Editing The Pen Addict 659/transcript (section)

== Brand preferences and custom nib work ==

* So, spill the tea. Oh, I'm so happy. Um, okay, okay. I love all the brands. Phenomens are great. Yeah, we do. Having said that, you know why I got hired, right?
* No. I think, I, I think you're gonna, You know the sole reason, the sole brand. I think you're gonna tell me, I think you're gonna tell me, and I'm gonna remember, yes, but I, I can't, off the top of my head. But I, I mean, I could take a guess. Do you want me to guess? You can guess. Visconti. Absolutely. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, this is a long running, now allegedly, mostly fixed, better, better, we'll call it better. I have opinions, but yeah. Okay. So, yeah, no, you go ahead. So, like, that's why you were hired, because of the volume of work you needed to do on those nibs, especially this is 2018, 2019. Yeah. That was not a great time for the brand. It was an awful time for the brand. And so, and that's annoying for retailers. And that's why I almost feel guilty for having my job, because it makes it easier for, for, for brands to get away with bad QC. Because that's all I did was QC. I made sure that the, that any Visconti nib that left the store was first checked by me to make sure it actually wrote.
* And that, that was my sole purpose in the beginning at Upper Bohm. And then it turned into a, hey, can you, in general, make sure the pen's right well? And, and then people having custom requests to like, hey, can you just make my pen a bit wetter? I prefer it a bit wetter. And it grew and grew and grew from there. So Visconti is definitely on my, I don't want to swear. Yeah. Because we had a tally last time, but it's on our list. We did. I think we got up to three, three edits last time. So far, zero. I'm doing well so far. Yeah. So far, zero. We'll change that.
* But yeah, Visconti is definitely up there and they, they had a really bad run. And now apparently they make the nibs in-house or somebody else makes those nibs. It's not bugging anymore. Yeah. And that was a tough journey. The very first ones were also not, not great. And now they are still kind of, I want to, I call them awkward. Okay. I find them awkward. Yeah. How they're put together.
* Visconti, if you want to hire me to like fly out at some point and help you figure out how to make a nib, I'd be happy to. Seems great. Yeah. I think that would, I think that would add to your CV. That would be perfect. So yeah. I mean, we, I, I, I can't make you answer that question without telling me, okay, what nibs were the easiest or what was the best? We got to give, we got to give a shout out to somebody. I mean. You also know the answer to that. I actually don't, but I, I'll have, I'll have another guess and I think it's probably Mont Blanc.
* Oh, interesting.
* You know what? I, QC, I didn't do a Mont Blanc very, very often just because Mont Blanc is Mont Blanc and they have certain rules as to whether they like other people touching them. Mm-hmm. Um, they, you're right, you're probably right. They usually were pretty, pretty decent out of the box. Okay. But my answer would have been Pilot. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If I had more than a second to think about it, yeah, that's the one I always talk about. Yeah. Yes, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Why? Like what, what makes Pilot nibs different than Platinum and Sailor from a professional's eyes from under the microscope? If anyone has seen the Annabelle show. I obviously, I, so, okay, so I'm, I'm a bit, I'm notorious.
* Um, even other like nib specialists at pen shows will be like, oh, you wanted a super smooth, extra fine. Go, go bother Annabelle. Cause I just like a pen to be as smooth as it can be. So I'm not a huge Sailor fan. Sorry, Sailor. Love you. Your designs are great, but I just don't like the texture of it. Sure. It's a, absolutely. And the porousness of the tipping. Yep. That tipping is just awesome. And the way they shape it makes sense and works. They can be a bit dry and they have been drier lately. So every now and then you need to give them what I call a back crack. So you just take the time. So I'm going to go, eh. Just, just run them apart a little bit. Don't do it at home. Yeah. I was going to say, I know I need, I don't have any edits, but I now have a disclaimer. Thanks. Thanks Annabelle. We now have a disclaimer because I'm going to start getting bills for people back cracking their nibs. Let's not do that.
* Don't do it at home. But yeah, so they can be a bit dry, but it depends on how heavy your hand is.
* Japanese, in the Japanese culture, it seems that they tend to have slightly heavier hands for the shorter strokes. And that's why the ink is so wet. So the drier the nib, the wetter the ink, and then their hands tend to be, you know, just a bit heavier and they have a ton of like short little strokes in the writing. Whereas European pens tend to be a bit wetter and the ink tends to be drier. And we tend to have these long cursive kind of strokes. It all plays together beautifully in that way. That's why we love this because we can have this level of nerd talk. And I'm over here going, I was like, oh, that's why I like this ink and this pen. And people are listening to this nod in their heads. They're going, oh yeah, like this is like the perfect match. And like this explains why. And that's why this is such a fun hobby because the options are just infinite to get like something perfect for you, like specifically. And that's what puts a smile on my face and makes me very happy to be able to have superstars on the line like I do today. So we're going to, I'm actually not, we're actually going the other direction right now. Once I, once we talk about our second sponsor this week, and that's Enigma Stationery.
