Editing The Pen Addict 449/transcript (section)

== Drillog Dip Nibs ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah. So, something to work on there. But what I'm not quite sure about is, are you just buying the front end? Is the barrel piece separate? Like, you have to buy the nib part. And then you buy the barrel part. I think so, Brad. Because the price is. $300 in.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The prices don't make sense otherwise. Right. Right. It seems like the nibs cost 16,000 yen. And the body. And, like, the whole thing cost 16,000 yen. Well, that doesn't make any sense. Because that would mean that the body of the pen was free.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. So, I think, like, all in, you're, like, over $300 for a highly engineered dip nib pen. And I'm in. Like, I mean, I think it's insane. But there's something about this that's just captivating to me. And I don't know. It's like one of those things. I want to see if it works. But that's an expensive risk. Like, you take, like, hey, I want to see if this works, you know, $300 later. Right. I don't know that I want to do that. But I don't know. Yeah. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, I'm using Google Chrome now. And on all the product pages, it says the price is for the pen shaft only. The pen tip is sold separately.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, when you go to the site, the first, your tip sizes, you have two tip sizes, 0.5 and 0.8. Yeah. Then everything else is the barrel. So, you have, like, a classic, just, like, a straight metal barrel. You have these, you know, wild aluminum barrels, these anodized barrels, things like that. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, a bunch of them are what they call twins. You have both. You have two. Two nibs.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, so, like, a 0.5 on one side and a 0.8 on the other. This is going to be an expensive, expensive visit.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You screw and unscrew things and, you know, hide them together. It's kind of clever. That's all the twins ones.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm surprised you're, like, as positive on this as I am.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The designs of some of them, I would hate to use. Like, the ones that are called Mirage and they seem to. Yes. They look so uncomfortable to hold. But the one that's called Spiral and Classic, they look really nice. I'm super into the design of the nib itself because it's quite novel to me. I've never seen something like this before where it's storing ink in the, like, the nib itself. In, like, those little grooves. Mm-hmm. So, my expectation would be you would actually get more ink out of this than maybe a typical dip nib. Maybe. I don't know. But it looks cool, though. It just looks cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah. It's the same, like, general idea of a glass nib pen. That's why they have that swirl. Yeah. I'm thinking of the metal ones that just look like fan pen nibs. Yeah, the metal ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They're not as good. But, yeah, the glass ones. This is like a metal version of the glass one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Exactly. I don't know. I'm fascinated by it. I don't know if I'll get one. Like, I'm not in a hurry to get one. Like, because I've just got my first glass dip nib pen, and I enjoy it. I don't need to go from the $30 to the $300 one. Although, that's a move I've done before. I'm just not, it's, like, super excited to do it, even though I'm kind of fascinated by this. This might be a product, Myke. Tokyo Pen Show 2022. There you go. Yeah, okay. Okay. We'll put that, well, I'm going to start building the shopping list now. Okay. So, there you go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Next topic, I failed to mention when we were talking about all of Kaweco's changes for 2021, which I was very positive on, you know, the new colors, the new descriptors, how they were handling custom and limited editions. The next version of the Perkyo, which is their entry-level pen, skipped by me. And I found two things interesting. One, they went to a solid color barrel, which I think I like better. As much as I love the first versions, like the multicolor barrels, some of them three colors, most of them two-tone. I love these solid colors because they chose some cool colors, like this kind of, like, light. It's not really a minty green. And a pink. And I don't know, maybe it's just because they chose colors that I like. So, Breezy Teal, Peony, Peony, Blossom, Jungle Green, and All Black. I think they look great. And then on top of that, they have rollerball versions of these. I don't think they had those last year. So, now I'm even more interested in trying them. And these are, like, the rollerball pen's $13. You know, the Perkyo, the standard Perkyo's $17. Like, these are their, you know, Pilot Metropolitan, Pilot Kakuno is really kind of the competitor in there. You know, it's a very cool-looking entry-level pen. It's something I would enjoy using. And I'm going to have to try these. I never, I always liked the Perkyo, but I always chose the Sport because that's just one of my all-time favorite pens, right? They're completely different pen shapes. And, like, you know, the portability is obviously very different on the two. But I don't know. I'm kind of liking these solid colors. I'm going to get a couple to test them out, especially the rollerball.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Solid colors are nice. The pen, the models that have, like, varying colors, they've made some very bold choices with some of them that I don't think work.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The only one I like is actually, like, the red, white, and blue one or red, gray, and blue one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Maybe the white and blue one is fine. Yeah. Yellow and, the yellow and black one, it's like yellow and dark gray, which is wrong. It should have been black and then it would have looked cool. Pink and gray, not good. The pink and black, not good. The yellow and white and gray, like light gray, also not good. Yeah, they made some weird choices here. It reminds me of that 70s soul. Yeah. Right? Like, that was a cool look. So, like, they're clearly trying some stuff with color. But I'm actually more into the rollerballs because the rollerballs, they've had, just have more solid color, solid color versions. I don't think that they've knocked out of the park with the color choices for some of these in the fountain pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, you can get the same solids in the fountain pen as well. Yeah, but then they also have all the other ones too. Yeah, because those, obviously, those were from last year and they haven't done that well. I don't think. I honestly think it was the color choices, right? Yeah. It was a little bit try-hardy on the colors. Too much. And it just didn't hit. Like, it's fine, right? It's fine. But it didn't go gangbusters. The one we're missing, Myke, is they have an all clear one now as well, which is very Kakuno-esque. The picture is in there. It's just clear. You can't see it. So, like, I was never completely inspired by last year's colors.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Every part is clear. The feed's clear. The nib's clear. Like, completely 100% clear.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It is. It's hard to see. It's on a white background. So, yeah. So, yeah. I don't know. I am. I want this pen to do well, even though they're not far off from their standard sport model pricing. I just think this is kind of the right pen and the right price point for broader use, right? Like, a new fountain pen user is not going to pick up a sport, right? The pocketable sport is not really going to – people aren't really going to understand what that is if they have never been into fountain pens. But, like, something like this is at least interesting. Like, it would get my hands on it and make me, like, consider it a little bit. So, anyway, I thought that was fun to point out. I like the colors better this year than last year. And I really like the direction Kafeco is going right now. They're doing a really, really good job, in my opinion.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Talk about direction. Let's talk about Leonardo. They are on a kick, baby. What are these things?