Editing The Pen Addict 738/transcript (section)

== Pens ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, Myke, let me relieve your brain for an hour and talk about pens. What do you think? I would love it. Yeah. Okay. So, I'm going to start off with a pen that came into view earlier this year when I saw on Instagram some of the pilot... I can't remember exactly which pilot retailer or pilot locale. You know how pilot does a pretty good job? They'll have Pilot Korea on Instagram and Pilot Nepal. They do a good job of this. And there was an item that popped up that I was interested to see what happened with, and it's called the Pilot Capless Stainless Nib Fountain Pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And I may have, like, mentioned it in passing at the time, but I didn't really want to talk about it until I saw if this was going to be a broader release or a regional release. And what this is is your standard Pilot Vanishing Point that we all know with a steel nib. And they've made steel nib vanishing points in the past, not as a primary stock item all the time everywhere, but, you know, once in a while they'd just throw a steel nib vanishing point out there and it'd be fine. So this one came out with five colors. So this was this release months ago. It came out with one, two, three, four, five, six colors. Six colors. If I'm counting right, I might be counting wrong. Five colors. And I was like, oh, this is going to be the backfill price point vanishing point across the world. And it doesn't look like that's going to be the case. So that's why I'm bringing it up now. So these were imported into the U.S. via jet pens. And they actually note that this is imported from Japan, which is telling me that it's not coming to the rest of the world. Right. So it's $169 for a steel nib vanishing point, which in this market seems all right. In this economy. In this economy. In this economy. We are in an economy. But I went and looked it up because I haven't been in the vanishing point market for a while. The in-stock base vanishing point with the gold nib in the U.S. Or let's say in the outside of Japan market. $192. That's honestly, it's crazy to say that's really freaking good. Mm-hmm. Because they were like $160 for the longest time. And if they've only gone up. I thought they were more like in the 240s.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I don't know. I think the gold, a gold, ignore gold actually. $200 for the vanishing point seems very fair. Yes. For where we are right now. Correct. Because it used to be $100-ish, right? It was covered around $100.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' First one I bought at that long, long ago Atlanta pen show was like right around $100, $110. And then I was pretty comfortable with them in like the $140 to $160 range. And this is just for stock editions. Special editions have always been more expensive. And now like the current special editions are like $650, right? It's crazy. The $550 to $650 have been what the special editions are.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Brad, my pilot vanishing point, broad nib, black matte body. Mm-hmm. Bought on the 4th of May 2012. Yeah. It was $140 from JetPens. That's actually a lot. I mean.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think the black matte wouldn't at the time. That might have been a special one. In that range, that one was more expensive. But still though, right? And then they just ended up keeping that one. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So having it for $192 to your point you just made. Yeah. That's pretty good. Like so. I think so. Vanishing point, game on. Let's go. Let's go. But they're focusing on the special editions. I was hoping, honestly, this steel nib would be a backfill in preparation for whatever new price increase the gold nib will have. Luckily, the gold nib one doesn't have a ton of gold. It's a very tiny nib. So maybe they're able to manage that a little bit. But I kind of want one of these steel nibs to compare. I've never used one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Why do you think that they would only release it in Japan?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know. Especially in five colors like this. Yeah. They've done stuff like this before.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Significant. Like this feels like a product line, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like this feels like a product line. Especially with the color choices. Like they've done this range of similar type metallic colors. These look great. Like all of the colors look really good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Could it be that like they will do it, but it's technically a different pen because it's called the vanishing point, not the capless. So it's like they wouldn't have a product that's called capless outside of Japan?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Maybe. I could totally see this coming down the line like next year outside of Japan. But this is going to be one. And we'll talk about this. We'll actually have a note to talk about my Japan trip coming up. Like this is going to be on my list to see because in Japan it should technically be. Readily available. Decently cheaper. Readily available and somewhat cheaper.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because I feel like to me one of the key things. I mean we've been talking about this for the best part of a year now it feels like. One of the key things that the pen companies can do right now is what you're saying backfill. It's like you have massive holes in your product lineup from a pricing perspective. You have to find ways to fill that. And so me and you predicted months ago that we would see an influx of steel nib pens now. Because it's just the way to do this. And I think I would bet that a lot, I don't know about majority, but a lot of people that buy a vanishing point do not care what the nib is made from. Because it's not why they're buying it. They think it looks cool. I actually agree with that. Right? It's like, oh, it's a fountain pen with a retractable nib. How cool. Like I would expect, I would bet that the capital sort of vanishing point is a lot of people's first fountain pen. Like serious fountain pen. Like they don't actually have one before. But they're like, oh, that seems really interesting. Like a fun. Or it's like a cool gift. I bet it is a graduation gift for a lot of people. Like it's just an interesting product. Or it feels like a good executive pen to have. Right? Which is not going to break the bank. But it's like interesting. It's like a talking point to people. Yeah. It's so good. Yeah. Having an option under $200 is brilliant. And so I don't know why they wouldn't do it. I could just imagine it's just a timing thing for why they haven't yet.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, this is something I'm like keeping an eye out on. Because I think it's kind of the right move. We talked about. So it's about a year. Maybe a slightly over a year from when like the biggest price increases happen. And honestly, we haven't seen that much backfilling. Like Pilot did that one gold nib pen. And I haven't seen it hit the U.S. yet. Sailor's done their gold nib pens. Which I'm going to have a review of one coming up soon. Those have hit the U.S. And honestly, when I'm saying the U.S., I mostly mean outside of Asia. I am obviously U.S. based, but this goes for Europe and other markets as well. I mean outside of Asia.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.