Editing The Pen Addict 264/transcript (section)

== Kaweco Sport ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah. As soon as I opened this page, I was like, wow. Like Tony says in the chat room, it looks like a giant Kaweco Sport, and it kind of does, but it's not a short pen. That's what I like about it. No, no, no, I like it. So, it looks like a combination of the Kaweco Sport plus the Pilot Kakuno, which is what I really thought it looked like with the smooth barrel and then the faceted top. And then, like, the Keras Custom ink in the section area with, like, the two-tone. So, it's like a real mashup of a bunch of pens that I like. And I don't understand the pricing either, which is good. Like, they're making these pens. They've done it several times before. They know how much it's going to cost them. And for 30 pounds, it's just a no-brainer. And that's going to be 40% off retail, which the retail price will make more sense, right? Up in the, you know, probably, what, 50-pound range? Something like that. So, that would be more like, oh, okay, this looks correct. The Kickstarter pricing is just crazy, crazy good. And what's weird is I think I might actually go for the navy and brass model because it's so different than anything.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I'm so, I'm really, really conflicted because they have a bunch of different options and you kind of choose towards the end. I guess it's like a backer kit thing where you can choose different colors of the aluminium finishes, different section colors, different finials, and different nibs. I'm going to have to spend a lot of time with my choices here. I'm very drawn to the navy, but I'm also very drawn to the idea of black with brass section. Right. And a black steel nib, like I think that would look really good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, yeah, I like this a lot. I like this a lot, a lot. With these type of Kickstarters where there's lots of materials on lots of barrels, in the past, I've almost always gone for titanium, but I'm kind of tired of that. And the price is much, much greater with titanium for, you know, reasons because the metal is more expensive and the nibs are more expensive. So, I've gone into like the standard aluminium route.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And this one allows you to have options with the aluminium barrels, you know, having the brass finials and grips. And it's just, I'm really happy with how this looks. And, you know, I've always been a supporter of what Nemisu has done and they always deliver a great product. They certainly do. I'm looking forward to this one. So, I'm excited about it. And they're blown out their goal. They've already, you know, they had essentially a $20,000 goal. They're at $67,000 and there's 26 days to go. So, it'll be a six-figure project by the time it's done, I'm sure. So, congratulations to them. And I look forward to getting the pen. And you're going to have to go make a visit to them one day. Yeah, they're in Edinburgh.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, it's not a bad idea. I will say, we get so many questions from people like, I need a good pen for graduation. This is actually a really good option, like their products in general. Because they make really good looking stuff out of nice materials for not crazy amounts of money. Like, once they go into production, they are more expensive. Right? Like, the Orion aluminium is £40. Right? Do they have rollerball options? Fountain pens? They, I don't think they do any on their store anymore. It looks like it's just fountain pens. Because they've done rollerball pens in the past. That's what I thought. Yeah, but it looks like they just sell fountain pens directly. But yeah, I would recommend these. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. Because it's worth it. Talking about blowing out gold, I just want to super quick, just give a bit of follow-up on the Pano book. Yeah. Just because they're at like $106,000 right now. Which is incredible. But I provided some ink testing for them. Like, some bleed-through testing. So, in case, because I've had a lot of people ask me this question. So, I just wanted to include it in the show notes. You can kind of get an idea. I used a bunch of different pens and I scanned the page, front and back. Just to kind of give an idea about what the bleed-through looks like. Again, like, as I say, it does bleed through with some of my thicker stuff. But I think it does an honorable job, honestly.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah, congratulations on those guys. That's crazy. That just goes to show that their customers, coming from that designer more aspect, you know, of their customer base, like, really likes that product. I think a lot of their customers aren't Panatic listeners, obviously. No, no. You know, they're just studio neat fans and they like that style. Yep. You know, that's just the following they've built. That's what it's come from. That's what impresses me the most. To be able to turn that, get that kind of turnout for this project is awesome. I'm real happy for those guys. Yeah, me too. I'm genuinely thrilled. Genuinely, genuinely thrilled for them. Yeah. So maybe you should buy them a Game of Thrones pen as a reward for doing such a great job. So I read your Game of Thrones pen review, right? Are you still doing that thing where you're a hero for not watching Game of Thrones? It's not about being a hero.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But yeah, I still haven't watched it. I still haven't watched it. And it was really funny to me. Like, I understood about 50% of the review. There are words in here that I can't even pronounce because they're these character names, I assume. Or house names from Game of Thrones. This is becoming a big thing in my household right now. Oh, does Idina watch? She is obsessed with Game of Thrones. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' She's a good person, unlike you.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So she started watching it before we met. So she'd already kind of got up to speed. And a friend of ours was in the same boat as me. Had never seen it. And then in the last two weeks has watched all of it and loves it. Right? So this is becoming more of a thing in my house where she's like, just watch the show. And I, you know, I stand by my reason. I don't want to spend all this time investing into a show where I know so many major plot points. And she's like, well, our friend. So our friend knew them as well. And she said she really loved it. But like, I'm just not going to do it. I have not got the time in my life to invest into watching Game of Thrones alongside all of the stuff that I genuinely do want to watch. Like, I'm just not interested in it. All right? So get off my back. Anyway. So the Game of Thrones Montegrappa pen. The reason I wanted to bring it up is I think that, as you mentioned in the review, these are good looking pens, which can be a really difficult thing to do when there's kind of branded content in the way.