Editing The Pen Addict 515/transcript (section)

== Trade Coffee Break ==


'''Myke:''' All right. Today's episode is brought to you in part by our friends over at Trade. When you become a Trade coffee customer, you can enjoy knowing that you've got the freshest and best tasting beans that you've ever made at home. And the coffee you'll be drinking will be from the country's best independent craft roasters, which also helps out those small businesses a lot, too. That is the perfect mix for me. I love coffee, and I love fun small businesses, right? And this is one of the things that I really love about Trade is it finds a great way to bring these two things together. They do a great job with their quiz. It's so incredibly easy to fill out this quiz that they have that asks you a bunch of simple questions about your taste profiles. Even if you think you might not know, like you like a good cup of coffee, but you don't know how to describe it, their quiz will help tease out those answers for you, and then they compare you with a great coffee. Trade's coffee team actually taste tests thousands of coffees to keep 450 different kinds live and ready to ship every day. Everybody has that one coffee that they love. Trade's going to help you find it. And Trade is so incredibly confident that they're going to match you right the first time that if they don't, for any reason, just give them your feedback, and one of their Trade coffee experts will work with you to send a brand new bag for free. So you know you're going to be looked after. You are going to get something you'll like. They will make sure of it. It just takes answering a couple of questions to get your own personalized variety of coffees delivered fresh to you as often as you like. It's really great, depending on how much you drink. And they've delivered over 5 million bags of fresh coffee with more than 750,000 positive reviews. Right now, Trade is offering new subscribers a total of $30 off your first order plus free shipping when you go to drinktrade.com slash penaddict. That is more than 40 cups of coffee for free. Get started by taking their quiz at drinktrade.com slash penaddict and let Trade find you a coffee you'll love. One last time, that's drinktrade.com slash penaddict for $30 off. And don't forget about Father's Day coming up. A Trade subscription could be the perfect gift for the coffee lover in your life. Our thanks to Trade for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad:''' I don't know how I'll ever get a bag I want to return from Trade. Here's my recent one, Myke. It's from Panther Coffee, Myke, out of Miami.

'''Brad:''' 60% of the time, it works every time, Myke. But here's the flavor notes.

'''Brad:''' Montgomery cherry, citrus, milk chocolate, bright, sweet, and silky. I mean, that's me. That's my coffee description. And this is what shows up based on the quiz that I took. And it's just glorious. So yeah, really, really good stuff. Mayor is this one. So Panther Coffee, Mayor out of Columbia. The beans out of Columbia. The coffee roaster out of Miami. One thing on the final thing on the Brooks Neil Gaiman pin. There is a podcast, which Myke was not familiar with, called As the Pin Turns, with several pin makers, including Mythic Pins, Brad at Mythic Pins. And, oh boy, I'm blanking on everyone who's on here. But anyway, Jonathan has joined them. Oh, sorry, Jason. Jason Neil Penworks started this podcast with Brad from Mythic Pen.

'''Myke:''' Also, Brad.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, also Brad.

'''Myke:''' Brad, the owner and maker at the Mythic Pen Company.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, Brad. Who lives like 40 minutes away from me. I'm just saying, like, you forget the name Brad. No, I was forgetting Jason's name. Sorry, Jason. But Jonathan has officially joined their ranks as of, like, five, six, seven episodes ago. So he's going to be talking about this whole process. So y'all should go subscribe to As the Pin Turns if you don't already. If you want to hear about more of the maker side of the fountain pen business, they have some really, really great conversations in the down and dirty of actually making pens. Because they're all pen makers. So Brooks will be in an upcoming episode talking about the Neil Gaiman pens that he worked on.

