Editing The Pen Addict 387/transcript (section)

== Experienced User Stationery ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So just a tad, our next one is to build a stationary kit for an experienced user. I think that part's key for under $100.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, the idea was you're not going to generally speaking, it's going, it's more helpful to have like a baseline. If you're going to spend this much money on someone, you know, they're going to have some type of experience with stationary, right? This isn't, this isn't, Hey, let's surprise somebody with a hundred dollars worth of pen stuff that you don't know whether they're going to like or not. Like I, that's just kind of the basis I had of it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So I'm first up this time. So I was thinking along this lines, right? Like as I know people to be, if you're experienced, it means you, A, may have not owned a fountain pen yet, or B, you may have just only dabbled in cartridge fountain pens, right? Like you just haven't gone into ink yet. Like I know that that's a, it's an extra ramp up, right? To go down the method of you buying a bottle of ink and filling with a converter or with a piston filler or whatever. So I have started with the main item in my kit here is the TWSBI Eco. Just a fantastic pen. You know, like we've, we've, the love affair of TWSBI has been on and off over years, but I think that the Eco is a great pen. And I, I think that it is for a $30 product, an absolutely fantastic product. And it brings you into the vacuum filler world, right? Like you get like a cool, sorry, the piston filler world, right? Like you're in with a, you know, you've got something cool going on. It gets made a little bit different and they're clear, right? So you get the demonstrator thing. You can see the ink's washing around, which is a nice way to go. If you're going to go into starting using bottles of ink. Um, and then from there I decided to go with my favorite ink that you can use in professional scenarios, which is in my opinion, which is the robot Ulster Fire and Ice because it's blue, but you get a little bit of extra out of it. You know, you get a little bit of color, especially if you go for something with a broader nib with the TWSBI, then you're going to end up with something a little bit, a little bit fun there. Right. So that was kind of where I was going with that one. Um, I then thought, okay, you're going to need some paper in this kit. And I think again, if you're experienced, but maybe wanting to branch out a little bit more, if you've yet to try Tomoe River Paper, you need to. And my favorite Tomoe River Paper product is the Nanami Crossfield A5 Journal. Um, you can get it in a bunch of different, I think you can get it in like dot, you can get it in plain lined. Um, I really, really love this book. It is very well made. It's super, um, it is super like low key, which I like. It's not screaming. It's not doing anything wild. It's just a nice cover. It's a simple cover. Very plain. And it's a thick book, right? Like you get a lot of paper in this book. Uh, I don't remember the exact page count. So I'm looking at 480 pages, 240 leaves. Sorry. So, which I love. And in A5, I just think it is an absolutely fantastic book that I've, I've used multiple of these now and I love it. And then I thought I had a bit of money left over, uh, quite a little bit of money left over actually. Um, and so I thought to go for something a little bit weird, uh, which is my favorite product that I've encountered in the last year for just pure weirdness, which is the Lamy balloon rollerball pen. Just a super strange. I'm so happy to see this. Cute little pen. And of course you can't buy it in the U S so with the extra money you have left over because my kit comes to $86 total out of my hundred, you can pay for the more expensive shipping to get it to come over to you from Europe. There you go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Love it. Yeah. I think that's awesome. And I love the addition of the balloon in there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I was, I was. I was actually pretty pleased when I thought, Oh, I know what to go in there. Like, cause it's like a really weird little pen that I love. All right, Anna, what you got for us?

'''Anna Reiner:''' I like the ad of having like the roller, some sort of roller ball or ballpoint in everybody's collection. Um, I was, I was at my chiropractor a couple of weeks ago and the woman who works at front desk handed me up two pens and one was blue and one was pink. And the blue one said, she loves me. And the pink one said, he loves me. And she said, once for you and once for Bob, this is so you guys will always remember. And it was like, it was just a, they were just little crappy clicker ballpoint pens, but they just totally cracked me up. And it's like, and I think on the other side, it says just something about always remember to forgive each other or something like that. And I don't know where she got them or why she had them, but I've been carrying these stupid pens. Like the one she gave me in my bag for like when I have to sign a receipt or somebody asked to borrow a pen and they look at it and they're like, what is up with this pen? And I have to tell this story because they, most people know that I always have like nice pens. And so now I don't like people, you know, always freak out when I hand them a nice pen because they're like, I don't know how to write with a fountain pen. So now I have this cheap ballpoint with a stupid story attached to it. Like, yeah, my chiropractor gave it to me. That's the best though. Okay. Yeah. It's hysterical. It actually writes pretty well too. Super weird. Amazingly.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like that's just like a weird story.

'''Anna Reiner:''' It's so weird. But now, now you guys have heard the story and I'm sure she'll be delighted to know that I told the story.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, now you have to bring those pens with you because I need to see them the next time I see you.

'''Anna Reiner:''' Absolutely. I will make sure, unless of course at some point they get lost because I have carried them everywhere. I will. I will. Okay. So for my kit for a hundred dollars, I kind of took the same tact that Myke did in regards of thinking about this from the standpoint of someone who might be getting more into ink. Maybe they've gotten a pen or two or they've been into pens, but maybe haven't sort of fully embraced. So, you know, so that maybe finding them things that are more, more unique, interesting things that maybe they haven't touched yet. Um, so, um, I picked the Twisby, um, six color ink set that has just come out. Um, so that's the six bottles for $36. Um, which I think is a great, like if you haven't gotten into ink, that would be a great way to get into it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They're great looking bottles too. Like they're super fun. Just cute little set. Yeah. Yeah. And a storage box for all of them. Yeah. It's perfect.