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Especially for Montegrappa, right? I mean, they're known for like way over the top. Just like too much. Yeah. Yeah. Like too much going on. This makes my eyes hurt level type of nonsense with a lot of their branded pens. And in this one, I think they delivered. I think they nailed it. You know, they went up to the edge, right? I mean, but they didn't like fall off the cliff and do some Stallone nonsense like they've done in the past. Like they made, you know, different pens for the different families in Game of Thrones and incorporated, you know, in the series, you know, each house has like its own banners and its own colors. So it's kind of a perfect setup for a pen. You can take these colors and you can take these designs and you can take these quotes and integrate it into a single pen for a single family in the show and match all the colors and the designs, like the clips, like I'd reviewed the Targaryen pen and, you know, the, the head of the house is, is the mother of dragons and it has this dragon clip on there. And it's just ridiculously cool. The only kicker is they're still very expensive. Like, I mean, it's $350. They're steel nibs, which is fine. I don't have a problem with, I just have a problem with $350 in general for a pen that's really good, but it's not going to crack like my top 10 or 20 pens, but I can see these. I think they already are. I think they've been very successful because they delivered a really good representation of the show. And like we've said before, Montegrappa is not known for toning it down in their pens. And if you think, if you're not familiar with their products and you see these and you're like, oh my God, these are crazy. This is nothing. Can you give an example? Can you think of like an example of something that's, that's way out there? They've done some pirate stuff recently. That was along the line of the Stallone stuff. I didn't go back and look, but you can just look at like every year there's one or two branded options that just come out and you're like, wow, that, that is a pen, isn't it? So.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Okay. I found one. Oh my word. Okay. Yeah. Like I'm going to put this in the notes just so people can see it. I've also put it in the chat room for our live listeners. This is bonkers town. I don't know why anyone would want to use this. I can't imagine it being comfortable to hold in any way. Yeah. Okay. Okay. You want to grab it. You do, you do you want to grab it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. You do you. That's why I'm impressed with what they did here because they could have gone overboard and they didn't. Yeah. They took it to the edge. They didn't get completely stupid with these and they came out really good. Like the Stark design is really good. Um, the Baratheon, which will be the lowest seller is the best looking one of them all. Um, they're just fantastic looking and they did a really great job with the design of these pens. I really love them. I don't have any use for them on my desk. You know, that's kind of my, you know, purchasing. That's my inflection point. Like I'm not going to waste money for a pen. I'm not going to use. It doesn't mean I don't like the pen, right? This was a very enjoyable pen. Um, it's just very expensive for me to not use it. So I'm not going to own one, you know, sending this one back. This was on loan from my friends at Goldspot. And then, you know, I, I, I just, I really liked the pen. Um, it's, it's, I'm surprised I liked it as much as I did.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Are you allowed to tell the story of what happened to these pens?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. It's public. It's public now. So, and I don't think I included that in my review, but when I originally, but we talked about it when I, you know, the, out of the different houses, you know, they asked me which one I wanted to review. I said, I want to review the Stark pen, um, because number one, that's my favorite family in the house. I mean, in the show. And I think it's a really good looking pen. It's white and silver has the wolf clip. And, um, I just think it's really great looking. And they're like, yeah, that one's going to be a few months behind the other ones because all of the Stark fountain pens got stolen from the Montegrappa warehouse. So no one got Stark fountain pens for like two months after they got all the other ones. Like we're talking like real mission impossible style kind of stealing, right? And it was just the fountain pens. It wasn't the roller balls or ballpoints, which are available in these. And, um, they're like, yeah, we'll get you the Stark, but, um, it's going to be a couple months. I was like, okay, we'll just go with the Targaryen. I'll go with that. So I thought that was kind of funny.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I can't even imagine why you would do that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like what were they expecting to get? Is that going to be a big black market for these? How would you fence those? Because that's it. Like that's the only one of the thing and they stole all the things. So how do you get rid of those?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I love that they got the whole of them as well. Like that's what I love about it. I think the most they got all of them. It's just fantastic.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, it's great. It's great.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, yeah, I mean, it's great depending on hoping that, that, that Montegrappa had all the insurance that they needed, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like, you know, it was a funny story when they told me that I just died laughing. Then I confirmed it with, uh, with Carrie at Kenro and he's like, yeah, that really happened. I was like, oh my God, that's, I mean, it's, it's sad, but it's hilarious at the same time. Just the story of it, but hopefully it all worked out in the end. I don't know whatever happened if they ever caught them, but I think they just had to, you know, to go back in, manufacture, manufacture them all again. So they were a couple months behind. Field notes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The field notes are in. I got mine.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Um, I was surprised that the, the patch is in every pack.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Same here. I didn't realize that, um, until, uh, I'd saw a friend of the show, Dave Ray's Instagram feed and he's like, oh, I got these and whoa, there's a patch in every pack. So does that mean there's no subscriber extra? Do you think so? Is there patches in the retail? Which I don't care because that's a lot. I mean, that's a patch in every pack is kind of a lot.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The reason, yeah, the reason I mentioned it is because if they have done that, which is what I think they have, that's, that must be a significant added cost for them. It's, it's an interesting thing. How many units are there?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Here we go. 80, 80,000 unit thing, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Unit time. We love our unit time. Can't believe I haven't looked at this already. I hadn't looked at it either. 30,000 packs.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So 90,000 books, 30,000 patches.