Editing The Pen Addict 418/transcript (section)

== Leonardo Pens ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Exactly. So, when I decided to buy it, I was like, well, I'll just... I wanted the green one. So, I wanted Stromboli, surprisingly. I thought that Vesuvio might be my jam. But I think I'm going to be happy in the long run with Stromboli. These names are so funny.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And so, I found it. And I've put in a pre-order. And I'm going to pay like $125 less than on the U.S. market. Now, I'm sure my sponsors and advertisers will not like me saying that. But that's just the situation that we deal with with these different international pricing schemes. That's the wrong word. I don't mean it in a derogatory manner. But that's what Pelican does, right? So, if you're interested in a Pelican pen, there's places where you can save a not insignificant amount of money. And Fanta Plumo had the Stromboli in an extra fine nib. They had no Vesuvios. And they had no other nibs in the Stromboli. And I was like, well, I guess that's my sign. So, I have a pre-order. I still don't know that that means that I for sure get it. I guess it does. Like, I've paid my money, right? Where you haven't paid your money. Like, you're waiting on an answer. I think if you want one of these, you're going to have to put it. You need to hang up after this call and put in the work to see if anyone has one of the 50 red ones available for you to buy. Like, I'm not even convinced I'm going to get one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean, I'm talking to Leonardo.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, good. They're not selling the pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I don't know what's happening. But I have been talking to a person. And I'm waiting for them to send me a price. Like, I don't know what's going on. But, like, I'm not going to push it. I want one. But, like, I'm not going to go wild on it. Like, it is what it is. Like, I've been conversing with someone who has given me an email address. And I've been talking to whoever it is on the other side of this email address. And if I get one, I get one. If I don't, I don't. I'll be disappointed if I don't get one. But I'm not now going to go and start shaking down trees.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. Right. So, that was how I was. Like, my initial reaction was, like, I need to wait. And then I waited a day and thought about it more. And at that point, when I made that first decision, I knew that the odds of me getting one were super low. At that point. I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't have been surprised if I didn't get one. And I would have been totally fine with that. But, like I said, what pushed me over to just go ahead and try to find one was that I was going to buy one of their piston filler, other piston fillers. Regardless of whether, you know, if this didn't come out, I was buying one of their piston fillers. Well, I'll pay a little bit more to get this really, really special one. You know, probably like $100 more than I would have. And then I still, you know. So, my final price was $526 shipped. So, I felt, you know, it is what it is. Like, it's obviously crazy expensive. But the standard piston fillers are probably like around $400 with the gold nib. So, that's how I justified it to myself. And we'll see. I'm excited. I'm excited to get it. God, it is so pretty. It is beautiful. And, yeah. But I really didn't know what I was going to do about buying one. And I just kind of went for it. So, that's why I don't buy all the things all the time. So, when you can have something like this pop up and you want it, you just kind of go for it. And now I probably need to go sell some pens. Maybe some other Leonardo's. Like, this one's going to usurp.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Everyone that I follow in the pen world on Instagram in the last 48 hours has been freaking out about Tomorrow River Paper.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I got a lot of emails, a lot of tweets. Yeah, for sure.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What's going on with Tomorrow River Paper?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, let's start with this. So, my good friend Daryl, who runs Musubi. I like Daryl so much because he is a really smart business person. I love what he's built. And just in talking to him, you know, just offline at a pen show, you know, in Slack, he takes the tack of being just like completely open, honest, and direct on business things. Right? Which I feel that I'm that way too. So, I appreciate someone who just lays it out there in no uncertain terms that this is the deal. And I trust Daryl, you know, implicitly with like business and questions. And with Musubi, if people aren't familiar with Musubi, they should be. They're a notebook maker. And we've talked about the story of Musubi. And you should go read why Musubi exists and what their story is. And then you'll understand more about why Daryl is so passionate about what he does. But over the past couple of years, Daryl's essentially become all of our paper guru. Right? Because he deals with printing. And he's over in Asia. I believe he's in Singapore. And he deals with a lot of the print shops and paper makers and manufacturers. So, he's kind of on the front lines of making notebooks over there. And his Musubi journals began with the standard Tomoe River paper. So, what Daryl has come to find out over the past year or so, Tomoe, the overarching company that makes Tomoe River paper, is toning down or lowering the priority of making paper for personal use, which is kind of where Tomoe River falls, if I'm reading this correctly. So, we'll link to the article. Daryl put out a whole article that you should go read. You should, you know, I'm probably going to butcher part of this because I didn't take separate notes. So, I'm just going off memory from what I read. But, basically, Daryl is saying the paper's changing and you should know