Editing The Pen Addict 622/transcript (section)

== Fujiyama Blue Series Popularity ==

* But this has been like the path they've been on with this Fujiyama blue series. I wonder if it's one of the most popular series because when I bought my pro gear, it was like the third run. And each time they do a run, they changed the finial art a little bit and that's how you can differentiate them. But that's how popular this series has been. And so this is like their quote is a popular series of ours will be released in its supreme form. And I think that's pretty cool how they kind of lean into like the king of pen is the pinnacle of this Fujiyama blue series that we're doing. And that's what I appreciate the most out of this is that they've built this little series out of this product. And I'm glad I have one. I love my pro gear because it has a metal grip section. And that leads me into a correction when we were talking about, hey, how many Bungu box pens do we have, Myke? And I said a couple episodes ago that I think I had five and I was recounting them all. And I actually have seven. Um, and now that I say that out loud, I'm wondering if I'm leaving one off. So, um, I forgot my pilot vanishing point energia, which is a very orange marbly, really great looking one. And then somehow I completely forgot the pilot eight 23 and Fujiyama blue. So that's kind of related to this series, but in a different, uh, obviously a pilot pen instead of a sailor, but I didn't even count that one. So yeah, I have at least seven. So, um, pretty, pretty crazy, uh, the amount of pens that, uh, I have of Bungu box that take up space in my collection. So pretty cool. Love this stuff. So I, uh, I, I like the Fujiyama blue and, uh, I don't know, I'll take a look at it. If they have any left in San Francisco, still probably won't buy it. Um, uh, but I hope to see them in San Francisco and get a look at this one because I, I love the blue, like the deep translucent blues are some of my favorite sailors. And, um, yeah, as Myke, I own two of them already. So this is, this is pretty great.
* Yeah. I, I would like, I would really like a King of Bungu box, King of pen. Just this one is very nice looking, but it isn't what I'm looking for from them, which is to have things be a little bit more out there or like mismatched, you know, like, um, like cap and body cut and all that kind of stuff. So, but very, very nice. And I, I do really, really like that. They've had one design that they've taken through all of the available models. I think that that's just fun to do. Yeah, exactly. That's what really stood out to me the most about this whole thing. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all in one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or managing a growing brand, you can stand out with a beautiful website, engage with your audience and sell your products, services, even the content that you create. Squarespace has everything you need all in one place. You can start a completely personalized website with their new guided design system, Squarespace Blueprint. You choose from professionally curated layout and styling options to build a unique online presence from the ground up, tailored to your brand or business and optimized for every device, and then easily launch your website and get discovered fast of a suite of integrated optimized SEO tools. So you show up more often in searches to more people growing the way that you want. We were talking a lot about the, uh, pen addict shop a little bit ago. Well, that is a Squarespace store. So it's a functionality Brad has been able to enable on his website, which is a Squarespace website, and he can just sell things. It's very easy to do that. Right, Brad? Yeah, super easy. And it integrates well with like your shipping platforms and it syncs perfectly. It's easy for me to build out. Like I told Myke, I was building out the Heinz pen, um, shop page right before we, um, got on the podcast today. And it allows me to put in all the inventory. I can separate them out by nib size. I put in the shipping weights. Like it's, it's, it's a full scale, um, commerce platform and it works flawlessly for me. What I like about Squarespace in general is the way that you can stage things out. So like you start with a blog and then if you want to sell something, you can add store to your blog that you don't have to do that at first. Right? Like, but you can add these things in the same as like Squarespace email campaigns. So if you have a website, if you have a store and you're like, this is going great and you want people to sign up to find out more about your products by email, you've got another marketing tool option now with Squarespace email campaigns. You can also integrate flexible payment systems. You can make checkout seamless for your customers as simple, but powerful payment tools. You can accept credit cards, PayPal and Apple pay. And in eligible countries offer customers the option to buy now and pay later with after pay and clear pay. So go to squarespace.com and you can sign up for a free trial. You can build your entire website and then when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash pen addict and you'll save 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash pen addict. And when you decide to sign up, you'll get 10% of your first purchase and show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for the continued support of this show and all of RelayFM. So this next topic I missed when it first came out, which is not a surprise giving Instagram's algorithm, which is a full podcast of its own. But my friend Jacob at Fude Fan tagged me in one of his posts. So the post was like five weeks ago and he tagged me like a week ago because we had talked about on the show how like Lamy's popularity in Japan. Right. So Jacob lives in Japan is, you know, has all the details about the Japanese stationery market. So he had put up a post flipping through a magazine called Shumi no Bungabako, which every year takes a poll from their readers to vote for their favorite pen. And his comment was two German pens are always in the top three. So for take a look at the 2023 list, Myke, of the pen of the year, I am just shocked, but I think I kind of get it like in the end. Number one is the Pelican M1000, which I, okay. And in the context, y'all need to go look at this link because in the context of the rest of this, it makes sense. At the same time, it doesn't as we'll get down, down the list here to the number three, but number two is the Mont Blanc 149, right? I think it's the M800. It's the Pelican M800. Oh, M800. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I was looking at it wrong. So the M800, which is probably the best main line Pelican, honestly, the 1000 is a little bit too big, my bad. And then the Mont Blanc 149. Number three, Myke, if I went Pelican M800, Mont Blanc 149. Again, this is a poll in Japan.
