Editing The Pen Addict 466/transcript (section)

== Lamy 2000 Discussion ==


'''Brad:''' Yes. As little as I use it, I would never not own it.

'''Myke:''' Yeah.

'''Brad:''' So, it's just, that's where I'm at in my personal library of pens. It's like, I have to have the Lamy 2000 and I bet it's been well over a year since I've used it. All these other pens, well, not the Arrow. So, the Arrow I'm having, basically replacing, I don't know what I did with my original Arrow. I think I maybe sold it or gave it away years ago. And I've bought this new one to replace that because I miss it. And like, I've had like the orange ones pass through my hands and I was like, it's such a good pen. Like, I always, I give, I tend to give them to other people or use them as giveaways because they're just kind of cool that way. The Leonardo Memento Zero I use all the time. The SD I use all the time. The Platinum 3776. I use more than probably all these other pens combined. So, this is a great range. Now, there's a couple, God, there's more than a couple more things I want to talk about.

'''Myke:''' Well, then we take our second break. Okay. And we'll come back to this discussion then. Okay. Sounds good. Give you a moment to collect your thoughts. Good. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform to build your online presence and run your business. From websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics, Squarespace has got it all and they've got you covered. They combine cutting-edge design and world-class engineering to make it easier than ever to establish your home online and make your ideas a reality. Squarespace has everything that you need to create a really wonderful, super modern, beautiful website. They give you all of the tools just built right into the system. You start with one of their professionally designed templates. You use drag and drop tools to make it your own. And then you can really kind of dig in and customize the look and feel, the colors, the fonts, and everything to make it feel like your own. And just in a couple of clicks, all this can be done. Even the products that you have on sale with the store that you can put on your Squarespace website, just a few clicks and you can get everything set up and changed as you need. Their websites are all optimized for every type of display. They work small and big and everything in between. You get unlimited hosting, top-of-the-line security, and dependable resources to help you succeed. You don't have to patch or upgrade anything. You don't have to do any of this tech support stuff. They do it all for you and also have 24-7 customer support. So if you need help, they're on hand. Squarespace really do have everything you're going to need. You want a domain name? You can get it from them. You want SEO tools? They got it. Email marketing? Yep. Squarespace can help you turn your big idea into a new website. They have beautiful portfolio designs for you to showcase your work. You can publish your next blog post, promote your business, announce an upcoming event, and so much more. It's all there. It's one of the reasons why I love and have used Squarespace for so long. Go to squarespace.com slash penaddict and you can get a free trial today with no credit card required. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code penaddict to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash penaddict. And then when you sign up, use the offer code penaddict and you'll get 10% off your first purchase. And you'll be showing your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for continued support of this show and all of RelayFM.

'''Brad:''' So we have a question in the Discord that's going to lead us into the rest of this conversation. It's from Logan. Is the $100 to $200 range a bad entry point now? Like sub $100 for the entry and upgrade to over $200. $100, $200 was never a good entry point, right? I'm never going to start anyone there with like their first fountain pen, maybe even their second fountain pen, right? We're going to spend less than $50 to start. And then we're going to upgrade probably into like the $150 range, $150 and up range. It's kind of how I pictured in my head for someone who emails me and say, hey, I'm generally new to this. I have these likes and preferences. What should I do? Right. We're starting below $50 to begin with. But what we're seeing is a bigger change in the overall market to where it used to be hard to pick out pens in the $50 to $100 price range. And it still kind of is, but we're getting into where that's going to be a popular price range. And then the upper $100s, which is most of this list that I just shared a minute ago, is, and I don't know really what's in the $100 or $150 range, because at that price, you're spending a lot of money. That's a lot of money. And people go, well, if I'm going to spend that much money, I want a gold nib, right? So then that pushes them up over $150. And I think they would almost be happier there. That's where pens like the Pilot Customs $74 and $91 are. And they probably should be on this list. Like I would, you know, it would be a chicken move if I put like five A, B, and C on there. Like, but I don't know. Do they slot in above the Estee or in place of? I don't know. I like,

'''Myke:''' I don't know. I think the Estee is a good move because it, I think they are a sponsor of the show,

'''Brad:''' right? But it's also, it's also $156, right? It's like, it's the lowest price one on this list.

'''Myke:''' It's an affordable way to get a good pen that takes cues from a style of pen design, which is very attractive and Instagrammable. It's very modern. It's a very, very modern pen.