this going forward because we're going to continue to use Tomoe River paper. And I'm not in a position to tell you is this better or is this worse. But I am in a position to tell you this is different and here's how. So, let me just give a quick recap of the Tomoe River paper and what changes it's going to make. It's a real quick, real short list of what Daryl listed. It says, is the paper any different? In short, yes. The new Tomoe River exhibits the following changes. It's a few microns thicker than the previous version. As a result, it's stiffer and less crinkly than the old version. The writing experience is different. There's no good way to describe it, but the paper feels a little drier and has more drag. Some inks show up on the new version as a slightly different color from what you might be used to in the old version. So, those are what has changed. What hasn't changed, he says, the new version still shows sheen and other properties of ink well. The dry time is still the same. That's to say, the ink dries slowly on Tomoe River as it always has. So, that's the kind of change that's going. It sounds pretty big. Like a big change to me. I'm anxious to try out the new one. And the thing that Daryl made clear is they don't know. Daryl, the end receivers of the product, don't know when the cutover took place. But it was so long ago that they can't get the old stuff anymore. Right? They have whatever inventory they have of, air quote, the old stuff. And the new stuff was implemented basically just, I won't want to say without telling people, but just kind of blindly by suppliers and manufacturers. So, I find this whole thing very interesting because of the altar that Tomoe River has been placed upon in our community. Right? It's a beloved product. And so many companies have made their living off of a paper product that is so good for fountain pen use. And I just wonder, you know, we'll see in the end, you know, once the new Tomoe River has made its way through the manufacturing cycle and it's completely taken over from the old version of the paper, if it's still as popular as it is. But it kind of stinks that Daryl has to make this post, right? It stinks because everyone knows what they had now and now they don't know what they have. So, and it's just a weird place to be for manufacturers like Daryl or makers like Daryl to have a, you know, couple tiers above, you know, big company just kind of implementing these decisions without like all of the detail. Basically, the big company is saying, yeah, this doesn't really rank in what we're trying to do anymore. So, we'll just, we're going to make what we make and that's what you're going to get. So, you have any thoughts on this?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Who makes it?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'd have to look up the company. It's a large paper company. I forget the name. But it's, yeah, it's a huge, it's a huge, huge print company. Right. And I've looked it up before and I just don't have it on the top of my head.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes, it's weird. I mean, it could still be good. Totally. Totally. But might not be what people are expecting or used to. It might just become, this is a very good fountain pen and paper rather than like, this is the holy grail of fountain pen and paper.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. And Daryl, I implore y'all to go read this post by Daryl. He did a great job. He's one of the questions he wrote to himself in the article. Is there any way to tell the two versions apart from the packaging or product codes? And the answer is no. Right. It's just like a feel thing. Like from someone who's very experienced, like Daryl handling this stuff all the time. And then he even goes into the different weights at Tomoe River Paper and how that's just complicated. And it's just, it's crazy. It's just such a, this is why like we love doing shows like The Pen Attic because we can get into this minutia. And it's just, it's really, really cool. So he's, he's on top of things and you should follow Misubi and you should follow Daryl and, and all of his insight because he is really, really good at what he does. And I would be remiss to say that I didn't go and order a couple of notebooks from him right after reading the article. I don't even know what paper I'm getting. So, but it doesn't matter. It's I've, I've bought his notebooks in the past and I've always given them away. They're great, great high end, high quality notebooks. You know, they're very expensive. So I've used them for giveaways and prizes and things like that. And I've never kept one for myself. So I finally ordered me one. So we'll talk about that when I get it in.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What a strange story.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. And right now all of his inventories, he had, he is stockpiled on the old Tomoe River, but like at some point he'll be cutting over. So if you want some old Tomoe River, he's got it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' For me with stuff like that, I would make the decision not to buy it. So like when something like this happens, I kind of just want to cut myself off because it's going to go. I don't want to like, I guess this is something for me personally. Like I wouldn't buy, not that I'm saying not to buy Daryl's notebooks. Oh shit. But for me personally, like I wouldn't want any more notebooks or Tomoe River paper in them in the way that I know it because I just feel like I'm delaying the inevitable. And I'm personally more in the habit of like, get the new thing and try it. If I don't like it, try and find something that can replace it rather than just like keep dragging my feet with the old thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. And Daryl makes a point is like, people should be aware of like going all FOMO on something like this. And I try to practice what I preach, you know, like I bought them the primary manipulation pen, but it would be okay if I didn't, didn't get it. Like it's not the end of the world. There's always going to be something next. You know, I learned that years ago with appropriately enough, the sailor, the original sailor apricot gentle ink that we just talked about, which is why I always find that the, the recreation of those inks so funny because I bought like two or three bottles of apricot because, oh no, it's my favorite. It's going away. But you know what? Not only did sailor bring it back a couple of years, there's other inks that are just as good. So will we find a Tomoe River replacement? That's just as good. Well, I don't know. That might be a little tougher. That's why this paper is so beloved for fountain pen users, but maybe we will.