Editing The Pen Addict 385/transcript

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name            = The Pen Addict
| number          = 385
| title           = Like Using a Crayon
| date            = November 13th, 2019
| hosts           = [[Brad Dowdy]]<br>
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests          = 
| link            = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/385 Episode 385]
| audiolink       = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/thepenaddict/TPA_385.mp3 Audio Episode 385]
| length          = 57
}}

'''Myke Hurley:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 385. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Harry's. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad Dowdy, I'm back baby.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hey Myke Hurley, how are you? I'm glad to have you back.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm good, I'm good. You took a lovely little trip last week. Thank you so much to Kerry Yeager of Fountain Pen Day and Ken Rowe Industries, Mr. Big Fancy Pants for filling in. I listened to the episode on my way home and I really enjoyed it. So, it was both interesting and heartwarming in equal measure and I really, really enjoyed the episode that you guys did together.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Good, good. I appreciate it. I don't sweat those types of episodes, but it ends up taking, when you interview one of your friends, but who also is part of a business and larger things, like it takes like these two paths and you never know how it's going to go. It's like, do we like stick to business? Do we make it personal? And I always tend to make it personal just because I count Kerry as a very good friend of mine and we can talk about business in a more personal sense. So, I thoroughly enjoyed it. You know, we could have gone another hour at least. You would have killed me if I did that. But yeah, we got to the end and Kerry was like, oh, we didn't get to talk about some of the things. Like, yeah, because we're already at an hour and a half. I had to cut it at some point. If Myke taught me anything, we do have to turn it off at some point.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You got to leave the people waiting, you know, for the next time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But it was wonderful. So, a quick follow-up from that episode. Y'all should all go listen to that episode. You can get to hear a lot about what Kerry's up to these days. He did send me the Montegrappa Mia 450 in orange. And oof, man, that is a good looking pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's the $1,000 pen that they had specially made, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah. So, the celluloids that Montegrappa does, like, I've seen these, like, I've gone through their Montegrappa's, like, custom pen builder, which I think we touched on in a previous episode. I forget the exact name of it. And it's, like, ridiculously expensive. All of Montegrappa's pens are expensive. So, let's just get that out of the way. But these celluloids are so Montegrappa. They're very unique to them. It's stuff that they make for their pens. And they essentially pulled these out of the archives, these materials, and had enough to make 450 total pens, four colors, 100 pieces each, and then one color, 50 pieces. So, I have the orange one sitting here at the house now with a fine flex nib, and I'll be putting it through the test. It's on loan. It will be going back. I will not be purchasing it. I do not need to spend that kind of money on a pen for reasons we will get into later. But the materials are glorious. As I've said for probably the past several months, I have become a big fan of what Montegrappa's doing. So, I'm happy to get to check that one out, and I really like it. I'm going to enjoy putting that through its paces.



