Editing The Pen Addict 181/transcript (section)

== Lamy Dialogue 3 ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So it's kind of in relation to that. There's two pens I wanted to talk about today before we wrap up. And I was thinking about them together a little bit. It's the Pilot 823, the Pilot Custom 823, which I review went up today on the blog. And the Lamy Dialogue 3, which I just received this weekend from JetPens.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Huh. Huh. I didn't know you were getting one of those. Yeah, so that just happened. Because that was a secret. That is a, the Lamy Dialogue 3 is a, I guess we could maybe start putting this into practice now. It is like a mythical pen of the Pen Addict Podcast. It is. We've been talking about this for as long as we've been talking about the Vanishing Point, which has been since the beginning of the show.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Right. So it is a mythical pen of the Pen Addict. And the reason why I finally went ahead and did it is because they tweaked the design a little bit. They have a little bit, it definitely has a different paint job finish on it. I have one of the piano lacquered ones. And the kicker with the dialogue, we'll go ahead and talk about the Dialogue 3 first. First, the kicker is, so people who are new to fountain pens are a little bit fascinated with retractable fountain pens. And that's kind of not really a thing in fountain pens. There's the Vanishing Point. And that's pretty much it. You know, the Dialogue 3 is actually the second choice. But it's so far down the list in market share, if you will, from the retractable aspect of it that it doesn't really get a lot of run. But it's had some difficulties in the past. It's unlike the Vanishing Point. The Vanishing Point is a knock. You know, it's a clicky fountain pen. So you press the plunger. Nib comes out the front. The Lamy Dialogue is a twist, which there are a few other twist model fountain pens. Montblanc makes one, which we, Myke and I, we handled one at the Atlanta Pen Show. And it was like 800 bucks. And we put it down pretty quick. But it was beautiful, though. It was stunning. It was a wonderful pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That was one of those scenarios. We were like, we ought to walk away. Yeah. We just got to walk away, because otherwise this is going to be horrific.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right, right. So you can get a few different pens with a retractable nib. But if you're not going with the Vanishing Point, the Dialogue is kind of the next stop. Right? But it's had some issues in the past with the nib drying out. You know, more so than like the Vanishing Point. Like the Vanishing Point has a little trap door in the front.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, that keeps the nib from drying out. And the Dialogue 3, now that I have this one, it has a door as well. And I'm going to try to take a video of this mechanism. It works really neat. You can probably hear me playing with it as I'm talking to you. Sorry about that. The clicking. You know what I'd really like to see?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because I was just thinking, I was going to ask you to take a video. You should make some animated GIFs.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. Yeah, I'll work on that. That would be cool. I should. That way we could share them easier and put them in the show notes and kind of describe them. So you'll have to tell me what app I want to use for that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I'll help you out with that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So the Lamy Dialogue is a large pen. And it's not too heavy, but it's a little bit heavy, but it's more the diameter.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, see, this is the first time I'm looking at the JetPens page right now. This is the first time I've ever looked at these images in detail. And I've noticed, as you're explaining it, this is fat.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. It's kind of a fat pen in relation to most fountain pens. It looks like a marker. Yeah, I'd say it's about marker width. Yeah. And so what happens when you have a marker width pen, your fine writing does not do as well, right? Your detailed writing, like I write small, it's harder to write small when my thumb and forefinger are further apart from each other. You know, it's a very small measurement, but it's noticeable.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Your movements are more exaggerated, aren't they?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. So when you have that spacing that's wider, you can't help but write a larger letter or a line. And that's something I'm trying to get used to. Last night was the first night I really took it out and put it to the test. It's enjoyable to write with, but it's very marker feeling. This is not going to be a pen for everybody for sure. And that's kind of the reason why I wanted to talk about it in conjunction with the Pilot 823 is because both of these pens are at a price point where they're at the top of the line for standard production for both Pilot and Lamy. Right. This is like the top of the pricing chart. The Dialog 3 runs around $300. The Pilot 823 is like $290. So both right there in the same. But they're both made as standard production pens. So there's a big gap from, and I guess you probably see this in any type of manufacturer's product lineup. You know, they start at the low end. You know, there's a few entry models.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The majority, the bulk of the product lines are somewhere in the middle. You know, that's where you're going to have the most popular styles, colors, quantities, things like that. And then you hit the end, the upper end of the product line where there's maybe one or two models. And they're very expensive in relation to the rest of the product line. But they also have features added to where, well, if you've enjoyed these middle tier products, here's these features that really ramp up, you know, what a Pilot can do or what a Lamy can do. And I just thought it was interesting. I've never, I haven't used either of these pens before, the 823 or the Dialog 3. And I'm going to end up having to compare them to what else is available in the product line. And how is, you know, the Pilot 823 going to compare with the 92 or how is the Lamy Dialog 3 going to compare with the Lamy 2000? And as great as these pens may be, actually the Pilot 823, we'll talk about this a little more in a second, is one of the best pens I've ever reviewed. It is an amazing pen. But it's very expensive. And how do you justify, you know, spending almost $300 on a pen when you can get pretty darn close to that for less than half of that price, right? So you're paying a premium in the case of the 823 for the filling system. It's a vacuum filler. And it's an awesome vacuum filler. You pop that thing in the ink bottle and that ink just shoots into there. It's almost full in one shot. I had a lot of fun actually playing with that pen. It's a bigger pen than like some of the Pilot Custom 91s, the 92s, the 74, and even the 