Editing The Pen Addict 372/transcript (section)

== London Stationery Store Visit ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' All right, I've got a story for you. All right, I'm ready. So, some weeks ago, Idina found a store in London, randomly, called Choosing Keeping. And she poked around it and was like really impressed with it, right? You liked it when you went there.

'''Adina Hurley:''' Oh, I loved it. I wanted to buy everything and I was worried a bit that I didn't understand what everything is for, so I wanted to get you in there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, we were in London. I was buying a fancy suit for our big live show that we're doing in San Francisco and I wanted to go and take a look at Choosing Keeping. So, the store, it's in London. They recently moved into a larger, into a larger space. But, I was kind of poking around and very, I was very surprised at, pleasantly surprised at the products that they were carrying. So, I'm walking down this kind of line and I'm seeing, oh, okay, they have life notebooks. That's an interesting thing to see, right? Like, they're not everywhere. So, I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool. Oh, how cool. And I'm like, hang on a minute. Then they have Tomoe River paper notebooks and Midori notebooks. And I'm like, what is going on in this store? Right? Like, they have everything. And I was like, I was genuinely like, really surprised about it because the collection, even just of paper that they had, I feel like I have not seen in many shops, let alone a shop in London. Right? Like, it felt like this is a, this was a surprise to me because you typically don't see, oh, they also had Nemesine. Nemesine? Yeah. Yeah, they had Nemesine notebooks. They have all the stuff on their website, right? So you could see the brands that they carry. But I was like, I was super surprised by it because you just tend not to see this stuff very much. Then I turned around and saw their fountain pen cabinet and they had pilots, they had sailors, they had platinum pens. I was like, wow, this is, this is kind of wild. So I'm like, we were poking around in the store a little bit more and they had a bunch of like, really interesting knickknacks, like these beautiful brass tape dispensers, which I was like, kind of obsessed by, but it was 225 pounds. So like, I like it, but not that much. And so, yeah, we're like, we're poking around in the store. They had all these great inks. Like, again, it's like, they had like really great ink. I'm like, who, how is this happening? Right? Like, why is this little store, like, why does it have all of these, like it had some sailor inks in it. Um, I can't, and there were some other brands that I don't remember the name of, off the top of my head, but they were like Japanese brands that I've heard you mention before. Right? So I was like, I started talking to someone, one of the people in the store, because they could see that I was more interested and intrigued than the average person. Like they also, like they had like a really great, uh, Kaweco, um, ex, a kind of exhibit, I would call it. They had like every Kaweco pen you could ask for. They had a bunch of Lamy pens. They had all of the special editions and stuff like that. But they, even though they had those, they were not like put at the front, like a lot of pen stores would. Right? Like they were putting their Japanese pens at the front and then their German pens kind of towards the back. Um, as it should be,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' any good store.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Exactly. I didn't want to say that, but that's 100% true. So I was like looking and I was like saying like, oh, so what is like, what is your, like, what kind of like, what is this all about? Like I was saying, you have like a very, very good stock of paper, especially, right? Like every brand that I would want to see represented from Japan is here. Even the same with pens, right? They didn't have a huge collection, but they had a few really interesting models of a, you know, of a bunch of like the best. And the woman was saying to me that basically their idea is they don't want to stock everything. They just want to stock the best of what they do. And I was like, well, you did it. Congratulations. Right? Like you, you 100% nailed it. Now there's part of the story that I missed out so far, which was when I was looking in the display case at the Platinums and I came across a pen that I've never seen before. The Platinum 3776 Arushi Raden Galaxy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Arushi Raden Galaxy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'd have to look at it. I'd never seen this pen before, but I took one look at it and fell in love with it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So I'm going to need a link to this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I put it in the chat room. Okay. So you can take a look. It is stunning. It is an Arushi 3776 with Avalone Shell gold furniture. It was unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. And the price that they told me was in line with the price that I would get from someone like the Nibsmith, right? Which I was also really surprised about. They did. They were not charging MSRP. Interesting. At all. Like it was a very, very good price. It was a price so good that I kind of felt like maybe they didn't know what they had on hand. You know, it was basically in line of what I would pay from someone like Dan Smith if translated into pounds. It was about, I think about 650 pounds, which I was really very pleased with for a pen that I immediately fell in love with. Like I picked it up, took a look at it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Basically, I bought it, right? Is what I'm saying. Right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Adina's sitting right there, Myke. Yes. I have it in my hand right now. The funny thing is this is one week away from a pen show. Right?

