Editing The Pen Addict 50/transcript (section)

== Incredible Deal ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' So you've got an incredible deal.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think so. And it's not a brand new pen. It's barely used. Like if I showed it to you right now and I didn't tell you, you would think that I had just ordered it from Brian and just got it in the mail. That's how good a shape it's in.

'''Myke Hurley:''' How did this person come across this?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's what Brian Anderson said. He said he must have traded for it or something.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because there's no reason you would buy something like that and then not keep it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Right. Right. So he said he must have traded it for it or something or bought it off someone else and was reselling it. So that was actually – the Edison Pearl was actually probably my biggest find, if you will.

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

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The best – it was certainly – that wasn't even on the radar to purchase because you wouldn't expect people to have them unless Brian Gray was there himself. And he, of course, brings pearls and all the signature line pens with him. So every time I've posted this picture or talked about this pearl, people are asked, oh, well, you met Brian at the show. Because they just assume – they know that you just can't get that pen without – unless you get it straight from Brian. And I'm like, no, he wasn't there. I bought it off a vendor. And they're like, huh, okay. So yeah, it was a –

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't believe you, Dowdy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It was a lot of conversation around this pen. So I think that was kind of my biggest find. And I'll tell you what, I used it all night last night at work, and I'm really, really happy with it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So we're going to get some – We'll talk about that more, yeah. Yeah, we're going to get some reviews, I assume.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep, and I will actually talk about it more when I talk about Mr. Masuyama because I got him to work on this nib too. So I'm a couple hours into the show at this point, and I've purchased two pens. And that's the thing about a fountain pen show. It's not like you're going to go and you're going to come away, oh, I bought 20 new pens unless you're just independently wealthy or whatever. I mean it's not a cheap venture showing up at one of these shows. So four pens in total was actually quite a big haul, I think, for a pen show. So – but yeah, I was pretty happy with the Edison. So after that, I kind of went on my Parker 51 mission because I thought for sure I'd be able to find a good one. And I found a lot of them. I just didn't find one that I loved. There was never – I never ran across a 51 that I looked at or talked to someone about that I said I had to have it. Either they were the wrong color or they didn't look clean enough. They were too beat up. These are old pens. These are 80-year-old pens in most cases. They're a little bit too beat up or rough looking. The nibs didn't look good. The people selling them hadn't kept them clean, things like that. Thomas spoiled me with the 51 that I had that he let me borrow. It was in pristine condition. So that was my expectation. I thought I would find a few in the quality of the one that I had borrowed, and I didn't.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But while I was looking at the 51s, a lot of other people had a pen called the Parker Vacumatic. And that was actually on my radar. It wasn't necessarily on my list, but I was aware of it, and I thought they looked pretty cool, and I thought I might – I'd just keep an eye on them.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, Brad. Most of the – huh? I said, oh, Brad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I thought when I bought this pen and took pictures of it, I said to myself that Myke is going to like this pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I am just so in love.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It's a really interesting pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've never seen something that looked like this. Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So what happened was everyone that had Parker 51s, there were Vacumatics all over the show, just like Parker 51s. That's what you expected. There's so many vintage vendors that these pens are everywhere. But almost everyone I've seen is – and that I've seen for years, when I have been looking at pens but not interested in the Vacumatic, is a green stripe or a blue stripe model. It seems – they're called emerald pearl for the green and azure blue for the blue. It's the same style, but either with the green rings or the blue rings. And I'm sitting there with this guy, and he's got a line of blue and green ones. And then here's this kind of silvery gray one sitting there. And the thing about the Vacumatic is most all these blue and green ones, they all have gold hardware. So they're immediately off my checklist. And then here's this kind of gray striped one, and it's got silver hardware. It's got a silver clip. It's got a silver cap. I mean it's got a silver band. It's got a silver jewel on the top. I was like, wow, this is really neat looking. And then I pick it up, and all I can see is like silver and black. I pick it up and put it in the light that the vendor has on his table because he's doing repairs actually. So he's got some nice lighting there. I pick it up, and then it's got this amber glow that's coming in between the silver.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You're killing me. You are killing me right now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I pick it up and put it under this light, and I see that, and I was like, holy cow. This is amazing looking. I've never seen a pen this beautiful.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, one day when we meet, you will have to see this pen in person because –

'''Myke Hurley:''' I want to buy one. They're on eBay, and I'm struggling.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. The pictures actually came out decent. I didn't think it was going to be able to show the amber at all, but I got a few decent pictures of it where you could see it shining through. It's a fascinating, fascinating pen. And so I didn't know a lot about it, right? So it's sitting there with all his other vacuumatics, and I was hesitant, and I set it back down, and I went to walk around some more. And just – so once I saw that, I knew I wasn't getting a Parker 51. I said, well, maybe this vacuumatic can replace that budget slot that I had planned for the 51. So I started looking around the show, started looking at all the vacuumatics. Now, I was focused on that. You know, Brian Anderson had some, but it was the green and the blue with gold trim. Everyone had green and blue with gold trim, green and blue with gold trim, everywhere, everywhere. And I kept coming back to this pen. I think I picked this pen up three or four times before I even talked to the guy about tell me more about it or what's the price. It didn't have a price on it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But I could not get this pen out of my head. It was so interesting looking. And the thing is, this is, you know, it's probably a pen from the 1940s. It's in awesome condition. That's the other thing that when I picked it up, like the nib's in great condition, the section's in great condition, the barrel's in great condition. You know, all the hardware lines up. It's clean.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It looks – it doesn't look brand new, but it looks barely used. And every time I pick it up and you could see that orange-amber glow through those stripes, I was just like, this is coming home with me. I can't stop – I could not stop thinking about this pen. The whole entire show. So I bought it, and now it's mine. So I love it. It's a very, very cool pen. Are you going to review it? Absolutely. Because this is one of those education products, posts. I mean, you know, there's – when I got it home, I actually did a bunch of reading on it trying to figure out – you know, I gathered some while I was at the show. You know, I made a point, like, you know, it's hard to buy something you're not familiar with. So I tried to do some quick reading up at the show on my phone and talking with the vendors about the pens. And when I got it home, I did some real reading on it. And actually, this model, despite the fact that I saw very few of them at the show, is actually a somewhat common model. And I did like you. I went and looked on eBay, and there's actually quite a few of them out there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, the Silver Pearl. There is a few here.