Editing The Pen Addict 315/transcript (section)

== Cosmos Fountain Pen ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' I talked about the Cosmos Fountain Pen, which is a Kickstarter campaign that just ended a day or two ago. And I didn't get mine early enough to put up a review before the campaign ended. Like, I just got mine Thursday.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You know, this might be the most follow-up-y episode we've ever done. Where, like, we'd spoke about a bunch of things, and now we have a lot more detail about all of those things. Yeah. Very interesting. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's, uh, that's why I was actually very excited to write this episode up because we were going to talk about all these things that we'd alluded to previously. Mm-hmm. In more detail. So, you know, I, Stillform, who makes these pens, German company, um, has made pens in the past. They've done Kickstarter projects in the past, and they got in touch with me late in the campaign, and I said, you know, you can send me whatever you want, but I can't get it reviewed before your campaign ends. So I thought I'd put it up on the stream, just, uh, if, in case people were wondering. But by then, I think it was already over with. But they did 200, like, mid 200,000s on this campaign.

'''Myke Hurley:''' 260,000 euro.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wow. Wow. Yeah. So, hugely successful. Really good-looking pen. I really, really enjoy this pen, Myke. It, from the moment I saw it, it looked like a pen-type bead to me. Mm-hmm. And, you know, I compared them on the stream. They're very much similar in shape and size. This one's a lot lighter. It's aluminum. It's an aluminum barrel. But the shape and size and feel of it is good. It's kind of got a long section, so your fingers don't get in the way of either the end of the grip or the cap seam, you know, where you cap it. And it's very comfortable to write with. The magnet goes on very strongly, and it lines up every time with the flat sides of the barrel. So, it's kind of got some anti-roll flat sides of the barrel on opposing sides, and the magnet is designed to line those up every time. I know that's a big thing for us fountain pen fans. We're very particular about those types of things. I just have to say, overall, I very much like it. I probably would have backed it if I thought about it in that time, but I didn't. I didn't notice in the campaign. They sent me, like, this midnight blue color. I don't know if that's in there. I'm assuming it is, but it is really pretty. It's a better color than the Ixion in blue. Did you get that Ixion in blue? Was your stab at the color? Yep. This color is better, and I like that Ixion color. This one's a little bit darker. And overall, nice pen. It does use Bach nibs, and mine does not have a good Bach nib in it. It's got a baby's bottom on it, so it's writing very inconsistently right now. So, your mileage will definitely vary on the nibs that you get, and that's just kind of a thing, unfortunately. You know, if you're a new user, you could get a bum nib and be disappointed with it. I could see that happening. But for experienced fountain pen users, you know, there's ways to get around that. You know, swap in another good nib that you have. You know, you can work on this nib a little bit. But it just stinks that Bach's QC has risen to the top of the discussion points, when it's really nothing against the Cosmos pen at all. It's just the nib selection. You know, a lot of companies are kind of, you know, stuck, if you will, for the nib choices that they have. And this is probably one of the better choices that they have. And just sometimes you get a bum one, and my nib is not very good. But that doesn't take away the design of the pen to me, but I'm also someone who is flexible with that type of thing. So I think you would like this pen, actually, Myke. So this seems like a kind of a Mikey pen. We'll see. But not as much, Myke, as the next pen. So this was another reason why I was excited to talk about this show. And also, I'm concerned about talking about this on the show. Because as we are prone to do, as you alluded to earlier, sometimes we don't have every ounce of information right up front, but we do tend to find it. And what happened last week in the post show, when we were talking about the Lamy Orange Inc., our good friend Stacy sent us a link. Because Myke was talking about Sailor Pins, and we always talk about Sailor Limited Edition Pins. She sent us a link to a company called Pinsachi. We'll put a link in the show notes for you to see. And this is essentially, I think the best way to phrase this, Myke, is this is a middleman site. Is that fair?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, without a shadow of a doubt. Yeah. Yeah. I think to the point where sometimes it seems they're actually getting up, going out, and buying it, and sending it to you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So I'm putting in this in the show notes with pause, right? Because I don't have full knowledge of their operations. I can kind of make some assumptions.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I know Stacy's had good luck with them so far. I know other people have had good luck with them so far. I know you had a little bit of a different experience. You didn't necessarily have bad luck, but you had what I think is expected. So tell us about your experience in trying to order a limited edition Pinsachi.