Editing The Pen Addict 491/transcript (section)

== Stationery Discovery ==


'''Annabelle Hiller:''' stationary stuff, where's the symphony right now? Uh, right now it's on display at Applebaum. Gotcha. Yeah. I don't know. Cause otherwise it would be in my room and that would be a waste. I think

'''Brad:''' maybe it's kind of nice. Right. So I have this long running statement that I say repeatedly that pens are made to be used. This is not, this is an exception to that rule. This is an art piece. Other people should share in the joy of this pen as much as any individual user. I believe it's just, it's stunning and it deserves to be seen and discussed. Um, I kind of agree. I kind of disagree as

'''Annabelle Hiller:''' well. So the thing, as soon as I can figure out how to make a second one, I will make a second one. And that one I'm going to use to death. It's perfect. I hate that I can't use it, but I don't, but right now it's the only, it's, it's also kind of a prototype. Um, really? Cause how often can you actually make a pen that costs that much material? Um, and I'm also going to make more for people. Like I will, I decided that I'll make another five pieces, um, because it's the fifth symphony. Um, perfect. This one being number zero, cause it's mine. Um, but as soon as, uh, as soon as I can figure out how to take care of all the parts, um, I'll make more and then I'll, I'll use that one. I don't want it at Applebaum. Uh, I, I mean, I want one at Applebaum maybe for people to look at and to see my work, but I want to use it. I want to use it so much. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.

'''Brad:''' That's awesome. So how did, how did stationary become a thing in your life to begin with? Like, so, you know, you've had this whole music background and you're in goldsmithing, but you've always had kind of a background of love for stationary. So how did that start?

'''Annabelle Hiller:''' Yeah. So, um, again, I'm from Austria. Austria is super old school with a lot of things. Um, and that includes in primary school or elementary school, um, you, uh, we have to use fountain pens to write or had to, I don't know what happens now. I guess nowadays kids just learn coding or whatever. Um, which to be fair is really cool. Kind of jealous. Um, I'm kind of like technically inept, but back in my day in the nineties, um, in, in primary school, we had to learn to write writing and particularly accursive with fountain pens. So my first fountain pen was a Pelican Pelicano P something, something. I don't remember. It's blue. It's very ugly, but it's great.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. As great as Pelican is the Pelicanos. Well, yeah, that's a thing.

'''Annabelle Hiller:''' Yeah. They're not cute. They're not cute. Um, so I've always used it. And I remember in high school, people would then usually switch to ballpoints. I remember not particularly liking them because you had to apply so much pressure and you'd kind of press through the paper and I didn't love that. So I kind of, I tried it a few times and every time I found myself going back to fountain pens because just because they felt better to me. Yeah. When I was 18, I, I asked for a, like a nice fountain pen for my birthday, like a, whatever that means. Right. Right. Right. And I ended up getting a vintage Montblanc 144. However, the people at the shop didn't want me to use a gold nib because I'm left-handed. So I ended up getting a glass nib

'''Brad:''' in the Montblanc. Can you imagine that happening right now?

'''Annabelle Hiller:''' Uh, yeah. The irony is, I don't know, it's tangible. It's, it's really funny considering how many pens I've had, I've like saved in the last few years. Um, wow. But yeah, so when I got that, when I did research as to which pen I would like for my birthday, I, I, that's when I fell into my

'''Brad:''' rabbit hole. Oh boy, that was 10 years ago. Wow. What happened? Yeah. I mean, pens happened, like it happened to me too. It's like, wow, this is actually a thing and it matters to me. And I want to share that with other people. And it's so cool. So as you went down kind of this fountain pen journey and were you just kind of using them all day? It was like, it was your main, main writing instrument. Did you enjoy fountain pens? And that was just kind of, you know, that's what you used and you use them, you know, through school and through life and things like that.

'''Annabelle Hiller:''' Yeah, for sure. But there was also something, I don't know. It's actually kind of funny looking back. Um, I remember having to do homework when I was like maybe seven, your homework would be write 10 sentences about something. And I remember just being so distracted by my pen that I, it took me ages to do the homework because I just kept looking at how, how the ink came out of the pen. I'm pretty sure I've destroyed a few nips as well because I wanted more ink to come out of the pen. Um, yeah, I, I don't know, you know, there's just something magical about pens and how the, how the ink just comes onto the paper. And then if you, for the first time get a vintage pen and you just wonder about who has used it, what might've been written with this thing? Like who knows? Um, and then at some point I wanted to figure out how pens write, what makes them write, what doesn't make them write. Um, so I would buy, uh, like broken old fountain pens at antiquity stores and try to kind of restore them, figure out why they work and why they don't work and on and on it went.

