Editing The Pen Addict 90/transcript (section)

== Pen Review ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So I did a review. This has been about two weeks ago now that I really didn't think twice about posting. It's a pen I've had probably since last summer. I had it. Thomas Hall sent it to me to review. I'd sent it back and I've just kind of been sitting on the review waiting for a good time to post it. And it's for the Platinum 3776 Century UEF Ultra Extra Fine Nib Fountain Pen. And what's special about this pen is one is the first, I think, first gold nib Platinum Pen I've reviewed for one. But secondly, Platinum is one, this nib, the UEF, is a 0.1 millimeter nib. Stupid. With. Just stupid. Yeah, it's stupid fine. And that's the stock width. That's, I don't even. Yeah, it ships that way. So there's a chart in the post to the, on nibs.com. It's got a tipping size comparison chart. And only, this pen, the UEF, Platinum UEF nib, and then there's one Sailor nib that I've never even heard of. Also comes with a stock 0.1 millimeter. But that's it. Everything else starts at least 0.2 millimeters and higher on the Japanese nibs. And when I reviewed this pen, like when I was testing it out and actually had the pen in hand, I liked it. It felt really awesome when you, when you wrote with it. And it was just very delicate. You couldn't even tell that the nib was hitting the page. But it was like just a completely consistent line. There was no, it was basically flawless. So I posted this, this pen, and, you know, just went on about my day. And then the feedback I got on this post was amazing how many other people had this pen and say, this is one of the best pens they own. And it just kind of knocked my socks off. I didn't expect that at all. Like I didn't even have this on my shopping list because I was, even 0.1 millimeters may be a little much for me. You know how I like the fine, the fine nibs, but I thought this was maybe even a little extreme for me. And the amount of praise this pen got from other people has ramped this way up my shopping list. I think I'm going to have to break down before too long and get the UEF nib. The only, the only thing that's holding me back right now is I don't want the gold, the gold furniture. I want to find a rhodium one, which is proving difficult. But, and it may not be the 3776 model platinum, but there's other platinum models that carry it that I can get something that I will like to look at as well as use. But I couldn't believe, I thought people would say, this is crazy, this is crazy. But it was basically a list, a long list of people saying, I have this pen and it's amazing. Or, I've never seen this pen and I'm buying it. I think two or three people went out and bought this pen just from this review. Wow. It's, it's, I got feedback from that saying, I ordered this now or I got it in and I'm trying it out now. And it's unbelievable. So, I, it just kind of took me aback, the, took me back the response that I got for this review. So, if you haven't seen this pen and more importantly this nib, because honestly, the barrel is nothing special. And actually, that's what a lot of people say. And that's the few detractors, you know, of this model say, you know, the barrel's kind of, you know, no big deal. But it is kind of an entry level platinum pen anyway. So, with the gold nib, I think it's probably in the $150 range. I'm not sure. Entry level, yeah. Yeah, gold nib for 14K nib, it is kind of entry level.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because you figure the nib was probably $100, $125 of that anyway. So, that's, that's, that's what I mean by, by entry level. So, yeah, anyway, check this review out if you haven't already. Because I was surprised at the feedback I got on it. And it's really interesting. And now I have this, I have this on my shopping list. And it's, it's on the radar for things for me to look at. And if I run across a good one, I'm going to, I'm going to jump on the UEF 0.1 millimeter stock fountain pen nib. And I'll get you one too, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, okay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Could you use a pen that fine? Um, I don't know, you know, I, I feel like I probably couldn't. Yeah. In all honesty, I feel like it would, it would be very uncomfortable for me.

