Editing The Pen Addict 481/transcript (section)

== TWSBI Eco Price Increase ==


'''''Brad:'''   So one interesting thing that they've done over the past couple of years, TWSBI that is, is they've slowly raised the Eco's price. And I think with reason, right? It's gone from like 28 to like 32, maybe, like for the stock models. And now that gives room for the swipe to exist, right? It gives a little breathing room to not have like a $25 pen and a $28 pen and tell people why you should buy one or the other. That price point, the percentage difference is big enough, I think, to have two different unique products. And then the Go, I think as much as TWSBI liked it and much as we liked it, right? It didn't land universally. Like it's a little bit too weird to be like a platform pen. It'll exist as it is for as long as they want to do it. But like the Swipe and the Eco and the 580, they have found something that works. And it's a winner. And then they'll just keep iterating on it. And we're starting to see that now with the Swipe very, very quickly. So I expect by early next year, we'll be able to get our hands on some new colors on this ourselves.

''''Myke:'''  Which I think is awesome. I mean, this is, I think this is something I used to mention is one of the things I mentioned is why I think this pen is important for TWSBI. They had to have an option and an entry line, which was not with an ink bottle. Correct. Because it's too intimidating for people. Yep. Because they're just convinced that they're going to spill ink everywhere. We've all been there, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so having an entry level pen that looks good, picked up some of the design language that they need, includes a spring with cartridges. You know, I think it's, I think it's, well, I think they're onto a winner with it. And I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued. Like, can they get this into retail? That would be really interesting.

'''''Brad:'''   Yep. If any of their products could, this is the one. Like, they designed the one to do that. Yeah. That's what I think. Yeah. I completely agree.

'''''Brad:'''   All right. Last pen I want to talk about. This one is not new at all, which is kind of why I want to bring it up. But I was late on the Leonardo train. And I'm late on the Mayora train. And those two brands are forever intertwined because they both came from the closure of Delta pen in Italy. So Italian brand Delta, which a lot of people are familiar with, love their pens. Some hated their pens. You know, they were very opinionated pen maker in their designs. They were very large. And, you know, as they were started going downhill, they started having some more QC issues and people were getting angsty about Delta. Then all of a sudden they closed shop. And some people that worked for Delta, you know, went and started their own companies. One being Leonardo, the other being Mayora. So I finally got to my Mayora pen review. And I think the biggest thing to like start with is it's impossible not to compare it with the Leonardo. I didn't want to do that in my review. But since I'd already done the Leonardo, it was hard to not compare it to the Leonardo, at least the Memento Zero, which is the one that I use the most. But it could go for any Leonardo because these two companies have the same DNA built in from Delta. And you can see it in the end results, right? If you put the Mayora and the Leonardo on a table for someone who wasn't familiar with either brand or even fountain pens, they would think they came from the same company, right? They're that similar. But, you know, once you use them, you realize the differences, the design cues that are different, the few subtle size and shape differences. But, you know, they are awfully close, awfully close. The good thing is they're awfully close in performance, too, right? The build quality of the Mayora is good. The fit and finish, the style, the craftsmanship, the overall package and the price point. They're both in that same like right at 200, maybe a little less price point. Everything about these pens is practically identical. And luckily, they perform nearly identically as well. I really enjoyed the Mayora more than I thought. I held off longer on the model I got. It's called the Impronte. And it's a little bit wider bodied pen than the Leonardo. The center of the barrel is wider. The grip section is wider. But there's a feature that makes it work. But then the taper towards the ends is a little bit more extreme, especially the very end of the pen. It tapers more than like a Leonardo does. So it's wide in the center. But they counteract that by having a huge concave grip section, which I didn't think I was going to get along with. But apparently, that really works for my style because the Kusama pen that I have has this like just outrageously deep concave grip section. And this Mayora has the same thing. And I like it. And I didn't think it was going to work for me, but it does. So that's the main difference between the Leonardo and the Mayora pens is that grip section and that width in the center of the barrel. Otherwise, I'd be hard pressed to tell you to buy one or the other. Buy what you like. You know, that was basically the result of the review is, you know what? They're both really good. Whichever one looks better is the one you should get because you'll probably be happy.

''''Myke:'''  What's the story with the material?

'''''Brad:'''   The acrylics? Yeah. Mayora? You know what, Myke? I would like to find more information about that. But that's how I ended my review. There's not a ton of information on Mayora. They don't have their own website. They don't have, you know, their own, you know, kind of details and specs that you can go find out. Leonardo makes their own materials, I believe. If I'm not mistaken, I would wager the looks of these Mayora. They do the same. Or they each use the same. Well, this is what I was going to say. They are effectively the same.

''''Myke:'''  The same maker of materials. They look like they've come from the same place to me. Not a problem. Just a thing I was noticing.

'''''Brad:'''   The two pictures I have, the Rose Lavonde, I think, is the Leonardo in the picture of the review. And the Posilipo, I believe, is the blue Mayora. And the way that the, what would you call it? The pieces in the acrylic are like the same size and shape. And they have the same spread and like spacing in between them. They look like they're the same material, just different colors, right? Is that what you're getting at?

