Editing The Pen Addict 663/transcript (section)

== Discussion of Mitsubishi and Lamy Safari 2025 limited edition colors ==

* I'm wondering where Mitsubishi lies on this latest Lamy Safari 2025 limited edition colors. To the shock of no one, I have a lot to say about this.
* Should I let you go first? I'm actually more curious about what you think. I liked the little video they put up. I think that was interesting. I thought that the colors, as they showed them, were fine. And then the story comes a little bit more interesting with the other stuff that you have that you'll get to. I would say they're fine. These are nowhere near as good as the other ones they did. The two-tone ones, I think, that were going on while I was away. Like the aubergine and the something else. Those were sick, by the way. I realize now I have not mentioned this on the show. The aubergine ones, specifically, rules. That is an excellent Lamy pen. So that's the Lamy All-Star 2025 limited editions were denim and aubergine. And that's just in general, those are like two of the best releases they've done in years. Absolutely. Just period, full stop, any product line. Like they're great. So Lamy Safari had no chance this year, no matter what they did. They almost couldn't do anything that would beat this if there's a competition. There's only a competition on this show. I'm Team Safari. And Ana and many others are All-Star always. All-Star won Lamy Zero this year. Easy. Like I can straight up admit that. This is, like I said, the video is the best part of this release. The colors are good, right? I don't have any qualms with the colors.
* Except in the marketing is confusing. Confusing enough with the scarlet color. I think the scarlet is my favorite of the two. But we'll get into that a little bit more. But just for clarity purposes, you may not know, if you don't follow this, that the scarlet is actually a matte barrel. And then the dark dusk is a glossy barrel. It's not scarlet though, is it? Like, let's be real. Excuse me. Sunset. I see red. I think dark. Good. Because this is called scarlet. They've messed up because that ain't scarlet. Oh, that's the other thing you missed. Go look up Lamy Scarlet and tell me what color that is. I caught some of that conversation because that is absolutely not a scarlet pen.
* I'm still having a problem with that. So, yes. Sunset. Sunset is a matte finish.
* And it's so much of a matte finish that a retailer jumped into the Lamy Global feed saying, Hey, this video is great and all. But you make that pen look glossy in here. And like, without saying it, Goldspot is saying, Hey, that's a problem for us. Because people, you're setting the expectations of this being a glossy pen. And that's one thing that the Safari has always done. That's one of the problems the All-Star never has. It could be a problem in that like you actually, you know, maybe for some customers, you've not made this pen look as good as maybe some people would think. Yeah. I think it looks way better as a matte finish pen than a glossy finish. I actually think that would be fun. And also, there's not a lot of these kinds of, this kind of finish on Lamy Safaris, I think. It's more glossy than anything else. Yep. Yep. So, I like them. I like, they're fine. They're just regular. Like, which is good. There's nothing wrong with that. The one thing they did do well is do like kind of the, like, especially on the, I'm never going to call it the right color. I want to call it Scarlet, but Sunset. But they did, you know, the matching clip color and the matching finial like they did. They did a good job with the matching of the colors and the clips and the finials. So, kind of all, all throughout the pen from top to bottom matching. One thing they did do, I'm going to give them a shout out for, which this is something they didn't normally do. In the ballpoint of the Sunset. So, Lamy's ballpoint is a favorite of mine. And the Nox are generally just a black rubber because they're like a little compressed, you know, spring looking thing. So, they're like a rubberized black. And they match the color to that for Sunset, which they don't always do, which I thought that was a good touch. So, yeah, they're fine when you put them up against the All-Star release, which is what I always base my like and dislike of these on. Like, they're not even close. But as a Safari product, they're good. The other hang-up I had a little bit with Sunset is we're not that far off from Strawberry, which they did. That was only like two or three years ago. So, they do this thing sometimes where they'll repeat colors like at too high of a frequency in the product lineup. I would have liked to see some different color in there in this release as opposed to Sunset. But like as a concept, like it's very just fine. It's fine. Like there's honestly, if I didn't have this whole bit on here about Safari versus All-Star, this like wouldn't actually be a pin that I would be that interested in talking about. Right. Like it's fine. Like it's fine. It's regular. It's fine. So, there you go. Anything else on that? Because I'm actually very curious about this next topic. No, go for it. Were you aware of the TWSBI Precision before I put this link in the show notes? Okay. So, this is an OG. Yeah. This is an OG TWSBI style that they haven't sold in years. Like the original one was kind of like a champagne-y, silvery, taupe-y kind of thing. And people liked it, right? It's a metal-barreled TWSBI. Very rotary-y, I guess. Never liked it. Big facets, big metal. I've never liked it either. Yeah. And I've used it. I think we reviewed it on the blog. I would probably have to go look it up to see if we reviewed it. I think we did.