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

'''Myke Hurley:''' But you never know. Yeah, you never know. I mean, I'm not going to go out and buy one to try it. But, you know, I would try somebody else's.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So after I got all these rave reviews about this, I was like, screw it. I'm going to buy it right now. And I could never find the perfect one for me or, you know, that I was willing to, willing to pony up the money for. But it led me down the path that we've all gone down before. I just went down the rabbit hole of looking at new things. Because, um, we've talked about Nakaya's, how that's on my wish list to buy one this year. And Platinum and Nakaya are related. Nakaya came from, um, the Platinum company originally. Um, I guess it's still affiliated with Platinum. And their nibs are somewhat similar. Like, you can kind of get a little bit of a similar feel. So, as I couldn't find a Platinum that I wanted to spring for. I just happened to run across a Nakaya that I hadn't seen before. And I didn't want to do anything with this pen other than put it in the show notes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because in the show notes, in Myke and I's notes, I put this in as the holy crap Nakaya. I have never seen this model before. And I will never own this model. Because the price is ridiculous. This would be like the ultimate pen. For me. I would probably never use it. It's called the... It's the Seru Blue Dragon fountain pen. It's one of the most beautiful pens I've ever seen. And I usually don't like a lot of embellishments on my pens. Or a lot of artwork. Or anything crazy like that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. It's Blue Dragon, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Blue Dragon. This pen's a stunner. So I just wanted to throw that in the show notes for people to go drool over. And then they also have a different model where you can actually see the dragon pattern better. But I like the subtlety of the Blue Dragon.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I feel like if you're going to have a dragon pattern on your pen, it should be subtle.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I know. That's why I don't... That's why I always... Like, you look at my... I did that weekly loadout for Ed Jelly. And, you know, like all my pens are black, pretty much. Black or clear demonstrators. I like basic pens. But if there was one pen that really kind of stunned me for how beautiful it is. And subtly beautiful. It was that one. And speaking of Ed, he had a Nakaya on his wish list for 2014. And he's marked it off.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' He's gone and done it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So he went and he created a... This was a good idea. And I might eventually do this on my blog. He went and created like a for sale page on his blog. So he was raising funds, selling some of his other pens so he could go and buy this Nakaya. And we got a link to the show notes. He bought the Nakaya Neo Standard in the Kuro Tamanuri finish with a 14K soft medium nib. So that escalated quickly.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I keep looking at it. And I can't justify that. But I want to be able to.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I really... I would implore you to try at any cost or any means necessary. Try one before you buy one. Oh, yeah. Because the feel is different than most pens. It's an extremely lightweight pen. So it's not for every... Like the pictures, you can't really tell the weight by the pictures. But these pens, the way they're made, they are very, very, very lightweight. I can't stress that enough. So it's something you need to feel for yourself before plopping down all that money. Which is, you know, what I did. Well, I haven't bought one yet. And it'll be a while before I do. But, you know, this year, I'm feeling it. This year will be the year I get the Nakaya.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So there's no way that I would spend that sort of money without trying it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And that's the thing. It's hard to find a place to try it. You just got to find a friend or someone at a pen show. Or, you know, that's what happened. You know, luckily, you know, Thomas had someone locally to him that was about 20 minutes away that had five of them. So he went to... He went and tested them all out and figured out which one he liked the best and ordered it. So, yeah, it's definitely a try-before-you-buy thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And one other review I did recently was actually for a pretty basic pen, the Pilot Acroball, which I always rave about. And they came out with some color series a few months ago on JetPens, 0.5 millimeter. I did a review of the light blue and orange. But what struck me as interesting when I was doing this review, I went back and looked at the first time I reviewed the Pilot Acroball. And I had a friend, a blog reader, that went to Japan. And they picked me up some pens. And this was one that they sent back to me when they returned from their trip. They sent me a package. And it had an Acroball in it. And this was in 2009. It took, from 2009 when this pen was introduced in Japan, it took four years for it to show up in the U.S.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's a slow boat.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know what to make of that. I didn't plan on focusing on that when I was writing this review. But I was like, I've reviewed this pen for the first time in 2009. And you're telling me Pilot USA just put it on their store shelves in 2013? I don't understand these things about pen companies. And I've gone on my rants and raves before about the Japanese market versus the American market and why we can't have nice things and things like that. But four years for a very – this is – I mean, the Acroball is a basic pen. And it happens to be a great basic pen, which is why I wanted to see it in the U.S. And in retrospect, that it took four years to get here is kind of mind-boggling in a not good way. So I don't know. That was weird. I just wanted to point that out because I didn't expect to – that wasn't the focus of the review. But it kind of caught me off guard once I actually looked it up. Yeah. So regardless, definitely try out the Acroball, though. I don't know if they have them in the U.K. yet on the store shelves. But it's become a popular brand here in the U.S. Pilot's marketing it heavily. Pilot goes to all these big events like in Hollywood and, you know, where they have like the swag rooms, the gift rooms and things like that for all the gift bags and for the stars and stuff. They always have – pilot's always there and they're giving out pens. And they actually have the Acroball there, a bunch of people taking pictures with the Acroball. So I know it's a pen they're pushing. I just – they could have pushed it three or four years ago. That would have been pretty cool. But whatever. That's just me griping.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I love how – I love how you recognize the pilot Acroball during award ceremonies.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's not award ceremonies. It's the pregame like a couple of days before where all the celebs get to walk through and pick up all their gift goodie bags. I just happen to see it on – I see it on Pilot's Instagram feed and stuff like that. I see.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Is this one of your celebrity friends that sends these to you? Shoot, no.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Nope, nope, nope.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And one final review that I just did today, and I didn't know I was going to do it today, so I didn't have it in the show notes until just now. But the Tactile Turn Mover – it's actually the Tactile Turn Mover and Shaker. There's two pens. A guy named Will Hodges is a Kickstarter project for a machine pen, like the steel or aluminum in this case, just like Keras Customs or Big Eye Design or all these guys that do the machine pens on Kickstarter. Will sent me a review model of the one called the Mover. The Mover fits the Pilot G2 style refills, and the Shaker fits the Fisher Space Pen refills. And this is – I said it in my review, and we'll have it in the show notes if you haven't seen it on the blog. This is one of the best machine pens I own and have ever reviewed. It feels amazing. It looks amazing.