'''Brad:''' All right. Big topic today, Myke. Uh-huh. All right. And this is via Jamie, who emailed me out of the blue to ask me a question. Says, I've been listening to the Pen Attic Back Catalog, and I really enjoyed the personal top five fountain pen segments that you and Myke did in June 2012. Wow. And then five years later in June 2017. I'm not sure you've done another personal top five segment since then, at least basing on searching on the show notes. And next month, June 2022, will be five years since June 2017. I'd love to hear a segment about your and Myke's top five fountain pens as they stand now. So we're going to do that today, even though it's not June. This is the perfect timing for us to talk about or have to think about, be forced to narrow down, Myke, our five favorite personal fountain pens, which is not an easy task, as we will see. I have not listened to those previous episodes. I might be tempted. Maybe not the first one in 2012, but the one from 2017, I'd be interested. It's episode 260. I might have to go check that out after this and see what's up with that. But I thought it was time. I think Jamie was right. I think it's time to do this. So what do you think?

'''Myke:''' I love it. Let's do it.

'''Brad:''' All right. So I took this question very literal, right? These are my five favorite pens. Like, it's not the five pens that I would recommend the most. It's not the five pens that I would use the most. It's just my five most favorite pens out of the pens I own. And it was good timing for me as I just started putting everything into the 100 count box. I got my hands on all the favorite things and looked at them and had a memory refresh of like literally everything I own. So I picked five and these are in no particular order of this five. I don't know that I could rank these top five in a one through five sense. I think there's a clear number six, but I think these five, any of these five could be number one. First one is the Namiki Milky Way. So we'll have a link in the show notes to pictures of these.

'''Brad:''' If you're not familiar with the pens that we're talking about, I think some of these you're going to be very familiar with. But I don't have too many pictures of the Namiki Milky Way yet. I haven't done a proper review of it. I may never do a proper review of it, although I think I kind of one of these days I will. But it is my most expensive pen by double of what I've paid for other pens. That doesn't necessarily in and of itself make it a favorite or special that it costs a lot. But what it is and the style of pen it is and the artistry of the pen, which you're going to see a recurring theme here in my list. It really speaks to me personally. And it has a glorious fine nib. I only ever ink it with Pilot Orochizuku Tsukiyo, which is a great match for it. Another recurring theme you'll see here is I have a lot of favorite pens that really only get one ink put in them. It's just how it works. So, yeah, that is easily in my top five. Right along with my first Nakaya, the Nakaya Portable Ayo Tamanuri. If you're a longtime listener, you've heard me talk about this pen a million times. It's probably one of my two favorite writing pens. And my two favorite writers, the second one you'll see in a minute, both have a similar nib configuration in that they're a Japanese fine nib with a cursive italic grind. So it's just a wonderful, perfect writer for me. The way it fits my hand, the way the nib feels on the page, the way the output is. And it's definitely like my favorite Nakaya. And I have, I don't know, maybe five Nakayas. And this is easily number one.

'''Myke:''' Was this your first one?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. So this is, so when did I buy this? I put the link in here. When was this review?

'''Myke:''' This review was all the way back in February of 2015.

'''Brad:''' 2015. Seven years. Mm-hmm. I went through there, that review, and it took me like a couple years to actually buy this pen, you know, at the time. You know, trying to commit to spending this money to a pen that I would use, right? The whole idea of that blog post was I was not going to buy a Nakaya unless I was committed to using it anywhere, anytime, putting it in my pocket. Not babying the pen, right? And I, until I got to like the mental place to where, yeah, I can set this pen on my desk and not worry about it, I wasn't going to buy it. And I finally got there. And it's been one of the best purchases I've ever made. So, third on the list, Pilot Custom 912 with the PO nib. This one has additional artwork, Makie artwork added to the barrel, which just adds to the specialness of this pen for me. It is really unique, not just in the way that the PO, the posting nib, fits for my handwriting style, but in the additional specialness that I added aftermarket to this pen, right? So, not all, most of these pens are, quote, stock pens, if you will. Like the Milky Way is like not something you commission. You point at it and say, I'll have this one. The 912, I got some work done aftermarket. Like now, a lot of people will, you know, get rotten, added by a book of Mundo, you know, things like that to take a favorite pen and then turn it up to 11. And that's what I did with the posting 912. That's why it is one of my favorites.