'''Brad:''' Not that the 74s and 91s aren't. Those are great workhorse pens. And not that these pens aren't, but it's, it's really hard to differentiate. Like if you're going to argue that the 91 and the 74 belong on this list, you're not going to get much of a pushback from me. Like probably none. I'll just say, yeah, maybe so. Like that, I love those pens. I like these pens better and I would recommend these. Um, I would feel safer recommending these pens that I have in the top five, but like, I'm not going to put up hardly an argument at all because I think those are fantastic pens.

'''Myke:''' I think the thing that surprises me about your list this time is the brands represented. It's very different. I feel like Lamy is the only quote unquote big international brand on the list.

'''Brad:''' Because Platinum. Maybe put Platinum. Platinum is way smaller than, I mean, it's Japanese big three, but out of the big three, they are fractional compared to Platinum. I feel like Platinum

'''Myke:''' hasn't broken out of Japan as much as Sailor and especially as much as Pilot, right? Um, into kind of like international, uh, household brand.

'''Brad:''' I will say this Platinum's very, very entry level pens, you know, the, the Preppy and the, the Plaisir and the Procyon, I'm forgetting all the names, um, are exceptional, right? Those are difference, difference makers, but there's nothing in the middle really with Platinum.

'''Myke:''' But also as well, as, as fantastic as they are, they still don't get the kind of like the entry level pens. I don't think that they get the kind of placement. There's so many competitors. But anyway, my point was really that I think that was the thing that really surprised me about this list is it doesn't feature a lot of brands that people coming to the pen addict for the first time would recognize, I think.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm. And that brings me into another topic and why I didn't change the note section on this is 150 to 200 is where a lot of our custom makers that we talk about a lot on this show fall for their entry level pens. And how do I determine whether they should be on the list? You know, I get a lot of emails saying, well, Edda shouldn't be on, should be on the list or Franklin Kristoff should be on the list. And like you literally every pen maker has like a great pen in this price range.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I feel like that there is, and I think we've spoken about this before, an enthusiast

'''Brad:''' top five. Yes. Right. So I think that is a completely separate category than the question I'm trying to answer here. Right. I'm trying to make this as approachable as possible. Mm-hmm. And focus on more widely available pens. Yep. And if you like this, oh, let me show you what primary manipulation looks like. You know, or let me show you some other maker that might have a style that you like. You know, let me show you a Franklin Kristoff model 45. You need, you want a pocket pen that's in this price range? We can do that. You know, and you want it to look cool? Yeah, we can do that. You know, so it's, it's, that is harder to weave into this list to where it's a separate list completely. And I don't know that it should ever be a list. And I fight this. People want me to make a list of the, as you call the enthusiast pens. I call them maker's pens. And I, my answer is, I'm not going to rank my friends.

'''Myke:''' Fair enough. Fair enough. You are my best friend today. You got to number one.

'''Brad:''' Because I know all these people and they're close friends of mine.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I also think that there is a, you could start getting into a conflict of interest kind of area here too. Yeah. Because these are the, maybe the brands that can most easily send you things. Right. Right. Right. It's like, Hey Brad, maybe this should be number one.