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I was digging around on their website and I came across a purple Pro Gear, which made my brain kind of explode because it's one of the most beautiful pens that laid my blue eyes upon. And I ordered it on their website. I went through, chose my nib, paid for it, paid for it via PayPal, which I super recommend you do if you're going to go to companies like this because you get the additional protections that PayPal will provide. Right? Like that, I really, really, really would recommend that you consider that, not just buy it via a credit card. I genuinely believe that you probably will have more protection with buying it through someone like PayPal. And they took my payment and then like maybe a day or two later, they got, they emailed me and they were like, we're really sorry, but this is sold out. Like we don't have any, we can't do anything. Um, my expectation is like they put some of these things up there and then they try and buy them. And if they can buy them, they buy them. If they don't, then they're sold out. And it's now listed as sold out on the website. Um, and they were like, what we, you know, we have these other two pens that you saw for two Pro Gears that are available right now that are the same price. Uh, we have these. Are you interested in either of these? And I was like, no, not really. Like they're not the colors that I want. And I said, can you refund me? And they're like, yep, no problem. Immediate refund. So good. You know, like, uh, and, and it took a couple of days to process because that's just whatever. Like it takes time to process. But to be honest, I was super pleased with the way it all went. Like I was frustrated. They didn't have it, but you know, I could kind of understand it because like I can see how their business works, right? Like they're not actually holding stock. They just, they know that there's pens they can get their hands on. So they're doing that. That would be the way that I expect it's going to work. But if you're going to do it that way and it doesn't work, you want that customer service there where they can just refund you. I mean, ideally I would like them to not charge me until they know they've got the thing. But either way, you know, I was, I was relatively happy with the experience and I'm keeping my eye on this website because I would like to really buy one of these pens and it feels like a good way to maybe try and get my hands on something a little bit more limited. And like looking through their catalog of pro gears of what's listed as sold out, you know, stuff that I saw in the past, a lot of pens I really want in there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So we bring this up to hopefully educate the listener. You know, if they're looking for this type of thing, this is the type of site you can use, but you need to understand what this type of site is doing. They're not, they may have a limited stock of these. They may not. They may have to get them after you order them. This reminds me of in Geekha in their hair, in their heyday where you would order a limited edition pen. They would see if they could get it. And sometimes they couldn't, sometimes they couldn't. It's just like the risk you take, but you know, you're, you know, you were never, you know, out any money or anything like that. But, um, if this site works and becomes, you know, a bigger, a bigger deal, I could see it being, you know, a very valid way to get some of these products that are hard to get without going through, um, you know, the white rabbit, like the, uh, like the shopping sites, you know, that will go and buy something for you in Japan and then ship it to you. So, you know, I, it's definitely something to keep an eye on. It's definitely something you need to understand what you're doing when you're making a purchase in here, what you're committing to, which, which you're committing to maybe not getting that pen. Um, but I'm glad your experience was good. I know, um, Stacy has received a couple of pens from them just fine. Right. And, um, if they, uh, they stay on top of these things, yeah, this is going to be bookmarked and, uh, might cost me some money, money down the line.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. So like, I think I can kind of see what's going on. Cause like one of the pens that I was just looking at, it's no longer listed. I think what they do is every time somebody makes a purchase, it gets listed as sold out. They see if they can then make the purchase. If they can, they complete it and they put it back up again. If this possible, that's, that's how I reckon they're doing this, which again, like I do not fault that way of the way that they're working.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' If it works for them, um, it's, it's an arbitrage system for us and the rest of the world that want these products and they can make their money on their end and we can get the products that we want at a reasonable price.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Which reminds me, um, I'm on the lookout for a company that I can send things to in America and they will post them to me. I would love recommendations. So send me tweets with recommendations. If you know of any companies that can do this kind of thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' There are, because I know, um, some of our customers at Knock use them. And, um, as a matter of fact, uh, we'll, uh, I know someone we can email when we're done who you know very well.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Great.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Who uses one of these services that you, you, it's a shipping forwarder. Yeah. So this is what I'm looking for.