Editing The Pen Addict 610/transcript (section)

== Purchases made at the pen show ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Let's take a break and talk about the stuff that you, I'm sure, bought at the show. So if you're listening to this and you're like, oh man, I would like to go to a pen show, but in my own home. Well, why don't you take yourself over to Pen Chalet? Because they have the products that you're looking for. So whether you want a new fountain pen, a new mechanical pencil, a new fountain pen, a new rollerball. I said fountain pen twice. Maybe you really want a fountain pen. Maybe a double-ended fountain pen. Indeed. Or so much more. They have all of your favorite brands and they have the accessories that you're looking for too. Whether you want some new ink, a carrying case, maybe you want a fountain pen converter. No matter what it is, they've got the stuff that you're looking for. Pen Chalet have very fast and reliable customer service. And every two weeks, they're adding new products and new specials to the store as well. And you're going to be able to go there and see cool new stuff. You get free shipping on orders of over $75 in the United States, but they also sell internationally with very reasonable shipping rates. Pen Chalet has low prices on high-quality pens and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So go to penchalet.com slash penaddict. That's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com slash penaddict. And you will get 10% off anything at any time at Pen Chalet. And you will get to see this week's exclusive offers for listeners of this show. That is right. We have a URL of our own now. Penchalet.com slash penaddict. That's where you can go. Brad, what have you found over at Pen Chalet this time?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' One, I'm finding an awesome upgraded URL. I love that. So that's amazing. So thank you, Ron, for doing that. That is super cool. I don't know why that excites me. And they've been a sponsor for like eight years. And I'm like, oh, this is cool. Thank you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Interesting pen. Oh, gosh. Okay. There's several. I'm just getting to the site. So the Platinum did this weird thing a few years ago where they took the Procyon, which was one of their popular, like, I don't know, mid-range models. I don't even know if I would classify them as mid-range. But they were like 50, 60 bucks. So the Procyon, it was very good. Very good pen. Very well received. It was like the continuation of the upgrade between like the Preppy and the Plazier and some things like that. So the Procyon just kind of ramped it up a little bit more. And then they, I think they were popular enough that they said, oh, let's do something cool with that and add Maciej artwork to these Procyons. And so they did that. This was like a couple years ago. And they were, you know, that obviously ramped up the price significantly, right, when you have like kind of these custom artwork added to the pens. And now they're on here for a price that's not too much more than the stock Procyon. And like, I would totally be into one of these. Like, I might have to look at these after the show because I think, I think there's just a, it's cool to get like a pen that you love and then have added artwork on it. Another crazy deal that actually stopped me in my tracks was the Pilot Custom Heritage Special Edition fountain pen. So you might remember this from, I think it was more than a year ago. I can't remember if it was last year or 2022. But the Pilot Custom Heritage, they made with some acrylic blanks where they put, they have like an acrylic swirl barrel. So they have like a green and a blue and a red and things like that. And maybe like a black, like a grayish black. And they were definitely at a premium to the regular ones. And now they're back into like a really nice price point for that pen. And then like if you scroll down, like, gosh, there's more Platinum 3776s. Yeah, I love the Sans of Komodo. That's one that I have. I think I even bought mine from Pen Chalet. That's a great pen. And, you know, Fisher Space Pens, which you never see on sale. And the Kaweco Art Sports as well. Like I have not finished going through this site, but it's a bunch of good stuff. If you want to have your own pen show at home, I would start at penchalet.com slash penaddict right now. And like, yeah, I'm still scrolling. So it looks fantastic.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Thanks to Pen Chalet for the support of this show and Relay FM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, let's talk about some things that I bought. Some of which you can probably get at Pen Chalet. For sure. So if you're new to the show, I just kind of want to explain like how I shop at a pen show. I might buy, I come home with a lot of stuff. And I would say 90% of it is not for, quote, me, right? It's obviously for me to use, but it's a lot for reviews and it's a lot of stuff for giveaway. So like I bought all this stuff, but out of all the stuff that I bought, I bought one thing for me that I'm keeping. One pen at least. I am going to keep something else, which we'll get to in a second. I got my Pelican Orange Delight, the M200 series. So it's the orange barrel demonstrator. We've talked about it several times this year. We talked about it in last week's preview that I wanted this. And so we talked last Wednesday. You published the show. Within an hour after that, I had a text saying, hey, I got an orange delight. And I can put a nib grind on it for you. Who do you think might have texted me?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Our good friend, Mark Bacchus. So shout out, Mark.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I was trying to like work out my brain who would have it and would also do nib grinds. That was what I was getting stuck on.