Editing The Pen Addict 312/transcript (section)

== Fountain Pens ==


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'''Madison:''' Myke, may I tempt you with the Platinum 3776 Kumpu fountain pen?

'''Myke Hurley:''' We're here again, aren't we? I feel like this happens every few months. Myke gets tempted by a Platinum 3776. And he ends up not buying it.

'''Madison:''' I am with you. So, like, that's the thing, right? So, Platinum releases all these pens. I rave about them. They're awesome. And, like, last year, I got one of them. But I love every single one of them. But I can't buy all of them at the same time. I also want more from Platinum. Even though the 3776 is their mainline model. It's like, I'm waiting for them to do something with a different barrel style. And I feel bad saying that because, do you ever hear me complain about the Sailor Pro Gear? And it's the same stupid thing. Even though I think they're a completely different feel of pen. Which is why. I think the 3776 is a lightweight pen. And I don't want all my pens to feel that way. But this is... Every one they come out with, I say, is the best one they've done. This is the best one they've done, Myke. And it's called Kumpu.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Hmm.

'''Madison:''' Hmm. Do you know what that means, Myke? I did look this up. I have no idea. Beforehand. It means balmy breeze. I mean, we could have gone with the Platinum 3776 balmy breeze fountain pen. I mean, that would totally be in, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I like balmy breeze. But I guess it isn't for us, though, is it? You know, they haven't named this for mine and your purposes. They've named it for...

'''Madison:''' Yes. So it fits in the... This is a seasonal series. So this is the seasons around Mount Fuji. Unbeknownst to me, I bought the first one. The one Platinum I bought last year was the Shungyo. The red one. Which is definitely my favorite. I still like the Shungyu better than the Kumpu. But it's really, really kind of amazing. And I love what they've done with the colors and the swirls. I don't know. I love the stinking pen. But again, it's like, I'm not gonna probably buy it. Probably. It's like, I don't know what to do. It's like, I can't buy everything, right? There's too many things. I can't buy all the things.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Can we assume that they're halfway through then? This series?

'''Madison:''' So this is number two of this series. Yeah. But they've interspersed. They kept the Lake series going, intermixed with this. They dropped the Nice series.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Madison:''' You know, before this, they, you know, they, I guess it was the Oshino, the last one, the all clear one. That was part of the Lake series. I think they're kind of overlapping these things. The one thing, they did two things different on this one than they did with like some of the Nice series ones where I complained that if you're gonna make a limited edition, at least etch some number on the thing. Don't just give me a card that says it's a limited edition. Then sell all the ones without the card that aren't limited edition ones. I thought that was a terrible idea. So this one will at least be engraved on the, I don't know if it's on the cap band or on the top of the barrel. They usually sometimes do it in the acrylic on the top of the barrel. So the second thing they did, I noticed when I was looking at this release on pen chalet, and I guess this comes out next month in July sometimes, they're allowing the UEF nib to be ordered for this pen. And I kind of glanced back. I didn't see that UEF was- What do you mean like allowed? It's never been an option, not allowed. In US? It's never been an option. No, no, no. It's never been an option for their limited series pens. It's always been a core edition pen where you could get the UEF nib. This is the first one I've seen in the limited edition range with the UEF nib, which a lot of people like that nib because it's really, really crazy fine. I mean, it's definitely not for everyone. But I thought that was interesting because usually with the limited editions, they stick to the more popular nib sizes, right? Just for purposes.

'''Madison:''' They want to be able to sell through these pens and not have a bunch of UEFs left over. So I thought that was an interesting choice. But I don't know. It's like a lot of the pens. They do so many so often so well. You got to pick and choose. Pick and choose what you like. But I mean, I'm not going to lie. My eyes popped out when I saw this. It looks fantastic. What do you think?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, I still don't own one. So I've done what I did for the last two. I put my name down at the pen chalet pre-order. Yeah. And when the email comes through to tell me that it's available for me to buy, I'll make my decision then. Yeah. But I mean, I will say that like each one of these 3776s that's come out, I like more than the one before it. Right. Right. So I loved the pink one. Then I really loved the purple one. And now I really love this blue one. And one of the reasons I really love it is because it's doing something that platinum seems seldom to do, which is to actually make some change more than color. As far as we know, like, can you feel those ridges or are they like inside the barrel?

