid, blank, different formats, things like that.
• So this is a, I was about to rank these.
• This might be number one.
• And just like buy it, use your fountain pens, and you'll be happy.
• There's nothing to them.
• They're just plain covers, right?
• These are designed to go into another cover.
• So you're not going to get like a fancy looking notebook.
• But man, does it, it really, really works.
• When I was searching these, I did run across one that I have heard of, but I completely forgotten about.
• And I have no, I have not used it.
• And it's the Midori Commonplace book.
• This one's interesting.
• I am actually going to order one of these.
• I thought I had had over the years.
• But it's a little different than, say, just like the Traveler's Passport we just talked about.
• The Traveler's Passport, you literally just buy a pocket notebook full of graph paper.
• That's what you want.
• This one has features to where it's got an index page.
• Most of the pages are a graph or grid.
• It comes with a little, I don't know, bookmark.
• I don't know.
• It's meant to be, help you use it as a commonplace book.
• So it's maybe got some extras you don't want in this style of product.
• But it's still, it's a $5 ASIC size notebook that's going to be found pen-friendly.
• And I think it might be useful for a lot of people.
• The next one I forgot about, and I've used this one many, many times.
• This one's going to be up there in the rankings.
• But no one's, a lot of people probably aren't aware this product exists.
• Hobonichi actually makes small, just plain notebooks.
• And you can buy a three-pack of Tomoe River A6 notebooks that are pocket-sized for $11.
• They look super thin.
• They are.
• They're 48 pages.
• So these are literal field notes, like thickness.
• But A6 sized.
• These are great.
• I've used these in the past.
• I think I've actually might have a travel.
• This might have been one of my travel notebooks once.
• Super useful, super thin.
• They seem to sell this as like, you put it in your A6 Hobonichi cover.
• And it's like a little extra thing that you have.
• Exactly.
• This is great.
• These are great.
• But this one is, you're limited in options.
• It's only grid, right?
• If you don't like grid, you're out of luck.
• Unlike the Passport, you can get it in blank and some other formats if you want.
• But this one's nice because it comes in a three-pack, three different color notebooks.
• They've been the same color for years, which is fine.
• They're great colors, like a yellow, gray, and a blue.
• I don't know.
• Those are fantastic.
• Like, yeah, I might have to get some more of those to try.
• Last one.
• This one I almost didn't put on here because I really don't know their status.
• But I've reviewed these on the blog before.
• And this is from Pebble Stationery.
• So Pebble, and I looked at the site.
• And this one came out last year.
• And Pebble's still going through a stash of old Tomoe River paper with their three-and-a-half by five-and-a-half notebooks.
• They just have one model.
• It's called Red Dragonfly.
• I think it's, is it blank or grid?
• Dot grid.
• It's dot grid.
• Oh, interesting.
• Dot grid.
• They do, we'll have to pull up the review on the pen addict.
• But their cardstock covers are super thick to make up for that thinness of the old 52 GSM Tomoe River.
• It makes them feel really, really nicely.
• And I'll grab that link on the blog if you're not going to grab it while I'm talking here.
• Which, which?
• Because you have a lot of products for them.
• Not the bigger ones.
• There is a smaller, I think it was something to do with like Polar or something.
• Yeah.
• Found it.
• It was spectacular.
• Like, insanely well-made.
• These are the most expensive for that reason.
• You get a two-pack for $14.
• But they're the OG 52 GSM ones.
• And their cover, that's the one worry with this old Tomoe River paper.
• It's so thin.
• And to have it in a small notebook, like, is it going to be structurally sound?
• And Pebble does a really, really good job with these.
• And that's where I had to stop myself because I was like, oh, there was actually more answers to this question than even I gave it credit for.
• And I had surprisingly used almost all of these except the Leuch term.
• And, yeah, like, no complaints.
• Like, all of these are good.
• And there's even more out there, which we're going to get to in a second, which I'll let you read the other feedback.
• And I'll tack on to some of the other ones.
• So, yeah, that was the list.
