Editing The Pen Addict 419/transcript (section)

== Diamondcast Pens ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, if you look up Diamondcast, that is the maker. I forget the name of the maker. He's here in the U.S. And he has... He makes acrylic rods using diamond dust particles. And that's what this is. Wow. So, that's why you get this unique depth and coloration, just because of the way the light reflects off of it and the amount of dust put in there. It's pretty amazing. It's a really amazing looking pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. This explains the price. This is more expensive than I was expecting. But now I feel like I understand. These are $395 at retail. I thought it was going to be a lot cheaper than that. I don't know why exactly. But now I feel like I have a little bit more of an understanding. I really like the Montana Sapphire one that you have. It really does look very special. Now I understand why it looks that special, I guess. So, then the journal nib is a $50 nib. And you were very complimentary of it. I really kind of... I just wanted to kind of jumble all this stuff together that I personally am just quite impressed by what... Like the Estabrook lineup. It looks really great, honestly. Like overall. And I just kind of wondered how you're feeling about it all now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, that's what I tried to get across in the journaler nib review. That I appreciate how they're handling some of these smaller batch releases with the journaler nib and with the diamond cast resins to where they're saying, hey, we're essentially building this new brand. Let's just say it like that for Estabrook, right? It's been around. It's had different iterations. But this is the new Estabrook.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So... It has a good history, a good name. They harken back to some of the history of it. But they're also leaving it behind, which is the right thing to do. Right. And so... In a way. I mean, like in a sense of like... So, they started out kind of making a lot of products that were very like Estabrook that you know. And now they're making stuff which is like these sparkle pens, which is this is what you want now. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So, they've handled this transition pretty well. Like they started out simple and straightforward. And I don't mean that in necessarily like the pen design. Like the materials they used were pretty cool in the beginning. And from day one, you could buy the attachment that allowed you to use your old Estabrook nibs with no... Which no current version of Estabrook ownership had ever tried to do, right? To take hold of some of the vintage favorites, stylings of Estabrook, put them into new pens, allow you to use things like the nibs. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Which is like when you look at it, it's like there's the obvious thing to do. Right. Like it's wild that it hadn't been done before. But it's not easy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like you have to have someone that can commit to that. Yeah. So, then they've taken that and then they modernized the barrel, right? None of the barrels are really reminiscent of classic Estabrooks. I mean, they have the Phaeton, which I really don't like that one. But that's really not the main product line. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That looks like an old product line.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The main product line is the Estee. The rest of them don't. Yeah. The main product is the Estee and they're really leaning into, hey, how can we become... How can we tell the story of Estabrook? And then we can also have these cool collaborations with people that are part of the fountain pen community. Like Gina for the Jertalor nib and like the Diamondcast Resin. And I know they already have another nib that's going to come out to mimic. Like it's the perfect idea to mimic these old popular Estabrook nibs that no one has been able to use but might have heard of. And have it in a modern pen that speaks to like the modern style and aesthetic. That makes...

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's starting to make a little bit more sense to me now why it's called the Journaler. Yeah. I mean it's not a nib that's going to help you journal any differently. But it's like if you said I used to have nibs named for professions. You know because you have like the accountant's nib or whatever. So it makes sense to like name them based on what people are actually using their pens for now. That's kind of clever.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So I know who's making the next one but I don't know what the next nib is. I don't know what the feature... What it's going to mimic or what the style is going to be. So I look forward to that. Like I find that interesting to keep like your brand awareness going for Estabrook to sell more Estabrook pens. Because that's really what they want to do. Right? So I think this is a cool thing to do. Now the sparkle like you I have a little bit of consternation at the price on this. Because even though the diamond cast resin is more expensive than your standard acrylics that Estabrook's using. And maybe two to three times more expensive. That doesn't make the end result pen like twice as expensive as what the normal Estes are. It's a pretty big jump for the sparkle. So it's done really well. The Montana Sapphire the one that I have I think is far like a runaway sales hit. I'll be interested to see if the blue and the red ones eventually start to sell out as well. Because it's such a big jump between like the the lilac. I use the Estabrook SD lilac which is like $160 pen. And the Montana is like $320. So it's almost exactly twice as much at retail. Right? So they have the MSRPs. Then they have the 20% off that all retailers get when they sell them. So it's you're asking twice as much.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And I think that's a lot. I think it's too much honestly. But I mean I'm I've been proven wrong quickly with the the Montana Sapphire though. Because I think it's pretty much sold out everywhere.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm not surprised.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean that is no it's the winner of the three.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like I think if you were going to buy one of them it's probably the one you would buy. So it doesn't surprise me if that any of them are going to sell out. That would be the one to sell out. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm. So yeah I overall big picture. I love what they're trying to do. I love what they're executing. I love the quality of the pens. They they've they've delivered on everything that they've tried to deliver. Except the Phaeton so far. And I see them continuing to be to be able to do this type of work going forward with Estabrook. It makes me interested in watching what they do which when you're building a brand I think that's kind of all you can hope for. That people are interested in what you do next because you've done interesting things and you've done them well so far.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I have a long-term follow-up for the show. Yeah, this this one surprised me. I finally got one of the Aaron Draplin watches.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Was there a relaunch? Did it come into the store? How did you do you come about this?

