Editing The Pen Addict 670/transcript (section)

== Review of a specific pocket pen design ==

* I was very interested in this because I like pocket pens. But the shape in the pictures, like, it looked interesting in that I didn't know if the wide middle of the cap would get in the way of handwriting. So, having this in hand and using it for a month, I actually very much enjoy using it. But like the Zento, I don't know where this would land in my, like, favorite pocket pens type of category, right? It's interesting because there's not a lot of, there's shockingly not a lot of competition in this price point. It's not exactly super cheap, like a Kaweco Sport, which we're going to talk about in a minute and compare them. Because I think that's the real, that's the leader in the clubhouse as far as pocket pens goes.
* But it's perfectly Bennu in its style, shape, and design, right? So, I give them a ton of credit for that. Like, this is a Bennu pen. You look at this and you go, that's a Bennu. Why is it so tiny? It's like, oh, yeah, they made one called the Pixie. Great name as well. I think it's a little less comfortable than the Sport, but it's not uncomfortable.
* The width of the cap when it's posted, I can't use it unposted. It's too short, right? It kind of stabs into your hand when it's unposted. Like, if I was writing, like, one sentence, I could deal with it. But if I'm just writing, like, notes as we're talking, like, it's going to be posted.
* It's great. It's lightweight. I think I prefer the Kaweco Sports more.
* But I can't totally define that. It's just kind of a feel thing just from the size of the cap. It's truly mad to me looking at Kimberly's images to see how much smaller it is than a Kaweco Sport. Like, when the Kaweco Sport, to me, already feels about as small as I could use. And that, like, there is a pen that is actually smaller is wild. Yeah. Spoiler alert. I've already recorded next week's episode, Myke. And the conversation around the Kaweco Sport came up with our guests. I'll keep that secret for now. But I proposed that Kaweco, as a brand, is a love-hate. There's, like, not a – Kaweco is not a middle ground brand, right? Because, like, 90% of their pens are small and pocketable. And that's just not a category some people are going to use. So, therefore, Kaweco is immediately dismissed. And then you come in with this Bennu, and you look at it compared to the unposted Kaweco Sport, and it's, like, almost an inch shorter from the jump. Like, you just can't use this unposted, I feel. But posted, it's great. Like, I – my gut tells me that this is going to do really well for Bennu. But from my perspective, like, I'm good. Like, I like this one that I have. I'll probably keep buying Kaweco Sports, if that makes sense, right? It just fits me a little bit better.
* I have one that's only available at Bennu. It's part of the – oh, gosh, what's it called? Magenta Madness set. It's so beautiful. I love the look of this pen. Like, I'm going to use it forever just because it looks cool. But I think the Sport is a better mini pen. And the thing is – the other thing about this pen is I say it's relatively expensive.
* So, like, the standard colors, like, if you could just get, like, a simple black, blue – I think there's a brown one. Those are, like, $50-something. And then, like, the colorful ones, like I have, get up into, like, the 70s, 75, 79. I can't remember which. And, like, that's a pretty big ask when you have the Kaweco Sport to compare it to. Even the Kaweco Aluminum and Brass Sports, they're a little bit more expensive. But they're a very, very different pen for a similar price. Then you have, like, the Twisby Mini is, like, $54. And that's a piston filler. That's fine. The Kaweco Lilliput Aluminum, which I actually think is too thin of a pen for most people, that's $58. It's a weird price point.