• It's not complete, but it does give you a good starting point.
• The only thing you're not going to get in this category for the fountain pen friendly ones is a company that's doing, like, the quarter releases, like Field Notes.
• You're just going to have to go with these base styles like this, right?
• You're not going to get the fun and, you know, themed editions that often, you know, maybe one offs like Pebble does.
• But you're most likely just going to get.
• But not to the levels of Field Notes.
• Yeah.
• So that's the only thing missing.
• If you like that bit of storytelling, there's not really one of those out here.
• Yeah.
• But these are all great products.
• Scott wrote and said, Story Supply Co.'s pocket staple.
• Gabe and Vito have been making these notebooks at their little York PA shop for years.
• A big improvement on Field Notes.
• The paper is 70-pound French paper.
• It's printed in graph ruled in blank.
• Absolutely concur.
• I've used these before.
• Very fountain pen friendly and one I just straight up forgot about, right?
• But these are excellent.
• Write notepads go in the same category, although you can't really get them anymore.
• They're not making the pocket size anymore.
• But I'm sure there's probably some out there where you could buy them.
• Also fountain pen friendly.
• So, yeah, we could find a lot of different ones.
• Like I said, I ended up, I'm surprised that I ended up just having to stop.
• Because there was more than I thought if I, you know, thought about it for, you know,
• any amount of time other than just like throwing my hands up in the air.
• Yes, I wish we had Field Notes with fountain pen friendly paper.
• And I know there is an argument to be made for that.
• But, you know, that Field Notes does have some fountain pen friendly models.
• Or you just use fountain pens and deal with it.
• Whatever, in the standard 60 pound Field Notes paper and be fine with it.
• So, was there anything else out there, Mike?
• Well, I'm going to give a special mention.
• These are not Field Notes format.
• This is a good shout out.
• But I make a pocket notebook, a Cortex brand called the Sidekick Pocket.
• And I would say that our products are fountain pen friendly.
• This product, especially in two ways.
• Well, one, the paper feels good.
• But also, you only write on one side.
• So, it doesn't matter.
• You do whatever you want.
• But, yeah, they're perforated.
• You know, it's like somewhat single use.
• Like the page is a single use.
• But compared to our other Sidekick products, you can more easily keep pages in these ones and just kind of like fold them over.
• I've done that a few times.
• But we do lined, ruled, and to-do format.
• Nice.
• Excellent.
• So, yeah, that's another great shout out.
• I think the Sidekick Pocket is very fairly priced, actually.
• Yep.
• Absolutely.
• And great paper.
• So, really good stuff.
• Yeah.
• So, I'm not going to bemoan the lack of fountain pen friendly pocket notebooks, Mike, because there are plenty, plenty of options out there.
• And, again, if there's something that I didn't mention on the list, let me know, because there's certainly more out there.
• And there's even some, like I've got some very specific, like, small batch ones from, like, some Etsy makers that are spectacular.
• But I didn't want to put those in there because they don't have, like, the continuity of, like, product that, like, a Midori has or a Travelers has.
• So, you never know when they're going to appear.
• Like, Pebble was kind of risky to put in here.
• But I was like, oh, that looks like they're still making them.
• So, there we go.
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• You know I love the Caran d'Ache 849.
• Wow, that's a good deal.
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• Wow, that's a good price for a great-looking pen.
• So, they do a stock version of the 849, your basic color barrels, right?
• Yellow, red, black, blue.
• And they're, I mean, for a ballpoint pen, they're expensive, like, relatively speaking.
• And then they do the special editions, where they do different patterns, different colors.
• This mosaic collection is on sale at Pen Chalet right now at a price that has to be around the price of the basic editions, which usually doesn't happen.
• They're usually pretty disparate price points.
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• Royal blue, garnet red, spruce green, water green.
• They all look really good.
• Yeah, that's definitely one to look at.
• As is the Beno Haute fountain pens.
• They have a couple of colors for a really, really deep discount.
• The flare model and the luster model both look really good.
• I'm clicking through here.
