Editing The Pen Addict 425/transcript (section)

== Paper and Writing Instruments Comparison ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Ree Thornton asks, listening to the episode where you were talking about paper recently, it was an Ask TPA question. I got upset. And Ree Thornton, I'll go back to their question. They're saying, wondering how weight, if the same paper, changes absorbency. I use Nanami, which is 52 GSM Tomoe, I think. If I switch to Endless Recorder, which is 68 GSM, what would I expect? Difference in dry time, feathering, sheen? What I will say is I don't have an answer to this question. Like, this is the problem that I have been dealing with, is, like, how weight changes can affect how fountain pens react. So, I don't know why the differences are there, and I, at the moment, can say for you, with a certainty, that the weight isn't the only factor. It's, like, the weight of that paper. So, there isn't, like, a universal thing that I have been able to put my finger on. But different weights will affect fountain pen properties.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so that's correct in the fact that, in the general sense, it's an impossible question to answer. You just, you cannot. But you can take the Tomoe River in the two different weights and kind of get a good grasp for what their differences are. In this case, they're very, very minor. Now, unfortunately, we're going to have to asterisk and caveat all these conversations about Tomoe River for the foreseeable future and saying, I don't know if we're talking about old, original Tomoe or the new Tomoe. You know, like, it's the great unknown right now. But if we're talking about original, the 68 works almost exactly the same as the 52 in the way the inks perform on that page, to be honest. Like, in what I've seen. Like, I don't look at the 52 and the 68 different in performance from the few things that I've used, other than you just have a little bit thicker page, it's the page isn't going to buckle quite as much, right? That thin, thin 52 GSM Tomoe, once you get it wet with the ink, it tends to buckle a little bit more and pucker. And you don't get that as much with the 68, but the 68 is still pretty thin for Tomoe River. So, no difference in dry time, feathering, or sheen in what I've experienced. So, to me, that and this very highly specific question, you shouldn't expect much difference. But that's where the question ends right there. If you try to extrapolate that into other products, we start getting into running into issues like Myke's mentioning.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And Todd Crane asks, I recently acquired my second Pelican M805 at a significantly discounted but still pricey cost. It's great. What pen or other stationary product is, in your opinion, possibly overpriced but still worth it? One caveat, you may not say the word sailor or king in your answer. I would like to recommend the 1911 of pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, you cheated. You cheated appropriately. Good job by you. But this is a great question of like, and I think that this can actually apply to a lot of niche hobbies, that you get to a point where things are overpriced but they're still worth it to you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I completely agree and I say that a lot. I don't know how great of an answer I have for this, but I will say the basic answer I kind of come up with for this is Aurora. I'm generally pleased with the high-end Auroras. They're a little bit expensive, but they work really, really well and, you know, they fit my style.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'd hesitate to call them overpriced though. I think they're kind of correctly priced. They're just having to be expensive, right? I think, and I'll probably get hate mail for this or some kind of nasty gram. I think with what we're seeing around Sailor King of Pen, like Myke just mentioned in the Visconti Homo Sapiens talk above, I think we're getting to a point where Nakayas are getting to almost be underpriced.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Comparatively.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Comparatively. Yeah. So I don't want to say that they're overpriced, but they're expensive and, in my mind, extremely worth it. Right. So I don't know that I would call them overpriced.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The market is moving further and further up, which makes them seem like more of a deal, which is weird now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Which actually scares me because Nakaya does not hesitate to raise their prices, nor should they. And that's mostly on the high-end artwork. I'm talking about your basic Nakayas, which, you know, start at like $500, $600. I'm not talking about, you know, the $2,000 Nakayas. I'm not saying those are overpriced and worth it because that's not in the classification, I think, of what the answer we're looking for here. But those are my thoughts on that type of this question. It's a great question, and I think the Pelican is obviously like a really, really good answer because you can get some great deals on fabulous Pelicans for the price.