Editing The Pen Addict 521/transcript (section)

== Spoke Design Anniversary ==


'''Myke:''' Like, I mean, I guess we found out about him multiple revisions into the pencil, right? I guess I remember talking about his products. And it wasn't the first one. I mean, you probably knew. But I think the first time Spoke came up on this show, it was maybe, like, the Model 3 or something like that.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, the Model 4 was the one that changed things for me. And the way it said, okay, I need to talk to this guy. Because this is speaking my language here. And that's the pencil I talked about last week in the mechanical pencil roundup. Like, the Spoke Model 4 is the one that changed things for me. And I think, honestly, changed things for Brian. I think it's still probably the bestseller. Maybe the most popular pen. So, yeah, it's been a good run. And hopefully we're going to keep doing some more fun stuff there at Spoke Design. So, just keep your eyes peeled. That's really well. Yep. I did a review this week. Another anniversary edition. This is the Machine Pen Version 2 from Shown Design. The anniversary edition roller and fountain pen. So, Shown Design. Again, Myke, 10 years old. 10 year anniversary for Shown Design. I guess this was, was this the Kickstarter heyday? It must have been. It must have been.

'''Myke:''' If everyone's hitting this at the same time.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, because Knock came shortly after that, I think. So, gosh, I'll have to go back and look at the dates now. I'm so confused. Bad podcaster. I didn't prepare all this. But if you saw my Lamy All-Star notes about the Glossy Red, you'll know why. But yeah, this is a 10 year anniversary celebration that Ian, he made this pen to be like, for lack of a better term, a triple threat, right? He made a barrel for the anniversary. And it's got these little unique markings on there for the anniversary edition. And then had a fitting for a ballpoint tip, a rollerball tip, and a fountain pen. So, you'd buy one pen barrel and three different tips. So, it was a really neat pen. And since I had reviewed, shown ballpoint pens and shown fountain pens, I wanted to give the rollerball tip a thorough looking at. Which I did on the blog this week. And I came away kind of impressed with what is a Schmidt rollerball part, right? So, this is a part that, so, you all hear us talk about Schmidt a lot. They make a lot of parts for a lot of pens, from refills to pencil mechanisms to knock mechanisms to this tip that a lot of makers will use to build things around. And it's not limited to, say, a smaller maker like Ian, but to, you know, other more, what you'd consider more of company makers. Like, Monteverde makes a pen around this tip, the Montegrappa, excuse me, Monteverde Engage and the OneTouch, like the ruler pen. And to use a fountain pen ink cartridge, an international fountain pen ink cartridge, with this tip. And historically, when I've tried these in the past, and I don't know if they've been Schmidt mechanisms or not. I don't know if the Kaweco one was or the J. Herban was. They probably could have been. And maybe they were an earlier version of this. Because, again, that would be like 10 years ago, 12 years ago when I started reviewing these. I hated them. Like, it was a bad experience, right? The rollerball tip combined with fountain pen ink generally wrote poorly. Like, it was scratchy. It didn't feel good. You know, I think one of the issues is the ink formulation, right? You get a much thinner, watery fountain pen ink as compared to, like, a more lubricated, rich rollerball ink. You know, like a Schmidt P8127 rollerball. It's just rich and smooth and nice. And fountain pen inks aren't designed to have that, like, flow or viscosity. So asking that type of ink to move through a metal ball tip mechanism like in these rollerball tips, like, that's – it's hard, right? Like, it doesn't feel as nice. And I'm not going to say this feels equivalent to, like, a Schmidt P8127. But it's better than the things I have tested. I would use this on purpose, right? That sounds weird to say. But that's a very high praise. Like, I would use this on purpose is, like, one of the nicest things I can say. Because it works. Like, it feels good. It works well. It has an option for me to throw any ink color I want in there, right? I could just buy cartridges and pop them in there. Or I could empty out a cartridge and syringe fill any other fountain pen ink and have a pocketable rollerball pen, not a fountain pen nib. And all the things that, you know, rollerball pens might work better for in certain situations than fountain pens. And I just find it super nice that it works well. Like, I was – I'm talking about this like I'm a little bit surprised because I kind of am. Like, it's not the greatest thing under the sun, right? It's not transformative. And, oh, it's going to write, like, a Pentel Energel or a Retro 51. But it's better than I expected. And I think that's pretty high praise.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, I never really know what to think about these pens. I've always avoided them. I'm kind of like – not really so much in performance, but I'm like, why would I – why would I want it? And it's like, you know, I like what you said in the article. It's like, well, it gives you the option to – like, now you can have any color, you know? Like – Right. Because even if you can't get a cartridge in the ink that you want, you could syringe fill cartridge or – would any converters fit in this?

'''Brad:''' I'm sure the Kaweco mini converters that I hate so much would. Which kind of sucks, but, you know, you could at least get it. Like, whatever ink you want, you can put in there, right? Right. Although I expect shimmer inks would destroy this thing. But, you know, I would love to. I would not – I think I made a point in there that I would not use a shimmer ink. But nevertheless, you have all this optionality, right?