• I love how the, I love the shape of the Haute.
• It's kind of like a four-sided.
• It's not really, it's not really square because it's kind of rounded on the edges.
• I don't know.
• It just really, really works for me.
• And the way they build the materials in that model.
• And if you haven't tried a Laban, they are really good.
• You can check the reviews on Panatic's site.
• They are kind of a popular pen right now in that they hit a really good price point for
• a steel nib pen, just a little bit over $100, $150.
• And this one's even more expensive because the Mirage 326 has like a custom material, but
• it's priced again, kind of like the Karen Dash.
• Like it's priced like a stock model.
• Like you're getting the special edition for the stock model price, which is fantastic.
• And there's, there's a couple of more special editions, the Delta Dominant Industry Painter
• series set where you get a pen and some ink.
• And also one I mentioned recently, the Joya versus, versus, I was reading Van Demons as
• versus, the Joya Van Demons collection.
• There is an internal struggle in this battle between the two brands that came together.
• So this is the World Oceans box set, really pretty material.
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• It's, it's really great stuff over at penchalet.com.
• So go check them out and check out these deals.
• And I'm sure there's even more on here.
• This is a really great list.
• P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com slash penaddict.
• Our thanks to Penchalet for their continued support of this show.
• So I kind of want to continue down the penchalet rabbit hole real quick.
• More of a question.
• One's a question and one is going to segue into our next topic.
• Okay.
• So they have a product here.
• I'm going to put this in the show notes so you can pull it up real quick.
• So you can see what I'm thinking about.
• So Wearing Old does an amazing job with their ink collaborations.
• So this one is called Wearing Old Cry or better yet, Beg.
• And is this an anime or something that I'm missing?
• So the colors are Layla and Matthias, which are the characters.
• Does anyone know what this is?
• This has to be an anime or something like that.
• So the colors are amazing, but like the marketing of it.
• It absolutely is, yes.
• Because when I Googled Layla and Matthias and it says cry or better yet, Beg.
• So this is related to something, but I don't know what.
• Yeah.
• So I just want to point out that I love this.
• Like Wearing Old is just like whatever.
• We're just going to do this because we have fans of this out there and it's cool.
• And like I'm here for it.
• Like the pictures on the boxes, which aren't on that link that I sent you,
• are like, you know, the anime art of the characters.
• It looks like a webtoon.
• Interesting.
• Which is even more interesting.
• That is actually more interesting in that, in more of a, uh-huh, why?
• It is a Korean webtoon, a very successful Korean kind of graphic webtoon novel thing.
• Interesting.
• So yeah, I really like that Wearing Old just does this.
• It's fantastic.
• And then it's not just local-based like there in Korea.
• They didn't, this is going out to their, you know, distributor network and retailers.
• I was like, yeah, this is cool.
• Like I'm very, very into this, even though I have no clue what it is, right?
• So I think it's very, very neat.
• So the second one I wanted to bring up, and that's going to lead us into the Atlanta Pen Show prep,
• which I'm heading to tomorrow, Michael.
• Unbelievable.
• Unbelievable is right.
• It's very early this year.
• So ColorVerse has, I meant to bring this up a couple weeks ago.
• When ColorVerse and Diamine do the ink vent stuff towards the end of the year and have those ink vent sets,
• there's usually a series of inks that essentially gets voted into permanent existence, right?
• So if ColorVerse does 25 inks for color vent, they'll ask the community to vote on their favorites,
• and then the top three get made going forward.
• So they have a three-color set.
• The set is literally called ColorVerse 2025 Top 3 Color Vent ink set.
• And it comes with a fountain pen, which is also strange.
• These colors are so good, and I want to get them at the Atlanta Pen Show if someone has these.
• So there will be plenty of ColorVerse vendors at the Atlanta Pen Show.
• So this is on my shopping list to get these three colors.
• Oh, gosh, what are these?
• What were the colors?
• I think it was Erebus Crater, Polar Night, and Follow the Water.
• And we'll have to go.