== Year-End Trends ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' So, it's around the end of the year, and a few things tend to happen around the end of the year, and people expect traditions to occur, right? Like, if you've done something, people will expect you to keep doing it. So, I have been seeing some questions come by about your top five, your top five list, when you're updating the top five list. And I also read in Refill that you're trying something a little bit different this time. So, do you want to tell me what you're up to?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, I'm trying to... We've discussed in the past, probably the past two years at least, how there's not a lot of change, at least in my opinion, in what I do for the top five list. And my top five list, for those who are not familiar with it, and we'll have a link in the show notes, it is basically a list of my recommendations. Like, it's different from a personal list. What are my personal favorites? They could be one and the same, but I put it out as a recommendation list. Hey, I'm looking for this type of gel ink pen. What should I get? I can point people to the list. I'm looking for a good quality fountain pen, but I don't want to spend a lot of money. Hey, I can point them to this list, right? So, these are the things I recommend. And I've been updating it in September-ish, and every year it seems to get pushed further and further behind because I feel there's less change in the list. So, we've been talking about it just, you know, online and with different people. Like, what can we do differently for the top five list? And we've thought about crowdsourcing it. What could we do to make a crowdsourced top five list? At least as an addendum to what I do as recommendations, right? It doesn't have to be one or the other.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I do not think you should replace. Correct. Because wisdom of the crowd and individual's taste are two incredibly different things. Yes. And I think that both are very valuable with a website as influential and large as the pen addict is in this community, right? Like, I think that there is a benefit to you being able to point your large audience at this and say, tell me what it is. Because you're going to get probably a better response than anybody else if you want to put something like this together. But at the same time, I don't go to the pen addict for everyone's opinion. Right. I go for yours. Right. Right. And so, I think that there is a value. There is a definite value in having both, but it should be both.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Agree with that. The one gotcha is, in the overall, not with this thing, but with the top five as a whole, is my opinion hasn't changed, but people want to know that. Right. People want me to say my opinion hasn't changed, which is hard for me to relate in a big release update of the top five pen list. You know, oh, you know, number four micro gel ink pen swap with number five. I mean, okay. Yeah. That's not exciting. That's not happening, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because, like, what would be the point? Like, why would that even occur, right? Like, it's such a strange thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, doing the crowdsourcing, maybe I don't do it for the entire top five list that I keep, but maybe I do it for, to get an idea of some of the, like, the most popular categories. So, I just built some quick Google forms and shared them with Panatic members just to get, not as any, like, actual, you know, results that I'm looking for, but just to get an idea of, hey, do you think this would work? So, we'll put some of the results. I linked to some of the results in the show doc. We'll put them in the notes for people to see because I haven't shared them with the Panatic members yet or anything just to get an idea. And I think, like, it's going to be cool. It's going to be a cool addendum. But I think that's where it needs to stop. Like, it's going to be a nice-to-have addendum because there's so many questions just about how you present a poll and what biases do you have in the choice selections. You know, for my personal biases, you know, putting the list together of things for other people to vote on. There's inherent biases built into there. So, you kind of ramble all these things through my head as, like, well, in the end, is it going to be a really valid result that I get to where this is a useful thing to present on the Top 5 Pins page? So, I think it is. I think I can get there. But I don't think it's going to be an across-the-board-every-category type of thing. But I think it could be useful just to kind of see. But, you know, it's just going to be so biased anyway because the people who are answering it are already pen fans.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And your fans. I mean, that's another thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, I don't know. Like, I definitely want to do it. And I'm going to do something like this. But it's just something I wanted to throw out there for a greater conversation if anyone has, you know, ideas or suggestions for that. And I've got a lot of feedback from members, you know, on how I can improve how I presented these polls specifically. Let me pull up one, for example. So, the fountain pens under 50 list. So, I didn't even get all of this. I just took screenshots for this. So, I had, like, the choices were TWSBI Eco, Pilot Metropolitan, Pilot Kakuno, Lamy Safari, Kaweco Sport, Platinum Preppy, TWSBI Go, Pilot Varsity. And I think there were a couple of more. So, like, our audience, the Pen Addict members audience, I got 179 responses. TWSBI Eco took 44% of that. Right? Which I don't disagree with. But I, my question is, is that useful information? Right? That's where I'm at now. So, I'm trying to sort this out and how I want to do this. I think it will be fun to do. But I think I'm going to limit it in scope more than I had originally planned. Instead of doing some wide-ranging stuff, I think I will limit it to maybe, like, the five top categories that I, that most people go for on this. So, and then maybe can do something, you know, a little more interactive for people to see the results, things like that. So, I don't know. It's something I'm working on. Because the whole point of this is I need to update the page. And I want to do it soon. So, I'm going to work on these polls and shoot for, like, the first week of January launch of the top five list. I think that's a good timing that gives me time to work on this and update the site and do the things I want to do and get some feedback along the way to make sure I'm doing something that other people might find useful. I don't just want to spin my wheels and waste my time doing this if it's just going to be, like, a throwaway poll kind of thing.



