Editing The Pen Addict 63/transcript (section)

== Pen Wish List ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' And it was a random thing. You know, it was part of kind of keeping that pin wish list, you know, to always have things in the back of your head. And I'm not a big eBay guy. You know, I bought, you know, the whole time we were talking about field notes on eBay. I think I bought one thing, you know, in months. But I do have some searches for different pins that I like and just kind of see, get some ideas, you know, for what prices go for and things like that. And every now and then you run into something that really, really is up your alley. And that happened to me this weekend just randomly looking on eBay. I've always wanted one of the pins at the top of my wish list when I went to the Atlanta Pin Show was a sailor. And that actually gave us, I think, maybe our best show title ever, which was episode 49 of The Pin Addict. A sailor is at the top of my wish list. That's one of my personal favorites. But I've used my friend Thomas' sailors and I love the nibs on them. The gold nibs are, you know, they're super, super smooth, very fine, very precise. And I stumbled on one on eBay. It was a clear Sapporo demonstrator with an extra fine nib. And that's everything that I want in a pin. I like the demonstrators. I like the 14 karat gold nib. And I like the extra fine nib. And I ended up paying $91, which I felt was not quite a steal, but pretty much a steal. You know, just on the regular U.S. sites, it goes for about $150, $160 in that range. On the Japanese sites, it goes for about $120 plus shipping. So I got it for $91 plus like another $250 in shipping. And would you believe I won the auction on Sunday and the pin is in my hand right now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wow. I was not expecting to have it on this show, but I wanted to talk about it because I know that I've talked about what's the number one pin on my wish list. And actually, the number one pin is the Sailor Pro Gear, which is the big boy compared to the one that I bought. But I couldn't pass this up. Like I've talked before when I bought my Pilot Custom Heritage, if I can get a Japanese pin with a 14 karat gold nib for $100, I'm buying that 100% of the time. And that's what happened here. So I was happy to get it. And I will have a more full report on it. But in the 10 minutes I spent with it before this podcast, it's living up to the hype of what my expectations were of it. It's really great looking. It's this clear demonstrator. We'll have a link to it in the show notes. The nib is very, very smooth. It's very, very fine. And I learned from Thomas, actually, right before the show, the nib on Sailor is marked H-EF. I didn't notice that when I was testing out other Sailor pins. I thought they just said EF on the side. But the H is for hard, just like a lot of pins have an SEF or a SF for soft. I haven't seen any that were specifically flagged hard. And that's something I like that I found out that I like in pins. I like a nail hard nib. So I think this pin is going to be a big, big part of my daily rotation. I'm liking it a lot so far in the few minutes that I have it. It's living up to the expectations that I have. I got it for a great price, which I'm certainly not going to complain about that. And yeah, hopefully we'll see it reviewed on pinatic.com before too, too long. But man, I've got a long list of fountain pins that I need to get reviewed, don't I? You certainly do. I'm getting way behind on that. That takes some time for me to write up those reviews and put those together because I want to give more than just superficial type of information. The fountain pins more so than just a gel ink pen. I need to spend more time with them, get a really good feel for them and how they work on different papers and different inks and things like that to write up. But I mean, I owe reviews and people get on me all the time. The Lamy 2000 review, I've owed that for like a year.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I owe a follow up on The Vanishing Point. I haven't reviewed the Pelican that I got. I have lots of reviews that I need to do. So they will be coming soon. I'm going to work on that. But I try to post at least two reviews a week. And even just doing one fountain pin review takes so much time for me that I tend to put those off a little more than the other ones that I can handle a little bit more. But they will be coming soon. Especially the Lamy 2000. I'm not going to do. That's going to be the next kind of big fountain pen review. I do. But I haven't really started it yet. But I get more questions about that pen than anything. And plus, I want to do that because it's going to.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It might be the number one slot. But we'll see. We'll see. It's a good pen. And I get asked about it all the time. The Vanishing Point and the Lamy 2000. Those seem to be a really good step up for a lot of people. So they're always looking for information about those. So I want to be able to provide it and provide a link to it eventually like I did the Vanishing Point. Because that's still one of the most popular posts on the blog. The Vanishing Point. And I'm sure the Lamy 2000 will if I will ever get off my behind and do it. So why don't you get off your behind and do something for us this episode, Myke. And let's talk about our fine sponsor.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm pretty sure we can do that. That always sounds like a good idea to me, Brad. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform that makes it easy to create your own website. For a free trial and 10% off, go to squarespace.com and use the code TallyHo. Squarespace, they're constantly updating their platform with new features, new designs, and fantastic support. They have beautiful designs for you to start with and tons of style options for you to adjust so you can really make your own space online. Squarespace takes care of hosting, SEO, and even makes sure that your site looks fantastic on any device. It's incredibly easy to use, but if you need any help, they have amazing support. A fantastic award-winning support team that works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And while you're over at squarespace.com, make sure you check out their new homepage too. It's got some fantastic videos that are really beautiful and show you how Squarespace fits absolutely everyone differently. There's some great examples there. Make sure you cycle through and get some ideas on how to create a beautiful website.

