Editing The Pen Addict 221/transcript (section)

== Field Notes ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, you just want to say field notes, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' But yeah, I mean but I can't help because I can't go with the EU based. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I'll help with that and that's why I wanted to bring it up because they're very good followers on Twitter. They're very good in the Twitter community and they do a subscription of random notebooks. It's called Pocket Notebooks. Very simple name but it's pocketnotebooks.co.uk and I don't subscribe to it. I've talked to them many, many times. Seems like a good group of people behind the scenes. They're at least in Europe. You can get all kinds of different very, very cool notebooks and they have subscription services. So, and I don't know like they're I'm just clicking through links here. I don't have the full details but like they have a large subscription box set of nine that's like 24 pounds and you can ask you can get it delivered every one month, every two months, every three months. So, you know and it gives you a random sampling of different things. You can try, see what you like but I thought that was a very good question because there may be more out there and I'd like to know especially if there's any European-based companies that are doing things like Pocket Notebooks does. I know there's a few other options here in the U.S. but that seems to be the perfect answer for your question.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Alright, Travis Keltner on Twitter wants to know how do you know if a pen is fairly priced at a pen show? Is there a vintage pen price condition guide? I put this question in here on purpose because this actually comes up all the time but you only hear it if you're at a pen show and this is goes back to you know first time pen shows new pen show user new pen show visitors things like that. They want I mean you don't want to get taken advantage of right? So the question has arisen to me and to several other people's well why isn't there some kind of vintage price guide? And I guess in theory there could be there's not that I'm aware of because I guess other things that have price guides like coins or stamps or baseball cards there's all kinds of condition ratings that can be applied to it and that would have to be done it would be a huge undertaking nowadays to get this done I don't know if there's something in the past and the problem with that is keeping it updated it's such a massive undertaking getting it done number one would be years of work and number two keeping it updated constantly it just tends to be a general challenge so we've been doing some articles on the pen addict a gentleman by the name of Ron Gilmore thank you Ron for writing these posts he's covered like the Parker Vacumatic the Parker 51 the Esther Brooks so what you want to do the best thing I can do is read some articles of the main vintage pens those are some of them some of the Schaefer's and figure out like people will often say and I know Ron does I bought a pen in this condition and it was around this price and then you can kind of get a ballpark range if there's a you need to focus on something before going into vintage I think like you need not need to go into a pen show and say I'm going to purchase a vintage pen you need to say I'm going to look at Esther Brooks today and do your research before you go and understand what the different models are what their general price should be what things to look for from a condition perspective and have a mental price in your head on what you should pay for that on what's a fair price it's never going to be a perfect science and this is one of the biggest challenges we have in trying to bridge any kind of generation knowledge gap between collectors who have been around forever and collectors who are new coming into the market so we think about this a lot we talk about it a lot with everyone at pen shows there's no good answer but if you can focus on one or two things learn what you want learn what you need to know about them make a purchase see how it goes and then maybe pick a different pen to learn about and do your research on that pen and then go in and you know see what you can find for that and then that information just kind of you know you collect that information you're expanding your knowledge and then it's easier to find okay well I've done pretty good with these parkers and 51s and vacuumatics let me look at these shafers now I know what to look for without doing as much research and it's just kind of builds on each other so that's a long question to say no I mean a long answer to say no there's no price or condition guide but you can kind of build your own in your head if you narrow your focus a little bit especially in the beginning

'''Myke Hurley:''' it's a minefield I think it is

'''Brad Dowdy:''' there's never a show where something like this doesn't come up when I talk to new and old collectors alike

'''Myke Hurley:''' my complete kind of feeling about this is just I buy vintage pens because I like to look at them and that's that like I don't buy them to use them because I feel like I'm setting myself up for disaster I know that people do it and I know it works but like that's just the way that I end up thinking about it

'''Brad Dowdy:''' so speaking of disasters Myke and you're probably the wrong person to ask based on your noodlers I mean your diamond autumn oak experience a moment ago but Bryant in the slack wants to know if we have any ink nightmares that have ruined pens and nibs and he puts in noodlers with a question mark as in you know does noodlers do that and it's specific inks with noodlers ! like the A-State Blue

'''Myke Hurley:''' which I we've been through this so many times I have no idea why people do this

'''Brad Dowdy:''' yep but people who love the ink so much and can't get away from it will dedicate a specific pen for that because it will stain a converter it'll stain a barrel if it's in a demonstrator with a piston filler it may stain the feed I don't know what it's going to do to the nib it's a very harsh ink but people can't get away from the color so they'll dedicate one pen to use if you use good pen hygiene unlike Myke you I'm just kidding you actually do you do the right thing if you take care of your pens I have zero hesitancy to use iron gall inks because I know I'm going to keep up with that pen and it's not going to be sitting around for two or three months allowing that ink to do bad things to my pen so if you get really attached to a very harsh ink like an iron gall ink and not all iron gall inks are created equally right like Diamine's Registrar's is very strong it's liable to stain it's hard to clean and then things like Roaring Cleaners Salix is more on the tame side you know it cleans out easily even after weeks of being loaded in a pen so there's always going to be some story about ink ruined my pen and there are inks that will ruin your pens but honestly they're few and far between if you practice good cleaning hygiene so you know if you're worried about it up front test it in a pen you're not messing up I've never I've maybe I've never like overly stained a barrel like that would be the most extreme but I also never have purchased bay state blue or have tried like crazy things to put in these pens you know up front so I am cognizant of what I put in most pens but I don't hesitate to put iron gall inks or pigmented inks in my pens as long as I maintaining them and cleaning them correctly so all right so a couple more and then we'll wrap it up and this is from Bob at my pens my pen needs ink who again who I've told him before has my son's favorite sticker in the pen universe even over the pen addict sticker so he sent me some extra ones so thank you Bob he wants to know if either of

'''Brad Dowdy:''' while sitting when another hard surface is not available do you Myke

'''Myke Hurley:''' no I don't know

'''Brad Dowdy:''' so I bought one of these a few years ago from Levenger because they seem to have the most styles that were of my taste and I used it pretty frequently before I had a desk available and now it just kind of sits in the closet I actually used it for a while and enjoy using it and would break it out if I was sitting on the couch or in a chair and wanted to do some writing it worked very well and had kind of these elastics kind of like a hard walnut top and then like a cushion on the bottom that was velcroed on and you could actually get it pretty stable sometimes it wobbles some because of that cushioning effect but you could get it

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I got good use out of it I haven't used it in probably a year or two though I don't really break it out much anymore because I have enough different writing spaces for myself to use but I like them if you're trying to do something more than writing like drawing coloring you're going to get a little bit more movement than you like but otherwise I would recommend them last last one and we're back on the Europe bandwagon which I can always get behind Myke we love our European listeners sure

'''Myke Hurley:''' we do