Editing The Pen Addict 425/transcript (section)

== Sailor Pen Changes ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' It's where the clip looks like a duck's bill. Yeah. But it's meant to look like an anchor. It's very bad. It's very bad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So anyway, go listen to the rest of that show to see what other products are getting moved out. And honestly, most of these are in the Asian market products. You don't get very many of these product lines in the U.S. market for good reason. They're just... They're never going to be top sellers. And this is kind of what I want to see, right? There's some refinement that needs to happen before they start making the change. Sailor Compass was obviously in place before this buyout. And we'll see. We'll see how it continues to go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That product's not going to live. I can tell you that for sure. The fact that they got rid of stuff like the Young ProFit and stuff like... It doesn't make me think that the Compass is long for this world. Unless it performs very well, which I don't think it will.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They are traditionally poor, sailor that is, in the $20 to $50 category. They just traditionally cannot succeed there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And this is one of those weird things to me where there are companies that think they need to be... Just leave that area alone. You don't have to be at every price point. Focus and be good at the price points that you're good at. Be the best, which they are in my opinion. So double down on that. That segment of your market, the $200 to $500 or whatever, everybody loves you in that area. So focus on that area. You don't also need to compete with Lamy. You can just let Lamy do their thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, and Pilot and Platinum just kind of have a stranglehold on those price points too. Especially Platinum. So yeah, I think this is good. I enjoyed that podcast.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Good insight. Good insight, as always. So yeah, go listen to that and you'll hear about all the other products that they're talking about. I caught an image on Instagram just before the show this morning, Myke. And it's of the Visconti Homo Sapiens, which a lot of people are familiar with this pen. And there's no real name for this one yet, but it's a Homo Sapiens. And I got this off the Applebaum Pen Instagram feed. And they're just saying, you know, Visconti Homo Sapiens in colors. So there's like a natural brown, almost clay looking one. There's a dark red kind of brick looking one. And there's a white one with like little black speckles in it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They've all got speckles on them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They all... Okay, yeah. I do see that now. So they all have speckles in them. They all have kind of the black plated trim. You know, the cap bands, the barrel bands, the clip, the finials, things like that. And I'm intrigued. Like, I've always wanted a Homo Sapiens, right? We've talked about this for years. It's just one of those pens that when I've used them and they've been tuned right, they've had nib problems, which are in their past, right? I'm not considering that an issue anymore, but that was my hesitancy originally. They're past the nib issues. These look good. Like, and I didn't think I would see something like this from the Homo Sapiens lineup because it's always traditionally...

'''Myke Hurley:''' Can we just mention how weird that name is, that it's called the Homo Sapiens? Like, that's the name of the pen? It's not called Homo Sapien. It's the Visconti Homo Sapiens, one of them. A Homo Sapiens. Very weird.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Very weird product name. Right. Right. So, yeah, it is. And it's a volcanic rock-based material that they're making these barrels of, including these new color editions, right? They're doing something still with the original base, which was the original idea of the black ones that have been around for probably a decade now, I would guess. And they're just wildly popular. And I've never owned one. And this white one's calling to me. The red one looks good. Even the brown one looks good. Like, I'm intrigued. Like, the other thing Visconti has done, well, two things. One, back to the nib talk, they're making 14-karat gold nibs now. They're not having the palladium weird nib that they had before that was, you know, questionable QC. They've gotten all this stuff past them now for the most part. But in line with that, the increase in MSRP has been rampant through their product lineup. So, I don't know. There's no cost on these. Yeah, you used to get a Homo Sapiens for, like, around $500, $450, $550. I don't know what these would be. Like, I remember some of the limited editions coming out were a little bit more, like $600 or $700. Now, they're getting $800, $1,000. No, no, no. Like, there's definitely been some big, big inflation in the product lineup. So, I want to see what the price is on these. The news is just coming out, you know, as an upcoming release. And we'll be talking about this one again once the price comes out because I'm intrigued. But then, you know, I have to stand it up against, like, some of the other pens I've bought recently. You know, like the Leonardo Primary Manipulation and a couple of these other expensive pens that I've bought. And, you know, do I need another expensive pen? But anyway, I wanted to bring this up because it was kind of new and it's very different.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm looking at the Appleman page right now, like, just at Visconti in general. And they have, like, €970 versions of Homo Sapiens at the moment. Like, they seem to be special edition. But, like, my word, that's... So, what's the basic black one? The one that I'm looking at is the Blue Lagoon, which is a beautiful pen. Yeah, those are limited. But, like, €1,000? Woo!

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's expensive. What's the basic black one without the ink window? It's, like, black and kind of copper looking. Solid.

'''Myke Hurley:''' €4,95. Okay. So, that was about right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, that was about right there. So, that's the baseline one. And then, it goes up from there. I bet these are going to be in the middle of those two prices you just mentioned, would be my guess.

'''Myke Hurley:''' There's also one for €395, which is called the MIDI. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, the Homo Sapiens is a large pen. So, I think they shortened and shrunk the barrel down a little bit on that. Because that's another reason why I didn't jump into it. Because it's always been a very big pen. And they've had a couple... They might have had three different links on that. Or maybe it's just two. But, yeah. They've had... It's a large, large size pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Blimey. They do rollable versions, right? And they have one of the swirl ones. A rollable. It's almost €800 for a rollable.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean, that's a different classification of a pen user buying that one than we normally see.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. That... Yeah. I don't know who that's for.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But, I see the limited edition fountain pens all the time. They're fantastic looking.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's... Right. The swirl ones, the swirl models, they're mostly clear, right? Yes. They demonstrate. And they've got swirls around them. Why would you pay €800 to look at a refill? I don't know. I buy a lot of translucent pens. No, but, like, at a refill?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, for the rollerball, you mean?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Okay. I'm tracking you. Yes. Right? That is a more interesting question.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because it doesn't... Like, they've got pictures of it on their website. And it doesn't look good. Because there's, like, a little... Just, like, a little piece of metal in the middle of it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' There's nothing compelling about what refills look like. Exactly. It takes the fun away. As opposed to fountain pen ink. You know, throw your pink ink in there, sloshing around in your ocean swirl. Like, it's a pin party.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, the Blue Lagoon is probably my favorite looking homo sapien that I've seen. That's funny. Visconti homo sapiens that I've seen. It's beautiful. But it's a very peculiar thing to just look at a refill. Like, I know a converter is not that different. But at least you can put some color in there. You know? Or, I mean, you could even try an eyedropper if you want to. I don't know if I would want to eyedropper or 1,000 euro pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, here you go. The chat has a great idea. Okay. The chat is, we just need to send a set of refills over to Bocamundo and get Rodden on the refill.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That is, that's like a next level of luxury, right? I think that's, yeah. To, like, spend $700 or $800 to have a refill change, knowing that, like, it's gonna run out, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I think that's bringing your A game there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. That's more than an A game. So my thing about these homo sapiens, we'll call them the bricks, because that's kind of what they all look like. They all just look like a kind of brick, which is, I mean, and they photographed them on rocks, right? Yeah. Fair enough. I think that's fair. These are, I think, meant to look like, if the pens are made out of lava rock, I think they're intending to evoke the natural kind of elements of the pen. The aesthetic, yeah. Honestly, for me, if they, if they up charge these from, like, the 500 euro point, it's too much.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.