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And maybe it opens the door for somebody else to come in and do it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, totally. And from my personal use case perspective, I almost never use Tomoe River. None of my active notebooks are Tomoe River. None of my side notebooks are Tomoe River. I just rarely use it because I use, I only like it for fountain pens and I use so many non fountain pens that it's just not super functional for me. But for fountain pen users, I do think it's the best.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Should we do some hashtag ask TPA questions before we finish today? Yeah, let's hit a couple. All right. We have a long one from Todd. I think there's a few questions in here. Yes. I was watching one of Brad's Twitch streams recently on YouTube. Brad does post his Twitch streams on YouTube. So you can, there's another place if you miss the streams, you can get them there. Specifically, the CW pencil unboxing for the local themed box. When Brad pulled out what I believe was a general stenographer pencil that was sharpened on both ends. So I sharpened both ends of one of my Mitsubishi 9000 HP pencils to try it out. I think this is a pretty, I think this is pretty efficient as no matter which way I pick up the pencil, I can write immediately. And I can write for twice as long without having to stop the sharpening. I was curious what your thoughts on this would be. And if you know of anyone else who does it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I loved this idea when I saw it. And the chat in the stream at the time mentioned that it's, or the copy on the CW pencils. They always do a little note about what each pencil is. And that people would sharpen both ends for this exact reason. Like if they're heavy writers, it would, you know, lengthen the time they could write without having to stop to sharpen. And I forget who it is. I learned it from the Erasable podcast. I don't know if it was Thoreau or Hemingway or one of the famous writers that they all very much enjoy. At the start of a writing session.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Aren't they the guys who use Moleskine notebooks? No. No.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, they use the other brand that shall not go named on this show.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, it's Steinbeck. So it's Steinbeck. Steinbeck would, at the start of a writing session, would sharpen like two dozen pencils. So he didn't have to use one pencil, write it dull, stop, sharpen. It would just get dull, go to the next sharpened pencil. And then when all the dozen pencils was dulled out, he knew that how many, approximately how many words he had written. And how many, you know, how much time that took and what, and that he was accomplished that day because he used all two dozen pencils or whatever. And this is the same kind of thing is, is you just have more writing time dedicated to writing as opposed to stopping and sharpening every few minutes. So yeah, I think it's a super efficient, super good idea. And that's why I don't really do this with my pencils, but I, I'm such a fan of the non eraser pencils as it is. I should probably do it more.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The next question from Todd is about two weeks ago, my wife gave birth to our third daughter. Congratulations to you both and to you all. So I commemorated the event of a new pen with my two other daughters. I purchased a Lamy Safari limited edition color for 2015 and 2017, but I didn't really care for this year's colors. So I opted for the Sailor Pro Gear Slim Blue Dwarf. I know Myke has commemorated important events of a new pen, but I was wondering if Brad ever does this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I do not, I don't think I ever have. And I probably should, like, I'm totally, I'm pro this idea, right? Like we've talked about it with you. Todd just did it to commemorate, commemorate a birth. I was on the Focus podcast with David Sparks and Myke Schmitz. Myke does this when he finishes kind of like you, Myke. When a big work project gets completed, you celebrate. And therefore you have this kind of memento of that time and that accomplishment. And I love that so much. Maybe I'm just not as accomplished as you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know. I will also say just kind of like to put all my cards on the table. Sometimes it's nice to retroactively apply a pen purchase to an event as a justification for spending the money you've spent.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, and I'll give you the real reason why I don't celebrate the events because I buy so many pens anyway.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have breakfast today. Let's be true.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Let's be true in what's really happening with me. It's because I already have the pen because I've bought it regardless of. But it's a day that ends in why. Yes, I will have the primary manipulation, Leonardo Memento Zero. So there you go. A final question from Todd.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Will a pen sleeve or a pocket carry prevent a pen of a threaded cap or barrel from unscrewing? Or does it just prevent scratches and dings from occurring on the pen body?

