Editing The Pen Addict 305/transcript (section)

== Retro 51 ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' I can't remember who I was talking to about this at the pen show. But, like, I've heard from many people. I actually have them. The Retro 51 hexamatic is a great mechanical pencil. It's really nice. But they kind of ruined it by not being inventive enough with the design. Like, a company that is incredibly inventive with design. It's the same with them. Like, I feel like they could do a lot more with the hexamatic than this, like, what I think is considered to be classic mechanical pencil. But what that actually means is Rotaring 600, you know? And I feel like they could have done a lot more with it than they did. It is something that I own one of them. I think I own one of the Apple ones. And I got it because it had an Apple logo on it. But I would never buy the hexamatic because it doesn't have in it what I love about Retro 51. Like, it's not original enough. I have a question for you about the Twizby Precision. Because I don't understand this, right? It is a piston filler.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But you can unscrew the section. And I can't understand why you can do that. I don't know what that gets you. Why would you do that?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, most piston, I won't say most, like Pelicans piston fillers, you can't unscrew the section. But lots of piston fillers have sections that unscrew. All of Twizby's, all of Aurora's do. Like, all of my Aurora piston fillers, they unscrew the section. Like, what is that for? To empty it and clean it? Easy cleaning. Easy cleaning. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. Yeah, because I would say all of the Precision pens that I have, I don't think, I don't have many. I don't think I can unscrew the section from them. Nor would I really want to try. Because that's going to get messy real fast, you know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah. So, I think you kind of hit on it a little bit before. And when you were talking about other pens, like Retro 51, they fell flat, I think, Twizby, on this, on the color that they chose. For the initial launch of this pen, I wanted something that popped more. I'm used to, like, all my Twizby pens pop either by the colors that they choose or the lack of colors being a demonstrator, which you then get to see the internals of the pen and the color of the ink. And it's like, this is like a putty, brown, gray, aluminum brushed. It's pretty. Like, it's fine. I would have almost rather just seen a black or silver barrel or do something crazy colored. Regardless, yeah, I'll be interested to see how this pen does. I'll get one at some point. I'm not rushing out there to get it. Like, the Twizby Eco-T in blue, I could not reach through my computer screen fast enough to get that pen. This pen, I'm like, eh, we'll see. I'll grab one eventually. Like, that's where I'm at on this pen. Like, it's probably perfectly fine.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It is interesting to choose kind of brown as your only color. Right. You know, it's also very, like, there's just a lot of, like, we see this every now and then. You'll just get a pen and it's like, I can see you made a bunch of decisions, but none of these decisions are the decisions I would have made. Like, and that's, I think that's a lot of the time why some things, because some people and some things don't. Like, again, like, and I said this before, like, when I see, I see so many pens that are just black with gold trim. And it's like, I don't understand the decisions that led you to making this. Right. Like, why does it look that way? So, again, like, there are going to be people that love this pen, including the people that made it. And, like, that is totally cool. But, like, for me and you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I may love this pen. Yeah. I just don't have it yet. I mean, I might totally fall in love with this pen when I get it. Like, I'm just not, like, climbing through the screen to, like, get it today. Agreed. It's not doing that for me. And you see that the most unsuccessful Twisby line, in my opinion, was their Classic line, which they did basic solid colors in just, you know, in plastic. You know, just, you know, white, navy, green. And those, I think that product lineup just fell flat overall when you have things like the Eco and the 580 and the minis to compare it to. We'll see. I don't know. I'm anxious to get one. I'm anxious to read some reviews on this pen. There'll be probably a lot of people that review this before me because I didn't even get one yet just because I'm not super excited about it. But my opinion can definitely change when I get it in. And so we'll see. If you have one of these, definitely let me know what you're thinking about it so far because it looks interesting. So this is one to watch. So we'll keep an eye on this one for sure. You'll be hearing more about it. Another thing, Myke, you'll be hearing more about is another new podcast in the stationary realm. And we got to promote all of our friends in the stationary world because I love all of the creativity that comes out of this community. It's fantastic. This one's called The Fountain Pen Companion. And it's a European-based show, Myke. So you count as European, right? Or are you like an offshoot? Like you're not really part of the European Union. I forget these days how England's standing is. But anyway, this is Urban and Anna. And who is the third person as I don't click the link? So Urban and Anna and Daniel, who I've followed online and on Twitter. And I've definitely seen them around the community for years and in the Slack room. So Episode Zero is up. And they definitely feel like the Europeans are underrepresented if you've listened to the Episode Zero. So they're going to make this the European Fountain Pen Show. And I wish them all the best. And I'll be sharing out their links when they post new episodes. So y'all add them to your podcast listener of choice. And I look forward to Episode 1. I can't wait. It's going to be great, I think.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, Myke. You ready to dig in a little bit? As if we haven't already on A5 and Twisbees.