Editing The Pen Addict 81/transcript (section)

== Visionaire Pens ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, let's talk about the one topic that I don't want to talk about, Myke. And that's the Visionaire.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, you go. You have some comments on this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, I can't remember what it was that took me back to the Visionaire page this week. I think that there might have been an update. I think the pens have started shipping out. Or it may have just been, you know, after the show I wanted to go and take a look.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And I was kind of just having a look through it. And I was looking at it. And the comments were... I wouldn't even say they were mixed. Like, the comments that I could see, and I read through quite a few, they were resoundingly positive about the pen, people receiving the pen. But they did seem like novice opinions in many, many places. Not a criticism, just an observation. And I don't know how much of a difference that actually does make. Like, I don't know if potentially a pen novice would be harsher or more forgiving. I don't know, in all honesty. But that was just an observation that I made.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And it seemed like, you know, the kinds of complaints that there were seemed like complaints which could be levied against many pens. Like, they were rattling. Like, so the clip was rattling on the cap, which I have many pens that I've paid lots of money for where that happens.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And there seemed to be, like... And then I was doing some reading around in forums and stuff, like some of the stuff that we had last week. And, like, there's an argument that... And the argument that I think comes from... What's the guy's name again? Morgan? Morgan. Is that he commissioned this pen to be made. And that this company in China, the factory, used his mould to create their own with less quality materials. And I kind of feel like... I have this, like, moral dilemma about this discussion. Because I feel like, right now, we have... Me and you, Brad, have as much to go on either side of this. Like, we don't know for sure either. So I kind of feel bad when we rip it apart. And then I sort of read about it. And I'm like, well, I have no proof that it is such and such way. So maybe we're being harsh. And it seems like a lot of the people that are saying, you know, this is a rip-off. They actually don't have one yet. And so they're doing it on sight alone. And if Morgan's story is true, then sight alone actually doesn't help. Because if he's correct, if he's being honest and he has a true story, in that he did... Whether he designed this pen or not, let's move past that now. But if he, you know, requested this pen to be made, this Chinese company could be making much cheaper quality versions than what he is sending and is sending out.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, I do think there's arguments to be had on both sides. And, you know, we don't know for a fact necessarily anything because we're not Morgan. But the problem, the recurring... There's so many recurring issues of Morgan's answers and stance on a lot of this to where he doesn't answer any questions or just goes off on these wild tangents that, you know, no one is interested in hearing. And my argument all along, from the very first time we mentioned it, is every single person who backed this project is going to get a perfectly fine pen. And I think that's what we're finding out in the messages of Kickstarter.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Everyone's enjoying their pen. Now, I will say that the vast majority of the comments that are reading are from complete fountain pen novices that, you know, don't know how to unscrew the barrel to put the ink cartridge in. And that's like a recurring theme. Like, this is a lot of people's first fountain pen. And the price point at $37, you know, everyone's okay with that too because it's really, you know, they didn't pay $80 for the pen or they didn't pay $125 for the pen. They're okay with the price that they paid for whatever they received. And, you know, my argument all along is just that this is no different from any $5 Chinese fountain pen that you can buy online right now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, and we kind of, I think, rightly put that, in a way, $37 is more offensive to people that spend hundreds of dollars on pens because I own pens that are $25 to $30, which are incredible quality, the best pens I own.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, I mean, the Pilot Metropolitan would annihilate this Visionaire on a side-to-side comparison. And it's less than half the price.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm just going to wait and see.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, I expect to have mine within a couple of weeks. Cool.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, and it's going to be fine. It's just, you know, it's, I don't think, I try to give Morgan the benefit of the doubt, but he doesn't help himself.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Sure. I can kind of see the headlines now, like pen addict Myke Hurley embraces the Visionaire as the best pen he's ever owned.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'd be okay with that. I would be okay with you buying a $5 Chinese fountain pen and saying it's the best pen I ever own.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, look at that. See, you can't, okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's fair. That's a fair statement.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes. Yes, yes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So I think we've about beaten this dead horse.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Alan, what is your take on this?

'''Anna Reinhardt:''' Well, I haven't been following the situation as closely as you guys have because I did not actually commit to purchasing one, so I haven't really followed it. I've kind of been listening to what you guys have said over the last few weeks about it. And I do know just from having worked a bit with Chinese manufacturers that their policies about copyright and trademark on designs is not as stringent as it is here in the United States. So it is possible that this Morgan designed this pen and then they just kept making them, you know, after his quantity. And so now they're selling them for a fraction of what they were before. I don't, honestly, I don't know. But I do feel like just from the sounds of things, it sounds, it doesn't sound completely legitimate to me. You know, there's a little, there's a lot of waffling. And I know that there's lots and lots and lots of vendors in Asia that you can buy pens from and buy other things. And especially if you're buying in large quantity, you can say, hey, I like this pen, but I'd like you to make it in a different material or a different color or with a different finish. And if you order enough, they'll make a run of them for you in whatever, you know, treatment you want. I mean, that's, we've, I've done a lot of work in Asia doing that. I want this thing, but I want it this, you know, 20% bigger. And, and they, you know, retool things and make it for you the way that you want it. So, I mean, it could go either way, but I feel like chances are, I don't know. I lean towards where you guys are at and that he probably started with something that was already there and maybe modified it to meet his criteria and then sort of sold it as an original concept.

'''Anna Reinhardt:''' I'm sorry. I have a sneezy cat. Is that sneezing?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wow. That's all right.