'''Myke Hurley:''' It'll mostly prevent it from unscrewing, right? Because there's not as much play in if it's in a sleeve than it would be in a pocket or a bag or a backpack. Right. So, and you're going to find that to be more of an issue with metal barrel pens. That's the ones you find unscrewing. I tend to have some of my Kaweco's. Like my Kaweco's steel lily put ballpoint tends to unscrew all the time. And you can, you know, you can apply something to it. I don't know. I don't know that you want to be putting silicone on there. But you just got to kind of break it in, wear it out a little bit, and it'll stick a little bit better. But the pen sleeve will prevent the unthreading or the unscrewing of the threads in the barrel just because it doesn't have that much wiggle room.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's interesting that that happens. Is it like friction that's doing it? Like what is it that's unscrewing it?

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's, I only find it on metal pens. I rarely find this on plastic pens. But it's just the vibration with the metal being, I guess, just a harder material. It doesn't attach that well to itself. So just the vibration of just walking around with the pen in your pocket just might take, you know, like a one-eighth twist off of that pen. And once it starts going, that's the problem. Like when it comes unseated the first time. Right. Right. And then it just starts, it can just start spinning. But, you know, it's not an outrageous problem. It's something you see from time to time with metal pens. It's nothing I really ever concerned myself with, to put it that way.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, you're not an EDC person either. True. At Boss Baker asks, should I be concerned with the warning that came with my new Sailor Wicked Witch of the West to only use Sailor inks because of the coating on the nib?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Love this question. Absolutely love this question.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because it's a question designed to scare you. Yeah. Right? Not a question, but like a statement.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It is. It's completely self-protected warranty issues from the companies who do this. You will find every company generally, every OEM pen and ink manufacturer will have this statement somewhere on their paperwork that you're going to void their warranty.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Now, what I will say on this note is that you can look at it in multiple ways. You can look at it as a company trying to get more money out of you by asking that you only use their ink. But if it is in the case of a warranty, meaning that they will fix your pen if it breaks, if it is something that an ink could have caused, it is not fair to, in my opinion, for somebody to, or for a company to be able to predict and protect themselves against literally anything you could be putting in that pen. Like, because we know that there are inks that can damage pens. And if you use one of those, the damage is in some instances almost inevitable. And I feel like it can't be a thing that a company can protect itself from persistently forever. What they can do is say, we know our inks work. Does that make sense what I'm trying to say?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, no, the company's saying, we built these things to work together. If you choose to use something else, all bets are off. Yeah. When, you know, anything else is fine. So I think the real answer you're getting to, or want, Boss Baker, is what's going to affect the plating on your black ion nib? And I have found that I have not had any inks cause a problem with any of my black ion nibs. But as I clean them repeatedly, I will knock some of the luster off, right? They're not as shiny as before. And that's just something I deal with because I want a clean pen. So the ink does work well. But is the plating as pristine as the day when I bought the pen? The answer is no. But that comes from cleaning of the pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's abrasion, right? Mm-hmm. That's doing it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, you know, just don't go wild. Use inks from brands that you know and can trust.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Don't use Bay State Blue. You know?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I mean, Sailor could come out with an ink, like one of their colors could damage their ion nibs, like just randomly. So use what you want in the pen. Yeah, but then they're going to cover you though, right? Like if that's the case. But yeah. Well, then you just say that's the ink you used. Mm-hmm. But yeah. I don't put it this way. I don't ever worry about using any ink in any pen, you know, as long as I have good pen hygiene. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Again, the paper discussion is so deep and nuanced. And I hate paper today. Today I hate paper. You're having paper issues. I'm dealing with paper problems and I hate paper. Paper sucks and should dare go away.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Daryl's having paper issues. Yeah, paper is so difficult, but it's so important for a good writing experience. So let me tell you this. The best paper that's available in loose sheets for letter writing is Clairefontaine Triumph. Even though I think it just comes in a pad, but the top edge of the pad, the glue bound pad, when you remove it, you can't tell it looks like a loose sheet. And that way you don't have to deal with loose, actual loose sheets, you know, being loose.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I would just like to say this paper is actually called Triumph.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Triumph, that is. I say that wrong all the time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, Triumph is not going to get you what you're looking for. This is a very French word here. Yeah. Well, it's the same word, but it's just in French and English.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Agree. And I always say Triumph, but I tend to write that word more than I say it out loud. Right. So then I just, I get lost sometimes. But yes, Kruger, I, if you just want a simple, direct answer for fountain pens, you're going to win with Clairefontaine Triumph. And outside of that, like the rabbit hole is infinitely deep. Yeah. Right. We can, once you decide that you like something like that, then we can decide if you want something different and then we can explore. But that's, that's going to be the one you start with because it's so, so good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And finally today from Malbonagenio, we'll go with that. Bonagenio. Bonagenio. What would you guys like to see innovation-wise in the fountain pen and stationary sectors?

