Editing The Pen Addict 454/transcript (section)

== Gravitas Pens ==


'''Myke:''' Do you remember us talking about Gravitas when the Kickstarter came out? No. I already don't. Okay, so it's a guy named Ben Walsh from Ireland, okay? And he sent me a couple pens. I really enjoyed them. They, if you look at the ballpoint pen, you might recall it because it had a unique shape to it. It was a, it was kind of a large metal pen. Oh, I remember this. And it had this flat side.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I didn't like the ends of the pens.

'''Myke:''' Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, he had a Kickstarter campaign and it failed, right? It was a not successful Kickstarter campaign. And what's pretty cool about that is Ben said, forget that noise. We're just going to go for it. And he did. And he has really, like, immediately stepped it up right after that. So, I appreciate that kind of attitude from a creator, right? You know, this didn't work out. But, you know, I believe in what I'm doing and I'm going to continue on and let's see what happens. And then it escalated extremely quickly from the standard straight barrel aluminum or titanium. I don't know if he had, like, titanium and brass and things like that in the beginning. But it's standard aluminum barrels with, you know, fountain pens and ballpoint slash rollerball pens for the campaign into wild anodization, which I, of course, love with spoke pen. And we like our wild anodizations and interesting finishes and even, like, etchings on, you know, like the Celtic knot or the skulls. And all these things are at gravitaspens.com. And Ben sent me. He emailed me. He said, hey, I appreciate, you know, you shouting us out like the Kickstarter. It didn't work out. But I've got some new stuff I want to send you. And I was like, okay. I hadn't looked at his site. I had no clue what to expect. I didn't know he had done all this. And I opened up this package yesterday. And I get these, like, swirly tie-dyed, like, paper sleeves. I'm like, these sleeves are wild. Like, what is going on here? Is this just – I was still just at this point assuming it was just going to be the standard aluminum, you know, silver aluminum pen in there. And there was two of them. And I opened it up. And it's this rainbow anodization fountain pen and ballpoint pen. So one of each. So they're called the Skittles series for, I guess, obvious reasons. If you know what Skittles are, right? You know, Taste the Rainbow is Skittles' tagline. And that's what we have here. These are basically rainbow anodized pens that are exceptionally well done. They look cool. They look really nice. Yeah. In hand, they look just as nice as the picture, right? Like, this is a hard thing to photograph and, like, to get right. But I feel like they're really, really well done. I still completely fancy the ballpoint pen, right? That shape. This is what I backed on the Kickstarter was the ballpoint. And I passed on the fountain pen because I thought the ballpoint pen was, like, really, really unique shape and design. It's also anodized as well. And I don't know. I. The way he stepped it up after. I don't want to call it a failure, right? If a Kickstarter project doesn't succeed, there's lots of things that go into it, right? You know, it could be pricing. It could be timing. It could be whatever. Like, this was also, like, during the pandemic, I think. Like, I think there was just a lot of things going on. And for whatever reason, it didn't resonate. And for someone to say, okay, let me reboot. And what is going to be my process now? What am I going to do to make this dream come true? What am I going to do to make my pen stand out? And I think he's done that with everything that I see on the site. As a matter of fact, people were going to buy the pens as I was talking about them on Twitch yesterday. One of my friends went and bought the skull pen because that's what they like. And, like, it's just a really cool story to follow when this happens. I just, I don't know. I'm kind of fascinated by it. I look forward to reviewing these pens. I'll definitely at least give one of them away. You know, I might give away the fountain pen because I always wanted the ballpoint pen anyway. But I don't know. It's going to be hard to shake these as well. So, I'm very pleased with what I see from these. But, again, I've just opened them yesterday. We'll see how they go. These are very heavy pens, right, if you're into that type of thing. That's what these pens are, right? This is not, like, our spoke pens are aluminum and light. These are, like, steel and heavy. Like, they're very, very heavy. So, you know, it's just something to think about when you're looking at these pens. But, yeah, I'm very impressed so far. I had missed them. And it's cool to see Gravitas carrying on and actually, like, going bigger than ever before. Like, it's great to see.

'''Brad:''' You love to see it, as they say.

'''Myke:''' You love to see it. You know what else I love to see, Myke? Tell me. My freaking Lamy Safari is finally in my hand.

'''Brad:''' The Safari Safari?

'''Myke:''' Safari Safari. Finally, they are in my hands. They're awesome. Like, the colors are so good. Like, I inked them up this morning. Again, like, I'm so far behind. I literally did Cosmo Air Light testing this morning with ink from the Lamy Safaris that I just inked up this morning.

'''Myke:''' With the Gravitas pens sitting here that I have yet to ink up this morning. It's a hot mess over here. But that's how far behind I am on testing things, new products. But they're great. They're matte finish. The colors came out perfect, I think, from what the representation in the photography was, right? They look like the originals from back in the early 80s. And the black nibs, the black accents and clip, I think, look great. I've inked up the Savannah color, which is the green. I've inked that up with the famous, Myke, the famous Lamy Orange ink cartridge. Do you remember that, those shenanigans? Oh, my word. From a couple years ago? Yeah. I was able to acquire a couple boxes of those Lamy ink cartridges. So I have the Lamy Orange in there. I don't know how old those cartridges are, but it's at least like a third evaporated when I pulled them out. They're just old. And then in the terracotta red, I thought I was going to put in a blue-black ink cartridge. And I went to find them, and I'm out of them, but I did find a box of petrol ink cartridges from the limited edition. So I popped that in. So they both have fine nibs, and they write great, and they look great. And I just wanted to say that I put this in the show notes to specifically say how dominant Team Safari's win is going to be this year before we talk about our friend Anna's new news at the well-appointed desk, because she is Team All-Star. I am Team Safari. You're Team Safari. Is that correct?