* But I don't know. I think it's going to do well because it was something fun and different from Bennu. But, like, I'm of mixed – I'm not of mixed feelings of what it is. I'm mixed feelings of how much I'm personally going to use it versus some of the other choices that I have. Like, I think on its own in a vacuum, it's a really good and fun pen, and it's going to do well. So, anyway, my thoughts on the Pixie. We'll see. I might review it. I might not. But, like, when I don't review things, I like to talk about them here on the show just so we can kind of – I like being on record about things and products and stuff like that. And speaking of products, Myke, where can we find the Bennu Pixie amongst other pairs? Oh, he's a pro. Stand back, everyone. Brad's a pro. Go to Pen Chalet. Pen Chalet because they have the Bennu Pixie. There's a link in the show notes for it if you want to look, but that's not all they have. They have products from all of your favorite brands. They're adding new products every week. There's new stuff showing up on Pen Chalet, and they have the best prices around. They have fantastic deals on products that are there in closeout, but also just great deals and new stuff too. Pen Chalet are fast and reliable customer service, and they do free shipping on orders of over $75 in the United States. They sell internationally with great shipping rates. They offer low prices on high-quality pens and offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Brad, I nearly said they have high prices on low-quality pens, which is absolutely not what's going on at Pen Chalet. They have the best stuff at the best prices. They have fountain pens. They have ballpoints and mechanical pencils, but they also have everything else. Whether you want to grab yourself a new rollerball, whether you want to get yourself a bottle of ink or a pen converter or a carrying case, no matter what it is, go to penshalet.com slash penaddict. You can see some exclusive offers for listeners of this show and see how you can save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet. What have we got, Brad?
* I can't vouch for this pen because I haven't used it, but the price and style I'm seeing for this Schaefer VFM fountain pen, which looks like probably one of their entry-level pens, it looks like a really nice pen for very little money as someone might be getting started in this hobby or wants to try a fountain pen for the first time. This looks good. It looks like it's – I don't know. Like I said, I can't vouch for it, but I'm actually really surprised at the style and the price of what this is. They have some of my favorite other pens from Y Studio, the Brassing Portable Ballpoint, which I really like. That's just a cool, fun ballpoint-type pen that I do use regularly. Then they have some of the entry-level Pelicans. We might be getting ready for back-to-school. It's not really back-to-school time. We've got like another month before we start seeing those ads. But, you know, if you're wanting to get your kids into writing, they have the Pelican Twist and the Pelican Pelicano. Those I can vouch for. Those are super high-quality, super fun, super functional fountain pens. Like I say, they're for beginners, but I would use this every day. I've used the Pelican Twist a lot, and it's one of those pens. You pick it up, it just makes you smile. It is – it does have an aggressive molded grip section more so than like a Lamy Safari. So if you don't like that, you can look at the Pelicano, which is kind of the more traditional – I think the Pelicano was more of the school pen style. It's been upgraded and kind of jazzed up a little bit in the barrel. But they're such good pens for such low prices. And then you can just, you know, once you get the Pelican and the Pelicano – I mean the Pelicano and the Twist, you know, on lockdown and you enjoy those pens, well, you can just move right up into the Pelican 200, which they have for a really great price. One of the classic black and gold with green ink windows there. over at penchalet.com, and that's just a fraction of what we have listed on our page. Pelicano is never not funny to me.
* Yeah? Why? Pelican Pelicano. It's just funny. Yeah. Oh, it's just funny. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's awesome. It's like I made a new pen. It's called the Brad Bradio, you know? Like, it's funny. This is something I would totally do. Like, if I'm in the marketing meeting, oh, it's the Pelicano. And everyone would go, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Well. And then we go, like, then no one else has a better idea. And you know what? We sit on that for a minute. And you know what? It's called the Pelicano now. Let's go. I look forward to the Spokespokio. Yeah. We'll get right on that. Coming someday soon, I think, is based on what you're saying. Yeah, exactly. So, we'll get right on that.
* Thanks to our friends at Penchalet. You should go to penchalet.com slash penaddict. Thanks to Penchalet for supporting this show and Relay. I have another new old pen I want to talk about. Okay. And this is one of those pens that only I talk about because it's kind of, like, lives in the Japanese market and only pokes its head out every few years. And I'm talking about the Pilot Timeline. So, this is a pen. It's got to be close to 20 years old as far as, like, introduction, like, the style of it. And they keep every few years, they'll do something new and interesting with the materials. And this one came about, people know I like this pen. So, they sent me this link from Pilot Corp on, which is the Japanese mothership account over on Instagram.
* And what they've done, it cracks me up because the timeline is great. So, it's this, let me explain what that is first for those who don't know. And click this link to go. And we'll have a few links in there so you can see what this pen is about. But it's basically a shorter ballpoint pen that has a twist mechanism. But the twist mechanism is a two-stage mechanism to where the nose cone of the pen fully retracts into the barrel.
