Editing The Pen Addict 145/transcript (section)

== Lamy 2000 ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Well, we'll explain it in a moment. I think that's quite interesting. Because I think you'll hear it and it'll make you happy, but your wallet maybe not so much. I'm so happy that we're welcoming back MassDrop to sponsor this week's episode of The Pen Addict. MassDrop is an online community for enthusiasts of all kinds, from audio and electronics to quilting and cooking. It's a place for you to connect with people like you to discuss your favorite products and activities and buy them together. MassDrop represents a new type of online experience that combines community, content, and commerce. MassDrop offers its users a place where enthusiasts can meet and connect over the products they love, a forum where you can vote on and discuss the products you're passionate about, and a platform to connect directly with manufacturers to buy products together to get bulk pricing. They are not a flash sales website. They are not a deal site. They are not Groupon. I love that this is like flat out. We're not Groupon, okay? The thing that is most important to guys and girls over at MassDrop is that they want to build communities around things that people love. That's what they're passionate about. Ultimately, they are here to help you by making the products you care about more affordable and accessible and providing you with a platform to connect with other like-minded enthusiasts. I know that the group buys are something that's super interesting to the Pen community, and it's something that happens quite a lot. And some of the stuff that we buy can be pretty expensive, but buying in bulk can help with that cost, because what you're doing is you're sharing the cost amongst a bunch of people. And this is where a service like MassDrop that can actually help facilitate these group buys is actually something that's really cool for this community. I've taken a look at MassDrop. They have some great deals where they've gotten like 20% to 30% off brands like Pelican and Franklin Kristoff, and I want to highlight something at the moment. If you go to MassDrop right now, they have a Lamy 2000 MassDrop at the moment with a price of $114.99, is what it's at currently.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's insane.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So you can go there now, and you can get your hand on one of these things, which is just super awesome. What you should do is go to dro.ps slash thepenaddict and sign up. Once you've signed up, search for the Lamy 2000, and you'll be able to get your hand on one of these things for just shy of $115. Now, these, you know, we know this, they go for $199. But like, yeah, they, MassDrop email me this morning to tell me about it because they wanted me to talk about it. And at the moment, it's at that incredible price of $115.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so the MSRP is $199. The street price is about $140, which I've never seen really much lower than that, unless you've got some discounts from somewhere. But I've never seen the Lamy 2000 for this lower price. That's pretty nuts. A lot of people ask us, you know, what's their next step up fountain pen? And I think this one comes up probably more than anything, right, Myke? Like when you're getting out of, like, the beginner range and want to do something, like, really nice, but not go totally ape and break in the bank. The Lamy 2000 is really hard to beat. For me. At its regular price, and at this price, it's just ridiculously good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think once you get to a certain point, for me, the Lamy 2000 is a must-have. Like, it's, I love mine. I love mine so much. And this is a great deal. I have to say that this specific MassDrop is only available to U.S. addresses, I'm afraid. Yes. If you're international. But there are, there's loads of stuff there. You should just go and check it out. And they've got loads of really great, great, great products there. Like, for pen addicts, you guys are just going to love this stuff. It's a great community. They've got great stuff there. It's something really interesting. I think it fits really well with what we do. So if you go to dro.ps slash the pen addict, sign up, and you can go and check out some of these incredible deals. Thank you so much to MassDrop for helping support this show and all of RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, and I don't know if we mentioned it. You may have, but there's just five days left on this one. They're not in perpetuity sales. Yeah, that's the thing. They're like, there is a time limit.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep, because they then have to place the order, right? Yes. These things don't go forever. But yeah, I really like these guys. And I think you will too.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, doing awesome stuff. Very cool. Thank you, MassDrop. All right. So I threw out a tweet this morning. I had a couple of spots to fill in the show notes today, Myke. So I wanted to see what everyone was looking for for questions. And one of them, and we've kind of skated around the surface of this when we talked about my Nakaya. What's the next grail pen? If the Nakaya was my grail pen, what's the next grail pen? I think I answered when we talked about this a few weeks ago, probably similarly to what I'm going to answer now, is there's not a next grail pen for me. I have a shopping list. I have pens that I want to acquire. None of them fit what, for me personally, would be a grail pen, which is just something like really, really special.

'''Myke Hurley:''' For anybody that, like in case this misses anyway, it's obviously the holy grail.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes, the holy grail. So the pinnacle, the ultimate, cannot be surpassed. And, you know, I've thought about that. And for me, right now, any pen that I'm interested in is a button click away. There's not going to be a lot of thought other than do I want to spend the money. So I thought about this, and there's a pen that's kind of always been in the back of my head. And maybe this has to go on the grail pen because it will involve a hunt, right? And that's part of the grail thing. It's either a hunt or a discovery. There's a process to getting to that point. Or it's super expensive. Yeah, or it's super expensive. You have to, yeah, it costs you something, whether it's time, money, brain cells. It's not something that you just go throw out your credit card and say, I'm done. I have my grail pen. There's no fun in that. So we've talked about probably, I think it was two pin shows ago, that I bought a Parker Vacumatic. I bought one of mine. And you bought one of yours. It's one of the most beautiful pins I've ever seen. There's one Parker Vacumatic that I've always seen pictures of. And every time I see a picture of it, it stops me in my tracks. It's called the Parker Vacumatic Golden Web.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This looks nothing like mine.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, it doesn't look like anything like any Parker Vacumatic.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If you go to the page that's in the show notes, I have the blue one. That's it. That's on that page. Like if you go down, there's like a selection. I have the blue one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So mine looks like yours, except it's gray. Yeah. This one is basically like fractured glass in there. That's just, or mosaic type thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, mosaic's a really great way to put it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So this pin blows my mind. I don't know that I've ever seen one in person. But if you had to pin me down to what's a grail pin that I want, it's probably this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It costs $5.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I'll pay $5 to anyone who has this pin right now. There's actually one on eBay right now. I went and looked when I was doing the research for this. I was like, I'm wondering what they're going for. Because I really don't know. It could be a thousand something dollar pin and I wouldn't know. But my guess was a few couple, few hundred dollars. And that's about right. There's one on eBay right now that's approaching $300. And it has 28 bidders. So it's a sought after pin. So this is something I would be proud to own. It would be a unique talking piece.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, something like this, I think, is fitting into my grail pin category now. Like, if I didn't own a Pilot Murex, right? Something like that would be a grail pin. There's a challenge in an effort to get, like, a good quality Murex because they're not made anymore. And, you know, that's just my definition. Everyone else is different. And so that's kind of where I'm at right now. I don't have an absolute certain grail pin. I have pins that I want to buy. But they're all new pins that I can just order. They're always available. I'm looking for something that really appeals to me personally, aesthetically. Something that's challenging to acquire. And something that I will appreciate greatly once I own it. Because buying it is only part of it. Owning it and loving it like we do to a lot of the products that we talk about on this show. And it becomes part of you. That's a whole different thing. And that's what a pin like this golden web would be for me. Okay. So I hope I explained that. Excuse me. Well enough. That was from Tim from the Erasable Podcast, by the way. Thank you, Tim. So if you see a Parker golden web at the Atlanta pin show, don't buy it for me. Just, I mean, don't buy it out from under me. Tell me where it is and I'll go look at it.