Editing The Pen Addict 574/transcript (section)

== Weekly Muji Polycarbonate Fountain Pen Report ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' But we got some stuff to cover first. We got our weekly Muji Polycarbonate Fountain Pen Report. Yes. Got Pen Addicts checking in from all over as always. Rob from Dublin. No. You know, Brad, I actually was out in the city the other week and I walked past a Muji store. Uh-huh. Like it was on the other side of the street. I was like on my way to an appointment and I was like, shall I go in there? And I did think to myself, I was like, I could do it for the meme, but I know it's not going to be in there. So it's kind of a waste of my time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, that's, no, that would be, that's the, that's the information we need. That's the data point we need. So Muji will listen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Some point in the next couple of weeks, I will, I will go into the Muji store because I'll be back in the city again.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So they will restock the Muji in London because I'm just going to assume they not have it. They're not going to have it because that seems to be the majority of the issues. Um, except, uh, Daniel in Singapore did find them and they've had them in stock for quite a while now, just went down to the physical store and they're selling them, uh, Singapore, uh, dollar seven 90. So I don't know that translation, but it's all about five us, us dollars, uh, only one nib size O three, which I think is the norm. So I think again, Canada and Singapore were the two online sites that had them. So I'm not surprised that they have them in the physical locations. Now we have, uh, a spanner thrown in the mix. Myke Jeff from Shanghai with a field report from the Muji store. The Muji store here sells a version of the polycarbonate fountain pen, but it's not the preppy. The item name is PC fountain pen set name in Chinese spells out polycarbonate in full in case there's any doubt. So it's about an, it's about an $8 us dollar pen description on the back. There's a factory in a Shuzo. Uh, so it seems to be locally made and sourced Muji stamping on the nib, simple snap cap, standard international cartridge, pretty pleasant to write with. I don't recognize it at all. Maybe for this one Muji just did a collaboration with a local factory pictures attached. So I did include one picture. I've never seen this before. I didn't scour the Muji sites to see if I could see this. Like if you just Google like Muji fountain pen, like none of this, this one doesn't show up. It's usually the aluminum one. Um, this first thing to me, like the Muji gel pen. It does.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. It's the same design. Yeah. And like the, the kind of squared like clip.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm hmm. Yeah. And I did have another picture I can put in the show notes later. I just put this one in for now, but it does have like a little Muji, just the MUJI stamped on the nib. Yeah. So this one's, this one, the price point is in between the platinum polycarbonate white barrel one, which is about $5. This one's about eight and the aluminum one's about 16, but I've never seen this one before. So this was a interesting, uh, spanner in the works as they say.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The mystery continues.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm hmm. But I love, I love, I, I, I said this last week. I love that. This is a thing. This is one of my favorite things to, to, uh, to talk about, um, Muji worldwide.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, I got a late breaking, uh, entry. Okay. From, uh, B who says, Muji Malaysia stocks it in store in almost all of their branches. Mm hmm. You will see it on their website as they use Shopee slash Lazado. It's similar to Taobao in China. Okay. It doesn't get much attention in store because it's placed to odd places with the rest of the stationery unless you ask or you know what you're looking for.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Interesting. So it's kind of, uh, hidden away, but it exists. So what do we have? Singapore, Malaysia, Canada, and Australia. I've got another one. Uh oh.

'''Myke Hurley:''' These all came in today. That's wild. From Mort. India calling. Success. I scored a couple of the polycarbonate fountain pens from the online Muji store, which is operated by Ajio AJIO in India and had them delivered home in Mumbai. They are priced at 590 Indian rupee each.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So we're seeing a thing here. It seems like they're available from like the third party stores that they use.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So like in the Asian market, it sounds like there's a third party routing of this product. Um, so that's India, Malaysia, Singapore, all seem to, to have that type of representation. And then the, the, the colonial countries, they're just in the store, you know, the Canada's and Australia's, uh, the colonies, I guess, uh, have them in store. That's a strange thing to just throw in there for sure. So I need you to, I need you to do this. I need you to solidify that and make the trifecta there with London. Um, probably to go to the true, the true colony store, right here in the UK. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Not very comfortable with this, but yeah, no, that was, that was like probably not the right thing. So my apologies.