Editing The Pen Addict 321/transcript (section)

== Bungu Box Explanation ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep. So, speaking of Japanese, Bobby wants to know, can you please explain Bungu Box to me?

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is a great question. It's so good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I love this question. Is it a brick and mortar and or online store? I hear about it all the time, but it seems like a mystery to me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And or are they just a limited edition company, right? Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. I just, this was a hilarious question, yet an absolutely perfect question. So, Bungu Box is a brick and mortar store. That's what they started as. As they grew over the years, their online presence grew, still relatively small. Actually, they're still very small these days. And they started to open up to other markets outside of Japan, which a lot of companies weren't doing. And they were doing this in very small ways. Small batch inks, you know, that were made specifically for them by Sailor. Small batch pens that were made for them by Pilot and Sailor. They were doing some very custom stuff on a very small scale for their very niche store. And as it turns out, the things they make were very amazing. So everyone wanted them. And, you know, I think it was three or four years ago, they actually traveled to the Washington DC Pen Show. I got to meet them there. Got to buy some stuff directly from them. They just have the most, some of the most unique and interesting stationary items that you can't get elsewhere. So, you know, it's, that's pretty much it. They started out as a brick and mortar store. They do have an online shop. I have ordered from the online shop. It's not the easiest thing. Usually just an email to them works and they'll, they will take care of you. But it's, it's just a great story of a great company that wanted to do things a little bit different from some of their competition. And I think they've thrived because, because of it. You know, they're just fantastic to work with. They have goods that make us drool. And yeah, they're just fun. Like, they're so nice, so nice to work with. Karu and team, you know, whoever all is working there, they just, they do a fantastic job. So yeah. So think of them as a traditional Japanese brick and mortar store, very tiny, who have expanded into the online world and the worldwide stationary marketplace. So they've done a fantastic job.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So when, when we go on our world travels one year, Myke, we're going to make a bongo box.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, don't do that. No.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. One, one of these years I am holding out hope.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Related to rare Japanese items, Myke. Andrew says sailors trying to bring back specialty nibs this year. So let me stop right there. Last year, I think, I don't think it was early this year. I think it was at some point last year, all the big fancy sailor nibs, they essentially ran out of stock. They were back ordered to infinity and beyond. So they put a hold on all new orders of, I've linked to you that page where they have, you know, like a dozen of these wild specialty, specialty nibs like King Eagle and Cross Concord and, you know, layered stacked nibs. Very, very expensive items. And they got real popular and their back order became too much to overcome. So Andrew says they're trying to bring them back this year, which I haven't heard yet, but I trust Andrew. In light of the price, in light of their pricing of inks, do you expect them to take this as an opportunity to raise prices? Not just yes, but hell yes. Why wouldn't they? I mean, these are premium items that have a waiting list, essentially. I don't see anything in sailor's mantra that says we're not going to get every last dollar out of these nibs that we can. They seem to me like they're setting themselves up to reboot the price range for these because they were already expensive. There's only X amount of expensive they can go. I mean, at some point they're too expensive. I don't see any reason why they don't raise the prices. I thought the lower, more simple ones, I think, are the most prone to getting their prices raised because I actually thought they were reasonable. Naginata Togi, for example, is one of the more simple ones, probably the one that I would purchase. And I thought the price was reasonable for that. Those are the ones I see. When you get into like the big, fat, emperor, three-time, cross-slit ones, those are priced at such a huge premium anyway. And I think they sell less of them. Those may not see the price range. This is just all speculation for me. But I don't see any reason why they wouldn't raise the price, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's the specialty. That is like, that's what specialty means, right? It's expensive.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It would be what the market bears, right? And, you know, so it just seems like that's what they would do. Not in an egregious fashion, you know, not in, you know, I don't know that we'd see a 25% increase, but I could see a 10% increase. And that wouldn't, that wouldn't, you know, especially on the lower end, because there is, even within the specialty nibs, there's a range of prices, right? So like the low end where I would shop, because I don't need one of the big wide nibs, you know, I felt those were fairly priced for what they were. And there's probably room to raise the price on those, unfortunately. So it is what it is. And I don't see why they wouldn't. Like if they have that much demand and they can get it, I mean, that's kind of what businesses do, right? So, all right, Andrew's going to wrap us up in a fight here, because we fought about this before. For the best filling system, Andrew wants to know what the worst filling system is, modern and vintage. I submit for consideration the captured converter. It has none of the advantages of the converter with less capacity than a piston. Looking at you, Visconti. So do you have a least or worst filling system?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Um, there are a couple of, I'm looking at what a captured converter is, because I don't even know what that is. What is a captured converter?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think it's just a fixed type converter. I could be wrong, where you're essentially, it's essentially stuck in place, if you will.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right, right. So the ones where, okay, yeah, I understand that. Is that what the Rialo has?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, that's a piston on the Rialo.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh. Oh. Hmm. Yeah, of course it is.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So what is this? So it's, there's not a lot of companies that do that these days, but you basically can't remove the converter, right? It's fixed.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Okay. I don't really, I don't really understand that one, but nevermind. Um, there are a couple of converter types that are just bonkers to me. Um, and funnily enough, they seem to both appear in sailor pens quite a bit. One is the one with a button on it. Sure. Right? Because you barely get any ink in those things. It's ridiculous. Um, the other is the, like the metal one. I actually think it's, I see these in pilot pens, the metal one where you squeeze it at the side. They both just barely have any ink that goes in them. They drive me mad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So that pilot con 20 is awful. There's one that's worse than that, that I've seen some of the old, I think it was older Bexley's used where it's just a sack with a metal bar, but the bar is what you like press on the sack to, you know, like fill it except the bar's loose. So like if you take apart the pin, that bar can like slide around, fly around anything with like a sack where you just have to put your just, um, you know, letting in air and ink in and out of the sack just by pressing it is terrible. I really, really hate those. So, and I, I particularly did dislike one of the Bexley ones that I had because the bar that you use to actually do the pushing was not stuck in place. Like it was, it moved, like it was removable. It was super annoying. So yeah. So that's, that's my least favorite. Any type of sack where you have to, you know, just push down on the sack to manipulate the ink flow. So that's a pain in the butt. So that's a good question. We have lots of least favorite filling systems going on in the chat room. If you have a least favorites, uh, filling system, you want to let us know about how can they do that?