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep. So Mark was in my wallet before I even left vacation because he's like, hey, here's an offer you can't refuse. And I'm like, you know what? You're probably right. So I got my Pelican from him. I got a fine nib on it. And then I got him to put a cursive italic grind on it. And I'm so happy with this pen. I forget. And this is something for people who are curious about Pelican pens. And this is actually something that I like about Pelicans because I, again, I love Pelicans. But I don't buy like the gold nib Pelicans because those nibs don't work for me. But the steel nibs generally do. And the 200 series is like their smallest. Well, I won't say their smallest, but it's kind of like their most well-known small series. They have the 101 series, which is a different concept altogether. That's a little bit smaller. But this is a small light pen. This is a pen like not everyone's going to like. This is a pen that people who love Pelican may not even own one of these pens, right? Because they're usually going for the 600s or the 800s or sometimes even the 1000s. Like the bigger models. The ones that only have gold nibs in them. Things of that nature. My plan for this pen, which I have already said, is I got this pen to be like an all-day, everyday writer. Practically an EDC type of pen. Because that's the size of this pen. That's the weight of this pen. So I wanted a good nib experience with it. So that's why I got it ground immediately before I even used it. And it came out great. So I've been using it the past couple days. Since I got home, I inked it up with... The hardest thing was to decide what ink to ink it up with. And I waited until I got home. And I had a bottle of Pelican Edelstein Smoky Quartz, which is a brown ink. Which I've actually never used. It was... I think it was a gift from someone who had like a Pelican Hub. I think this was like a Pelican Hub giveaway one time. And I ended up with a bottle. I don't think I ever inked it up. And it's kind of perfect for this. It's browner than I thought it was going to be. So I inked it up. So I have like a brown ink in my orange and gold pen. And it's kind of perfect. So very, very happy with that. So that's what I bought for myself, right? So that was my game plan. And, you know, I have this Pen Addict 100 set up. And I've probably creeped over into the Pen Addict. And, you know, we're probably getting into like the 103, 105 range now. So we're going to have to handle that here in the next month. Because like all these other pens that I've bought, like they're not for me, right? They're going to be used for other things. But this one is, right? And this is, you know, not a cheap pen. And it goes into like the category of, hey, this is my pen that I want to own and keep it in my collection. So it has to be allocated for. So we will work on that. Now that I am home from a pen show and don't have another one booked until this summer, we will be working on creating some space, if you will. The other thing on my list, like I really, I really did a good job with my list. I got everything on the list. So I wanted to see Michaela from White Bear Pens, who is a new maker. This was only her second show. And I got to meet her at last year's Atlanta Pen Show when she wasn't making. She was just like learning about how to make things. So I wanted to be sure to spend some time with her, see her pens. I picked up a couple of models from her that I'll be using for reviews and giveaways and things of that nature. So I got those. That went really, really well. I really like the pens that I picked up from White Bear Pens. I also got the two new Lamy All-Stars. They weren't really all over the show, but I got from Van S. Pens. Had both aquatic and fiery of the All-Stars. And there was a weird thing with this lineup. And this is a broader conversation in the Hire Me Lamy category. They offered in the aquatic, which is the blue. So each of the pens has the fountain pen, the rollerball, and the ballpoint. And all those safaris had the fountain pen, the rollerball, and the ballpoint. Randomly, the All-Star Aquatic Blue had a pencil. And I thought that was the strangest thing I've ever seen. Because as much as I love Lamy, I have very strong opinions about the pencil in the Safari lineup, which is the one that I've reviewed before. Because how people use pencils, they rotate them in their hand, right? In the non-Kuritoga category.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And Lamy insists on having a molded grip in their mechanical pencils for the All-Star and the Safari. And it's just a bad experience, right? Like, that's not how people use pencils and want to keep their grip in the same position using a pencil. That's just not how it works. But then they just randomly, out of these four new colors that they did, they dropped in the blue mechanical pencil just randomly. Which I think is super odd. Like, I would do none. Or I would put it in the Safari lineup. Because now you're charging more for the aluminum barrel for the pencil. Like, if you want to have one pencil, you put it in the cheaper category, I think. I don't know. That's, again, that's in the hire me, Lamy category. Like, this was a very strange decision. And completely insignificant to reality. But my reality, it stood out like a sore thumb.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I didn't even remember or know that they did an All-Star mechanical pencil. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's, like, I would never recommend the All-Star of the Safari mechanical pencil. You need to get up into the 2000 to have, like, a good mechanical pencil experience with Lamy, I believe. So, it's not their thing. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. What does make a lot of sense to me was Lamy Dark Lilac. I did want to go ahead and get that on Friday. Because it did sell out pretty quickly. Hopefully, it's going to be, like, if I didn't get it, it wouldn't be a big deal because it's going to be a stock item.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But I did get Lamy Dark Lilac. I am keeping, I bought two bottles. One I'm giving away already. It's on the blog this week. If you listen to this today or tomorrow, you have time to go enter the Lamy Dark Lilac giveaway on the blog. And I have not inked it up yet, but I'm keeping a bottle for myself. So, between the Pelican and the Dark Lilac, that's what I bought.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But why are you keeping it? Just for fun.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I want to have it a test. I like a good dark purple anyway. So, and Lamy inks are so cheap. They even raised the prices, like, a couple years ago. But they're still only $12 for a 50-milliliter bottle. I mean, it's kind of, like, why not, right? But, you know, at a pen show, why not? We'll get you, we'll require extra bags on the way home if you say why not too much. So, yeah, that was. Before we continue.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Take a second break and then we'll get back into your hall.