'''Myke:''' But then – Right. For me, it's like, yeah, but I don't – Still why? I don't want to use a rollerball. Yeah. Like, with this in mind, you know? Like, if I want to use a rollerball, for me, I'll just use a rollerball. Like, it doesn't need to be J-O-Bomb, whatever, whatever, in the mix, right? Like, I'm not using it for that. Like, because I'm never going to get what I want, I feel like, in, like, performance and the amount of ink laid down to really appreciate it from a rollerball than I would from one of my fountain pens. Yeah. So, I'm always just a bit, like, I don't know where this would fit in my life to have a rollerball that I can put an ink cartridge in.

'''Brad:''' Right. Like, you're already covered, right? Yeah. Like, you have a bunch of your fountain pens inked up. They have all of your favorite inks in them.

'''Myke:''' It's also just, like, you know, I would just get some rollerballs in different colors. Like, just get some Jetstreams or high-tech Cs or whatever. You know what I mean? I don't know. Like, if I really wanted that, I'd just get that thing. I don't know.

'''Brad:''' I don't know. It's kind of nice to think about, hey, I could put Pilot Orochizuku Shinkai in this little brass pocket pen and not have to worry about the nib. Or I could just put it in, you know, a Kaweco Sport and then, you know, fill up an ink cartridge that way and put it in a fountain pen nib. I don't know. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Or, like, for me, like, I would just, if I really wanted it, I would just get the fountain pen version of the Shown Design Anniversary.

'''Brad:''' Right. Right.

'''Myke:''' Use that.

'''Brad:''' This will, I would wager that Ian would agree with this statement. It is the least used of the tips, right, between fountain, ballpoint, and this. I would say that's probably fair. And the lowest seller, you can also buy just, like, an individual. You don't have to buy, like, the whole setup, you know, with all the three different tips. You can just buy a rollerball or a ballpoint or a fountain pen. And this is clearly the third seller in my book. And, honestly, I don't see a lot of people using them. No. But I do see makers offering a double section option now to where they buy, if someone buys a fountain pen barrel, they can also buy a fitting for this rollerball tip. So, it's a very low percentage sale.

'''Myke:''' Like, if you don't have to change your product and you can offer this as an option and it's, you know, pretty easy for you to swap that out, then do it. Like, because if you end up getting 10 more customers for it, well, there's 10 more customers for you, right? But I think you mentioned in the article, like, you're not going to see this become the thing like the Schmidt PA-126-127 has become.

'''Brad:''' Right. I don't need more than one of these. Like, I'm good. Yeah. Like, I'm covered. I can play – this is my little playground area where I can have this tip that works well and I can do some – have some fun inks in a non-fountain pen. I don't need five of them, you know. I enjoy five different fountain pens for five different reasons, you know, the different style of the barrel, the different grind on the nib. You know, this rollerball tip, like, it's like I'm good with one and I'm just glad that it actually works. And now I can actually recommend, say, people can ask me, hey – because I get this question pretty frequently and I can actually recommend if it's using this Schmidt mechanism, like, you should probably be happy with it. Even though I haven't tested out, like, a huge range of inks, but I think my experience would translate to a lot of inks outside of, like, your aggressive inks, like Big Shimmer, Big Sheen, that kind of stuff, your standard inks.

'''Myke:''' It's funny, like, Big Shimmer. It makes it sound like, you know, like you're in the pocket of big whatever.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, the big corporation.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, you're in the pocket of Big Shimmer.

'''Myke:''' You know us.

'''Brad:''' You know us. We're in the pockets.

'''Myke:''' All right, should we do a couple of RSTPA before we finish out today? Let's do it. All right, this came in from Neil. Neil says, I feel like I've been in the fountain pen world for a while, but this is my one desire that continues to remain unfulfilled. I'm a teacher and I use a bullet journal technique for my yearly planner. I've been using Rodia Dot Grid A5 notebooks for years and enjoy making my own layout for my needs through the year, but the paper is ivory, not white. What notebook would match my needs and be accessible for purchase by me living in Seattle, not looking to spend $30 on shipping from Japan? I need similar page count to Rodia A5 size Dot Grid or blank paper, but white fountain pen friendly paper.

'''Brad:''' I have a question that I should have posed to other people before thinking of me and as you're reading this. Why is cream and ivory paper so predominant? I don't know, man. Versus just like a base white. I don't know. There's plenty of white paper out there, but when you get into these notebooks, so what we want here is essentially a bound hardcover notebook, you know, your standard 200 page notebook. And it's kind of hard to get just that stark white page. So, like, I posted this question in Twitch one day so we could kind of talk about it and figure out what the options are because nothing really comes easy, right? Like, it doesn't come easy to answer this question. So, we came up with the stology. Hey, I think it's pretty easy. Yeah, why do you think that, Myke? Because I made this frigging product. Except for one important factor.

'''Myke:''' What's the important factor?

'''Brad:''' It's not A5.

'''Myke:''' Oh, it's basically A5. Get out of town.

'''Brad:''' You're one of those people. A5-ish.