Editing The Pen Addict 499/transcript (section)

== Scented Inks ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' The issue that I have with the scented ink stuff is, like, I don't, it's like, I don't always want this very specific scent. You know what I mean? Like, I don't always want that one thing. And that's why I'm not into it. You know? Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Sometimes it's perfect and perfect timing. Sometimes it's the worst.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Uh-huh.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, I'm going to say, to show you something now, that it's pretty perfect, but not necessarily for me. But I got this link a bunch this week. Visconti dropped another Homo Sapiens pen, the Demo Stones, which they have done before. But this time, Myke, they did it in orange and purple. And they're pretty amazing. And I'm not going to buy them. Because I just spent a lot of money on a pen. And this pen is not perfect for me. This orange is ridiculous. This reminds me of the Sailor Pro Gear orange.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, my God. That looks good, man. Even I'm into this. Because you know what? The clip. Putting the color in the clip. Color in the clip. This is kind of like, this is like if Thanos was going to get, you know, some pens that be like this. It's like the Infinity Stones of pens.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, like, the jewels are on the top. That's my hang-up. Like, if it was a flat top, I don't know if I would have ordered the Elbow. Like, it's okay. Like, I don't dislike it. But for the price, you know, $800. Yeah, I don't like that either. It's not, like, completely perfect. Like, that's a price range.

'''Myke Hurley:''' See, the one time I'm willing to accept the clip, they go and put, it looks like a stylus tip on the top of the pen. And that's ugly. Totally.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And this is a series continuation. They've been doing this for, like, two years now. So, there's been, like, red and green. And they've been doing other colors. Blue. And I don't know what this other color is. Like, a burgundy. So, yeah. They've done other colors. So, this is, like, a continuation of the series of this demo stones series. And the demo stones is that finial thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The thing that's kind of frustrating to me about this is it's not actually a stone. Right. Right? It's just an acrylic dome. And I know that that would be maybe completely cost prohibitive if you want to put, like, a piece of sapphire on the top of the pen. But it's kind of just, like, if it's not that, then what's the point of putting the little, like, nubbin on the end?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, here, I want to read this. Homo sapiens demo stone fountain pens are designed and created in Visconti's Florentine workshop. The barrel and cap are made with tuned acrylic resin and hand polish with special felt tools. So, there you go. So, it's basically just...

'''Myke Hurley:''' I will say, as well, like, $1,000 retail for a plastic pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, these are always MSRP ones. Visconti was the one that years ago would not list. They were logged in for MSRP. I mean, were logged in for real price companies, right? You couldn't publish the real price because I don't know why. Like, I've never understood that idea. They'd list the MSRP and you would have to log in to find the true price. Well, the true price is always 20% less. Like, and, like, everyone knows. No one has to click the button to see the price. So, Visconti's always done that. So, this has always been the price structure for Visconti. So, yeah, it's an $800 pen, like, that I might... If it went to $500, I might think I might be okay with the jewel. I don't know. Because the orange is so hot. Like, this is the correct translucent orange that reminds me of Sailor's Orange.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah, it's really, really good. So, I don't know. Like, I have no interest in buying this pen, but I sure as heck want to see it in person.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, I have other plastic pens, you know. Yeah. Like, that are expensive. But it is difficult. You know, you've really got to think about it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Like, I only have budget for, you know, not many $800 pens. Like, that's a luxury that, you know, I don't take for granted.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If a pen is made of plastic and it costs $800, it has to be perfect to my desire for taste. You know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Right. I don't want to always be thinking about the jewel on the top because that's the only hang-up I have with this pen. And if I spend that much money and I'm constantly thinking about it, well, I've made a bad purchasing decision. I made a bad decision with my money and I don't like to make bad decisions. Even though I'm taking a very big risk on the Elwood, right? That's a risky thing that I don't normally do. But it looks beautiful, though.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm pretty sure it's going to do well. Yeah. So, anyway. Anyway, I wanted to point that out because everyone was sending me that link. And Visconti nailed it. Like, straight up.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Colors are so good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They straight up nailed it. They didn't straight up nail it. But the colors are good. The color. The color-wise. Like, it is hot. Like, it is complete. Like, I could use that pen as, like, you know, my desktop background even though I would never own the pen. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. But, yeah. All the colors have the Visconti, the color of the pen in the clip. And that was a good decision. I'm with you on that. All right. So, that's all the stuff that I'm digging this week. Even though I gave the Energels a hard time. It's a killer pen. You just got to think that these are black pens. If you're going to go into that. And the tea, the tea time coffee ink, which is confusing to me. I just wanted to call it the tea ink. Tea time coffee ink. I don't know. But you can't get it, really. So, you have to dig around for that. And the orange and purple, very expensive Homo sapiens. It was a good week for pens and ink.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Before we finish up today, I've got a nice DPA question that I enjoyed. All right. It comes from Frames, who asks, Given the torrent of limited releases coming from Leonardo, do you think they will hit, or we may hit, a saturation point with them similar to what we've seen with Sailor in the past couple of years?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I love this question. We get this question from time to time. I speak on this topic unprompted from time to time. And the answer is yes and no. Yeah, I agree with you completely. You have to recall that not every fountain pen user is at the same stage of purchasing of fountain pens, right? So, do the new colors from... Let's just, since the question was about Leonardo, let's just focus on them. So, I bought three or four different Leonardo's, five maybe, and bought all these colors that I like. And I didn't really intend to kind of do that at the first, but they kept releasing new colors, and I kind of liked them. But then I paired them back to, like, the really focus on the ones that I want. So, when a new Leonardo comes out, it's not as compelling to me personally, because I have a couple that I really, really enjoy. But it doesn't mean that Leonardo sees the effect of me not buying the next color, and the next color, and the next color, because they have newfound interest from people just discovering the brand, and they're going, OMG, look at these colors. And now they're on a journey that's at a different stage than I'm at with my purchasing, to where they're going, hey, I'm going to check out this color, and this color, and then maybe they back it back down, and like I did, and kind of refine that over time, and you need, you know, I have less of them, you know, in my collection now than I did previously. And I think this is just, we're always going to see the continuation of the popular thing to a time frame beyond where you're comfortable, you know, continuing to buy them. because you're no longer their customer, maybe, but you appreciate what they do, and the next customer is where you were a few years ago. So there's always going to be a time for these companies to like really lean into the thing that made them popular with Leonardo. It's like these materials, right? Because there's always the next customer coming, and it doesn't matter if I've seen it before or not. Their new customer is going, wow, look at this, and I would like to buy this pen. So they're okay with that.