* So, when you're... That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So, when you're... When it's... The pen is stored, you just see the barrel and the grip. Okay? And then you see on the front end, like, tucked away is the nose cone. So, your first twist engages the nose cone. And then your second twist, in the same direction, engages the refill. So, it's like a two-phase. And then backwards is the same way. You reverse it. The tip, the refill goes into the nose cone. And then the nose cone goes back into the grip section. It's just cool. Like, I think it's cool. It's never really took off because it must be kind of expensive to make. There's a really neat, interesting mechanism if you look in there. Like, this is a $38 pen, I think I wrote down. And I've actually paid more. I think the one that I have in my hands right now went and got mine. So, I have an all-black model with a wood grain barrel. This was like a Japanese exclusive. I think I paid like $70-something for mine. But these are $38. And what made me laugh about these pens is because Pilot cannot get rid of this acrylic marble that they started using a few years ago. Oh, my God. That's hilarious. The way you say that is very funny. I just thought it's like, oh, because you have another link which you had to talk about. I thought you were saying it's like, oh, they're just like, they're doing it again. But no, you think they're just like, they had a bunch of this stuff. Yeah. So, they've made full barrels of, it's five colors. It's always the same five colors. They did a full series of Custom Heritage SE, which is like a, like a 91, like a Pilot 91, I think. Or is it like a, so the Custom Heritage SE marbled is, you know, one of the pens that they made. That one came out first. And then, like a year later, they did a whole Vanishing Point lineup using the exact same marble.
* And now, they put up this link and I saw those grip sections. And I was like, oh, my gosh. They're using the exact same colors. And I went and checked. And they are the same five colors. So, they must have so much of this material they don't know what to do with at this point. I'll say I'm glad they did it in the timeline because it looks really good. Like nothing against this marble. All of them are really, really great. They just charge, they just charge a pretty good premium, you know, on the barrels, on the fountain pen barrels. Like this is some kind of limited edition, you know, marble acrylic material. And then, it just keeps showing up in other places. And I just got a huge kick out of that as someone who follows all this stuff. I was like, is that the, and I'm like, yep, it's the exact same stuff. So, anyway, this pen looks great. If you're interested in this pen, just one, not even a caveat. But this is kind of in the Lamy ballpoint category where this is a proprietary-ish refill. So, this uses something called the BRFN-30F-L refill from Pilot. Can you repeat that back to me, Myke? L. Yeah. So, it's basically the BRFN-30. It's a short ballpoint ink cartridge. Standard ballpoint ink. This is, again, I would love it if they would use the Acroball formulation for this. This is a standard- Big refill for nice lines.
* Okay. Nice. Nice.
* It's a good standard ballpoint, right? So, it doesn't skip. It doesn't have, like, any white space in the lines. Like, it's just nice and smooth. Classic blue ink ballpoint is what I use. So, know that if you're going into this. And there's not a lot of refill. You can't really swap this out because of the design of this pen. One note, and this will go to literally one person listening to this show will know what I'm about to say. But there's a classic Pilot pen that I've always loved called the Pilot Explorer. So, I was mad when they made the Explorer fountain pen because they stole the name of this old rollerball pen that they used to have.
* And those refills are long gone for those. Like, if you have a barrel for those, you can't find a refill. This refill fits that one. Fits that pen. I've always said I was going to do a post on that. But, like, literally no one cares because you can't get the barrels anymore.
* But you can find a Pilot Explorer review on the blog. And people have, like, a fascination with that pen from their childhood for good reason. It's just a very cool and unique pen. This refill fits the Pilot Explorer if you need to resuscitate one of those pens. So, there you go. For the one person who actually has one of those pens laying around. But it's one of those core pens of my youth. So, yeah. There you go. Pilot Timeline Marbled.
* I'm interested in this pen, like, you know, for people to check out. It's not cheap, which is why it'll never be as popular as, you know, like the Zento. Or even, like, the premium Zento is going to outsell this one, like, a hundredfold. But it's just a great pen and super fun and super functional. And I like the mechanism.
* Is it going to be a top five? No.
* Okay.