'''Brad:''' Next up, my, the Pilot Custom 823. Me and Neil Gaiman are like this, you know, I'm crossing my fingers. We're like, buddy, buddy. The 823 is, the 823 is just an awesome pen. It's the other fine cursive italic nib. They, again, the 823 and the Nakaya Portable with the fine cursive italic nibs are my two favorite writing pens just for how they fit, feel, function, all of those things. Like, it's really just, you pick it up, you start writing with it, and then you have to stop and, and, and just smile. Right. And you're like, yeah, like this is, this is it. And that's, you know, a lot of the, the nib work that's gone into it. You know, sometimes it's the ink choice. Like, I've got this great purple ink, Pilot Orochizuku Ito Murasaki, which is the Japan-only purple ink that fits really, really well in my clear 823. It's kind of the, that's the ink that's going to live in there now. And I'm using the, this is probably, right now, out of these five that I'm listing, this is the only pen that I have inked up. And it's one of the ones I use the most. So, um, it's just really, really good. It's easily a top five pen. Uh, last one, Myke, um, Pilot Murex. I got, I got these, the first four pretty quickly. Like, I was like, yeah, this one, yeah, that one, yeah, this one. And then I was like, the Murex is just one of the greatest pens ever. I, I have long stated that I would be sad if something ever happened to this pen, which means it was a good candidate to fit onto this list. So, um, I, I love the aesthetic. I've, I've often called it, if Apple, Apple made a fountain pen, this is what it would look like. Like, then this design is from 1971, right? It's just an older classic design. It's the simplest design out of these pens that I have. Um, but it's really fits my style and aesthetic and, and again, functionality. A lot of these, the, the recurring theme between all these is I enjoy writing with all of these pens, um, primarily. And then the looks are additive to the writing experience, right? So, um, that's my five. And I'm assuming you caught this or listeners caught this. Um, it took me a minute to catch this. After I pulled them out, four out of the top five were pilot pens.

'''Myke:''' That is interesting.

'''Brad:''' And I thought about this a little bit. Like, going in before I picked these, like, I thought, you know, maybe I'll have two pilots on there. Maybe, you know, my posting nib or, you know, oh, then the Namiki, the, the Milky Way. I'm, I'm counting that as a pilot, even though it's Namiki. It's the premium pilot brand. Um, the, oh, then, what about the 823? Oh, what about the Murex? And I shouldn't be surprised at this. And then I got to thinking about pilot overall and how I talk about pilot on the show and how I want them to do more stuff. Right. And how I'm kind of tough on them, you know, more so than other pen companies about giving me more choices of things. And then I realized maybe, is there a reason that there's no, no sailors on this list? Because I can get anything I want from sailor at any time. Any style, any nib, any look, any feel. I can just, again, like I mentioned before, I can just point at sailor and say, I will have this one. I can't do that with pilot. Right. They're, your choice is much more limited. And I don't know, I, I'm thinking more of where I want pilot to do more things and sell me more pens, but maybe it's a good thing that they do what they do really well. And I should back off a little bit. Am I making any sense in this? Like, sure. I did, I didn't consider any sailor pen except the sailor, uh, king of pen pro gear sky, which is my favorite king of pen. That would probably be like number six on the list. Um, I wasn't interested necessarily. It doesn't mean I don't like my sailors. I love my sailors. I own more sailors than pilots, I think, or I don't know. I haven't really counted, but I own a lot of sailors, but are the pilots more special because I'm actually limited in choice? And with sailor, I have freedom of choice. So it's not as special. I don't know if that makes sense at all. So I don't know. It's a, it was an interesting kind of thought I had when I was sharing all these pilot pens. But anyway, that was, that was just me thinking about something to think about, you know, what's better.

'''Myke:''' Like the, let's say the nine 12 and the eight 23 to really be that different to each other. Yeah.