Editing The Pen Addict 52/transcript (section)

== FP Geeks ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Cool. And I think you saw this tweet around when I saw it, or you might have seen it first. But yeah, we got a tweet from, I guess it was from Anna or Artis or some of our followers on Twitter sent us a link from the Fountain Pen Geeks website, which I like those guys. Dan and Eric at fpgeeks.com. They do a great job over there. And they had a recent post with new TWSBI models. And both you and I are fans of TWSBI. We like their style. We like the value that TWSBI offers. They make some of the best bang for the buck pens on the market, in my opinion. You can get a really seriously good pen for a very good price, I think. And they had a post the other day with a bunch of the new TWSBI models. Did you get a chance to go through that whole post and look at all the links and all the new products and everything?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm looking at the other links now. I only looked at the original images. But ho mama.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So let me just go through their post real quick. And we'll link this in the show notes if you're not familiar with FP Geeks. And you should definitely bookmark their site and read it frequently. They post – they do something like I don't do very frequently is they post a lot of news, right? So this is what I consider a news post. They're saying, hey, these new products are coming. You know, I stick with reviews. Otherwise, you know, I don't have time for 10 or 20 posts a week. So I kind of stick with what I do best. And, you know, I like to read guys like Dan and Eric and, you know, they use Aziza from Gourmet Pens and Ed Jelly right on this site too. So they have a lot of news posts, a lot of more frequent articles just surrounding new products and things like that. So definitely check them out. But this TWSBI post was really for – they're doing – so they have the TWSBI Vac 700, which is a very large, full-size vacuum-filling fountain pen. Well, they made this prototype that they showed on FP Geeks, link to picture, for the Vac Mini. And that's really – that's one of the most beautiful pens that I think that they've designed yet, in my opinion.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's just – it's in these colors. It's absolutely beautiful. And I'm looking at the other links and, oh, my God. The 850 IROC. Yeah. Oh, my word. They're chrome. Chrome finish. A matte finish. What is it? Aluminium? Probably.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh. Oh.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They don't say.

'''Myke Hurley:''' When are all of these products going on sale, Brad? You need to tell me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That was the big question. And actually, Dan posed that question. Anyone want to start taking bets on a release date? So they don't have release dates yet. I mean, they're – TWSBI, for all the products that they have, their release schedule is pretty – how should I say it? They spread it out pretty well. They don't – they're not jamming a lot of new products at one time down everyone's throat. So they're spread out pretty well. So it could be up until next year that we'll see some of these because this – that 580 or 850, excuse me, IROC, that's been a prototype, I think, for a while. And it's pretty awesome. I mean, it's like an – it's an all-metal barrel. I don't know if it's aluminum or not. I don't have the specs on here, but they have a chrome finish one and a matte finish one. And it's just – it's straight-up beautiful. I mean, it's an awesome-looking pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's basically the 580, just all chromed out, which is pretty awesome. And I made fun of the name on Twitter the other day, the IROC. You're too young to know what an IROC is, aren't you, Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, I don't know what that is.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You're too young and too British to know what an IROC is. But back in the 70s and mostly the 80s, there was a Camaro model, Z28, I think, IROC. And it was just – that's what you – that's what all the cool kids drove in the 80s was the IROC Z.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Just a kind of a – it's not really a muscle car, but it's just kind of a cool car. It was a hot car back in the 70s and 80s, so I kind of made a joke about that the other day. The name of it was kind of funny to me. But it's a beautiful pen. And then they also link to some other things in this article on FBE. They link to Twisbees working on their own notebooks, which look very nice. They look like they're going to be a good moleskin-looking black-covered notebook. The one I really like was the Slim, the PP081 Slim fountain pen that looked like a really good model to me. And the Twisbe Eco, which is going to be their entry-level fountain pen. I've read about this one before. It's going to be like the Lamy Safari of their Twisbe product line. It's going to be like around a $30 price point, a good entry-level fountain pen. And I think just a more straightforward barrel, simplistic nib, things like that. But it's still going to be a piston filler, I believe. So that's a pretty good price for a $30 pen or so. So that would be nice if we get to see some of these before the year is out. And some of them like the 850 iRock we may not see for a while.