'''Brad:''' And, and now you actually take on work as repairing pens, doing nib work. You work with Apple Boom. Is it, is it fair to say you work for Apple Boom or work with Apple Boom?

'''Annabelle Hiller:''' Um, I think, hmm, good question. It's kind of, it's, it's maybe like a mix between the two. I am, I'm not a freelancer who is hired in. I do have like a regular paycheck, but when it comes to, I have a lot of, um, I don't know, yes, the, the relationship between me and yours, yours is my boss at Apple Boom. Um, it's very, how, how, I can't think of the word, like we'd consider each other more colleagues and partners than anything else. Right. So he will always take my opinion into consideration when it comes to pen shows. Um, I usually don't work as an Apple Boom nib specialist, but I'm my own person.

'''Brad:''' Right. That kind of stuff. So you do, you work with them, work for them, but you also have personal clients, personal work. And, you know, we have something very specific I want to talk about later that you're, that you're doing and that you're building. Um, but yeah, it's like, but it's a good, I mean, it's a good, like working relationship. And if people go to Yoast or, or see Apple Boom, they, they know that a lot of times that, you know, if they need some repairs that you will be working on them, especially, um, especially in the Netherlands and in, in Europe and maybe eventually in the U S I don't know.

'''Annabelle Hiller:''' I mean, so yeah, so I actually don't take on private nip work on at all anymore because I, because I suck at admin. I suck at replying to emails. Like, is it a bad word? It's suck about, I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. Sorry.

'''Brad:''' No, no, it's no, I'm feeling your pain in that. Like the, the admin, the admin work for creative people is like the worst bugaboo, right? It's, it's the worst. It's like, can't I just do the thing and then magic happens from there? Like, yeah, exactly. Like I don't, how often do I have to

'''Annabelle Hiller:''' tell people to just send the pen to Apple Boom and order the product on the Apple Boom website and we'll ship it back. And then my colleagues do the shipping. I just, who's got time to do admin, except unless that's your main thing, right? Like I appreciate Yoast so much. He replies to all the emails. He does, he does all the customer care stuff. Um, very grateful that he does that because I could not, it's stress. It also stresses me out so much to, it's like, where's my pen? Why is it not done yet? I was like, because he gave it to me two days ago. Sorry.

'''Brad:''' No, no, no, no. So do you have a, um, like a, a workspace set up at home? Is that where you do most of the work? Do you have a workspace set up at, at work? Yeah. Uh, Annabelle is showing me the setup right now. Like I, I, that was a, it was an easy question for me to ask because I can visually see it of our call right now. Um, so yeah, you take on most of the work at home.

'''Annabelle Hiller:''' Yeah. Yeah. So I'm at, I'm at Applebaum once a week. And so Mondays, usually Mondays I do. So we have a service called, um, what do we call it? Tuning smooth, maybe. So a lot of the times when you order a pen at Applebaum, there's a little checkbox. And if you check it, then the pen will end up on my table before we ship it out to you. And that's basically just me making sure that the pen actually writes. Um, sometimes people say, Oh, I like it super wet and super smooth, but it's also a needle point. Um, so I'll try to, to make that happen for the person. And so Mondays out just for that, just the kind of quality control stuff before the pen goes out and then any nib grinds and actual repair, um, I do at home and I just take the bags of pens at home every week and do that.

'''Brad:''' Gotcha. What, I just had a question that I am very interested in and hopefully I think other people will be interested in. What is your, um, quality control ink of choice? What are you using to test

'''Annabelle Hiller:''' the pens? To the detriment of many, many, many people, I use the same ink always and it's

'''Brad:''' diamond majestic blue. All right. All right. I just had, I had, I had to get that on the record. Uh, I it's, it's funny how much I want to know people who do this for a living and are trying to gain consistent results. They will commit to, you know, especially people doing nib work and maintenance work. They commit to like a singular ink for that works. Cause so now, you know what to expect you personally, what to expect. Oh, I've delivered this correctly and this is the ink I use. So I always want to ask that question. Yeah, absolutely. You have to limit your variables,