Editing The Pen Addict 550/transcript (section)

== Introduction of the Monarch nib by Ian Schoen ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Let's start off with the Monarch nib. So, now that Ian Schoen has released the first batch into the, like, the January buyer's hands, at the Philadelphia Pen Show, if you were on the first round of orders for the Monarch nib and you were able to be at the Philadelphia Pen Show, you could do a pickup there. And Kimberly from the Pen Attic blog, who writes at the Pen Attic, was there and had ordered one. So, she did a review up on the blog. And it's fantastic. Like, I love everything about this. I knew I was going to like this from the jump. Like, this is the kind of interesting creation and experimentation that we like to see as consumers of interesting stationery. Ian's trying to... Solving a problem is not the right word, but he's trying to create something that's really technically difficult, right? He doesn't want to just make, like, your simple basic nib. He wants to put his engineering brain stamp on it. And the Monarch nib is what he's come up with. And it looks like he's executed extremely well, right? Like, Kimberly's review is pretty much glowing, which I would expect. So, if you're not familiar with the Monarch nib, we'll have a link in the show notes to go read Kimberly's review, where she shows off her handwriting with the nib and the different line types she can create. It's a wider nib. You know, a line width. You know, it's like a standard medium, almost a broad type of line width on the page. And which is why I've held off on the first round, because there will eventually, talking with Ian, there will eventually be some finer nib options, which I'll wait for. But I always love to see these types of things support this kind of creativity, even though it's, like, it's really, really expensive. You know, like, it's $400 for the nib and a pen barrel, which, like, I think it's completely fair, like, knowing what goes into this. But that doesn't mean it's also not very expensive in the same hand. And I want to see, you know, again, like, we talk about this with a lot of different products, most recently the Curidas. I want to see round two, because I love what I see from round one. And, like, I am excited about the future of a product like this and seeing, hopefully, someone able to continue to make what is really, like, a very technically challenging product, a very expensive product. And see how it goes for shown design in the big picture. So what were your thoughts reading through this review yourself? Like, did you, is this something you're even interested in?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm interested in the result. Because it looks like an ink distribution that I would enjoy. Like, it looks chunky and round. Like, I really like the lines that Kimberley is able to produce on these pages. Like, this interests me. This definitely interests me. I would love to, this would just be something that before I buy, I would love to try. Exactly. Just to make sure that it works with my handwriting. Because, again, it's like, and I don't know, but if Kimberley's left-handed or right-handed. But you just, I'm just never sure. Okay, so I'm just never sure about these things, like, a new thing like this, until I try it. Because sometimes I come across, like, some really weird edge cases for being a lefty and with my overhook writing style. So, yeah, I'd like to try it. It looks great to me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, it looks like something, like, initially, like, is more suited for you from a line perspective than me. But I would be the person that would be more, like, risk tolerant to just go ahead and jump in where it would make sense for, like, you to wait and see. Mm-hmm. But, like, we each have our own reasons to, like, both wait and see. Like, I think this is kind of the prime example of, hey, let me be patient and get the opportunity to try this. Because it's no small sum of money, for one. And for something that may not be, like, a really great solution for just my general writing or your general writing. Things like that. So, it's kind of one of those very important to try before you buy situations, right? Unless you're just, unless you like to be on the bleeding edge of things. Which, like, generally, I'm good with that. Like, there's a lot of times where I'll just go in blind to a product and just go. And, like, I'm good going first. This one, I'm okay with going second on or third or whenever. Like, I'll get the opportunity to have, like, a more perfect writing nib for myself. I didn't want to get the first one and say, yeah, this is great. Except I'm not going to use it because I don't like the line width. I'm willing to wait.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think that's perfectly fair.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So, I know Ian will be at a lot of pen shows this year. And hopefully, even if at pen shows he's not, if you're lucky enough to have a pen show nearby you, I bet you can go to one and maybe, you know, pen shows after dark. There might be a monarch nib or two floating around the table for you to test. Like, that's what I look forward to, getting able to test this out. But in Baltimore, I believe Shown Design will be there. Yeah, they will be at the Baltimore pen show. So, I will test them there, if nothing else. And maybe I'll end up with one of the standard ones. But I'll be looking forward to the next round way I can get a finer nib. Maybe it will go right into my Peak Fountain Pen, which is a Shown Design model. So, this specific one is called the Peekaboo because it has a little ghost to reference the material, which, as I explained in my review, it's like Ultim, Myke, that has become a popular pen barrel material. You know, the amber translucent Ultim that was used basically in, like, medical device and part manufacturing. Peak is a similar type of plastic, right? It's a really durable, you know, material that's really not designed. It wasn't originally designed, obviously, for fountain pens. It was designed for small parts in mechanical devices that needed to last a long time and wear well and things like that. And people discovered, oh, hey, this actually makes a pretty decent pen barrel as well because it's really durable. You can make it with thin walls and you can, you know, shape it into, you know, traditional fountain pen shape. So, I wanted to be sure to...