''''Myke:'''  Yeah. The colors are different, but it's like the texture, I guess you'd maybe call it, looks very, very, very similar to me. I mean, but I guess lots of companies make acrylic that looks like this one.

'''''Brad:'''   Yeah.

''''Myke:'''  Yeah. Yeah. Because I think it was Delta. Their rods got bought up, right?

'''''Brad:'''   Well, yeah. Delta and Omos sometimes get confused together.

''''Myke:'''  Omos is the one I'm thinking of, Brad. Not Delta. Yeah. Yeah.

'''''Brad:'''   I remember that. Delta made the orange kind of like cracked ice looking orange rods that were so particular. Like if you look up Delta pen, everything is going to be this orange material. Like seven out of 10 pictures will be the same identical orange material. And this material, at least aesthetically, not color wise, but just like the texture.

''''Myke:'''  Someone makes a pen that looks like this now though, don't they? The Delta? I feel like I've just seen a pen that has this orangey look with the black.

'''''Brad:'''   I know a lot of people bought that material. A lot of people try to mimic that material. It's just a popular look. I mean, Leonardo has an orange center black cap.

''''Myke:'''  I think that's what I'm thinking of. It's that Leonardo is what I'm thinking of. Makes sense. So, yeah. It would make that. So, yeah. I want to point two things from your review. So, the grip section, I don't know if I could get along with it. It's very odd looking to me.

'''''Brad:'''   Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

''''Myke:'''  I don't know. I tend not to like grip sections that try and force me into a holding position in general.

'''''Brad:'''   So, that's fair. And I think Leonardo is the same way. Even though the shape is different, it's a non-standard. What we'd say is a non-standard because they have a taper in the middle, right? Mm-hmm. It's like a notch down angle and then a straight, which I was like, is my fingers just not going to continue off the end of the pin into the nib? But it actually works. It holds your fingers in there somehow.

''''Myke:'''  It looks pretty short though as well. The grip section doesn't look... It's not very big.

'''''Brad:'''   Yeah. It's like, it's not overly big, but when you're, like you just said, this defines where you put your fingers. You don't get to move up and down, right? I like that. So, like if you had a straight, you could move up and down. Just like if you go back, you know, and look at that, the Lamy we're looking at a minute ago, the Ideos, like that grip section's twice as long as both of these grip sections, but it's essentially straight, right? It's got a slight taper, but you can grip it low, you can grip it high, and there's no difference. With the Mayora, you're gripping it where Mayora says you're going to grip it.

''''Myke:'''  Mm-hmm. You also mentioned in your review that you had to tune your nib a little bit. You had to give it a little...

'''''Brad:'''   Yeah, it was weird. So, it's a stock... These are Yovo nibs, and this is an extra fine, and I don't know that I've ever used like a gold-plated extra fine one, and I don't know if it's the plating that caused this, but when you get an extra fine nib, sometimes you get... And I've had this before, honestly, more on a gold nib than with a steel nib. You get a little, almost like a pickiness, right? When you're writing with something that's closer to like a needle size than like a round pencil tip size, you can feel it almost like grabbing the page a little bit, and it was almost like I had to knock this little bit off to get it to write just smoothly. Like, it wasn't... Like, I could have kept writing with it as it was, but I was happier with it after I ran it over some micro-mesh, and then just got it. Like, yeah, I agree with your perception that you shouldn't have to do that. And I don't think it was any type of deal-breaker type of situation where like, oh, this nib was messed up and I had to work on it. It wasn't at that level. Okay. It was just something that like, I think it was fine, but I wanted it a little bit better.

''''Myke:'''  And maybe this is one of those things that like, because you know how you could make it better, you just do? Correct. And maybe if you didn't know, it wouldn't bother you as much?

'''''Brad:'''   I don't know.

''''Myke:'''  I don't know.

'''''Brad:'''   And probably you're only going to see it in the finest nib anyway. Like, if you had a medium nib, that's probably not coming up at all, right?

''''Myke:'''  Like, once again, proving why fine nibs are a mistake. If you would like to get the show notes for this week's episode, you can go to really.fm slash penaddict slash 481. You can also find information there about donating to St. Jude and our sponsor of this week's episode, Canalea Pen Company. If you want to find Brad online, he is at dowdyism on Twitter, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M, penaddict on Instagram, and Brad streams three times a week. It's Tuesdays and Thursdays, right? Still at 10 a.m. Eastern. Yep. And pretty much not too long after we finish recording our show live every week. So it's kind of probably around 11.30ish. Wednesday, 7.30, 11.45 Eastern. Yep. And on a Wednesday as well. It's at twitch.tv slash penaddict. You can go to spokedesign.com, penaddict.com, and knock.co. That's where you can find all the Brad stuff. I'm iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. And you can buy products that I make over at cortexmerch.com as well. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of The Pen Addict. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

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