Editing The Pen Addict 419/transcript (section)

== Paper Discussion ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' So if you want to find out more about those deals and get to see the prices that we're talking about, you want to go to PenChalet.com, click the podcast link at the top of the website, and enter the password PenAddict, and you'll get your hands on these offers and the 10% code to use to save anything at PenChalet at any time. Our thanks to PenChalet for their continued support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I reviewed the Kaweco Supra this week, Myke, which is a long time coming.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is a pen that is so strange to look at pictures of, because when you see it on its own, right? So like the first few pictures on the page, it's like, oh, that's like a Lilliput. And then you see it later on down in your page, like stacked next to the other Kawecos. And then it just looked like my brain, it breaks looking at the images. Because then when you see it next to the Twisby, it looks like a Lilliput again, and it's just a tiny Twisby. And then you see, it's very, this is a very strange, like, I'm really struggling to get my head around the size and scale of this pen. It's very weird.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And it's definitely one of the stranger pens on the market, which is why I definitely wanted to review it, also being a Kaweco and also being stainless steel. So they came out with the brass version, probably, gosh, it's probably been two years now, at least a year, year and a half, they came out with the brass one. And what the Supra is, is a metal barrel pen. If you're familiar with the Lilliput, it's like an extra large sized shape Lilliput, just straight barrel, rounded ends. And it uses a number six nib, which is the key in all of this. So based on the configuration, it's a configurable pen, right? So it has a barrel section that you can take apart and remove almost like an inch long section out of the barrel to either extend the pen to a full traditional death size pen or shorten the pen into like a pocketable, a little bit larger than the Kaweco Lilliput style of pen. I love the idea of this. I just don't know that it needs to exist because I don't think the end use of this pen is both configurations. You either want it for the long pen or want it for the short pen. And I think most people, myself included, would want it for the short pen because that's where it's a standout pen. If the barrel section is removed, you take that off, set it on your desk, and then you screw the barrel back together with the grip section. And you can cap it. It's a great sized EDC pocket pen. And it's still, you know, big enough and heavy enough and substantial enough to write with. It's got a number six nib, which is great. And we're going to talk about the nib a little bit more later because I had some issues. And it's just, it's kind of perfect as the Lilliput XL, which is what I call it, right? So it's kind of perfect for that small size. And also in the small size, it just takes short international cartridges. So if you put the middle section back into the pen, screw it all back together, it's now a full length pen. It uses a full length international converter, right? You can fit, you know, your normal converter into that. You just have a much more bulky pen and the middle section sticks out a little bit, right? Because they have to have all this, these threading options to, to build the pen how you want. So it sticks out a little bit. It doesn't really bother me too much, but it becomes too big and too heavy when it's at full length and there's no way you can post the cap on there. I mean, technically it's, it's made to post, right? It's a threaded cap posting, but then it becomes a baton in your hand, right? It's like a, it's like a weapon at that point. It gets so long and so heavy, it's unusable. So I almost want this to like, to be split up into like two different pens. When I was sharing it on stream, someone mentioned, well, what if they, we all like the short configuration. Like, I think it's pretty universal that everyone loves the short configuration of this pen. So why don't they make that and call it the Lilliput XL or call it the, some different kind of the sport model, right? It's about as wide in diameter as like the AL sport, but uses a six nib instead of a five nib. And then take the full length barrel, just make it a single, single length barrel and do some unique acrylics in that full length barrel and make like a longer eyedropper pen, you know, kind of like a nicer Perkyo. So the Perkyo is their long barrel entry level pen. It uses a number five nib. I think it might be, it might be a six or something in between. Um, and I just don't think the use case for this pen is in the full, fully extended configuration. So that's my hesitancy. And it's like, how do you recommend this? It's like, well, if you really love the Lilliput and want a little bit bigger pen, you're really going to like this pen outside of that. Like, I don't know how I could really recommend it for anyone because I don't think the long version is, is that good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I really don't like the way it looks when you have the extender part in it because you end up with like this up, down, up, down type, right? Like you can see it in the images. It's like a plateau. Yeah. And there's like the middle part is like thinner than the grip section and the cap. Like it, it just looks really weird both when it's capped and when it's posted. Um, that just seems, it seems strange to me. Like, frankly, like, you know, you could maybe say this for a lot of brands, but like, I feel it here. I'm not really sure why this pen exists. And maybe I feel like Kaweco might have too many pen lines now. I think they might have a couple too many.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think about this a lot, right? This is one of my things. Like if I'm Kaweco and I'm in the lab and I am experimenting, I think I come up with this design and think it's a good idea, right? Like I can see talking myself into this experiment and selling it up the chain as this is something we should make. I think in the end, it's probably not a necessary product, right? I think you're better off just making a Lilliput XL and going from there. So, but I could see why Kaweco makes this. I just don't know that we're going to see them continue with this product, right? I think it's, I think that's probably, yeah, I think they've probably gotten what they needed out of this product. I don't think it's going to be a long-term win for Kaweco like some of the other product lines that they've done. So, so I'm on Kaweco's website. It's so interesting.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I want to list to you their series. Classic sport, Skyline sport, Frosted sport, AL sport, Brass sport, Steel sport, AC sport, Lilliput, Supra, Sketchup, Special, which is a line, Elegance, Student, Dire 2, Perkyo.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I know all those except the Elegance. I don't know what the Elegance is, but all those I have, I can, I can tell you exactly what they are. The biggest problem I have is they keep, I think they muck up the, the classic sport lineup with all of the different names, Skyline, Ice. I think you just make them classic sport and then do the colors that you want for Skyline and Ice and all of those things. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm not really sure why Skyline as a line exists. Like it doesn't make sense to me. They're just all sports in different colors.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So the Skylines are the silver stamping and the classics are the gold stamping, gold stamping, gold nibs, Skylines are silver stamps and silver nibs. Yeah, I know. I'm agreeing with you on this one. I've, I've never liked that. The other ones I get because they're at least invoking the material name and the name of the product, even though it's technically the same shape, like the, the AL sport, the brass sport, the steel sport and the carbon sport are all the same. Silhouette of pen with different barrel materials. It's the, it's the, the plastic sports that I don't like the naming convention of.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. We good with that one? Cause I'm going to talk about this next topic. I find it very interesting.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, this is, yeah. Okay. Go on.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. This is the, um, this is the St. Louis pen show virtual maker fair. So St. Louis was one of the, they were scheduled for the end of June, actually probably coming up here in the next week or two would have been their pen show here in St. Louis, Missouri in the United States. And they do a great job of having makers kind of, I guess you would say, get involved in a theme of making products, specific show specific products for them to sell at the show. Well, of course the show got canceled because of COVID-19. And so a lot of these makers had already had these products. So what the St. Louis pen show did was feature all of these products on their website and allow you to go buy them from the makers. How great is this idea? Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, it makes a lot of sense, especially if they'd asked, you know, they've got the buy-in from these companies to commit to making, it looked like purple was the theme this year. Yeah. And I think that maybe one or two of the products already existed. Like one of them is the kind of layer pen co Eolani, but it was maybe they'd made more for that show. Right. Or something. But I think that that is like, it feels like the right kind of thing to do for me as like a goodwill gesture towards these brands because, you know, like they don't, it's nobody's fault. Right. Right. It's not like it's product that these companies don't have to sell, but it's nice to put them all together and try and draw a bit of attention to some companies that you'd kind of tried to get on your side. I think it's a nice way to deal with it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think it generates a lot of goodwill too, between the promoters and the consumers with the, you know, vendors in between, you know, that the vendors know that the promoters have their back and the, the customers or attendees of the show know that the promoters are putting in the work to support these makers. And it's just kind of all a great little ecosystem. I think like these pins, like the ones from Heinz pens is, is really cool material, like this purple and turquoise swirl. There's a couple of brands in here that I'm not familiar with that I'm going to look at. There is a, from Opus, Opus Michan. It's a really neat pin called the musician. You know, it's just your acrylic pin, but it's this beautiful purple and black swirl. And I think a lot of the pins have already sold out because they did this and were able to feature these pins directly. And like, I know you can get the, the KWZ ink. That's a really, really good purple. And there's like, I think there's still more of the purple. They, they, I think maybe they changed the name after the, after they found out they're going to have to show the, the, the ink is called KWZ stay home purple, which is, is brilliant. Like they're just, they're leaning into this and I just love what they did.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If it was called stay home purple beforehand, then whoever named it is a witch.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Or they just needed to be fired at that point, but now it's genius. If you're, if you're, if you're custom ink for your pin show, you're getting everyone to attend to stay home, then you've probably lost your job.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You're no longer part of the marketing team, but if you did it after the fact, yeah, now you're like, oh, this is genius. You just got a promotion on this one. So yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is still highlighting to me though, a thing that I think is needed, but hasn't been done. And I don't know if it can be done, uh, which is like a truly online pen show. Um, which is totally that has serious buy-in from a lot of the brands that would be on the pen show circuits, you know? So we're talking like good, you know, different pricing, additional product available, show special products available, limited times, you know, like, so certain makers will open their table at nine in the morning. You know, like that. I would like to see something like that, but that would take a lot of coordinating. I think could be a successful thing if you could get enough people on board. I mean, frankly, it could even be better than the typical pen show, um, kind of turnover that these companies would see. I think that there is a real, you know, there's a business case for it, which is the same business case that, uh, all of these makers and vendors would go to a pen show for. Um, but it would take a lot of coordination. Uh, I'm not going to be the person to do it and, and it would need a lot of like technical know-how to really kind of get things taken care of and put together properly. It would take a lot of planning, but frankly, we have the time and there is not going to be an in-person pen show anywhere, uh, especially in America, uh, this year. Like it's just not going to happen. So, you know, uh, I will just put it out there, right. As an idea, like if people think they could do it, like, I think they should try.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. There's a huge opportunity for someone to be an online pen show promoter right now, right? Take ownership of the online pen show once a year or twice a year to, to do this. But it's, that would be, like you said, it's a massive amount of work. Like, like if you started today, it's not even going to happen this year, but it could, it could happen even in years where there's full of pen shows. You can still get all these companies from around the world into virtual events, you know, twice a year.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like one of the larger pen shows, like the promoters for one of the larger pen shows, I am thinking about a specific one right now. Like, I feel like they have the relationships, like it could be done. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's why I wanted to put this in the doc because the question is, are any other shows going to do something like this, you know, for this year's show? And could they have an alternate calendar year, say like six months apart from their regular show, have their virtual show, you know, where they've, you know, feature these brands twice a year, you know, one in person, you know, in the future when we're back to attending shows and once at the exact opposite side of the schedule for a virtual pen show? Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would like to see it. Someone could, someone could do it. But don't all do it. I'm wonderful.