Editing The Pen Addict 105/transcript (section)

== Pen Blog ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, so we got a pen blog of the week this week. And this is a new pen blog. It's called The Gentleman Stationer. And he just started the gentleman behind the blog. His name is Joe. I actually met him at the Atlanta Fountain Pen Show. And he reached out to me afterwards saying, hey, I've started this blog, obviously about pens and things like that. And he's done some really great articles so far. You know, he's doing some reviews. He's done several ink reviews so far, several pen reviews. He's got a couple of posts right up our alley, Myke. He's got an in praise of the original field notes, which we can certainly get behind. And he has a current post. His day job, he's a lawyer. So he just happened to put this post on here, which I'm not going to read through the whole post. And it's not necessarily related to pens, but it's related to Kickstarter and backers filing lawsuits against unfunded projects. And it's not for our favorite pen, The Visionaire. But I just remember people coming up with the – during the whole Visionaire thing that, you know, people were going to start, you know, trying to do some type of lawsuit and things like that. But anyway, it'll be interesting to track this lawsuit to see how it affects Kickstarter as a whole. I kind of have a feeling there it's not going to get very far. I think Kickstarter has positioned themselves to not be affected by this type of thing. But it's a good article to link to. And it definitely kind of hit home with everyone's experience with The Visionaire. But outside of that, Joe does a great job with all his pen and ink reviews so far. And he's got another post here he did recently called the Retro Edition Pens from High School and College, which we can both appreciate that. We both reminisce about some of the cool pens that we've used back in the day. So definitely check out The Gentleman Stationer. It's gentlemanstationer.com. And we'll have the link in the show notes, which you can find at 555.tv slash penaddict slash 105. Is that right? That's correct. Yes. Well done, buddy. I never plan on doing that. And I'll figure, well, that's kind of a good time. I know you always want us to say where the show notes are. And I figure, well, that's a good time. Then I always forget that I don't exactly know the format of the URL.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes, 505.tv slash penaddict slash 105.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Awesome. So check out The Gentleman Stationer there if you haven't already added him to your daily reading. So good job, Joe. All right. So the rest of this show is going to be about a very specific topic or two topics, I guess we should say. Both Myke and I have added some new pens to our arsenal. And they both kind of have stories behind them. So do you want to go first? Do you want me to go first? What are you feeling?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I'll go first, but I am no part of the story. Well, you are. You are. You know? Yes. So basically, when Brad was attending the Atlanta Pen Show, I asked him to pick me up a Franklin Kristoff of some description because I've been interested in their pens for a while. They seem to make some really interesting stuff. And everything that Brad has used from the Franklin Kristoff range, he has raved about. So I figured, yeah, why not? Apparently, they were there, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes, they were there at the show.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I figured, yeah, let's go for it. And I'll do that. Now, my intention was to send Brad the money. However, Brad, being the person that he is, has bought me a gift. So thank you very much for that. You're very welcome. I feel like I must out your generosity to the world.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's very, very kind of you. I don't know why you do these things sometimes, but you do, and it makes me very, very happy. So thank you.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, and part of this was I asked him to pick me up a Masuyama nib. I figured, why not knock two birds with one stone here, you know? So get a nice hand-worked custom nib from Mr. Masuyama and get a Franklin Kristoff because they do the Masuyama nibs stock.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes, yes. So they stock them, and since they were at the show, they had their full stock there. You could pick up pretty much any nib you wanted there at the show from them. So, yeah, it was definitely a two birds with one stone type of thing. It was perfect. It was a great idea.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I believe I said to you, just get me a Franklin Kristoff, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I think it was very general. You didn't have any specifics at all.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No. So this week, this past week, the pen arrived, and I opened it up. I'd never seen this pen in my life. I was first struck by its size. It's a very big pen, and it's the Franklin Kristoff Model 19 Anderson Pen Special Edition. Now, again, I didn't, basically, I didn't even know what this pen was until I looked at the show notes today. I didn't know the name of it, and I feel like there's a story there just by reading the name of it that I don't yet know. So I figure what I would do, because there is obviously more of a story. I know there's more of a story as well, because you kind of hinted that there was one. Yeah. So you can tell that in a moment, but maybe I should talk about the pen a little bit first on what I think of it?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. I'd like to hear it, because you have not shared any information with me so far, other than you have received the pen, and that's pretty much it. So, yeah, I want to hear it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' At first, I thought it was very beautiful. It's like a very, very dark blue with two sort of marble-like light blue stripes, one that runs around the cap and one that runs around the pen itself.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, it's acrylic, isn't it? The whole pen is acrylic, which I'm a big fan of because they're very light. Yes. And this one, the acrylic smell doesn't knock my eyes out like the Edison pen I have, which is both good and bad, because sometimes the smell of acrylic is a great thing to have, sometimes not so much. But, you know, it's not too much of an issue. Plus, if I did test this, if you sniff inside the cap really hard, you will get it. So if I need it, it's still there. I was a little bit intimidated by it at first because of the size. It's bigger than any pen that I own, like in just mass. And when I saw it, I was like, oh, that's the executive pen, you know? You know we've been talking about the executive pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right, the show pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, but I figured that's not what I'm going to use it for. I'm going to use it. Like, also the nib is very large. Lots of things. It's definitely oversized for what I usually use. But not uncomfortable to hold, not heavy in any way, you know? It feels like a pen in weight, half its size. And I also have a Masuyama nib in it. It's a 1.1 stub nib, which you had to inform me I needed to change the nib.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's actually a medium. It comes with a stock 1.1 millimeter steel nib. And then the Masuyama nib is actually a medium stub nib.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's a medium nib stub. So, at first I tried it out and I wasn't 100% sure that I got the nib correct because it was very slight. Like, the stub is very slight.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And over the – I've been using it exclusively this week. And I put my favorite ink in there, of course. I put the Hiroshizuku Fuyugaki in there, the orange that I love so much. And as I've used it over the week, I have noticed the stubbness of it. Because bear in mind, my only previous stub nib was a 1.5. So, you know, realizing – This is more subtle. It's much more subtle. And once I – I was able to clue that in. I've been able to clue that in over the week and can see the stubbiness of it. Because it's not as harsh as the TWSBI that I have. And I really, really like the fact that it's a stubb nib rather than just a standard medium nib. Because it adds just a layer of dimension there that I like a lot. This pen is incredibly smooth to write with. Now, of course, this is because the nib is special. But that's something that I've found. I think that the key thing that I've taken away from this is it is incredibly smooth. And it works fantastically. And even in field notes, like the bleed is very minimal, which is excellent. And I have been using it all week. And I really, really love it. Like, I genuinely really love it. It's a really interesting pen to look at. It's not the best-looking pen that I own. But I really like it because I think it's one of the most unique.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Everything about it is big. Like, the clip stands out really far from the cap, you know. I like it. It's all very, like, big. And I like the fact that they kind of, like, etch the Frank and Kristoff logo in the top of the cap.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, and the threading is not standard threading. It's the block threading because it's a larger pen. It just kind of locks in.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, and that all looks quite strange. But good, you know, strange in a, not in a weird way. But, like, it's all very different to anything else that I own. Which kind of makes it special in its own way. Because I probably wouldn't have picked this pen for myself. You know? So I like a lot that I own it because it's very different to what I usually have. But I genuinely love it. Like, it is definitely, definitely in rotation for me now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, good. Well, good. Because there was a lot of stress and consternation going into shopping for this pen. You want to hear this story? Yes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I feel like I can kind of guess some of it from seeing the name and then also the way that the nib came to me.