'''Anna Reinhardt:''' Everybody is sick.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I know. Myke sneezing. I've already gone mute twice just so I could, you know, cough on. So we're all sick. It's the, it's the sick podcast.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, there must have been some, some contaminated ink somewhere. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But what, one, a couple of things on what Anna said and I think she's, she's totally right and on point. And I've also, one of the things I've always said, there's absolutely nothing wrong with getting your pen manufactured in China or, you know, buying any, you know, Chinese merchandise. It's that I don't think this is what Kickstarter should be used for, for one. And then, you know, it just kind of defeats the purpose of that whole creative thing. I mean, I guess, you know, I don't know. I just feel like there's not enough originality in this pen to say that this was an original design by, by someone. And when you might, he might've put his stamp on it, you know, his, like you said, you know, here's, here's kind of some of the specs I want. But, you know, all of that's pretty much pre-made stuff.

'''Anna Reinhardt:''' Yeah. And when you put it up against some of the other pens that have been on Kickstarter that were more original designs like Karis Customs, where they're hand tooling them, they're making a point of making them in the United States, and they're making them one at a time. You know, I mean, it's, you feel like you're really supporting a small business, trying to get their feet under them, and get a business, like a business model going, where I feel like this guy is sort of a one and done. He's going to do this. He's going to make his bankroll or whatever. And I don't know that we'll ever hear from him again. You know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. We might, I don't know, he can, he might can design another pen and just kind of go the same route. I mean, it's just the same as, you know, some of the, some of the American retail, online retailers that stock, you know, all the basic Chinese fountain pens like Jin Hao and Hero and some of these that would just stock them, but except for they're selling them for what would be a normal retail price, you know, like in the $5 or $10 range. But Morgan's like really jacked up this price. And I just don't think it's fair or fair is not the right word, but I just don't think people who are purchasing it understand what they're purchasing it, purchasing. And that, that, that has kind of never gotten through to a lot of the backers on the Visionaire. And, you know, there's nothing we can really do about that. But I, I just think, you know, things like Morgan, I think it's very telling, Myke, when Morgan's, okay, so the Visionaire is $37, right? And when he says things like he's spending all this money, like on packaging, like he said, he spent $5 alone on the packaging. That's extremely telling to me. Which he didn't plan for up front, the packaging. It came after the fact. And he's saying he spent $5 on each of these packages. That's 15% of the total, or about 15%, I guess, of the total cost of the pin that he didn't plan for up front. So what is he paying for these pins? That's what it's telling to me, which makes me think it's exactly what we, what I think it is. Does that make sense?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I get it. Okay. I agree.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So that's, that's, these are the things that are coming out that are, you know, I'm, I'm trying to, trying to justify in my head. And in, in a lot of it, I'm, it, it doesn't add up to what it should be. Anyway, I said, we're going to stop talking about this. It's just hard because we keep getting asked about it too. So, but yeah, I, but I also, I do see your point, Myke, where there is a fair probability, or there is at least some chance that it could be perfectly legit. But I, I mean, legit, it's not, and Morgan's not doing anything illegal or bad. You know, I just think, you know, it's, I don't know. It's just not right through Kickstarter to, to do this type of thing. So anyway.

'''Myke Hurley:''' How's not co going?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's going good. Um, I w I was behind on the sewing machines this weekend again. Um, Jeff keeps throwing me behind there. Um, you know, hopefully I'm doing a good job. I think I am. So it's fun. Um, we finally got all the money transferred as of like Friday. So we were, we were able to order, start ordering. I ordered a bunch of products, a bunch of stuff, a bunch of materials this weekend. Um, actually in the, in the, um, like our famous, uh, UPS driver ringing the doorbell during the, uh, during the podcast several times back in the day, it's very possible that an 18 wheeler could be rolling up with, um, packaging supplies.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No way.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Any minute. Um, while we're, how much have you ordered? A lot. We got a lot of cases to ship. So, you know, humble brag. Yeah. Well, there was 2000 and something backers. There's nothing, nothing humble bragging about it. It's right there in black and white. So I'm sending out at least that many orders. I can tell you that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, but yeah, I, I ordered so much packing supplies. It has to come on a, uh, on a large semi truck. Wow. It's too much for like UPS and stuff to handle. So, yeah. So that actually might be rolling up. I heard my phone ring out, uh, out in the kitchen. So I'm wondering if that's the truck driver saying he's close. So we'll, we'll see if he, uh, he rolls in during, during this episode.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's like, I imagine you've, you've always dreamed of something related to your pen hobby arriving on a truck.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I never, I never thought of it that way. Um, I didn't think it was going to be, uh, envelopes, but yeah, still it's, it's cool. So I'm going to be the, uh, the shipping department, uh, here at my house is going to be kicking into high gear in about, I don't know, maybe a week or so. So, and we have most of the early bird stuff done already. So I don't want people to think that it's getting ready to ship and they should expect it any day now, but hopefully, you know, by around another week, week and a half, I can start getting some packages in the mail to the post office and some of the early bird people will start seeing their stuff in early December. I hope. So that's the plan right now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yay. Yay. That's awesome.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. We're excited. We're excited. So, uh, we're just cranking away. We've got lots more cases to go, but, um, everything's going pretty good so far. No change in shipping dates or anything like that. So everything's looking just fine. So go planning.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We'll see if we'll see if we pull through, but yeah, it's going good, going good. All right. One last, one last thing that just popped up on my screen before we, we got on this call and before we get into the gift guide episode, which I'm actually really excited about doing. And I want to hear about some of these, these pens and, and papers and things that we're all, uh, that we all like and want to recommend to other people. But, um, our friend and listener and five by five Jackal, Mikey reach, um, sent me a tweet right before I got online that one of my, um, old, I guess one of my old pen reviews for a pilot G two, a mini pilot G two and turquoise landed on Reddit in the penmanship porn. Uh, subreddit for an, under the title of that sexy architect penmanship.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. That's, that's you all over buddy.