Editing The Pen Addict 272/transcript (section)

== Purchase Turnaround ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I forgot to ask this question earlier, but this is the perfect time to ask is ask. What's the fastest turnaround from purchase to sell of a pen you have ever made?

'''Joey Feldman:''' Oh, I'll tell you that was like a five minutes.

'''Joey Feldman:''' Shmevlin on Slack. I bought a pilot 823 FA because I wanted the flexible because I was, this is when I was obsessed with the 823 and I had to have one in each size and I had to have one customized by Dan and all this. So I get the FA. I load it up with ink. As I'm on Slack, I try it and I said, I don't like this. Who wants it? And Shmevlin bought it right there and I put it right back in the same box. I got it, sent it to her. She got it the next day because she lives in California too. True story.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's amazing. Yeah. I totally believe that. That's yeah. You're one of a kind, Mr. Feldman. That's why I love you so much.

'''Joey Feldman:''' We'll see how long these sailors and platinums last me. I haven't inked them yet, so we'll see.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm interested to see that as well because they are a different style of pen than what you're used to. So you, last year at San Francisco was the Mont Blanc 149. You know, everything was like team 149 last year. The big bulky.

'''Joey Feldman:''' And I still have, I still have, I still have five Mont Blancs.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. There might go too. So these, these new nibs on these Japanese pens are close to those size nibs that you had before, but these barrels are very different. They're much lighter, a little bit shorter, a little bit, you know, smaller. So I'll be interested to see how you like these going forward. You know, as you start working with them more.

'''Joey Feldman:''' From what I remember, the nibs sort of like glided right across the paper and I was like super impressed. Like, wow, I can't believe I shot these down because they were so small, but you know, the actual pen size, but I'm going to give them a try and check them out. So.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Well, and if, if you do end up liking them, then you'll end up like me. Like one of the things I purchased that this show was a Sailor King of pens, green mosaic. This is like bigger than the 149.

'''Joey Feldman:''' I sold one of those and I tried it with a broad nib. Not that exact King of pen. Right. But that size. It was that size. I, I, I did not like the broad that was on there. It might, it was more like a medium to me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. So that's why I'm interested to see how these you went with. So what you have coming is a double broad. You have, well, you have a double broad, you have a music nib and you have a zoom. All of those are bigger than the regular Japanese broad nibs. So they might be more up your alley. So do you like that King of pen? Have you inked it up yet? I have just inked it up this morning. I cleaned it just before the show so I could use it for my show notes today. It's wonderful. This is one of those pens that, you know, I saw years ago online said, wow, that's amazing. And you just can't get one. So I had an opportunity to buy one, um, this weekend and, uh, I am currently using, using it, inked it up with sailor sky high. So I, I kind of went on your track a little bit. It has a broad nib on it, but you don't pass up an opportunity to buy this pen. Like I bought it for the pen more than the nib, you know, I'll deal with the nib, you know, if I want to, but I, it has a broad nib in it and it's actually really nice. It's a little bit more stubby than I thought it might be, which is good for me. So I bought that and then I bought a vanishing point, um, a, a limited edition model from bung box in Japan, an orange model called energia. It's really pretty. And then as we were wrapping up Sunday, I wandered a little bit too far away from the table instead of packing, like I should have been. And I stumbled across an Omos pen called a melee milia. It's a steel or aluminum barrel Omos. Um, that's very pretty. I'll have to take some pictures of it. It's kind of got these red, it's kind of like red, uh, grip section and aluminum barrel. And it's just kind of really, really neat, really, really nice looking pen, really good feel in the hand. So I ended up with that. Those are the three pens I bought at this show. So did you know any stationary or accessories or anything, or you just got it? Just, just the pens. I totally would have bought one of the Musubi notebooks. Um, but I didn't. And then I got off light on ink the show. I bought zero ink, which I, even if I don't buy pens, I'll usually end up with two or three bottles of ink. Um, but I had zero this show. I think it's probably because I just gotten some new rank, new ink recently at home. So I felt pretty like happy with my ink situation. So I didn't really shop for ink, but I would have bought some paper if, uh, if I'd gotten out earlier and had some time, definitely one of those Musubi. So I'll have to reorder that. Um, you know, and I also, I did get a bunch of samples of things, which I'll probably talk about in a future podcast as the product becomes more available. But, um, we, we did a paper tasting sampler from a new company coming out of Japan, Yamamoto. And we'll, we'll talk about that more. I'll tease that right now, but I sent some, I had some pictures on Instagram of that. I did come home with a bunch of samples of that, but I want to spend some time and, and play with all the paper and learn about it more before I, before I speak on it. But it was a really good show just from, I mean, I got some pens I'd really wanted. Um, I got one that, you know, I stumbled on and never seen before and found it that, Hey, it was kind of a really cool fit for me. And then, uh, just really got to hang out and, and meet people and, uh, you know, talk about this crazy obsession that we have. And that kind of culminated in the, the meetup we had on Saturday night, uh, which I want to talk about. But before we do that, I want to talk about your friend and my friend, those fine folks over at Harry's. So you all know Harry's, they, uh, you know, they were in, they were in our room this weekend, you know, uh, Joey on the, on the sink. I had my, my orange Harry's razor, everything I travel with in my Harry's dop kit and, you know, my Harry's shave gel. And they're just all about a great shave at a fair price. That's why over 3 million people, including Joey Feldman have switched to Harry's. You're, you're a Harry's customer, right?