* How many guesses would it take for you to come up with the Caran d'Ache 849 ballpoint pen to be number three? I wouldn't. Yeah. There's no one because I also don't particularly like this pen. Right. So it would never enter my mind as being number three in any poll, let alone a poll of Japanese consumers. Yeah. And not number three. Number three ahead of number four, the Platinum 3776 is where we get our first Japanese pen. And then a pilot right after that. And then number six, sneaking in on the list, Lamy Safari. Well, the year prior, Lamy Safari was number three. Yeah. And the top two were the Pelican M800 and the Mont Blanc 149. So this makes perfect sense to me. It does. I think we come at it from the same perspective. Yes. Which is, I expect if you are a Japanese, if you are a pen addict in Japan, the Japanese pens are not interesting to you because they have been around.
* You have grown up with that. Yeah. So the German products are more exotic in the same way that for us, the Japanese products are. A hundred percent. It's a clear case of you want what you cannot have. Right. And you did not grow up with this. This was not the norm for you. Just like if you grew up in Europe and as a school child, you had Lamy's forced into your hands. You might never want to touch a Lamy Safari again in the rest of your life. Right. And you're like, Ooh, look at this sailor. Look at this Platinum or look at this pilot. Yeah. I think that's a hundred percent the case, which is fast. It's still fascinating to me. Um, the way the list shakes out. I mean, there's even like another Pelican on the list and like, it's, there's a Parker on the list. I mean, what is funny to me is I think that this is wrong. Right. You know, like, I'm like, no, no, these are good. But the 3776 for me is better than all of these. Yeah. I don't, I will actually disagree. I would take an 800 or 149 over the 3776. You know what? Except I don't have enough. Uh, um, I don't have one of these, either of those myself, the M800 over 149. So maybe I've not got enough, uh, experience of it, but, but still like if given the choice, I would go to the 3776. Yeah. And that's only because they're like three times the price or maybe four times the price of the 3776. So, which is kind of, again, shocking that there are like one and two on the list just from a price point perspective. Um, and then the 849 just pops in there. One of my friends, I got to, I got to call out my friend Ame in, in the comments, literally says, how did Karen Dash get in there? And I replied, oh, you just wait. I'm bringing you one when I see you at the stationery fest. So they're going to be there at the stationery fest. So I'm going to bring them one of my 849s. Cause I love the 849. But in, in again, like you zero out of a thousand choices, what I have ever put that number three on the list. I would have put a, I would have guessed like, I don't know. I would have guessed like Sharpies and all kinds of weird stuff before I ever got to this as number three. So yeah, there's just no way. It's a very strange inclusion to me. Like genuinely like a really, really weird inclusion in this particular list surrounded by other fountain pens. It's actually even weirder, right? Yeah. There's a top four, four out of the three of fountain pens. And one of them is the Karen Dash 849. It's like, I don't, I don't know how that happened. It's great. I love this so much. I love this. So thank you, Jacob, for tagging me in this because again, like I never saw it. Like I follow him, like I don't have any like favorites or think of whatever the Instagram calls to like, you know, you know, percolate your favorite follows up to the top of your list. Like I've never tagged anyone, but maybe I should because I miss awesome content like this from him. I thought that was, yeah, there's a, there's something, I forget what it's called. But yeah, it was, it's a fun list and I got a huge, huge kick out of this. Obviously it's spectacular, spectacular. All right. That's going to wrap it up for today's episode of the pen addict. If I can give you one call to action is to go to penaddict.com slash shop and check out Brad's wares there. He's got like a bunch of great stuff for you to go and peruse and buy something. There's something for everyone over on the pen addict shop right now. Brad is at pen addict, P-E-N-A-D-D-I-C-T on all social media. You can find him over at twitch.tv slash pen addict three times a week still.
* Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And you know, as long as I'm not traveling, but yeah, when I'm in, when I'm in town three times a week, next week, exciting times over on Twitch stream, we're going to be doing shipping streams, Myke. Yeah, baby. Let's go. You're going to get to watch me for hours packing boxes of pens. Thrilling stuff. Big week over on Twitch. I hope they've got an extra couple of servers online to handle the capacity. We're going to take them down.
* If you want to find me online, relay.fm and also at cortexbrand.com. I'm at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. I would like to thank Pen Chalet and Squarespace for their support of this week's episode. But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

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