== The Upgradies Awards ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' So, that's what I'm working on. Every year on my show Upgrade, we do an award show called The Upgradies. And we ran into a similar problem. We have set categories every year. And there were some categories where we stopped coming up with new nominations. Like, our tastes hadn't changed. So, we open it up to the audience, to the Upgradians, and allow them to vote. And the way that we pick our winner every year is we use my pick, Jason's pick, the audience pick. And then between me and Jason as the adjudicators, we judge which the winner is. And sometimes it's neither mine or his. It's the audience. Right. So, we use that data as a way to help inform us in making a selection. Because sometimes people will recommend something that we wouldn't have thought about. Right. So, you shouldn't do this exact thing because you're not about having one winner. But I think that it can be useful to incorporate that information.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. Kind of, you know, as just an additional point.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep. No, that's good. So, yeah, I'm still sorting out. I know this first pass was just that. And, like, I'm fine with it. But it's not a release version at all. This was definitely an alpha pass at this type. How I want to set it up and the answers that I want to get that I think people will find useful. So, if you have any ideas, definitely hit me up. Love to hear them. The Panatic members have been super helpful. Got a ton of feedback on this. So, I will work on integrating that. The only thing is I'm going to, like, kind of push this kind of quickly. Once I do it, it's going to be, like, go time. So, I can release it the first week of January. That's my goal.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Sounds good. So, with this next topic is something I have expanded on a lot over the weeks that this release has been out. But you and I, Michael, have not been able to discuss the Star Wars Platinum 3776 release. That came out, you know, a few weeks ago. I have strong opinions about this. And I'm wondering what you think about it.



== Platinum Star Wars Pens ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. So, first off, the only webpage I have found is a Japanese language Platinum webpage. Is there any other information that is of use? No. Pricing?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The pricing's at the bottom. They're $330 USD. I'll have to check. They're around $300 each because I think, what are they, 33,000 yen? Something like that. So, I'll look. But you can translate this page. It does do some translations in Google Translate. But not a lot because a lot of it's, you know, just flat files that are presented on there. So, but yeah, at the bottom. Yeah, there it is. 33,000 yen. So, they're $300-ish US dollars.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah, I've gone through this whole thing publicly. We did it on stream one day. It was a blast to do. And in my opinion, there is a whole heck of a lot to say about this page. But I've said a lot of it. So, I'm going to let you talk.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm really pleased they're doing this because we've asked Platinum to do stuff. Right? So, they're doing something. I'm happy that they're doing something. Right? Like, the 3776 is a great pen. It could be pro gear level if they just, you know, like in the sense of like in the conversation as much. If they just did stuff with it. Right? Because it is an absolutely fantastic pen with an even better nib. We spoke about it a bunch of times on the show. So, I'm happy to see them doing something that's interesting to push this pen out to more people. There are six of these. And three of them are like, ah, you were so close though. And the other three are pretty cool.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' There are some genuinely bad design decisions in this set.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes. Just like very bad. So, I assume that we are agreeing that the may the force be with you printed on the cap or don't underestimate the force printed on another cap ruins what is otherwise fantastic pens. They are really terrible.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Those two in particular.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Why did they do that? So, it's like a Darth Vader one and a Luke Skywalker one. Luke Skywalker one is white and it has a blue line on it to represent the blue lightsaber. The Darth Vader one is black and it has a red line on it to represent the red lightsaber. They look amazing. But then they have this printed on the cap. And it's like, why? And then like the other one is the opening scroll, which just looks ugly on a pen. But I can accept that one because it's fun. Right? And like that's the thing that exists in the Star Wars universe. The text of don't underestimate the force, just like that's not printed anywhere. Then there were three other pens. The Darth Vader pen, a Darth Maul pen, and a Kylo Ren pen. Which, they basically have visual, you know, tie-ins to the characters, right? So, like, either Darth Vader's face and also kind of like evoking the grill of his mouth or Darth Maul's kind of face paint. And Kylo Ren's like mask, like the way that the kind of face grew and his mask goes. Those are three really awesome pens. I really like the Kylo Ren one because it's super subtle. It is very subtle.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That one I go back and forth on.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I like it. And they all have Star Wars written on the cat band. But like I'm so mad at them over the Luke Skywalker one. It is like a frost, like ice, snow white pen with an awesome blue lightsaber like line on it. And they completely ruined it by putting the text on that cat.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like so close, but so far. On both that one and the Darth Vader one, they did not take the lightsaber imagery anywhere near far enough, right? It could be the lightsaber pen for those two. They could have done that. They could have done the handle or the hilt. This is a racing stripe.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I will just say that if they just had the caps blank, I would still love these pens because it's like I like the subtlety of it. And also the nibs are amazing, by the way.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I almost want to get one just for the nibs. So let's not leave that out. They are the single best part of this entire series.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Every pen has a customized nib for the pen itself. And like, oh, it's... They're glorious. The nibs are glorious. They're freaking amazing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But yeah. Oh, I really love them. There's just a huge letdown on the opening scroll and the Vader and Skywalker.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But like the opening scroll one, I can accept it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I accept it. That one makes me giggle, honestly. It's like this is dumb, but in a hilarious way.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But it's funny and like I would own that pen, right? Like I don't think I would buy it, but I would be happy to own it. You know what I mean? Right? But like I'm almost tempted to try and see if I could get the Luke Skywalker one and like remove the... Well, that's how bad it looks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It looks like a lottery scratcher print on it is what it looks like. It's not going to wear well. It's such a huge letdown on that pen. And the Vader imagery looks like the Affliction t-shirts from like 10 or 15 years ago. I'm not totally down on that one. I love them all. And the Kylo Ren one's growing on me for its subtlety. But the nibs are amazing.



