Editing The Pen Addict 665/transcript (section)

== Introduction and Sponsors ==

* From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 665. Today's show is brought to you by The St. Louis Pen Show, Canalea Penco, and Enigma Stationario. My name is Myke, Enigma Stationario, they paid us. I've got to do it correctly. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad. Yeah, this is how the pre-show started as well, except it was on my side, you know, just behind the scenes. I'm a little fired up today for literally no good reason, other than I got to talk about pens and stationery. And that gets me fired up, and apparently, I have contaminated Myke. We have cross-pollinated, and he is equally as losing his mind now. I think I'm just a little loopy today. I just think I'm a little loopy. What's going on? I mean, that's fair. That's fair. Like, I mean, why not be? Loopy's a good way to be, so. All right. And we have some good topics for Loopy, which is interesting that this first topic is the most probably straightforward one we're going to talk about today. And then we'll kind of get into the madness that I'm living in right now with other stationery products. But I wanted to revisit a product I think I talked about while you were gone because the news of it dropped. It's the Platinum 3776 Mountain Mist fountain pen. And so, you and I, obviously big Platinum fans, we have for years talked about their various special editions that they've created. They've created some beautiful ones, like the nice Lelus always pops up. The Kumpu always pops up as some of, like, the best designs that they've ever made. And those have generally come, well, not generally, those have definitively come directly from Platinum in Japan. And they'll do, you know, they're essentially worldwide releases for these. And, you know, they're, you know, not super limited. They usually, since it's the 3776 and it's Mount Fuji is 3,776 meters tall, they'll make 3,776 pins. So, that's just kind of the background if you're not familiar with Platinum's exclusives. So, here in the U.S., their distributor is called Luxury Brands, and I'm good friends with them. And it was neat to see that they were able to work with Platinum in Japan, the mothership, to do a U.S. exclusive.
* Even though I feel, again, this is a worldwide market. This is not a highly limited edition. You know, just like if Platinum released 3,776 pins in Japan, I could get one if I wanted to, right? So, yeah.
* But, again, it was kind of cool that this was the focus. I guess it's limited to who can distribute it, right? So, like, as a customer, you can buy it from places that will ship worldwide. But it's just like the distribution of that pin is only going to go to retail that is located within the geographic boundary that they're set, I guess. Yes. And that's a great way to put it. And, you know, there's lots of companies that do this. And, you know, Sailor has done this in the past. Pilot, I don't think they've necessarily done a U.S. exclusive, but Pilot's distributor here in the U.S. gets to design the Vanishing Point limited edition every other year. Like, that's one thing they get to do. So, there's always kind of this give and take of, hey, the parent company in Japan, especially I'm speaking of Sailor, Pilot, and Platinum, working with distributors around the world to do regional editions. And what this shows is that the company, Platinum, and in other cases Sailor and Pilot, have belief that they can deliver a really good product through these distributors here in the U.S. And I'm obviously speaking in a very U.S.-centric because I know these people behind these distributorships, right, and how kind of this stuff works. And it's not always easy to execute this. And I'm sure this was a couple years in the works. And what I'm curious about, Myke, is what you think about this design of the Mountain Mist, because it's a little bit of an outlier for a couple of reasons we'll go into. But I just want to talk about what you think about the pen. So, at first, like, the image that is on the kind of lead image on the Goldspot website that we have in the show notes, whereas the pen is in front of, like, I guess the inspiration image for it, which is – I don't think they picked the right inspiration image, but I get what they're going for. Like, it's fine. It's like whatever. But then in the Instagram link, there's an actual, like, photo of the pen sitting on some rocks. And, yeah, it looks like a winner. I really like the frosted look of the two kind of separate pieces, the blue kind of body and the gray cap. I think it's really nice, and the special nib engraving looks really good, too. Like, that nib engraving is doing a lot of work for kind of evoking the image that they show of the kind of, like, mountain range or whatever.
* Yeah, I'm not sure that this pen, like, really gets to the brief, right, of, like, a misty mountain range. But I like the – if you just kind of decouple it from that, I think this is a really, really good-looking platinum. I think – I like the colors that they've chosen, the gray and the blue, and I really like the kind of frosted look of it. Yeah, so the concept is based on the Blue Ridge Mountains in the U.S., and, you know, it has that kind of blue haze. But, again, once you get into mountains, you're always seeing, like, green and trees and things like that. It's not, like, a high-peak mountain, like a snow-capped mountain range, like, you know, Mount Fuji, which is, like, a singular in nature. You know, Blue Ridge being a range of, you know, thousands of miles.
* So, yeah, like, I don't think Blue Ridge Mountains, but I do think Mountain Mist, and, like, I think the naming's good. The nib is – obviously, the nib is unbelievable.
* And it took – it's one of those nibs when you – if you have – it's a no – if you have a no context on this nib, it's like, oh, this is a cool tiger pen.
* But then you – as soon as you look at it, you go, oh, yeah, that's the – and understand the concept of the pens. It's like, oh, yeah, that's the mountain range and, like, the valley and the range, and it's kind of set off perfectly. I really wanted to see this pen in person because of the matte finish and the colors they used. There are actually four different tone sections in this pen, which is hard to pick up until you get this. So, you have the blue barrel and the gray cap, okay? The two finials are a lighter gray than the cap. And then the grip section is smooth, clear acrylic, which is better for gripping. Matt, I didn't even think of this. Is the texture of the body different, do you think, to a typical – because I just wondered if it's, like, frosted on the inside. No, it's on the outside. So, it's not really – it's not aggressively matte. It's more satiny. Yeah. But it does have the texture. You know, it's got that texture. But the grip section is completely smooth, clear acrylic, which is better for gripping, right? Your fingers, at least in my case, tend to grip better on the smooth acrylic. So, I'm actually more impressed with this pen in person than in pictures. The pictures, I was like, yeah, this is cool. But, like, I'm really – I really want to see this in person to see how this works. And it really – it does work because I'm someone who likes these patchwork type of pens, right, where you get different pieces in different areas and kind of put them all together. I like these kind of fun designs where it's not necessarily singular in nature. You know, like the Kumbu was the classic singular in nature pen where it was all teal with the rhodium trim, but it had, like, the waves going through it. It was sick. Like, it was one of the best they've ever done. And this is kind of, like, a different tact. They have done this type of pen where the caps and the finials and the barrel are all different colors. And maybe even matte in the Japanese market, there's some with, like, brighter colors. And I forget, you know, they might do them for pen clubs or shop-exclusive things like that. So, it's interesting. It's fun. I really enjoy it. So far, I just unboxed it yesterday. And I do not have it inked up yet, Myke. So, I'm trying to sort out, like, how I would do that.