* This episode of the pen addict is brought to you by Enigma Stationery. Enigma Stationery offers unique items made from in-house designs, along with top brands and hard to find imports. Back in 2022, Enigma introduced their pride collection to benefit the Trevor project, leading to more than $1,000 in donations by the end of 2024.
* For 2025, Enigma are setting a new goal to raise $10,000 through a combination of direct donations and new pride collection products. Enigma believes in the power of the amazing stationery community to support LGBTQIA plus youth through your support of the Trevor project's amazing work. Whether you'd like to make a donation, join Enigma's fundraising team, or help spread the word, all support is welcome. Subscribers to Enigma Stationery mailing list and followers of the Enigma YouTube and Blue Sky accounts will be the first to see the new pride collection items when they launch later this spring. To visit the Enigma Stationery fundraising page to make a donation or join the fundraising team today, go to enigmastationery.com slash fundraising. That's enigmastationery.com slash fundraising to make a donation or get involved and join Enigma's fundraising team. Our thanks to Enigma Stationery for their support of this show and all of Relay. All right. So it's the next chapter for you coming up now. You are, as of our recording, how many weeks or might even be days from leaving your position at Appleboom? It's day one.
* Officially. It's my first week. That's hilarious. Completely unemployed. Self-employed. Employed now. Oh, fun-employed is the preferred term. No. Okay. I got a quick no. We're on Zoom video. I got a quick no on that one. I get that for sure. I get that for sure. I mean, no, I am definitely having fun. Yes. I, the, the independence and the freedom definitely, you know. Yeah. It, it feels good. Yeah. It feels good. It feels great. Yeah. But hey, it's, it's also tough. And, you know, like, I want to talk about like the decision, like, I'm sure you did not come about this easily to really just, I guess the best way I can put it in, I'll let you put it in your own words, is to go independent and work for yourself going forward in the pen industry is, how would you call it? That is what I'm doing. Yeah. Yeah. You're working for yourself now. It's more of an entire shift because it's not like I'm doing what I did at Applebaum and do that by myself now. I don't think I would want that because that sounds like an awful lot of admin that my colleagues did for me that I don't want to deal with. Um, but it's very much a shift from the work at Applebaum was for my brain, very repetitive and I am a fairly creative person and I, I tend to have a lot of ideas and it's hard for me to do anything if I can't get those ideas like out of my system into a sketch or a prototype. Um, and so with everything that's been happening with all the, the harmonic nibs that I started bringing out in 2022 that gained ever more popularity, I guess I want to say, or people were curious or I don't know how you want to put that. Yeah. Popularity. I mean, let's, let's sing your praises. It, it, your, your nibs are pretty freaking great. I mean, I mean, that's not the only thing, but like, there's a reason that popularity is the word we're using. Right.
* Even though like, like you don't, you don't want to praise yourself just like all of us, like who do our own thing for a living, you know, we'll, we'll downplay it. And like, it's a difficult thing. Like we could, you and I could do an entire podcast on like, you know, imposter syndrome and mental health and all this stuff. We talk, we talk a lot, uh, you know, about those kinds of things. We could literally do a whole podcast, but like, it, it's hard reflecting on, uh, yourself and, and people telling you that you're great at what you do. Like, it's difficult. Like no lie.
* It, yeah, it is. And no, you said it all. You said it all. So the other episode, the other podcast that I'm going to start next to the one where I call people out is just Brad and I talking about how we're frauds. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So yeah, the nibs gain traction, uh, once I started releasing them and I want to make stuff right at the end of the day, I'm a goldsmith. It, I became a goldsmith cause I wanted to work with nibs and I thought that was it, but it, I am a goldsmith now. And so that means I want to make stuff and I can make stuff. And in the beginning of the year, I decided to, um, to try and make a nib a week. Okay. Yeah. And then I decided to make a, uh, waiting list. And so if anybody actually wanted a harmonic, get yourself on that waiting list and, and I'll, I'll try to make it happen. Um, and because the years previous, the, my nib sold out very, very quickly whenever I made a batch. And so I just wanted to see how much interest is there and can I actually, can I meet that demand? And, and there was interest, there is demand. And so for about two or three months, I made a nib every week and I did Applebaum and I traveled. I went to California. I went to, to, to Houston, um, spent a few days with drum goals. And so I really can't do it all. Yeah. That was, and so there's clearly, I have to make a choice and I have to leave something behind.