'''Brad:''' Right. Right. But you know, I also like when you look at, at the list I do have published, like I hopefully have, you know, and established that I will tell it like it is. Like I have basically ripped platinum a new one on this show about their price points for their limited editions, but I will still rank this pen number one because I objectively, I think it is. That doesn't, you know, mean that, you know, platinum is flawless in my mind. Um, you know, and you could just take that down the list completely. But when you're getting into the maker pens, it's, I have different relationships and you know, well then the question is, well, just make an alphabetical list. Well, I don't then have more than five people that I, that should be counted in that list. And then all of a sudden I now have a directory of makers and it's like, what am I trying to accomplish here? Right. I think it's kind of a no win situation for me. To try to rank that. So I try to keep this as a, as your more entry points or your beginning points or your leveling up points, then we can talk on a one-to-one level about, Hey, I want something different. And then that's where we can have the conversation about going to Franklin Kristoff and Edison and Brooks and you name it, everyone out there that I'm forgetting and we'll get yelled at, which is why I don't make the list. So the big picture takeaway I had in all of this is that the price brackets are definitely changing. They are for a fact changing. And that I think that's going to affect how I do this list longterm. I don't know that there is, um, value in having a hundred dollars to $200 price list because I don't think that's the correct representation, um, of what the market is right now. I think it's, the market is really, really awesome from like 150 to $250. You would never ever have to get out of that range for your life. If you wanted to write these, we got to remember these are extremely expensive pens, right? You know, it, relatively speaking, all of these pens are like not necessities. They're extremely expensive. But when you go above this level, you're paying for things that aren't necessarily, you know, the, the performance and the quality in the QQC, you're paying for the extra bling factor in, in different things, uh, after this price range. And then below this price range is where you try to figure out what you like, like, do I like this style of nib or that style of nib or this type of barrel or that type of barrel? So I think this is the best range, but I think the range is really probably 150 to 250. And then I would, I would be hard pressed not to have the, the, the pilot nine 12, like it probably won't be number one, but it, I might have to think about that pretty hard. Big list, big list. It could change tomorrow, but I've been, I mean, I think the community as a whole has been talking about this for the past year or two. There's really like, if you say your budget's $180 that the world's pretty much wide open to you. You can get so many cool pens in that price range and not to spend more and have your new favorite pen. Like I really, I'm a huge, huge fan of this range because of where I personally am with my collection is like, I have more expensive pens. Like I'm, I'm covered there. Like I'm, I'm good. Like I don't really necessarily look at like the ultra expensive pens anymore because I enjoy my Leonardo Memento zero just as much as those. And it was, you know, $140 when I bought it. Right. Like to me, there's, there's, that's how good these pens on this list are in my opinion. Bums me out to say there's nothing in this bracket anymore though. I mean, do you want to go another five or 10 minutes in this show? Because we can. Yeah. We've done it before. Like, like I've had this conversation. I don't know where these price points are going and at what point do, are we going to hit a tipping point to where there's pushback? I don't know how I'm going to see it. And I follow this stuff pretty closely, but when your base sailors like 280, I don't know what we're trying to accomplish here. When I say that, I mean, from like a pen addict perspective, from a me telling you about pens perspective. But if sailor North America is making money, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't understand what we're doing here. What is sailor? Is, is sailor strictly an enthusiast brand now? A sailor strictly a high end brand now? Are they positioning themselves differently?

'''Brad:''' Platinum brings me up from kindergarten to graduate school.

'''Brad:''' Sailor doesn't do that. Pilot does. I, I, sailor tries, but they failed. They're sailor's low end as has been a failure in the general sense of competition compared to platinum and pilot. No one talks about sailor entry level pens. Sailor starts at 280 to me because they have consistently failed everything below that. But what they offered for 280, not that long ago was half of that. I mean, like six years ago, like you used to could get a pro gear slim or a 1911 for under 150, 160 dollars, sometimes close to a hundred. And I'm trying to figure out, I don't think about it too much because I don't like, I don't, I'm not going to say I don't care, but it's like, I have choices. Right. And I've gotten all my sailors right at what I thought were fair prices at the time. And I'm thrilled with what I have and what they're offering me now is uninteresting relative to price, pin relative to price. Right. It's like, I have this and I paid, you know, some cases 40 and 50% less. So how are they going to acquire the new market? Are they keep, is there, has their market scope really, really shrunk based on how they price their most popular pens? I don't know. These are, I, this is the stuff that rattles around in my head. I don't know. It sucks that they're not on this list anymore. Flat out. I hate it because they're one of my favorite brands. I don't know when I'll buy my

'''Myke:''' next sailor. What is their, what are you going to have retail now? Uh, like 280 for the slim is the, but is that how much you pay though? Yes. That's because the MSRP is like three, three 30, three 40.

'''Brad:''' And then the MSRP for the, that's difficult for the big one is four 80. So it's like three 90.

'''Myke:''' I think two 50 is fine. I think two 80 might be too much.

'''Brad:''' So, but if they keep making money, who, who are we to, who are we, you know?

'''Myke:''' I just don't know if they are and I never will. Well, that's always the, um, uh, demand, right?

'''Brad:''' Right. Right. So right now they still have the demand, I think, but I think there's a few more

'''Myke:''' questions. This is how sales work. You, you've, the only way you're going to know if people will pay the price is if you keep up in the price until they stop paying and then you adjust. And I don't have a problem with his practice. This is just how you do it. Right. I, I agree. I just want to be clear.

'''Brad:''' I agree 100%. Yeah. If they think they need to raise the price or if they want to, please do, if they need to, they, like whatever they want. They're a business. I have no argument with that. Yeah. But now my, my math is different. Yeah. In my purchasing. But that's one of the things of

'''Myke:''' like, you can make an, it's a phrase I use a lot, but you can make it up in volume, right? Like if you put your prices up by 20% and 10% of your customers, won't buy anymore, were you still making more money?

