Editing The Pen Addict 499/transcript (section)

== Pins ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' I buy lots of pins. That's the problem is, like, I'll see a pin I like, and I'll generally just buy it, and that's okay. But this time, Myke, I did the celebration pin thing. And that's something that you have done in the past where you've made a purchase to mark, you know, an event of some kind, big or small. It doesn't matter, right? Like, the size of the thing doesn't matter, right? You could buy something like when you started RelayFM, you know, which is a big deal, or, you know, for, you know, your wedding or anything. You could buy it for, hey, I made it through the week. Like, sometimes that's a good thing to celebrate on a weekly basis. But I've never really gone out of my way to say, hey, I'm going to tie this purchase into this event. And in this case, the event is obviously our 500th podcast episode. And I'm doing this mostly to justify the expense of what I bought and make myself feel better. Yeah, whatever it takes. Right, right. Whatever it takes. So, you know, I've done, like, I've spent a lot of time buying pins in the past, right? Thinking about a pin like my first Nakaya, right? Like, I always say it took me two years to buy my first Nakaya because, you know, I had to think about it. Like, I had to feel like I had to get it right and, you know, save the money because it was expensive and just do all the things. Or, you know, I bought the pins that I'm supposed to buy, like the classics, like the Lamy 2000. And, you know, or Pilot Vanishing Point or a Pelican M series, you know. I buy those for a reason. Like, those are kind of like landmark pins that, you know, certain pin addicts feel like, hey, you should have this. Like, if I'm going to talk about these things, you need kind of the classics. But I've never bought this, what I'm calling the Celebration Pin. So, I went out on a limb and bought something that I have not tested. I have not tried. I've only read about and viewed online. I bought an Elwood Pocketmaster.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Literally never heard of this company at all. Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So, I would say most listeners haven't. Unless they read Refill, your pen addict member's newsletter. I have discussed this pin because my friend Anthony at UK Fountain Pins ordered one. It was in the links, right? It was in the links. So, people may have clicked on the link and seen it. Yeah, I don't think I did. And so, we'll have the link to Anthony's post. You can get kind of a good breakdown of this pen. It's essentially a highly engineered pocket pen, right? And I don't mean engineered in like the over-engineered kind of way. I mean engineered in like handmade, fine materials, you know, all the little bells and whistles you can get in a highly, like, almost like customized. Pocket pen. And Elwood doesn't just make pocket pens. You know, they make, you know, full-size pens as well in their same style. But Frank at Elwood, who is the maker, uses lots of really, really cool materials. Makes all the pens himself. You know, has a really distinct style. It's very simple and clean in the lines of the pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Where are they based?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Germany.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Germany, okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So, I've shared some emails with him over my time making this order. So, what happened was, so, Anthony, this is kind of like how my process goes. And we talked about this in the past. So, I see a pen that someone else has or see it at a pen show or see it at a retailer or whatever. And I just kind of add it to the mental list. Like, hey, I like this. Let me kind of investigate what's going on with it. You know, do other people have experience with it? What type of setup would I want? You know, what type of materials would I want? Because at Elbowood, you can buy just basic, like a full metal pen. Like, was the first thing that I thought I might get. So, he has a stainless steel barrel pocket master. I was like, hey, that's like kind of perfect for me, right? I love the stainless steel materials, right? That's one of my favorite, like, pen materials if I'm going for a metal pen. And then he posts, like, something on Instagram. Like, I follow, you know, Frank on Instagram and see all the things that Elbowood's producing. And then all of a sudden, he puts up, hey, here's a bunch of ebonite I bought. I think I'm going to make pens out of them. And, oh, by the way, there's this really nice teal-looking one in there. So, like, in the span of, like, a couple of weeks of me thinking about, hey, I'll eventually get a pocket master one day, right? Because they're, like I said, very expensive. He posts something that triggers me into, like, okay, I am emailing Frank. And I'm saying this is what I want. And is it possible? And he said, yes. So, I have a teal ebonite, which I have a link in the show notes to this, Myke. You can see some of the ebonite rods that he got in. And there's one in the picture that we'll link in the show notes called U5.5. It's just how it's marked. I don't know what that means. Like, they're swirled ebonites. They're solid ebonites. But this teal-looking ebonite, I was like, you know I like the silver, you know, hardware type of based pens. And I thought that would look perfect. And if I'm going to celebrate the 500th episode, I'm going to go all out. So, I actually have a silver barrel teal ebonite pocket master with a gold nib coming. Like, I did, like, the full setup. So, I was originally thinking about the stainless steel model, which cost about half of what I ended up going with. So, I'm a little bit... These look really good, man.