'''Anna Reiner:''' Yeah. Super giftable. And if you're going to have that many inks, you're going to need something to document your inks. So let's plug the perm. I think they're going to need a color ring. Yeah. Don't you? Oh, definitely. So that's a whopping $10.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's a perfect setup.

'''Anna Reiner:''' Perfect setup. I think that's a stocking stuffer for everybody. So if that's not on your list, add one of those today. Um, and then, um, I thought that one of the most underrated fountain pens is the Caran Dosh 849 fountain pen. It's one of the ones that I think people have kind of forgotten about. It came out about a year or so ago, but it's one of the ones that I tend to really like. I tend to go to over and over again. And I thought if somebody's into pens, but maybe hasn't, it's one that they might not have picked up, but it's, you know, it's got the, um, the slip cap. So it's like a click cap. So it's a great fiddly pen. They come in really great colors and they come in at about $52. Um, that's the price that I found on pen chalet for them. And they, you can get them in really bright neons or really subtle, like black or navy blue, you know? So if somebody is more reserved to taste, uh, you could get them in a, in a dark, plain color, or you can get the like bright neon yellow or the bright neon pink. Um, and then I threw in the, uh, converter, uh, for that, which put it slightly over the hundred dollar mark. Um, you could probably find a cheaper converter, but the, the Caran d'Ache one was $8. You could probably find one a little cheaper and hit it right at the hundred dollar mark.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah. We're going to talk about that pricing in a minute because my, my, uh, my grouping here for this gift went slightly over and I have a little highlight on my name, uh, in, in the show notes and an exclamation point by the dollar amount that I spent. Um, so we're, we're going to talk about that in a minute, but I, I kind of went like with honest thought and Myke's thought where, you know, you kind of know what you're doing with the pens, but let's have a little fun experimentation kit to, you know, explore some other things out there. So like the core of my set is the, the recently released Ackermon gourmet pens pink, um, which you can get at Venice pens. Our good friend Aziza has this ink now with, uh, Ackermon and it's this really neat pink color. And I think it looks awesome. And it comes in the cool Ackermon bottle, which is like a very giftable ink bottle. So that's super nice.

'''Anna Reiner:''' And I want to show me to the pink color. She beat me to the pink ink.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. Right. So I don't, I don't have any, I don't have to fight anyone for orange. I don't think I'll have to think about that. Maybe someone out there, but yeah, she beat you to the pink. Um, and it's a good looking color. It looks great. I don't have it yet, but like I want it. So I will pick that up at some point and I want to see that ink. So like all three of us have picked a TWSBI product. I went with the diamond 580 and silver. So it's a demonstrator barrel with silver trim and will look really, really good with the pink ink sloshing around in there. And I went with a broad nib because I want to throw it around on some Tomoe river paper. So I picked up the A5 loose sheets, which you can get a jet pins just for play. Like this is a very playful set. Load up your broad nib pen with pink ink and throw it around on Tomoe river paper. And I just felt like that's a good fun combination for someone who's, you know, into these types of things and into stationary. And this would get them a little bit more the experimental route. So my total came up to 102. And according to Ana, that deserved a note in the document and an exclamation point next to the $102 for going over the budget. Can you tell me again how much yours was, Ana?

'''Anna Reiner:''' 106.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. Just checking. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm the only one that stayed under budget. So I came in at a total of grand total of $86 versus your 106 on a 102, Brad. So I think I'm winning right now. I think that's what that means.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't know. But I think we're close enough, right? Close enough for arguments. I'm the only one of all of us that stayed under budget so far.

'''Anna Reiner:''' Absolutely.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, I went under the first time. So I'm a one for two. Okay. Yeah, true. True.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think I got the most money saved up. That $14 that I saved this time. Yeah. We'll need it for some of these other things.

'''Anna Reiner:''' You're making people pay for shipping. People are having to pay for multiple shipping.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They can get it in there, you know? I don't know. Maybe there's someone on eBay selling those Lamy balloons. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe that's a business we should get into. All right. Today's episode is brought to you in part by Squarespace. You can make your next move with Squarespace to let you easily create a website for your next idea or project. You can get and register a domain name super easily. You can customize award-winning templates to make your work shine and so much more. Squarespace is the all-in-one platform that will let you build any type of website that you want. If you want to make a site for your blog, maybe you want to create a portfolio, maybe you have a band or a business that you want to promote. Maybe you want to make an online store to sell your goods for the holiday season. Or maybe you have an event coming up. Maybe a wedding, a big party or something like that. And you want to be able to direct your guests to a website. Squarespace is really great for that stuff too. That's what I use for my wedding. We use Squarespace. They have like templates, pre-built templates that you can pick from and customize. And it makes it really, really easy. There is nothing to install or patch or upgrade. They've got you covered and back it all up with award-winning 24-7 customer support. So if you need any help, Squarespace has got your back. Their plans start at just $12 a month. But you can sign up for a free trial today with no credit card required by going to squarespace.com. You can build your website, make it look exactly the way that you want. And when you're ready to launch it to the world, sign up for one of their plans. And use the offer code PENADDICT to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain and show you support for this very show. That is squarespace.com slash PENADDICT and the code PENADDICT for 10% off your first purchase. Our thanks to Squarespace for the continued support of this show and RelayFM, Squarespace. Make your next move, make your next website.