• We'll put a link in the show notes.
• You can go check this out.
• If I don't get it at the show, I've been holding off ordering some things like this that I think I can get at the show.
• So we have added that to the list, or we will be adding that to the list.
• You know what?
• And I've been using a show sponsor, Penadex, to build my pen show list.
• So Atlanta Pen Show is this weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
• I will be there Friday, pretty much all day, and spending the night Friday.
• And then I'll only be there for a few hours Saturday.
• So if you're around and you want to come say hi, I will be gone.
• And if I'm there at, like, 1 o'clock Saturday, that'll be about too late for me to hit the road because I got some stuff to do at home on Saturday afternoon.
• It is Tyler Senior Prom, so I'm not going to miss that.
• The Atlanta Pen Show is super early this year based on the calendar.
• Like I've mentioned before, it moves around a little bit in, like, a three- or four-week space.
• So I'll be there.
• I'll be hitting up the Waffle House.
• That's important.
• You know that Waffle House well, and most attendees of the Atlanta Pen Show do.
• It's fantastic.
• You can't avoid it.
• It's in the parking lot.
• It's literally almost physically attached to the hotel.
• It's separated by almost nothing.
• So I had been going through, and I've been adding some things into my Pentadex for the show.
• Let me pull that up real quick and show you what I've got ready to roll.
• So just a few things.
• So I've been going through the vendor list, and it's great.
• And there's a million vendors there I'm going to see that I didn't write down.
• Like, I don't need to write.
• Like, I love Jonathan Brooks.
• I know I'm going to see Jonathan Brooks.
• I don't need to make a note to go by and see Carolina Pen Company, right?
• Like, I'm just going to go see Carolina Pen Company.
• Like, that's just a fact.
• Some of those things don't need to be on my list.
• But then I went and added on my show notes from Pentadex, I've added Kiwi Inks, which that's not a brand I've ever used.
• I've seen them online a little bit, and they're on the vendor list.
• And I was like, oh, I made a note here.
• I want to make sure to go spend some time with Kiwi Inks.
• There's also a person who I've seen there a couple of years and have never talked to, Pen-Geneer.
• And I can get you links to all this stuff, and we'll put them in the show notes.
• So the Pen-Geneer makes these rotating pen storage cubes.
• Or it's really kind of hard to explain.
• I'll have to put the link in the show notes so you all can see.
• But they're kind of a modular pen cup where it's got different pen slots, and it rotates, and you can move it around.
• And then you can build it.
• You can have a singular one, or you can have, like, that holds, like, say, six or eight pens.
• I don't know how many are in the little thing.
• And then you can have it on a base where you can put a second one on there.
• Or you can have the base with the pen holder and then, like, an ink bottle holder in the same base.
• So you can have, like, a two-part base or a three-part base, and you can kind of, like, build your own storage ink setup.
• Like, not in a bad way, they're just, like, weird.
• Yeah, so they rotate, right?
• So they spin.
• It reminds me of, like, centrifuges.
• Like, it looks like medical equipment.
• Yes.
• Yeah, and it's, like, it's literally called, the one I'm looking for is called the roulette.
• Yeah.
• Right?
• So, because it spins like a wheel.
• So you can put the pens in the top, and then you can kind of move it around.
• And then you can take that singular roulette, and you can attach a second thing if you buy the right base for it.
• Like, you could have two of those roulettes there.
• And then you could, or you could buy, like, a three-piece base that's got, like, pens.
• You could have your pen storage, your ink storage, and, like, an ink bottle holder.
• So I want to look at them.
• I've seen them there before, but I just haven't had time to stop and investigate.
• So that's on my list.
• Kirk Spear is bringing, he does, he's been doing this.
• He's been doing custom nib etching for some of the shows that he goes to that are related to the city or something in particular.
• So this time, we're getting a Coke bottle nib, which I think is fantastic.
• Hopefully, no lawsuits are incoming.
• Hopefully, you know, the big Coke bottle isn't going to come down to the Atlanta pen show and confiscate all the nibs.
