Editing The Pen Addict 309/transcript (section)

== Montegrappa Pen ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' There's just a Montegrappa pen coming.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So Montegrappa made the Chaos pen, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You're tying this together now. So there's a new release.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Let me just say, this is not on the Chaos pen's level. This is an awesome one. Like, I am genuinely impressed.

'''Myke Hurley:''' My expectation is a cool pen for an obscene price would be my expectation of what you're talking about.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, it's an obscene pen, too. But it's kind of crazy. So a bunch of people, if you went to any of Montegrappa's events in the US, like in New York City, like a bunch of people were there. They got to see this pen. And they were texting me afterwards saying, you know, I can't say what I saw. But when you see it, you'll know. And I want to know what you think. So that's kind of how the conversations were going. So as soon as it's released publicly, which a magazine has the rights to show it first. So we can't show it. But I have a bunch of pictures sitting here on my camera roll. It's pretty awesome. I'm not going to lie. Like, it's crazy in the chaos kind of way. But in a much more awesome fashion, if you will.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So anyway, so Montegrappa was there. I got to interview Giuseppe. He showed off a bunch of pens, including that one. He showed off a bunch of new pens. I had a couple pictures of my Instagram feed. The Elena Stase pen. And one of my pictures is a fantastic, fantastic looking pen. I hope you all saw that one. It was the, I'll call it the Jeff Brook wiki memorial pen. So it's fascinating. What happened to Jeff? Well, you just have to go watch the little clip I put on Instagram. If you haven't seen it yet, I'm not going to spoil it for you.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Instagram is loading in my browser. So I've got that guy and follow me right now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So you go look at that and I'll keep talking. But so Thursday, I really just wanted to get a feel for the store, see how they operate, see what the store is all about. I got to meet a bunch of their customers and not to totally like jump to the conclusion of this. But the way the customers would specifically pull me aside, like a lot of them knew who I were. So they'd say, you know, they'd introduce themselves and they would explain to me how important this store is to them. Like, you know, unprovoked. No one's putting them up to this to like pull me aside and say, do you know how lucky we are to have this store? Do you know how lucky we are to have this family running this store in our area? So, you know, we love being here. We come hang out here all the time. You know, we buy our pens and paper and all of our stuff here from Drum Ghouls in Houston. And they have like a really great relationship with the store and with the owners and with the family that runs it. So that was like a recurring theme throughout the entire weekend where people would literally just pull me aside and say, isn't this great? And we're so lucky. And they really are lucky. Like not everyone gets to experience something like this in their town. And actually, very few people get to experience this in their town. It's literally a pen show every day because they have every brand you can imagine. I mean, I don't know if you could name something that they didn't carry. You know, the everything from they have a Mont Blanc boutique, essentially right when you walk in the front door, they have everything from the high end to the low end. You know, Kaweco, Lamy, Faber-Castell, all the way up to, you know, the Namikis and Kronpens and, you know, David Oscarson. And, you know, they bring in people to do store visits. Like Montegrapple was there on Thursday. Like that was the original impetus way back early in the year to get me there when Giuseppe was going to be there. And so I talked to them at the Arkansas pen show. And they said, well, if you're going to come for that, you need to make sure you stay through Saturday because that's when it really, you know, really gets busy. And I want you to see what that's, you know, a real telling day of what the store is all about. So I was like, OK, so I extended my trip through Saturday. And I didn't even know this until I was there. On Saturday, they had AP, Limited Edition Pens. The owner's name is Anuj. He came there from Singapore to do an in-store appearance with his pens. David Oscarson was scheduled there, but he had to cancel the night before. And then a private collector, Dr. Nesbitt, was there. So like all of these things were just in-store events they had planned on that Saturday. Just I won't say randomly. They clearly planned them, but I had no idea. I knew what was happening Thursday. Then they had all this stuff on Saturday. It's like if I live there, I'd be in there three days a week whenever there's an event, right? I mean, there's so much neat stuff to see other than the regular stuff that they have, you know, just