'''Madison:''' In these last ones, you can feel everything. Right. Like some are more extreme than others. Like the Nis Lilas was very sharp to the touch where the Shunggyu was more tempered, if you will, but you could still feel it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Madison:''' So I'm assuming you have the texture on the outside of the barrel in some places. But it doesn't look like complete like laser etched faceting on there. So it's probably pretty comfortable, I'm guessing, but I don't know yet.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I was honestly hoping more that it was going to be a case of that there was a texture to it as opposed to that wasn't. Yeah. You know, like I was hoping that you would be able to feel it like, because that is more intriguing to me. Honestly.

'''Madison:''' I mean, I don't think you can feel like it's not like the swirl pattern. I think the swirl pattern is just like the color throughout. But I think there is like some type of barrel shape.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Some kind of like, what do they call it? What is that called? Not ratcheting. What is it called? Fast faceting. Yeah. Look, I love this pen. I think it looks amazing. It's obviously clearly a demonstrator, which is even more interesting. And the fact that it's based on a mountain tells me I could maybe do some weird ink stuff. Maybe use some kind of gray ink or something. Who knows? So this is going to stay. I'm going to keep my eye open for when the email comes through. And if I'm feeling particularly flush on the day that it arrives in my inbox, then I might go for it.

'''Madison:''' Yeah. I'll wait and see what it looks like in DC. I probably still won't buy one then. I really like my red Shunggyu. I mean, I really, really like that pen. It's going to be hard to beat that one for me. And I feel like now I need to buy pens that are going to beat the one I already like. And this one is great as it looks. I don't think it's going to beat that one for me. So I would never choose to use it over the red Shunggyu. So we'll see. It looks great. I mean, I love it. I love that Platinum's doing this. But man, can't buy them all.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, we have a question about these nibs later on in the show. But I wanted to ask you real quick. We can get into a little bit more detail later. If I buy this pen, the option that I would probably go for is soft medium. Do you think that that is the right choice for me? Yeah, probably so.

'''Madison:''' Yeah, because I don't think I'm going to like fine. No, no, no. I was going to say, if anything, broad.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, they don't have that as an option. Okay. It's soft medium, fine, or ultra extra fine. Oh, yeah. Should I get the ultra extra fine? What do you think? Hell no.

'''Madison:''' So here's a funny anecdote. So I was talking to Brian Anderson of Anderson Pens fame at the Raleigh Pen Show. And I was asking him how the new Chicago store was going. He was telling me it's going great. And he said, here's a funny thing. So we have a platinum display, a sample display pen set up. So they have all the platinum nibs available as testers. So they get a lot of kind of non-fountain pen people staying at the hotel where the store is. And he says they'll come in and they gravitate to the things you can test, right? Like you see a pen display. You can test all these pens out and try all these different nibs. He said, I've sold more ultra extra fine nibs to people who have no idea about fountain pens than you could imagine. And he's like, people just gravitate towards that nib, even though it's like an extremely difficult nib to write with.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think I understand it. Because it's like...

'''Madison:''' Yeah, if you've not used a fountain pen before, yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's probably going to give you more of a feeling of consistency of a line that like a needlepoint is going to give you, right? But if you're used to fountain pens, it can be a little bit trickier. I find it because it doesn't give me what I'm looking for, right? Like I'm looking for a different feeling and an ultra extra fine for me wouldn't give me the fountain pen feeling that I'm looking for, which is like soft and bouncy and tons of ink and like just gliding across the page. And like an ultra extra fine is just straight up not going to do that for me. Yep. But I understand why like if you're not used to fountain pens, you might go for that. But also just the idea of people buying an ultra extra fine platinum as their first pen is a hilarious notion to me.

'''Madison:''' It is pretty funny. Yeah, that's just such a tough nib to use. And you've got to be committed to that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm going to be in Chicago in October.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Nice. We're doing a mini tour before heading over to Toronto, right? So we're actually... I should work on that probably. Yeah. I mean, you know, at some point we need to plan that. We know what we're doing, but there's just a few little elements that we need to finish off. Yes. Yes. Travel related. But yeah, because I'm going to be in the States, we decided we're going to do a couple of shows. We do a Chicago show and a New York show for Connected and Upgrade. And tickets are sorted out, by the way, which is why I'm not even going to put the links in the show notes to sort out. And I'm hoping that I can go visit the new Anderson Pen Chicago show while I'm in town. That'd be fantastic. It's on my list of things to do.