'''Brad:''' I think the bigger thing that has me worried is like, you know, thinking about tomorrow, like they did this, what's next? Like, is this price now frozen for five years? No, there might be another increase next year. Like the, I feel like that's the path we're on. That's what has me more worried than like today's price is, is precedent.

'''Myke:''' Well, we'll see what this list looks like in a couple of years time.

'''Brad:''' That's probably what I'll update it again. Yeah. I'm looking at the rest of these lists now and

'''Myke:''' going, Oh my gosh, I still suggest that you should do 75 to 150 and 150 to 250.

'''Brad:''' I think it actually might be more broken down than that. The way, like the markets expanded, right? We didn't have Leonardo's and diplomats and Esther Brooks five years ago. Right. So now there's more options. Yeah. So I'm, I'm glad we have these options. I'm glad we have.

'''Myke:''' I'm recommending you gerrymander, right? So you can get some pins in the lists. It is more just like, if the market changes, then the, the, the kind of the parameters need to change a little bit.

'''Brad:''' Agree. There's been an expansion of offerings in these price ranges that are not currently accounted

'''Myke:''' for. Yep. So I don't think it's gerrymandering. All right. I think that's it for today. All right. I knew it was going to be a big discussion. You were like, Oh, I'll be five or 10 minutes. Like no way. Not only is there a lot to talk about, this is like literally your favorite thing to talk about.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. And I, like, I always, I, I feel like I don't do it in a clear,

'''Myke:''' distinct, direct fashion. This isn't clear. That's why there is no clear to this.

'''Brad:''' Right. It's complicated. I always feel, I always feel bad that I've just rambled and just talked in circles when we talk about this stuff. But like, I, it interests me. Like it interests me

'''Myke:''' a lot. Clearly. You can find links to the stuff we've spoken about today at relay.fm slash pen addict slash four six six. And they should be in your podcast app of choice. You should catch Brad when he streams, which is basically all the time at twitch.tv slash pen addict. Go there, press follow, and you'll be notified when he goes live next. Uh, you can find Brad on Instagram. He is pen addict. Dowdy is on my Twitter. Go to pen addict.com, knock.co, spoke design.com. Oh, I didn't even mention this. Uh, but you go to cortex brand, no cortex, merge.com, contact brand.com will take to the same place, but we now are doing subscriptions for the theme system journal. Oh, nice. I don't even think I told you about this. You didn't. We always

'''Brad:''' talked about that in the, in the early days in growth days of the brand. Yes. It's just

'''Myke:''' only made sense. Good. It's very much in a beta process at the moment because, you know, both us and cotton bureau are kind of working this out as we go along a little bit, because this is the first time cotton bureau have offered this, uh, but you can buy one and then you get entered into basically a quarterly shipping schedule and it's a fixed shipping schedule. This is the way that we're dealing with it, right? Because if you bought one and then we just shipped you one every three months or so, that would be fine, but that would be a nightmare for management. So you buy one and it tells you on the page when you'll get your next one. And then you, from then you'll make sure we'll make sure that you have one before the start of every quarter so that, you know, you'll have one before first of October, first of January, that kind of thing. Um, and it says on the website, when you, when you go on the theme system journal page, you kind of get an idea of it. And yeah, we're trying this out and we're going to see how it works. Uh, it's cheaper if you subscribe. So instead of $25, it's $20 per time. And we also include some little extras, stickers and stuff that only subscribers get. So you can check that out cortexmerch.com. Uh, it could be a good option. Uh, might talk about this more in the future. Once I've actually, once we've actually gotten a sense for, uh, how this thing is working, you know? Okay, cool. Uh, so yeah, theme system journal, you can go to theme system.com as well. If you want to learn more about it, brand new website, which I also haven't spoken about on the show, because I'm terrible, I suppose. Maybe it's good. I talk, we talk about it enough on cortex. If you listen there, you'll get, you know what's going on. Um, I'm Myke, I am YKE on Twitter and Instagram, mike.live for Twitch streaming. Thanks so much to Pen Chalet and Squarespace for the support of the show. But most of all, thank you for listening until then. Say goodbye, Brad Dowdy.

'''Brad:''' Goodbye, Brad Dowdy.

'''Myke:''' Bye.

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