912. The 912 was the largest Pilot that I'd used before. The 823 is larger. So these are the big writers of like Pilot's and Lamy's product lineup. The 823 I could see, I wrote in the review today that if someone was looking for a fountain pen to be their last fountain pen and the only fountain pen they used, I could see the 823 being that pen. It's that well made. It feels that nice to write with. It holds a ton of ink so you're not going to be constantly refilling it all the time, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Pilot's gold nibs are the best in the business in my opinion. I think they're the number one nib, gold nib, especially from the Japanese makers. I'm not taking into account someone like Pelican who makes wonderful gold nibs. I just, I mean, I really, really was impressed with the 823. But in the end, if I'm looking at spending that kind of money, it didn't like fit my aesthetic style with the colors of the pen. So the 823 generally is only widely available in the amber barrel with the gold furniture. It looks amazing, right? I mean, it's a beautiful, beautiful pen, but it's not my aesthetic, the gold and the brown. Now, I wanted to like latch on to that color and say, this color is awesome. And, you know, end up keeping the pen and, you know, buying it from Goldspot, who was nice enough to loan me the pen for review. But I couldn't do it, Myke. I wanted, it's such a good pen, but I knew the color was going to keep me from inking it up as much as some of my other pens, some of my other pilots. Even just the basic black and rhodium pilot 912, I would end up using more than the 823. And I don't want to spend that kind of money and have the pen sitting around. So there's been some 823 models that have been done in the past that have been like clear and silver. So I'm going to have, I might try to hunt one of those down.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Just because the experience of using the 823 was exceptional. This is a, it, there's nothing wrong. There was, it's a flawless pen. And in my opinion, it's literally one of the best pens I've ever reviewed, except I'm not going to own it because, because of the colors. So I don't know what you think about the 823 as far as style goes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's beautiful looking, but there, there's a breaking point where.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' If the pen doesn't like get into your soul for that price, you know, you don't need to end up taking it at home with you. And that's where I ended up being with the 823.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I feel like I'm going to be, I feel so bad to say this, but it looks boring and cheap. Hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It doesn't feel boring or cheap. Um, and when you have it in hand, it doesn't look boring.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, it's really impressive to hold.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The images, like it looks, I mean, when you look at the, all the pilot customs, I mean, what price ranges did it go for? Those four that you've got there?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Uh, low to mid one hundreds. Yeah. The, the nine 12, the black nine 12, the biggest one is like one 80. Everything else is cheaper than that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. But see, when you look at the four of them together, you look at a picture of them all, they all look like they could be the same price.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I agreed. Agreed. So like, yeah. And that's, I was just gonna say, that's where the vacuum filling system like really ramps up the price and things like that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I mean, I totally get that. Right. Like I totally understand all of that. Um, and they're good looking, but it doesn't look, it doesn't look like a $300 pen. Right. For me personally, if I'm spending that amount of money, I want spectacle. Right. At $300, I don't just want a good pen. A good pen is expected. Right. Right. At that price point. I want something that is going to wow me, which is why I thoroughly want one of these piano white dialogue threes. Right. That thing is stunning.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's beautiful, but.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't see where I'm going to be recommending this pen as a purchase. I'm also not buying one. Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because the thing is, if I want spectacle and a great pen, I'll go buy a Nikaya. Right. Right. Right. That's what I'm going to do. Right. They're more expensive, but they're also more beautiful and they write better than these. Right. So it's like, what are you going to do? Like, that's what, that's where I'll go for.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So just in relation to the 823 and comparing the Lamy Dialog 3, they're obviously very different pens, different style, but I'm comparing them as far as the price point goes within those product lines. And I'm actually would not as high on the Dialog 3 as the 823 using them side by side. There's just a little bit of finicky-ness with the Dialog that I'll go, you know, as I spend some more time with it, you know, I'm going to spend a few weeks with it in, before I do my review. But I can already tell there's a couple things that I keep fidgeting with that are driving me crazy. And, you know, the width of the barrel, this is going to be, this is an absolutely drive before you buy situation with the Dialog 3. If you're buying this pen blindly, you're very, very brave. You really need to see, which we've said about the vanishing point too, because of the clip location, right? You know, you need to try that type of pen to see if it's going to fit your handwriting style and your grip. But the Dialog 3 has a couple little oddities, but I don't know. It's a really, really cool pen. And it's, both of these pens are just going to be hard to recommend at that price point when they have, when the Lamy 2000's $150, right? Which is, I said the other week is probably the best fountain pen that's ever been made. So how can I justify spending $300 on the Dialog 3? So this is the kind of things I'm looking at with these two pens and comparing them, where they are in their respective product lineups and where those price points hit. So, but you want this Lamy, right? Yeah. You got to have it. I want you to try it. So you can try mine in Atlanta when you come next year.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I want to try it. I'm probably never going to buy it because I just don't want to spend $300 on a pen I'm most likely not going to use. But like, it's just when I look at both of these next to each other, I want Spectacle from it. Yes. Because that's what I feel like I'm paying it for. And maybe the vacuum filling system is Spectacle enough. But I also think that a pen at that price point has also got to show something to the world when you use it. That's just my feeling on these, right? When you get to that type of level, I mean, is it twice as good as a Sailor Pro Gear?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That's where I'm at.