'''Myke Hurley:''' They well like the Draplin Design Co had another I think 400. It's like the second edition and they had 400 of them. And they I saw the post go up. I also had a bunch of pen addict listeners like alert me that that they announced like we're going to be selling these like in a couple of days or whatever. And I put a reminder on and I got one and I'm wearing it right now. And I absolutely love it. Like it's so fantastic. This thing was $85 plus shipping and it's awesome. It's orange and black and white and it's got like that, you know, like the typeface is like the on the watch face is just so Draplin. It really is like awesome. It's very it fits my kind of styling a lot like my kind of day-to-day styling. I'm super super super super pleased. I'm very like I'm really pleased that I was able to get it. I'm super happy that I got it already. Yeah, this is a great purchase for me. I just love something that is so stylish and and kind of comparably like so cheap like compared to like typical watches, you know, or like especially even like the watches that I tend to own these days like are much more expensive than this one. So I love it. I'm super happy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. So if you want to hear more from Aaron Draplin, he was just on the Erasables podcast. We'll put a link in the show notes to them. He was in their last episode. Oh, really? With him. Yep. Yep. So I haven't listened to it yet. It's queued up. It's probably next couple of days. I'll listen to it. It's been out for like a week or so, if not more. Second, this is a little bit like Estabrook in that what Draplin did was take one of the all-time classic Timex designs as the platform and Draplinized it. Right? So even though it's not the same, like Estabrook's not making some of the old like J-series pens and making them, they're modernizing, they're changing it up a little bit. But Draplin like sees a classic design like this Timex and puts his stamp on it and it just comes out so good. Like it's really, really nice. Also nice. I don't know what, I don't know what nice is.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's all of those things together. He nice'd it up. I love it, man. I'm really happy with it. Like black and orange, like fits perfect for me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. If I was more of a watch guy, I would get one. I just don't need it. This is a Brad Dowdy watch though. I'll tell you that. Oh, 100%. 100,000%. I just, I mean, and it's not, I mean, compared to like, I have to compare it to like the expense that I've spent on pens recently. And it's just like, I don't need an $85 watch if I'm not going to wear it. Like the price doesn't matter if I'm not going to wear it, even though I love it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. I think that wraps it up for today's episode. You can find links and show notes at relay.fm slash penaddict slash 419 or in your podcast app of choice. I want to thank Pen Chalet for the support of the show and for RelayFM members who support the penaddict. Thank you so much for doing that. We really appreciate your support. You can go to penaddict.com to find more of Brad's work. Go to spokedesign.com, knock.co. There's a lot of great products on all those websites. Brad streams on Twitch on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 a.m. Eastern time. So you can go and check Brad out. And all of those are posted to YouTube as well if you want to catch them kind of on demand. You can also find Brad. He is penaddict on Instagram. Dowdy is on Twitter. And I am iMike. I am YKE. The show is a part of RelayFM. If you're looking for a new podcast to listen to, go to relay.fm slash shows and you might find something for you right there. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]