Editing The Pen Addict 320/transcript (section)

== Price Negotiation ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' And how good a price is a good price?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It was $625. Okay. So, I don't know if you've looked them up new or whatever. I don't know if you have a link there. I don't know how much they go for new. But I would think it would be more around $850, $850, something like that. Maybe not for the Piccolo.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If I'm looking at the right one on nibs.com, it's $650.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. So, yeah. So, a little bit less than that. So, that's a good price.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But, you know, a lot of this stuff is, it's more that you were able to get it. Yes. Exactly. You know, like, you didn't pay over. You paid kind of a roundabout what it would cost. But you were able to get it. Yep. And typically, you just can't get these things. You can't just go and look at it and pick it up from a place. It's not a thing that you can do very easily, either in the US or the UK. It's like, oh, I'll just go look at the Nakaya. Yeah. Well, no. Right, right. You can't do that. You have to buy it blind. Right. Which is why I continue to be incredibly hesitant. Right. Because, you know. Oh, as Jim has pointed out in the chat room, that a nib grind would obviously add to the cost. Right? So, that's a good point. Right? So, yes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, that's already done.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's a very good point. I overlooked that. Yes, of course. If you had some nib work done, then you've maybe got like 100 or 120, 150. You know, you've got a good price in it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Probably not that much. But still, it's the pen I wanted at a good price. And you can, like, pick it up in your hand and leave with it. Like, that doesn't happen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, and I think that is probably the main reason why I've yet to do this. Because it's a lot of money and I really don't want to regret it. So, I kind of remain put off by it. And it's like even one of those things. So, yeah, I can try out all of the component pieces independently. Right. And build something that I'll be, in theory, happy with. But I don't know, man. And sometimes you've just got to feel, I sound so ridiculous, maybe. I don't know. Like, feel like the connection with it. Like, when you hold it. And you know it's for you. Because, you know, it's like the king of pen, right? Every time I saw it, every time I looked it on a website, would never buy it. No interested in it. Tried it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Got goosebumps. So good. Right. So, like, sometimes you've just got to try it. So, one time, you know, I will go to one of these other pen shows, right? Where you can get this stuff more easily. So, like, as Tony in the chat room mentions, like, L.A. and San Francisco, you're more likely to pick these up, I guess, maybe.

