Editing The Pen Addict 673/transcript (section)

== Transition to business and news-related topics. ==

* Can we just get on with the show? Myke doesn't know what to do. No. I don't know what to do with you today. I'll just keep going. All right. I got, let's, let's talk business. Let's, let's talk business-y links first. News types links instead of stuff type links. So this was news to me, although I think other people like knew this and it just hasn't, I just missed it or something. But, and this is a U.S.-based, you know, issue that Montegrappa's U.S. distributor was Kenra Industries, our good friends over at Kenra who are frequent sponsors. They've been longtime friends of mine for, gosh, who knows how many years now. And they were the, they're just distributor of, you know, Estabrook, Aurora, Y Studio, Ferris Will Press, Montegrappa up until now. And I just saw in my friend RB's St. Louis Pen Show recap at Gathering of Curiosities. And I'll put a link in there if y'all aren't following. Gathering of Curiosities early. Shout out of the week mention. You should, you should be following RB's blog. Mentioned like a little quote in there, just a little, little side nugget. Jimmy told me that since Montegrappa recently, recently lost its U.S. distributor. And I read that and I was like, huh, that's news to me. And so I reached out to Kenra and it's true. And like, it doesn't necessarily mean anything yet for at least the U.S. market. And again, this is a U.S. distributor shift, but I thought it was an interesting piece of news. One, because we just went down Montegrappa's product listing last week, which, you know, talking about all their fancy pens. Two, I'm a very big Montegrappa pen fan. Like I like some of their lower level entry level pens. I have several that I just adore and always like what they do as a company. I think they make really, really excellent stuff and they do it majorly, majorly, majorly? A lot. Majoritatively? They do most of it in house. There you go. You found it. You found it.
* And I just find like these little tidbits interesting to where they, it's not like necessarily Kenra lost the distributorship. It's that Montegrappa is moving to a no distributor in the U.S. model. So they're going to be selling themselves. They're going to be, apparently. So like, I'm interested to see how this plays out. And on top of that, like the reasoning is, when I reached out to Kenro, I got some details, but the short version is Montegrappa got a new individual investor with deep pockets and they are able to like direct some of this change somehow. Like, I don't know the full details. Like, I know who it is and they've been in like luxury pen business before. It's no one I'd ever heard of. No one, like I could even find really on the internet. Right, but you know them now and you've looked at them. I know them now. You know, the back story. You know, it's, it's, I love my friends at Kenro. Yeah. They're, they're a sponsor of the show and also good friends and they do good work. It surprises me though, that sometimes there are brands that like big brands that use any kind of distributor. I feel the same for like Sailor and stuff. Like why, it just seems weird to me in 2025 to just not sell yourself, like do it on your own. I don't know. I agree. I agree. And like, we'll have to find the episode. Like I've had Bryce on from Luxury Brands. They're a big distributor in the U S you know, we've done interviews with different distributors. I've had carry on when Carrie Yeager fountain pen day and now true fade pens was formerly at Kenro. Like we've talked about distributorships. It's always been like you, like you think about it, like on the base level, it's like, Oh, this is real normal. They're helping them get their product out. But then you, then you, when you think about like the next layer is like, well, why does that company need that anyway? So there's lots of pros and cons and it's interesting discussion. So anyway, one of the things apparently Montegrappa is going to be doing that I did get a tidbit from is they're going to be looking into the boutiques, um, which range in our industry from like the small Lamy boutiques, right? We've seen those, some of the big cities in the U S up to like the larger scale, you know, uh, Montblanc boutiques that, you know, I just talked about my trip to Vegas. I have a feeling Montegrappa feels they're in the latter category, uh, as opposed to the former, uh, they're, they feel, I think Montegrappa feels they should be more in the Montblanc range as opposed to the Lamy range.
* We'll see if they can deliver that. I mean, no one's, I'm, those are words I'm making up. Like no one's telling me that, but, um, that's kind of the gut feeling, uh, I get out of this. So I doubt it changes anything from a consumer perspective, right? Montegrappa still has pens to sell. They're going to make sure retailers have their pens. Right. And then pricing changes.
* They have traditionally been like pretty, you know, forward on changing prices. Yeah. I, so one note I didn't put in here, but I did put on, um, in refill the pen, I think members newsletter that I write every week, um, almost in relation to this topic. Um, Edison Pen put out a post where the, um, their gold Yavo nibs are essentially doubling in price. Like they've tried to try to hold that down for years. Like they, they were basically didn't move with every price change that was required and just kind of absorbed and absorbed and absorbed. And now they've absorbed enough to where they're just basically going to have to double it. Um, so yeah, I think a lot of companies are just going to continue to, to have some pricing pressure going forward. And I, I do actually think that's a real issue in our hobby right now. Yeah. I mean, I wondered if like, if you're going, if you're no longer using a distributor, you may actually be able to bring the cost down, but they probably wouldn't do that. And they would just take the profit. Yeah. Right. Because there's no longer, there is no longer a cut needed in the middle. Right. Yeah. Maybe. But then you're going to, if you're telling me you're going to invest in brick and mortar retail. You need that cut. As your, as your alternate. I mean, realistically, I mean, businesses are going to business. They're not going to bring the price down. Are they? They're just going to take the margin. And that could be part of the reason they're doing this. Right. It's like, we should have that margin and then we can control our own destiny. But yeah, it's, it's fascinating. Fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned, you know, the, the retailers are going to raise the prices, not lower them. I do want to give a shout out to Edison that they're very transparent about this. And in the past, when things have changed and they've been able to get them cheaper, they've actually lowered the prices of some of their pens, right? They do it right. And, you know, that's, that's a rare thing. And that's why, you know, they have, they have so much respect as a brand and as a company. They're like super transparent. And, you know, when we need to raise the prices, here's why. And if we have an opportunity to lower the prices, we're going to do it. And they'll be put very public with it. So pretty neat. That is a flexibility you get as a small business, right? You can make decisions. Exactly. Exactly. No, probably no Edison boutiques coming to the Grand Venetian shops in Las Vegas, I'm guessing. Well, if you see them triple the prices, maybe they will. Okay. Okay. We'll look out for that. I'll, I'll, I'll text Brian when we're done and, and see. You should say Myke said boutique is coming. Why not triple the prices and get a store in Vegas? You could be going to a Pelican hub in 2025 in Las Vegas. Allegedly. I don't know if there's a Pelican hub in Las Vegas, but they're all over the world. We got the, the notice came out kind of this week. So Pelican's purse, Josh, Joshua is always, you know, has all the, the full details on Pelican's news, news and updates. So it looks like the hubs are going to be happening. People were kind of curious because the, I think in the past, the announcement has come out in May for September hubs.