• But I think he'll be all right.
• So if you're looking for, like, something, a cool, like, memento, to have, like, these Yovo, you know, compatible nibs.
• And you can get a grind from Kirk as well there on the Coke bottle nibs.
• So the one maker pen I'm going to look at again is the Hello Tello Venice Piccolo.
• So John Tello makes awesome pens, and I've had some of the larger full-size ones in the past.
• And this one is more, like, on the Kaweco Sport size, but in some really fun ebonite and acrylic materials.
• He does such a good job with, like, his color combinations on his pens.
• It's really, really is attractive to my eye, and I'm deciding – he sent me one of these, the Venice Piccolo, for St. Jude last year to give away, and I was kind of smitten by it.
• I still managed to give it away.
• I didn't steal it, of course, you know, for the kids.
• But now I want – I kind of want my own.
• So I'm going to look at those and see.
• The only challenge I'm debating on that is when you see this pen, small pens should generally have narrower grip sections.
• And by design, this one's not designed to be that way.
• So I have to decide if the whole setup, like, fits my writing style.
• So that's a great thing about pen shows is you get to try these things.
• So I'm putting this specific model, not saying that, oh, yes, I need to go buy this pen.
• I need to go try this pen because it may not work for me, right?
• It literally just might be uncomfortable for how I want to write with it.
• So that's the best thing you get out of pen shows is the ability to pick up things, try them, and see if they actually work for you before committing to them.
• So, like, that's on my list.
• I do have a nib grind, which is now brought into question, Mike.
• Uh-oh.
• And we're going to call out to our nib grinders here.
• And I know Damien from All in the Nib listens to this show.
• And it was actually a conversation that someone had with him that now has me questioning whether or not I can get a nib grind on my Pilot Silvern.
• So I have the Mount Fuji Pilot Silvern, and I bought it for the barrel, which means I wanted these silverns to have pattern designs on the exterior.
• And I got a Mount Fuji design and a Great Wave.
• A Great Wave and Mount Fuji design.
• It's like a perfect, perfect design for me.
• So I bought it for the design and didn't care about specifying the nib.
• So it has a stock medium nib on it, which is, for Pilot nibs, like, it's fine.
• But it's not fine enough.
• You know, this, it comes in a fine, but I wasn't going to wait around.
• This is a pen that's, you know, not currently on the market.
• So I took the opportunity, and I was like, oh, I can just get a nib grind when I want.
• So I was sharing this pen on stream yesterday, and it has a very chunky, wet, medium nib with a lot of tipping.
• And this is an inlaid nib.
• If you look at the Pilot Silvern, it's an inlaid nib.
• But if you rotate the pen and look at the feed part underneath, it's very kind of bulbous.
• And I didn't consider this, but when I mentioned this, someone mentioned that they talked to Damien about this.
• And I haven't reached out to Damien.
• Damien's not going to be at the Atlanta Pen Show, but I'm going to talk to the other nib grinders there.
• Apparently, that gets in the way of the tooling that nib grinders use to reshape nibs.
• Therefore, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to do a nib grind on this Pilot Silvern.
• So that's going to be the big question that I'm going to try to solve at this pen show.
• So we've got Kirk Spear, who I mentioned, Mark Bacchus from the nib grinder, and then Joshua Lacks, JJ Lacks will all be there.
• And I'm going to hit them up and see.
• I'm going to bring in this pen because I need this nib to be finer for me to fully enjoy this pen.
• But, you know, I bought it assuming it would be easy to get it ground and changed.
• And now I'm not so sure.
• So now I'm questioning everything.
• So that's a good experiment and a good question to try to get answered during the show.
• And I've already gotten one answer from Damien.
• And so the person that was dealing with Damien about this, Damien said he would maybe take it home from a show and try some other tooling on there to actually be able to do the grind on it.
• Which that's just like, oh, that seems like a lot.
• It's like, is this going to, is this actually going to work?
• So I hope it does for my sake because I didn't really enjoy the medium nib on this.