on the day-to-day basis, which is a lot of stuff. Like, you know, just like Pelicans for Days and Sailors and S.T. DuPont. And I mean, you name it and it's there. And all the inks and all the paper. I don't know. It was just really fun. I had a great trip. But the family really took care of me, you know, while I was there. Friday, I was not in-store, but we, myself and Michael Dromgoole and his fiance, you know, did some Houston touristy things. We went to NASA and took the tour there. And we ate some great barbecue and went out to the Astros game that night. So just all in all, it was just like a crazy fun trip. And it all evolves around the Dromgooles. Like, they have been there for 50-something years. They have a customer base that loves them. They have a great inventory, you know. I just implore you, if you're anywhere near Houston, you need to get by there and check it out. So it was pretty amazing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm pleased you had a good time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah, it was really fun. So, you know, I came home with one pen. They gifted me a Montegrappa, Montegrappa, special limited edition. They had their own limited edition. Like, they're a big deal. Like, we may not hear about Dromgooles a lot, or we haven't in the past. But in the pen world, they're like a big deal. They, like, get all kinds of special edition pens. So there's like a limited edition number of 50 that they gave to me. And I was just like, wow, man, that's amazing. It's like, I don't know. It's, I don't know. I'm going to be back down there sooner or later just to visit and hang out because that's what you do when you have a shop like this in your town. Like, so many people would just hang out there all day pretty much at the shop and trying inks and trying pens and buying stuff and just talking with people who are interested in the same thing. And it was just really cool to see and be in that environment. It was a fun time.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So this isn't it traveling-wise for you. You're back out on the road again next week.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah. So we're turning it right back around. Next pen show is on the calendar, the Triangle Pen Show in Raleigh starting May 31st is a Thursday, I think. So we get there Thursday. Show opens on Friday. It's Friday, Saturday, Sunday show. It's at a new hotel. We'll have a link in the show notes if you're in the area. You need to be there. It was a really fun show. Last year was my first Triangle Pen Show. We had a blast. I brought my daughter Elizabeth to work with me. She raved about it so much. I'm bringing my son Tyler as well this year. So it's going to be me and the two kids.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We'll be bringing the knock table there. Yeah, Elizabeth did so good last year. It's a little rougher when they're together, right? Because then you're just asking for a fight then. But when they're working and when they're on the show floor, they behave pretty well. It'll be the after hours kid management I'll have to worry about, but they should be fine. They are really excited about going. I'm excited about bringing them. I have some surprises for them that they don't know are going to happen yet. So we'll tease that and we'll wait and see what happens during the show weekend. But I'm bringing knock. So this will be a knock show for me. And we have some new goods finally to bring to shows. Our chimney tops came back in a new color. The new purple colorway. Lilac. Iris. Sorry. I always call it lilac. It's iris. So the iris chimney tops are in. We have the sapolo, which you're familiar with. We did that for our Kickstarter last year and it was so well received we wanted to do one. That was a stock item for us. So we'll have the sapolo there, which came out awesome, and peacock and violet. So we love the bright, fun colors. So I don't have any events planned because I have the kids. So I don't really, you know, I don't want to tie myself down to the bar for hours or things like that. But I'll be pretty much around the hotel the entire show. You know, we'll hang out. We'll do some things. We will definitely be at the auction.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Elizabeth had such a blast at the auction last year. And you can go back to listen to last year's recap. I won't, you know, tell the whole tale again. But she basically tracked the auction from the first lot to the last lot, what everything sold for. So we're going to do that again. And she was up way later than I anticipated. It was well after 11 o'clock that we finished. And I kept asking if she wanted to leave and she didn't. So we'll be we'll definitely be at the auction because it was fun just to go see and hang out and watch, you know, two or three of the vendors fight over products. It was it was always good. It was a good time. So, yeah, it's the next show on the radar. Then the one after that will be D.C. So it'll be like a two month break after after Raleigh. And then we'll get to D.C., which we'll we'll talk about later. But we'll be on the road a week from tomorrow heading up to Raleigh. So we will see you all there. Come say hi.