Editing The Pen Addict 205/transcript (section)

== Stationery Market ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Same here. Yeah. So my news, uh, is a link someone sent me this morning, which is just super positive for stationary as a whole. This is from a China daily and the article came out today. Um, and it's titled a $341 million fountain pen market set to be bigger. So in China, they're seeing, um, a growth of last year was 7% growth just in the fountain pen sales market, which is kind of crazy. Um, and even in China is actually having a little bit of a downturn, um, you know, finance economically, I guess. So it's kind of cool to see these little articles saying that, Hey, stationary business is happy and healthy and doing well worldwide. It's just kind of a, a very positive note, you know, when you're, when we're all into these things and we're wondering how everyone's doing in general, obviously it varies from company to company and how they run their business, but just in a general market, a market as big as China, um, it's doing really well. They mentioned park brands like Parker, um, you know, has increased and like some of the high end stuff like, uh, Mont Blanc has, uh, increased and you know, that's, uh, I think that's good news. I like hearing stuff like this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Nice work. Chinese pen addicts.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That's what I say.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, way to go, everybody.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Keep the dream alive, man.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What's funny is, and this is a random aside, our, our good friend, uh, Pontus, um, I've followed him on, on Facebook and he was in Shanghai and he posted all the, he posted a picture on Facebook of all the knockoff pens that he bought. It's like pilot, Kakuno knockoffs and, uh, Mont Blanc, Star Walker, narc, knockoffs and all this stuff. It was just kind of funny, but, um, the legitimate fountain pen market in China is actually doing really well. So I'm sure that the knockoff market is booming.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think that that market never ends.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Should we take our first break? Let's. All right. Cool. This week's episode is brought to you by the awesome people over at Van S Pens. Van S Pens, uh, carry a fantastic selection of your favorite brands like Lamy and Pelican Platinum to Pilot, many, many more in between. But as well as all those beautiful fountain pen brands that we have, they also carry our beloved Retro 51 and stuff like that too. But I think these days, Van S is best known for their exclusive ranges of inks. I think this has really put them on the map even more recently, you know, stuff like, uh, KWZ out of Poland, Califoglio from France, and of course those bung box seasonal inks. Would you agree with me, Brad? Like that these inks have really kind of like just put Van S is like just a place you must go to.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, totally. And I, what's funny is I really use all these inks all the time. Like most of my pens are inked right now with some type of sailor ink, which is probably a bung box ink, some type of Ackerman ink, which we're going to talk about the tactile turn just in a minute. I just, I just inked it up with the number 11 Trevis turquoise, um, which is an Ackerman ink. And the Califoglio inks, um, have this awesome color and shading. I'm a big fan of, uh, one called Andronopa, which is this hot pink that I matched with my hot pink sailor pin. So it's like, it seems like these are the inks that I'm using all the time these days. Um, and it's awesome to be able to get them from Van S.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. It's the best place to find this sort of, uh, interesting and crazy stuff. And you can go and check out their new website over at vaness1938.com. That's V-A-N-N-E-S-S-1938.com. You can currently get free shipping in the U.S. of any purchase of over $40 or more. And they even have flat rate international shipping as well. Thank you so much to Van S. Pens for their support of this show.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And I think they might, uh, come up here in another minute or two in, uh, this next, in a couple of topics down the list, don't you think? I bet I would not be surprised. So before we get to that, what you got for me?