• I accepted the nib for the pen and maybe incorrectly assumed I could just get it ground and we're going to find out.
• That's my show list.
• I have all day Friday to handle that.
• I have a few hours Saturday morning.
• I think I should be able to knock most of it out on Friday.
• We'll see.
• I don't have a lot of time this year, which is rare.
• I'm looking forward to the show this year because our friends over at True Fae, which is Carrie Yeager and Chris from Greenville, South Carolina, are helping with the show this year.
• So I was very hesitant in my praise last year.
• I think that's putting it lightly.
• I did not have a great time at the show last year because I could see it kind of falling off a little bit.
• As someone who's been there literally every year for probably a decade plus, you notice things.
• I was like, huh, this doesn't seem great.
• And this year, True Fae has kind of picked up a lot of things with the show, redid the website, redid the ticketing, added in classes.
• And I'm super excited to see what they have on offer to make this a happy place again for me.
• I was being very selfish and very specific about it just because I have so much history with this.
• So I was basically talking about my experience and my experience was let down.
• But that's not really fair to the Atlanta experience, right?
• Atlanta doesn't have a pen shop or a retailer for anyone locally to go.
• So this show's important, right?
• Even though it's just like in the grand scheme of the show calendar in the U.S., it's a small show.
• It's an important show for the community in and around Atlanta, but just because they don't have a lot of opportunities.
• So I want it to be the best it can be.
• And I think last year it wasn't.
• And so I'm glad to see True Fae jumping in.
• And then hopefully, you know, they've only had a few months to kind of like help with this.
• So hopefully this is the big start of like a really, really good relationship and them helping out with the show and moving things forward with it.
• Because like it's a great area.
• It's a great community.
• You know, we've packed the house there many times in the past.
• But like that's the past.
• And, you know, a lot of other shows are moving forward.
• And I don't want to see the Atlanta show get left behind.
• So I'm looking forward to getting back there this year.
• And I hope to see you all there.
• Hope you all say hi.
• Don't hesitate to, you know, come seek me out.
• Say hi.
• And I'll answer any questions you all have.
• I love doing that.
• So that's how I love spending my time at the show is helping other people out.
• And, yeah, we can go answer some questions together because I have my questions of my own.
• Like, what are you ordering at the Waffle House?
• What are you going to order?
• Do you know?
• I don't.
• I'm usually an all-star guy.
• Okay.
• Which is the special.
• That's the kind of that's that's the the seafood platter of the Waffle House.
• Yeah.
• You know, it's the waffle, bacon or sausage, eggs, hash browns.
• You can add grits, toast, all that.
• I generally don't go that big.
• I'll just get like the bacon, egg and cheese sandwich and hash browns.
• It's probably going to be my order and coffee.
• So.
• But all stars, the OG, that's you get the waffle and then all the things.
• So that's it's it's one of the two.
• I haven't strayed from those two orders and I can't tell you how long.
• Like, I don't it's it's a place you just don't need a menu.
• Like, you know, you can answer all the specific questions about how you want things and just off the top of your head when you do it enough.
• Which is lucky the right word.
• I'm lucky to have a lot of Waffle House around me.
• I don't know if that's the right word, but I probably I probably eat the Atlanta Penn Show Waffle House more than I eat any Waffle House at home, which means to say I eat it about once or twice a year.
• Probably both times in Atlanta.
• Well, I'm looking forward to hearing your Penn Show report on the episode next week.
• Yep.
• Big recap week next week.
• If you'd like to get the notes for this week's episode, please go and check them in your podcast app of choice or you can go to relay.fm slash pennaddict slash 709.
• If you want to catch up with Brad online, you can find him at pennaddict.com, spokedesign.com and streaming over at twitch.tv slash pennaddict.
• You can find me at theenthusiast.net, cortexbrown.com and here on Relay.
• Thank you to Squarespace and Penn Chalet for their support of this week's episode.
• But as always, thank you for listening.
• Until next time, say goodbye, Brad.
• Goodbye, Brad.