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And that's why I kind of land Aurora in the same category a little bit. But this question just makes me think about, you know, when I've paid a very, very expensive amount of money, you know, $500 or $550 on a Nakaya, the more I look back at that and what I've paid for other pens, I'm like, I'm really happy with what I got the Nakaya for. That makes sense.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Last question today comes from KJ Miller. And KJ asks, what's the last document you physically signed, nor the receipt, and what pen did you use?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So this question came in like a week or two ago. And we get this question a lot. And I think about this question a lot. If I'm going to do this, what pen am I going to take? Like if I'm going to sign for a house or a car or whatever paperwork, you're going to go into a doctor's office, you're going to fill out your forms, what are you going to use? So I knew I had a home refinance coming up and my wife asked me, she's like, well, what pen are you going to take? And I thought about it and thought about it. And I was like, well, I'll just probably take a retro 51. And, you know, one of my favorite ones, you know, celebration or pink robots or whatever, you know, just something on the desk, something, you know, non fountain pen. And, you know, just trying to, you know, do something cool. Then I thought about it. I was like, huh, I know exactly what I'm going to take. And I put it out there on Instagram. I took the Bic loaner pen for that. It seemed kind of like the perfect signing pen, right? So when we got to the attorney's office to sign the paperwork, they had Bic crystals lined up for us. Blue Bic crystals. Because you cannot sign this paperwork in black ink. They only accept blue ink. So luckily I picked a blue ink pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So that answers your question, Jay, because that is what I used. I'm not sure that's the answer you wanted for this. But that's the answer I arrived on. And I'm happy with that choice. Because it's not going to be for this situation for signing an important document. It was never going to be a fountain pen. And it was either going to be my roadie, one of my roadies, or one of my retro 51s. And both of those are black ink. And I didn't think about it beforehand. I was just like, nah, let me take the Bic. Seems like the best choice. And it's the loaner pen. I don't know. I'm very happy with myself on that, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, because this is the problem, right? This is when I've always tried to find cool pens that mean something to me to sign a document. Usually when you're signing documents, there are restrictions around the pen you can use. Right. You know? And so it gets less easy to pick your favorite fountain pen. But this is perfect. Everyone is going to accept a Bic. And it just says the word loaner on the side.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. And I am at least proud of this office that they had the legit blue Bic crystals, right? Not the generic corporate supply brand, you know, dozen pen boxes, right? They had the real things, which is one of the great pens of all time. And then a really perfect signing pen for a blue requirement in paperwork. And by gosh. A lot of paperwork, man. My signature is horrible. So, yeah. It was rough going with the signatures, but very, very happy with the pen choice. No one noticed. No one cared. They only cared. Was it blue ink? Yeah. It's blue ink. So I was happy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. That's it for this week's episode of The Pen Addict. You can find links and information about this episode at relay.fm slash penaddict slash 425. Don't forget to go to stjude.org slash relay where you can donate to help support St. Jude's Child Research Hospital. We're in honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, which is going on throughout September. And if you do go to stjude.org slash relay, you can find information about lots of the great things and fun things that we're going to be doing over the next month and a little bit. You can find Brad online at penaddict.com and knock.co. You've got something new coming this week?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' For who? I can't even keep up. I doubt I'm going to launch it this week. But I'll tell you this. We're going to do a launch of Black Wax Canvas, Brasstowns, and Sinclair's. Black exterior, aqua interior. And I'm just trying to finalize how I'm going to do it. Is it going to be a Kickstarter? Is it going to be direct? What are those things I'm going to consider as a product?

'''Myke Hurley:''' You've changed your mind a little bit on... I have. I have. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have reasoning. And the products are sitting on my desk waiting to be photographed. So it's just a matter of having the time to push forward a project. Okay. But it's not that bad because it just needs to be a launch, right? I just need to launch the product. So, you know, but I also have to do it correctly. So it just takes me time to think about that. So, and I've been swamped recently. Shipping. Shipping. Shipping.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Twitch.tv slash penaddict. 10 a.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays. Go check out Brad. He's penaddict on Instagram. The ideas on Twitter. I'm imike. I-M-Y-K-E. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

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