'''Myke Hurley:''' Polyether ether ketone.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Thank you. So, aka Peak. Peak. So, Peak. And then it has a little peekaboo ghost on there, which Ian lasered into the caps, which I think is just a fantastic little touch because, let's be just straight up, I mean, a lot of people probably think this pen is just completely ugly, right? Like, it's this taupe brown looking thing. That's the color of the plastic. Ian didn't say, hey, this is the color way we're going to make in these pens. It's not like an acrylic where you're mixing up colors and ending up with, you know, the color, the end result color you want. Like, this is the color of the material, right? Ultim comes in the amber color and in a black color. Peak comes in this taupe brown color. You know, and I refer to it as, like, 80s computer case color, right? It's that kind of beige-y brown. It's not beautiful, right? But in a fountain pen format, it's pretty killer. Like, I really, really like it as a color once I get in a nib that I like and have a certain ink color coming off of it. The entire package of the Peak pen I'm all about. So, again, this is one that I was willing to wait on, right? I didn't jump at the first batch that came out. Oh, let me see what people think about them. And I was able to get mine secondhand, right? Which I'm very prone to buying pens on the secondary market. I don't mind doing that whatsoever. Especially for something like this that's just going to be, like, the ultimate durable pen. Like, I'm not worried about its condition or anything like that. So, yeah, it is an oddly enjoyable fountain pen. If you are into kind of, like, the weird kind of tech behind fountain pens, even though this looks like a traditional basic round fountain pen, it's made with something kind of cool. And you have a little story to tell. And you had a question that I referred to a lot in the review about how light this pen is. And it could be too light for some people, right? I think that was your concern.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That was what I was going to ask. Because you mentioned the weight of the pen. Was it 15 grams? I feel like I would pick that up and it would hit the ceiling. Like, it would just leave my hand.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And that's with the nib and a full ink converter in it. It is airy. It is an ultralight pen. Same with the Ultem that Shone makes. Ian has thin walls on these barrels. Like, something like my Kasama pen has a thick Ultem wall. So, it's got a little bit more density to it, right? Well, these are very thin walls. And you're able to manufacture these thin walls because of the durability of the pen. It is an ultralight pen. And it is going to be too light for some people. I made an odd comment, but I thought it was appropriate not saying that they're in the same category of pen. But they're in the same category of feel in the hand as a Nakaya, right? So, like my Nakaya portable, I've always said how it just kind of fits in your hand and you don't realize it's there because it's so light. It's airy. It's hard to describe that feel in words. And the peak is the same feel, right? Not in the Arushi, like the warm Arushi ebonite finish, but just in the same technical aspects of being an ultralight pen. And this is one of them. And I think some people will find them to be too light. So, it's just an interesting material. I like this kind of stuff. Like this is one of my type of things that I get into when I see fountain pens in non-standard materials. That's kind of one of my like focuses that really piques my interest right out the gate. And I'm glad to have this one to go alongside my Ultem. I also have the shown design Ultem as well. And it's funny. I kind of prefer the peak, which is surprising to me. So, it's a great pen and a very unique type of feel. Again, not for everybody. But it's something pretty cool that I very much enjoy. And I think that's kind of the theme with this third review I wanted to talk about here at the beginning of the show. Not for everybody. The plotter. The entire plotter system. It's not for everybody. Like I'm very clear on that. That more so, unlike the Monarch or the