'''Joey Feldman:''' Yeah. I, I, I love the razor blades. I have a green handle. My fiance has the orange handle.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Nice. Well, you picked out a good one.

'''Joey Feldman:''' And I got the fit, the, uh, the new, uh, face cleanser is actually really nice.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Nice. I need to give that a shot. So Harry's founders, Jeff and Andy decided to create this business because they were fed up with overpriced razors. They bought a German factory with over a hundred years of blade making experience to ensure the highest quality for their blades, which sell at half the price of the leading five blade razor directly to you over the internet. All Harry's products are backed by a hundred percent quality guarantee. They're so confident. You'll love their blades. They want to give you their trial set for free. You just need to cover shipping. The trial set includes a weighted ergonomic razor handle, which is the exact one that I use. Five precision engineered blades with a lubricating strip strip and trimmer blade, rich lathering shave gel and a travel blade cover. $13 of value for you to try out for free. You just have to pay shipping. So stop messing around, get started shaving with Harry's today by claiming your free trial offer. Just go to harrys.com slash pen addict right now and get started. Thanks so much to Harry's for their support of this show and relay FM. And thank you for making Joey and I look so dashing. I mean, I mean, just look at you. I mean, wow. I'm very fortunate that you were my roommate this weekend. I know, right? Yeah. So I showed you off at the pen addict meetup. I kind of roped you into this, you know, not knowing what you were getting into. And, you know, I could see it in your eyes. You're like, oh my God, that's a lot of people. What am I going to do?

'''Joey Feldman:''' You're used to working for Lisa Van Nass. Nothing surprises me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's true. That's true. Has your, did you have any carpal tunnel results from this weekend? All the work you were doing for Lisa?

'''Joey Feldman:''' No, I'm going to go get a hand massage today, but I'm okay. I'm okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. You were, you were drawing and sketching like a madman behind the table. I know, I know that was a lot, a lot, a lot of work that you did back there. So I appreciate you taking the time to come to this meetup because we didn't know what was going to happen. So we had this idea when I talked about it on last week's podcast of this pen dash. It was kind of like the speed dating for, you know, pens and stationery. What we wanted to do was have this meetup, have a group of tables, and each table would essentially have someone in charge of the table who knew something about something. So we had Paul Arano talking about vintage pens. You know, we had Jonathan Brooks and Sean Newton talking about making pens. We had Anna Reiner talking about ink and Le Reyes drawing and on and on and on. A huge list of people that helped us out with this. And I did put up a thank you post on the blog on Tuesday, and you can go see all the participants. And our good friend Franz shot a video of some of the event. You can see how it worked. And what we would do is so each table had, you know, maybe eight seats or something like that, eight to ten. And about every 10 or 15 minutes, we'd make the people sitting at that table get up and move to another table to go learn about something else. The hosts would stay at the table, and the meetup participants would move to another one. And so they'd go from vintage pens to pen making. And they would get to spend some time with that table host and learn. So the feedback I got was pretty amazing. You know, it was kind of there were definitely some things we have to work on. Like the schedule was weird because Saturday is the busiest day of the show. And the event started at 530, which we couldn't control because there were other events that night. So we had to go early. So not everyone was actually done working or shopping before the meetup was scheduled, which as a show promoter, you kind of don't want people leaving the floor. Right. And I felt bad, like, for vendors. I'm like, no, y'all just stay and work. I'll deal with the meetup. You need to stay in the room and sell, sell, sell, and do all your business. Don't worry about me. So that was a little bit weird. Then we had it split up in between two rooms. But I think it worked out overall. We got a lot of great feedback. What did you kind of think of just not necessarily the specifics or the details, but the vibe of the whole room as a whole?

'''Joey Feldman:''' Oh, I thought it was a fantastic idea. I thought people were really appreciative and grateful that it was happening. The only complaint that I would say is because it was Saturday night. People were fired up. It was loud. Yeah. And I was at Anna's table, and she's talking about it, but I couldn't really hear. And I was kind of like an observer, and I was just kind of just sitting and doing my own thing. But that was the only thing that I would say. Other than that, it was really a great idea. It was executed very well. It was just a little bit too loud, but that could just be me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know what I mean? No, yeah. It was definitely part of the room size. We actually jammed in a bunch of extra tables more than probably capacity allowed, which tends to happen a lot at these events. We never know how to plan. At one point, Lisa said, Lisa Van Asse said, we should count how many people are here. And we both got up to right around 100. So I know it was definitely loud and crowded. But everyone did so well and got a lot of good feedback. And we had a lot of good giveaways. And it was very fun. So I appreciate everyone who participated in that. And I'll have a link in the show notes to go to the blog post. You can find out who all the participants were and a little bit more about them and go thank them for taking their time away from the show. I know they were exhausted after a long Saturday. But it was a big deal for you, Joey, to come and participate and everyone else who participated. I really, really appreciate it. No, it was a great time. I hope it happens again next year. Yeah, and we can definitely take a lot from what we learned in this show and make it even better. So it's perfect. Before I let you go, I didn't want to just talk about fountain pens and these shows.