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

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, in one year, like, I want to go to one of those shows one year. So, like, I might wait until then. We'll see.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And I inked it up. I picked up a bottle of Faber-Castell Viper Green. It's one of the new colors. Really kind of a bright green, but not like a yellowy bright green, a dark bright green, if that makes sense. It looks perfect in this pen. So, super, super happy with it. But, yeah. It's one of the most me pens I own. So, yeah. It's really, really good. So, now I need to work on selling my other pens so I can buy more Nakias because apparently that's going to be my thing. I was wondering if it was going to end up that way. Like, if I focused on something and that might be it. And I'm good with buying, like, one of those a year. That would be fine. But that's the thing about Nakias is you never know when you're going to run across something.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That is the problem.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, now I know this seller and I've already gotten another email. So, even though that was the only pen I bought, I did get some other stuff. I actually got a lot of stuff that you're going to be seeing in reviews. You know, a bunch of stuff I picked up. For reviews coming down the pipe, I've sent a bunch of things out to the different writers for the pen addicts. So, we'll have some other things. But the best thing I got at the show, Myke, was something you couldn't deliver to me. And that's the Lamy orange ink cartridge. So, I just want to say thanks to Anna Incantadora, who was there all the way from Paris. She was in the chat room earlier this morning. We'll see if she's still paying attention. But she brought me two boxes of the cartridges. And they're super great. Like, I really love them. Where did she get them? From the same shop, I believe. We'll have to see if she pops up in the chat room and says. I thought she said she ordered them at the same time we originally mentioned them. Right. And got two boxes. If not, she might have found them locally to her somewhere. Okay. But I think she bought them at the same time that you did originally. And this cartridge is great. You can tell they're old because they're about a quarter of the ink is evaporated already. Right. That's just what happens to ink cartridges, you know, as they sit over time. You know, they're a little bit... A little bit... They're not full. ...vanishes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're not full. So, she does say she got them at a local pair of shop. So, but they're the same boxes that you had, you know, the little not-for-sale boxes. And what's even funnier about this ink is I think we found who got your ink cartridges we ordered. That you ordered. So, I got an email from Gil who had this to say about our process we went through with these Lamy Orange ink cartridges. It says, Greetings. I just finished listening to PA 319. I think that a certain little shop in a certain UK country, I guess that is, where the place names tend to be very lengthy and very unpronounceable, may have recently accidentally filled my order for a certain Lamy Orange ink recently that doesn't really exist, leaving an expectant Myke ink list. I was overdrawed to receive the five boxes, five boxes that I ordered from the unnamed shop. But now I wonder if I'm not partially responsible for the shortage that caused Myke's order to go unfilled. I'll be at the Dallas Pen Show in September and I've decided to gift one of my boxes to Brad. So, Myke, if you like, you can keep the remaining cartridges that you managed to get and not worry about sharing any with Brad. Not that you would anyway. Then I'll be able to better sleep at night without feeling as though I had hoarded the last known quantity of this rare substance on Earth. So, I emailed Gil back and told him that I got two boxes from Anna. And I said if he still wants to give me one in Dallas, that I will give one away to the Pen Attic Reader. So, we'll do that when I get another box of ink cartridges. I will give one away. So, more people can partake in our fun Lamy Orange obsession. That will all go for naught when they launch a Lamy Orange ink probably within the next six to 12 months, right? It's got to happen, right? You'd hope so.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I hope it's this color. This is a very bright color. It's like Ackerman Orange Bovin or Mont Blanc Lucky Orange. Very, very bright. Very, very orange. Not yellow. Yellowy orange. Not brownish orange. Just like pure traffic coney type orange. It's really, really good. I like it. All right. So, what do we have next? Our good friends at Retro 51, Myke. They listened to last week's podcast. And I'd actually forgot about it. I was going to follow up with it after you mentioned that, you know, maybe the twist came. The twist on the back of the Retro 51 tornado was maybe why it was called Tornado. Yeah. But both of us were too dense to realize that the shape of the actual tornado pin is in the shape of a tornado. We were too fascinated with the twist. I don't know if I would have ever gotten that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, it's not like pronounced as a tornado, you know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, they tweeted about it and put an image out on Instagram of the first tornadoes they built. What they said was, this is a good theory, but the name actually came from the cone shape of an actual tornado. Before it was officially named the tornado, it was called a vintage, which was engraved on the top ring, too. And they put a picture out of some of the very first tornadoes that they made on Instagram. We'll put a link in the show notes to that. So, I thought that was cool. I love it when companies are part of the community like this. Yeah. Like, they're not purely takers. They're also givers. And by takers, I mean just constantly, like, pushing, like, sales without having... Just selling to you all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Without having a human element that can also reply and converse and, you know, teach you things. So, it's nice. I love it when companies are responsive to, like, the little minutiae like this. Like, this is really neat. You know, to... You know, people are having a conversation. They're just not... You know, they're just not out there pushing products all the time. They're conversing with their customers, which I love. So, there's no wonder why we love Retro 51 so much.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. It is a great satisfaction to me when I kind of ask a question out into the world and get the answer from the person that knows it. It's a great satisfaction. Like, it feels very good. And it is a good answer. Like, yeah, I can see why you would have called it, but I wouldn't have guessed it. I don't think I ever would have gotten that. Like, oh, they call it a tornado because it's shaped like a tornado. But, of course, it is because it's in a cone, like a kind of semi-cone shape. And I definitely, desperately want one that has the word vintage stamped on it now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, that's the next campaign, right? I think that's already started. That's already underway.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because I have some old ones, but I don't think they say vintage on them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I have just the one old one that I think you have that Tiff gave me. Although, Lisa gave us an older one, too. But I think that was still a newer prototype. Yeah. So, we'll have to see. I'll have to go check. But, yeah, I don't think I have any that say vintage on them, but I'll check. But, yeah, the campaign is on to get Myke a vintage. So, that'll be cool. We'll work on that. Another company I love, Myke, my love is deep for my friends at CW&T. So, Stay Away and Taylor, who make my beloved pen type B. Myke, they sent me a pen about a year ago just for fun. And I was shocked when I got it. And I actually replied to him. I was like, oh, I used to have something like this when I was a kid. And you see some of these out and about now. But in typical pen, excuse me, in typical CW&T fashion, they massively, I won't say overly engineer, but they engineer things in a nice, neat, clean CW&T way. So, they're doing the pen type C, apparently, is going to become a thing. And it's nothing like the first two models at all. It's basically a D1 refill pen. And I don't know what the name for these pens are, but they, the style exists before where they have like a snap around arm, if you will. I don't know what you would actually call this. It's a small, thin, rectangular pen with this snap thing. And people, if they look at the image, they will recognize this shape. Like, I literally had like a larger pen like this when I was a kid and it fit this ballpoint refill. Well, this has the ability to just snap in a D1 refill. I've had this thing sitting on my desk forever. It's really cool and really neat. So, I'll be interested to see what they do when they launch this. I didn't know it was ever going to become a thing when they originally sent it to me. And I don't think they did either, but it looks like it's time is here. What do you think about this? Probably, I know this isn't your style of pen, but what do you think about it just in general?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I mean, one, I don't know what it looks like, right? Because I can't see it. The image isn't super clear. You have it in front of you, so you know how it looks. I will say that I'm probably going to be more intrigued in this than the pen type A and B because I just don't like the A and B. Really? It's just not my thing. Well, okay, let's just rephrase that. I like it when it's closed. I don't like it when you take the pen out. So, I'm excited. I know they make good stuff. I'm keen to see what it looks like.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I will say it is ultra thin. Like, it's as thick as it needs to be to fit that wire to snap over and latch into it, and that's it. And it's titanium, so it's ultra light, ultra thin, ultra small. Well, no. I mean, you don't want to hold it for long writing sessions, but I'm one who can use rectangular barrels. I have, you know, I always raved about my Moleskine rectangular barrel, even though it's large. The, I'm blanking on the name, that just did this, the TI, the tech accessories. They just did a pen that's rectangular in shape. I can use those. You don't want to write a novel with them, but as a portable, like, EDC type pen, it's really, really good for short notes and quick writing. So, yeah, it's really neat. Now that they've done that, maybe I can take some pictures of it. I was always, you know, just keeping that on the, you know, it wasn't a real thing, so I didn't want to publicize it. But I'll shoot them an email and see if I can start taking pictures of this and give you some comparisons. Because it's really, it's, you can't tell how small it is based on the photo that they sent, but it's pretty small, which is a feature. Like, I really like it because of that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, it's certainly interesting.