Peak, even though they're expensive products. Like I think people can understand the pricing on that. I think the plotter does have a little bit of a higher barrier to entry just like mentally. Right? Like I'm spending how much on a notebook setup? Right? Like you're probably spending $200 to get into the plotter system. Right? Because you have to pick up a cover. And they're usually leather. They're working on some non-leather versions that I've seen at San Francisco that hopefully are coming out this year. And then you have to add all the accessories. And you just end up buying this whole a la carte system. And it ends up costing you a pretty penny. Like I said, I've got over $200 into mine. The thing is, Myke, I use it literally every day, many times a day. So is it worth it to me? Absolutely. It's been worth it to me. Right? But I get the pushback on the pricing. Like it is not a product for everyone. And I will absolutely hand raise to that. It is not for everyone just because of the barrier to entry. What I like about, let me back up. Mine was a bit of a process to get into the right size. So I had the A5 size originally. I thought, okay, you know me. I love A5, everything. Give me all the A5s. And what I found with my original plotter was that it was great, but I never chose to use it as much as I would some of my standard A5 notebooks. It was my Hobonichi planner that was also an A5. It was just like one more A5 on top of the stack of A5s that I got, and it kind of got pushed aside. Right? It wasn't good enough to be an all-in-one system for me. And it was never unique enough to push all these other things aside that I was already using. So my A5 plotter, like I sat on it for like a year and used it off and on, like trying and trying. I was like, this is expensive. This is good. I enjoy it. Why doesn't this work for me? And then the more I started to see from plotter and the more sizes I kind of got looks at from different people and how people were using different things, the smaller sizes were exactly what I was looking for because I was looking for more portability in my plotter or in a notebook that I wanted to use. And this kind of came up at the same time as I was using my A5 Hobonichi Cousin 2022 as my planner, which is a one-page-per-day planner. I was kind of winding down. Like I probably may have had a good seven months run with that, which is pretty solid. And then I just kind of like one page a day was a lot for me. So I went back into my all-time favorite kind of planner layout, Plotter has, which is a two-page-per-week layout, which I used in my William Hanna before that. I've used in Traveler's Diaries before that. And I found that having a little planner system in this thinner, it's called the Plotter Narrow notebook, along with the regular notebook pages, which were just good for notes, like just jotting down notes, ideas, brainstorming lists, things like that, as opposed to having like a one large A5 notebook to write all these things down. That was good. And then I could add in like a monthly calendar and I could add in a, you know, to-do list little pages that I will just have like these one-off, hey, do this, that will go in the list. And I ended up building this notebook that is now perfect for me, even though it took me quite a while to get there to figure it out. And so I kind of wanted to break that down in a blog post. So I have that out there on the blog now. So, yeah, it's an interesting product. This is like a perfect for me product. In the end, I got to pick out, you know, it was a little bit cool for me because I was at the San Francisco Pen Show and they were building, you know, notebooks there. And I got to pick out the leather and I got to pick out the hardware and I got to pick out the inserts all there. So it was my little Build-A-Bear factory at the San Francisco Pen Show this past summer. And I've used this. This has been my sidekick ever since. It's great.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm going to have to legally, you know, on sidekick, we're going to have to have some commentary.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's probably because that's fresh in my head. Like I can literally see it. Well, no, I can see it.