Editing The Pen Addict 274/transcript (section)

== L14 Pens ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' We will follow up with it, but just for the time being, there's stuff that you can go and find out in the show notes. Like if you want to see more examples of what Ryan Krusek is available, like is able to make, there's links to the current standard L14 and L16 lines that he sells, as well as Brad's picture. I've got to say, man, I'm looking at these. The ebony with tiger eye is one of my, I'm dying. Yep. Tiger eyes. I love that so much.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' When I bought my L14 a year ago, he wasn't making them an ebony yet. And then I've almost bought an ebony one. And then he did them with the jewels in the end. So that's going to be one of my next pens is an ebony with the jewel in the end.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So he does a photo for jewels in the end. This could be a purchase for me. Like I want to take a look at it and I want to see it because with the jewels, you can, you know, I don't know. I feel like there could be some variants in the way that they look. Yes. And maybe you'd have more than one and I would want to check them out. But I've always loved tiger's eye. Like it's one of my favorite stones since I was a kid. Because when I was a kid, I used to have a little collection of these types of things. It was one of my very early nerdy pursuits. I used to subscribe to this magazine that was called like Treasures of the Earth or something. Nice.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We all did that kind of stuff.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Oh my God. That was it. Treasures of the Earth magazine. And I had this like, this box of stones. It was, yeah, it was kind of, kind of a weird and wonderful thing that I used to do as a kid. Yeah. Treasures of the Earth magazine was like a real big thing. And there isn't really anything for it on Google. Just like base references to it and images of the magazine. So I'll just put a Google image search in there. But this is exactly what I had. And tiger's eye was my favorite. And yeah. So I have a lot of affinity for that. So yeah. Beautiful, beautiful stuff. But more importantly, a great course.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. So we will share when we have more. It's essentially going to be a queue type of thing. You'll get in the queue to get your pen made and ordered and support this great course. So and get an awesome pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Speaking of which, every now and then a thought pops into my head about the fact that I still have a Newton pen on the way. Oh, you still do. Yeah. I don't know when I'm supposed to be getting this pen. Which I'm almost kind of leaving for it to be a surprise for me now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I just took my email. Eight to 12 months was my time frame. Yeah. And I ordered it in January. So I'm still, I'm only three quarters of the way through my weight. One day I will get my primary manipulation pen from Sean Newton. And it's going to be a great present to myself.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I ordered mine two or three years ago. And even then the wait time was like six months. So yeah. It's worth it. Well worth it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh yeah. There's a reason it's so busy. I mean, the amount that I paid for that pen, I know I'm going to feel like it's worth more. Like, so I'm cool with the weight. Like, I'm cool with it. It will come to me one day.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So the next thing I wanted to talk about is something we've mentioned on the show before. But I forgot to pull in the link and talk about it on the show now that the review is out of it. And it's the Lamy Ion. So this is one of new, one of the new pens that Lamy is releasing. And Pete Dennison, whose blog I love, had an early edition of it. They were out in Europe, I believe. So some of the European people got them. And I got to hold one in San Francisco. And number one, you should go read Pete's review because it's extraordinarily good. Very thorough. Lots of details. Lots of pictures. But the first thing I noticed when someone handed me this Ion in San Francisco is, wow, this is heavy. And it's large. So we were thinking it's going to be somewhere along the lines. Like, I had Lamy 2000 in my head, right? When I saw the shape of this pen. So you kind of had this mental thing. And I've held lots of Lamy pens. I own lots of Lamy pens. I know what to expect from a Lamy pen. This is a big and heavy Lamy pen. And it doesn't look like it should be. It's much bigger than the 2000, both in length, width, and in weight. That said, it feels pretty good. Like, you'd expect Lamy to, you know, deliver a pretty well-balanced pen. The nib is a little bit different shape. And I think it's going to do well. Because the price point, I think, is going to be like around $75. But it's not exciting. It's like, it's one of those pens like, okay, I have to buy it. Because I kind of need to review it and try it. Or, you know, I just need to play around with it. I have to have one for research purposes, Myke. You know, you got to do the research. Oh, of course. But it's not exciting, again, where Lamy has an opportunity to do something exciting. You know, maybe, you know, I understand the introduction of a new product. You want to temper your expectations, see how the feedback is. I'm well aware of that. So they have black and silver, which is decidedly a Lamy thing to do. But now's a chance to, maybe, if this Ion does well, add in