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is always the greatest question that's so hard to answer. And a lot of it is, for me, and we've said this before when we've answered this question even years ago, is seeing more small makers involved in larger scale projects. Which we just saw with Brooks and the primary manipulation. We saw Gina at Custom Nibs Studio making nibs for Estabrook. I want to see that community outreach into, or the bigger companies reach into the community for collaborations. Now, that's not an innovation necessarily. I don't think that's the answer you're looking for from a technical perspective, which I think is how the question's asked. But that's what I see and what I like to see because that leads to innovation. You know, with Jonathan and materials and Gina with access to nib work that people didn't have access before, which leads into more usage and more popularity. Now, pure innovation-wise, I have no idea. Like, I love seeing things like the Curie Doss. Like, I love that we saw the Curie Doss come out, right? We raved about the existence of that pen. At least I raved that I am so happy that this pen exists, whether it's good or bad. It needs to exist. It's new. So, yeah. It's new. It's different. They're trying. Like, Platinum tried. Like, whether they succeed is to be determined, but they tried. So, what do you like to see?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm maybe going to go a little bit out there with this one. But I would like to see some advancements in just-in-time manufacture to allow for consumers to have more customization in products. So, let's look at our friends over at Sailor.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We all have the idea of what we would like our own Sailor Limited Edition to be. Like, could there be something that could allow you to go to a website and say, I want this body, this cap, this grip, this nib, and have that made? Like, that would take a lot. Like, a lot has to be done to make that a sustainable business model. But that would be innovation, right? And a lot of that would have to be done by robotics, which, funnily enough, could work in Sailor's favor if they wanted to go down that route. But, like, I know that you do this already at Spoke. Yeah. In a limited sense, right? If I'm right, you can choose a body and cap combo, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, with the pencils, you can choose a body and grip style. The pens, you can choose what we've pre-built. So, you can't actually go pick and choose the full setup. But we mix and match the setups enough to give you more choice, if that makes sense. So, but I agree with you completely. And you know who can do this? Who should do this?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Who?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Hire me, Lamy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Ah. Yeah. Okay. But you see what I'm saying, though, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because you have to start this at the entry-level price point. You have to say, this pen is $50, not $250, right? I'm going to let you build this Safari or this All-Star, and it's going to cost you $55, $75. But you get to pick all the parts. Mm-hmm. And it's all, you know, plastic-molded machine parts. It's, yeah, it's right there. It's right there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's why I love them so much. Like, it's, man, it is right there in front of them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, Nike has done this for so many years.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I have a pair.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' With Nike ID. Yeah. This could be a thing that a reasonable-sized pen manufacturer could get into. And if it was done right, could be done with profit in mind. But it's not easy, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Again, it's marketing, right? If Lamy does this, and they get that new customer that can custom build their pen, the next thing they go is, oh, look at that Lamy 2000. Yeah. And now you have a Lamy customer. Yeah. It's customer acquisition and marketing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right, that's it for this week's episode. You can find links and show notes in your app of choice. So you can go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 418. If you want to find Brad online, you can find him on Twitch. He's at 10 a.m. Eastern time, Tuesdays and Thursdays at twitch.tv slash penaddict. You can also find Brad on social media. He's penaddict on Instagram. Dowdy is on Twitter. And also, of course, you can find Brad's writing, along with many other very talented pen reviewers at penaddict.com. You can also go to knock.co and spoke design.com. Yeah, calm, calm, calm. I hadn't finished. I hadn't finished. I was just saying it slowly. Just so people could really understand that once you could buy some of Brad's products there as well. I am YKE. Thank you so much to ExpressVPN for sponsoring this show. And to you, the penaddict listener, for making it possible. And if you're a penaddict member, RelayFM member supporting penaddict, thank you especially for helping make this show possible every single week. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Goodbye, Brad.

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[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]