'''Myke Hurley:''' As I mentioned earlier, you can go to squarespace.com to find out more, but you can also sign up for a free trial there. No credit card required. And if you decide to purchase, Squarespace starts at just $8 a month and includes a free domain name if you sign up for one year. And don't forget that you will get 10% off and you will help support the Pan Addict Podcast by using the offer code TallyHo. So go check out Squarespace, everything that you need to make an amazing website.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. TallyHo. Thank you, Squarespace.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Thank you very much, Squarespace.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. Goodness, excuse me. You're all right over there. I had that whole read to get that out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The whole time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I waited to drop it on you right when we're ready to start talking about something else. Sorry, that just came out of nowhere.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You are totally unforgiven.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Thank you. I appreciate that. One of the recurring themes that I tend to latch onto on this podcast and on the blog, sometimes more frequently on the podcast, I think, is the state of the Pen retail industry. And when I say that, I mean the physical stores, you know, the brick and mortar, you know, going to Staples, Office Max, you know, whatever your local office supply retailer is. And even, you know, the Walmarts and Targets and other, you know, general stores of the world. And I talk about how there's, you know, lack of innovation in those spaces. You know, what are some of the things that they do wrong? In my opinion, what are some of the things that could be done better? And I noticed I found an article on a stock analysis website. This was about a month ago I found this article. So my, and it was actually in the Inklink's post I do on Saturday. So some of you may have seen it. And I do apologize because this article is actually behind a, I guess it's behind a registration wall. I don't know if it's behind a paywall or not, but you don't have to go and register it just to read it. There's a, there's enough just on the front page of it just to kind of, in the snippet of it, to just kind of get the gist of it. But the title of the article is Staples talking about the company. This is coming, just remember, this is coming from a stock analyst type of perception. So the title is called Staples, doomed by Amazon or by young people. And I thought that was a pretty, they did a good job on the title because it drug me in. And let me read just a little bit of it and kind of give you an idea of where the author is coming on what's the challenges Staples has and, you know, what they're up against. So it says, a coworker, easily 20 years my junior, stopped by my desk the other day to borrow my stapler, which was sitting next to a tape dispenser amid piles of paper. And it occurred to me, the other desk in the office, all with young people sitting behind them, don't look like this.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And he's just, you know, referring to himself. He's kind of the old school guy, but all the, you know, the young people don't have these kind of things handy like a stapler or like, you know, myself would. And he relates some of the pricing between Staples saying that the Uniball gel grip pins, they're $17.99 per dozen at Staples, but $13.99 on Amazon and even $10.99 on Newegg.com. So Staples has a severe pricing vulnerability, he says. What it offers is breadth of merchandise. If, say, you're the office manager and don't want to Google every item you're ordering in some 1,500 stores in the U.S. for convenience sake, for office managers. The changing nature of work suggests that demand for traditional office supplies may wane. The younger people I work with just don't buy paper tablets, copier paper, binder clips, yellow post-it notes, yellow highlighters, and all the other paper-related items that fill the aisles at Staples stores.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So...

'''Myke Hurley:''' I disagree with this.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Say that again?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I disagree.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so you...