these crazy colors that they like to do in their lower-end models. And I wish they would just branch out a little bit more in the upper-end models. You know, I'm not asking for the purple Lamy 2000. They should have done that in the, you know, the 50th anniversary. But I am asking for the purple or turquoise Lamy Ion. Because it's kind of made for that. And it's kind of the right price point. So, anyway, I just wanted to point that out that Pete has this review up. You know, I've shared this link and a couple of these other links that we're going to talk about in the Panatic Members newsletter. So you should subscribe to that. I'm going to pimp that here real quick. You should definitely subscribe to the newsletter. You get a lot of these things early. You get my full opinions on them. But there were some that were cool enough I wanted to elaborate on in a vocal manner instead of a written manner. And the Ion was one. And the one thing that bugs me about this pen is the name of the pen is not capitalized. And I don't know why. And that's going to bug the stew out of me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I don't know. I don't get that. I don't know what they're expecting to get out of the fact that it's all lowercase. I don't know. It's probably some visual thing that they like for the way they write it, you know. But, I mean, for me, I mean, I haven't got any experience with this pen. But a bigger, heavier Lamy pen, great.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, it's great. Because they don't do that. All their pens are light. And so maybe they should have something that's a bit more substantial to offer a little bit more diversity to the line. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. The studio is right in the middle, weight-wise. But this is much heavier than the studio. So, yeah. I think this pen is going to do well. I just don't know. What's it made of? It's got to be brass. It's certainly metal, most of it. Wow. So it's probably brass. So what is the price point? It's 75 in the U.S., I believe, is what it's going to be. That's pretty good. Totally. Completely fair. And that's a weird price range, right? We always talk about the...

'''Myke Hurley:''' It feels like a kind of trainee 2000. Yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The Lamy 2000 trainer.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Because it's like in that range, price, you know, like it's getting up to it, right? Like it's taking the steps up price point-wise. It's a super good price point. And it looks... I think it looks great. I think it looks real nice. Like if you like Lamy pens, but like feel that maybe they're not too professional looking for your work, right? You know, like you're using them at work and you don't want to have a safari or whatever. And I mean, I've never been that keen of the studio and stuff like that. They don't really do it for me. Um, this one is a much more professional looking Lamy pen without needing to spend $200 on a 2000, which may or may not come to you in a good condition because the nibs can be weird. Do you know what I mean? Like... Sure, sure. This is... I think this is a good entry to their product line. Even though I stand by the fact that if you get a good Lamy 2000, it will be one of the best pens you will ever own. But...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I completely agree with that. Yeah. That's a pen I don't use enough because it is really, really good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mine actually came out of my Dudek dock and went into the drawer for a bit. It's been demoted for a little bit.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Banished.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Hey, Brad, do you want to know something? Do you want to hear about this? This gives you a little insight into my life. So, came home from the pen show, kind of getting my things back in order. There's a couple of pens I need to ink up or whatever, and I've moved some other stuff into storage. One of the pens that I've moved into storage is the M90 that I bought from you. Clean that sucker out before I put it away. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Followed away for safekeeping.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. Very thoroughly cleaned out and put in the drawer for safekeeping. Nice. But I just wanted to let you know that I cleaned it before I stored it. Very good. Good on you, mate. There's no way I'm going to let anything bad happen to that pen. Oh, I nearly dropped it, though. Like, not yours, but the one that I bought from Thomas. Well, this is why you have a second one. Yeah. I mean, it had the cap on, luckily enough. But I did think to myself, like, imagine dropping that pen. It would be done. It would be game over. Oh, I felt really bad about it. But I'm using it today, and it's wonderful because the Pilot M90 is the best. We were talking about this at the pen show. Is it this year or next year is 100 years? Next year. Next year. If they don't do a version of this pen for their 100th, we need to boycott them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm going to go on the record, no chance. Because they just did the M90. They haven't done a Murex. There's so many things they have not done that they're not going to do another Murex. Your just is 10 years ago, though, right? Yeah, as opposed to never, like some of the other models.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I know, but 100 years, it feels like you should do something special.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All the pens. All the pens get special editions for 100 years. Ever.