'''Brad:''' You know Team Safari. I know.

'''Myke:''' I know. It's just been a while. I just wanted to get it on the record. And the level of domination that Team Safari will have this year is almost embarrassing. I feel bad for Team All-Star this year that they're going to have to put up with this for the entire year of just, like, what are even the colors this year of All-Star? I mean, they've been released, but no one cares. Because look at these Safaris, Myke. This is Team Safari all the way forever and ever. Like, this is it. Like, it's going to take Team All-Star probably two or three years to recover from the results this year.

'''Brad:''' The crushing defeat.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, the crushing defeat. I feel that in my heart about these pins. So apologies in advance to, if you're on Team All-Star this year, take the L. You know, I'm willing to admit in years past when Safari has not held up their end of the bargain. And I hope to hear it from Team All-Star this year that they're just not getting it done. So the leader of Team All-Star, our good friend, Anna Reiner at the Well-Appointed Desk, had some big news this week in launching a Patreon. And I've been waiting for this. Like, I haven't talked to her about this. But, like, she, like, deserves to create a Patreon and have people support her work directly more than anyone. Her shop is crushing it with her new products. The Well-Appointed Desk Shop, which, you know, I've raved about. I've got my stamps. I've got my fancy vintage paper pad notebooks on my desk. And now she's got a Patreon with a lot of cool levels and cool things you can get for supporting her work and her team's work directly. And I just wanted to make sure to shout that out and give her a shout-out for that because we love Anna. We'll have to get her on. She's so busy right now. We'll have to get her on, find a time to get her on to come talk about this and talk about all the changes and everything that's going on because she's crushing it right now. So I just wanted to give her a shout-out and point everyone in that direction.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I've become a patron. You should, too. There'll be a link in the show notes. Go sign up. There's some cool tiers. She's got some great benefits for the tiers, too. So go check it out.

'''Myke:''' Absolutely. Go check it out.

'''Brad:''' This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Pen Chalet. They have your favorite products, the products that are going to become your favorite products as well, all available for you to buy. And they stock wonderful pens and accessories from the brands that you love most. Monteverde, Pelican, Lamy, Sailor, Pilot, Namiki, Kaweco, and so many more. They're an authorized dealer and they're adding new brands, new products, new styles of product every single month, as well as having discounts. Every couple of weeks, you can go and find new products that have great sale discounts at Pen Chalet. They give the very best, the fastest, the most reliable customer service around. They want you to be super happy, which is why they have a 100% satisfaction guarantee on their high quality products. Pen Chalet do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the United States, but they also sell internationally with great shipping rates. And whether you're looking for pens or pen holders, maybe you want carrying cases, refills, inks, you're going to find it at Pen Chalet, which is P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Go there right now and click the podcast link at the top of the website. You enter the password Pen Addict and you will get your hands on not just the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time at Pen Chalet. Also, a list of special offers that are just for Pen Addict listeners.

'''Myke:''' Before I break into this list, these Safaris I just raved about at Pen Chalet.com. You can get 10% off those, you know, if you're interested in checking out the Savannah or the Terracotta Red, you can always get those. So, the Cross has done some interesting things with fountain pens recently. And there's two models on this list that are really good looking that I am not familiar with at all. And the prices are good. And I'm wondering if they're worth a second look. Like the Cross Peerless 125 fountain pen, what kind of nib does this have? Because at one point, they were using Sailor nibs. I'm kind of thinking this might be. And it's a really cool looking pen and it's a really good price. I'm going to have to check this out a little bit further. But it looks awesome. And then on the steel nib model, they have the Cross ATX. I'm staring at this pen. This looks like a hugely upgraded Pilot Metropolitan. And I mean that in the best way possible. It looks like a totally, like if Pilot made a Premier Metropolitan, this is what it would look like. It's a great shape. It's a great color. I'm really digging this design of this ATX. And the price is kind of like the no-brainer level price. So, yeah. The Cross Peerless 125 and the Cross ATX fountain pen. I have not seen either of these. And I am legitimately interested in researching more of what these are about. And might be worth looking at even closer than that. So, then you also have the Conklin All-American Limited Edition Olive Wood Rollerball Pen. The latest batch of these Conklin pens with the wood barrels. They've done a few different models. Fountain pen and rollerball models. I've heard good things about them. And people are digging the barrels. Digging the style of the pens. And what they look like. And how they feel. And they're always a good price. And then, finally, there's always sneaky pelicans. When you go down the list at pengelee.com. So, we're going to leave it at that. We're going to call it a sneaky pelican list. Because they're there. You've got to go find them. And they're pretty legitimately great.

'''Brad:''' I did a little bit of digging. And it seems like the PLS 125 is the pen that has the Sailor nib.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. This is interesting. I'm going to go poke around with this a little bit more after the show. And see what I can figure out. But color me intrigued on this pen.

'''Brad:''' Penshelee.com. P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. My thanks to Penshelee for the support of this show. And Relay FM.

'''Myke:''' We've got to get to some mass TPA, Myke. It's been a while.

'''Brad:''' Okay.