'''Adina Hurley:''' He did the whole dance. Oh, I'll take another look around the store and then decide. He was telling that to the, yeah, it was bought in his heart already.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, exactly. I immediately fell in love with it. Um, I'm being asked in the chat room what nib. Now, this is where the story continues. Oh boy, this is a story time. I love it. So, I was given a medium, they had a medium basically. And I was like, all right, I have a broad already in my 3776 nicely last. so I was like, great, I'll get a medium nib. So, get it home, open it up. I'm always like, frustrated at Platinum's boxes. I feel like they really kind of don't do a good job there compared to some other brands. Very like, boring. Um, but I, there is like a whole other question which I'm not sure about. It's like, I don't even know what to put, ink to put in a pen like this because there's so many colors going on, right? Like what, what ink do you put in a, uh, Raden pen? Right. I feel like I would want to put a shimmer ink in it but I'm too scared to put a shimmer ink in this Arushi pen that I just purchased. I think of this as my three quarters Nakaya by the way. Okay. That's where I am with this pen. It's like three quarters of the way in like quality and price I think to a Nakaya. So I fill it and I'm playing it around and I'm scribbling with it and the nib broke.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wait, you need to explain that further. I know, I'm going to. Okay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Um, the, uh, okay, so I need, I need the, the terminology from you a little bit because I struggle with it. The very tip of the nib, right? Okay, yeah. So on the tines of the nib, what is it called? That ball right at the very top, right? The tipping. The tipping. One half of the tipping just snapped off.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh,

'''Myke Hurley:''' wow. I am. I have literally never had this happen before. I cannot understand why it happened, but it did.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's very strange. Yes. That's, that's a flaw. Clearly, not something you did. Something, something happened to that pen

'''Myke Hurley:''' at some point. Yeah. Right. I don't know if it got dropped, right? Like, I don't know what happened to it, but something happened to it. Um, so I was upset. Just a little bit. I was upset. Uh, I ended up, uh, just taking the nib from my nicely last and putting it on this. Um, so I now have a slightly rose gold nib on a pen with gold furniture, but let's pretend that that didn't happen. Uh, it's difficult to see just because I couldn't not use this pen, right? So I ended up sacrificing a nib for a nib. I found out subsequently that it is impossible to buy platinum nibs. Like, you cannot do it. You have to buy a platinum pen and then take the nib, right? They don't sell them. Um, so, uh, Adina, this is where you take over because you took over the story from here.

'''Adina Hurley:''' Oh, I got upset for you because you loved it so much. It's so gorgeous and basically you couldn't use it. I don't think it's right that you have to take the nib from a different pen. So I got angry for you and as I usually do, I contacted the manufacturer, um, at least their UK contact. Uh, I don't have any more updates on that apart from the fact that they are, the guy who's in charge of this is currently on holiday and he should get back to me on Thursday, hopefully, because he'll be back in the office then. But I really want to get it sorted out for you.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So that's kind of where we are, right? Like, my feeling is taking it to the store is kind of pointless and taking it back to the store because they're probably only going to do what, what Idina has done which is to contact the distributor.

'''Adina Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, unless the distributor is not going to go through with you directly and will take it back through the store

'''Myke Hurley:''' then you have to jump through that. We'll find that out once they reply. But that, the, the, the warranty information I think had this.

'''Adina Hurley:''' It sent me to their manufacturer website and for their, to the distributor. It doesn't tell me to go for the retailer. So, we'll see. Gotcha, I'm confident

'''Myke Hurley:''' that we will get a resolution to this. But it was just like this whole funny, this, I think it's a funny story really.