Editing The Pen Addict 89/transcript (section)

== Edison Perlet ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, do you know what she picked up? Which is amazing, I thought, because it's something that I noticed but never really paid attention to. The Edison Perlet sounds interesting when you write.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And it's true. I never... And I could hear it, but I never really noticed it. The nib on the paper... Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. ...has a really amazing sound. She thought it was weighted really well and liked it a lot and liked the barrel construction, but did not like the pattern.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Sure. That's... Because it's... I mean, it's a smaller pen. I mean, it's the... It's not necessarily a mini pen, but it's definitely not what I would consider a full-size pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But that barrel style and material, I think, is really nice. And there's bigger options, like in those Edisons. They're not exactly cheap, obviously. But something like an Edison Beaumont might be something to consider because it comes in the solid materials. It's full-sized. It's lightweight. You can get a stub nib.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's one of the first things, depending on her feeling of the acrylic barrel of the Perlet, that, you know, the Beaumonts come in similarly nice materials. And for a full-size pen, it's awfully light, but it's extremely comfortable to write with. And you have that nib variety. Now, out of that list, it's probably the most expensive pen on that list.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So my caveat is I don't want it to be too expensive because I'm going to buy this pen. And if she doesn't like it, I'm kind of screwed. Because then I, you know, I haven't got a price limit. I guess under $100, I think, is probably where I want to go with this. I don't want to go much higher than that, or really any higher than that. If it's more than $50, it makes it, you know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Okay. So, no, that's a good thing to know. I mean, if it's the right pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, the other thing is if I don't have one of them and it's a nice pen, then, hey, I've got another pen for my collection. Right. Right. But I would prefer for it not to cost too much more. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, no, that's fair.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Another one I'm thinking of is, and I don't have one of these, and I keep going back and forth on whether I like it or not. I have a hard time getting past the gold nib, just because I prefer the silver or rhodium-plated nibs, is the TWSBI micarta. That's a pen that's always fascinated me. It's a different material.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know if that would be her style, but it's under $100. It's full-sized and very lightweight because of the materials it's made with, and it comes in a range of nib sizes. I think it's like $80 or $90.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I don't think she's going to like that because it's kind of like snake skinny looking. Yeah. It's really weird.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Actually, the listeners can totally correct me on this, and I don't want to give out misinformation, but I think micarta is like some type of cotton filament type of pen, the way it's made or wrapped. I could be wrong, and I'm not looking at it. I wasn't prepared to do the research on that. So that makes it a lot more lightweight pen, Myke, than like a solid plastic pen. But it's totally full size. I mean, it's full barrel width, full length, everything. And it's cool looking. I've held one, and I would buy one if it didn't have the gold nib. So maybe that's something I've got to look at, find another replacement for. But that's always been kind of in the back of my mind is a pen that I would like and would want to try.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What else? What else?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, this is a good exercise, actually. Because this is what my email inbox is like. Yeah, I know. So it's good. No, it's fun. It's fun to try to, you know, people give you a list of, you know, this is exactly what I'm looking for when people are looking for recommendations. You know, she's obviously, she's very precise in what she wants, and that's good. Like I wrote down, I was writing all this down, as you're saying, you know, we want a pen that's sleek and simple, non-demonstrator, with a medium or greater or a stub nib. It's lightweight. lightweight. It's smooth with a good flow. It's full-sized, and it's under $100. Yeah, that is a great decent list.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And I guess the real benefit that she's had that other people don't get is somebody to sit down with her with a whole selection of different types of pen and be like, right, try this now, try this now. And then I can make sense in our speak of the things that she's going through when she's trying them out, you know. And I can ask her questions that will give me those answers, like, how do you feel of the weight of this pen, you know, because then they can tell me a little bit about the types of materials that she wants to use.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, she seems, as I said, she's very happy with the Metropolitan, which led me down the pilot route. But I kind of now want to find her a stub nib.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean, you can get – it's not hard – excuse me. It's hard to find, but you can get pilot – the Prera comes with a calligraphy nib that you can get.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think all those are clear-barreled, the ones that come with the nib, but you can buy a nib and swap it out into a – you know, if she likes the Prera barrel.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, she doesn't like it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, too small.

'''Myke Hurley:''' She just doesn't like the way it looks, which I was surprised about. She just didn't like it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So we'll put some more thinking into this, and we'll get some feedback from the listeners, too. And I'll put some more thought into it. I'm thinking Twisby micarta right now, but, you know, being put on the spot, I might be thinking of not being – I might be overlooking something that's right in front of my face. But I'm trying to think. Like, the $50, let's say like $60 to $100 range in pens has always been a challenging range, I've felt. There's very few things that just nail it that are worth it in that price range. It's like you can get a better value in the $50 to $60 range or below, and then you've got to go to like $125 to $150 to kind of see a real difference there. I've always felt that that range in the middle is a little bit more challenging. Sure. For me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' One thing that I am willing to do, like, for example, you mentioned like the Prera has like a calligraphy nib. If we can find a pen body that matches and a nib that I need to get from another pen, I'm willing to Frankenstein this thing. Sure. You know, and get together the right thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm. You know? So I think I've got enough to work off of, so I'll see if I can come up with something else. And I think we can figure this out. This is what makes it fun.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. It's like a treasure hunt. I feel like I've personally gone as far as I can go. So like I've been looking around and I'm struggling now to come up with much more than what I have. Right. Because I seem to keep finding myself, like leading myself down paths which have no clear end. Like, you know, I'm like, right, okay, she likes this. Let me look at this then. I'm like, great. This is the perfect pen. Right. Cannot get a stub nib for it. This company doesn't make stub nibs for as much as I can find. So then, you know, you end up running round and round and round again.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The Metropolitan, I mean, it surprised me that people seem to love that thing so much.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, man. It's unstoppable. It really is. Everyone loves that pen. And I can see why. I mean, for the price, it's amazing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But there's just a part of me that's like, I just wanted to have something better. I know. I know. I would be disappointed in myself if the best that I could source would be the Pilot Metropolitan. As great a pen as it is, just because the thing is made of plastic and it's like just a standard run-of-the-mill fountain pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Well, just remember, as the great Stephen Patrick Morrissey said, these things take time. So we're going to have to, you know, maybe the Metropolitan is the thing for now. Yeah. Oh, it is. It's working fine. Yeah. Then eventually, there's going to be something that clicks and they're going to say, I need this. Or, you know, I'm looking for something a little bit different. Or, you know, there's always that gateway drug.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And, you know, there's no, you don't have to rush it. You know, you know how long it took me to get into fountain pens.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And, you know, some of the things that I found in the beginning that I thought were like the ultimate pen ever and, you know, don't use anymore. You know, things like that. So, you know, it doesn't have to be force fed. So if the Metropolitan is the one, there's no really argument with that. And you know what? What you can do is you can buy a Pilot Plumix. It's P-L-U-M-I-X. We can put a link in the show notes. It's less than $10. It's got the calligraphy nib. And you can put that right on the Metropolitan. Huh.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Boom.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, look at you. Mm-hmm. That could be it. Yep. Hmm. Well, well, well. Before we wrap this topic up. So I've forgotten about this. So prior to me going through this, I was sent by this person a list of designs that she thought was interesting. It's quite funny, the stuff that she's picking out. So simple, sophisticated pens.