== Kylo Ren Pen Desire ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' If it was like available, easily available, I would totally get the Kylo Ren one. Like without a shadow of a doubt, I'll buy that pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, it is a letdown. We didn't get any Rey or Princess Leia or any droids. The droids make for wonderful pens.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The droids would have been brilliant. Maybe though, like, I don't know if they're only allowed certain things because of cross. I don't know. But I will say, even though these pens are bad, they're better than the cross pens. I don't know about that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, maybe not. Maybe not now that they've come out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The pen is better than the cross pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Sure. Okay. Right? Okay. Yes. From a technical pen usage aspect, I'll grant you that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But some of those cross pens are really good looking.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So anyway, I wanted to, like, we've, I've kind of gone over this a bunch, but I don't get tired of talking about this, especially when you and I have not spoken directly about this. Because this is just such a huge crossover for everything that we do and we're about. And I...

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm so mad about it, though. Like when I saw the link, I was like, hell yes. Right? Right? It's like a thing that I love and a pen that I adore and want excuses to have more of. And, you know... I was let down. I was let down pretty heavy. You just blown it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Just blown it. It makes me not want to buy if I really enjoyed one of them. It's almost like I don't want to support it because they screwed up so many of them. It's like, well, I have the one good one that I like, but that means I'm supporting, like, the idea that they had. And it's just... Yeah. Yeah. It's disappointing. Overall disappointing. Give me those nibs, though. Yeah. They're great. They're great.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It looks like they're coming out in December based on the website. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, that would make sense. You would think it'd be out by now, but whatever. Yeah. I'll be interested to take a peek at them, and I have... I will not end up with any of these. I'm almost certain.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Should we take a break?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Let's, because I was drinking right there, so we should.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It was perfect time then, isn't it? Today's episode is brought to you by Squarespace. They let you easily create a website for your next idea so you can make your next move with Squarespace. No matter what it is, no matter what project you have bubbling in your brain, Squarespace has the tools to help you get it online. Whether you want to share your opinions of the world and you have a blog, or maybe you have a business and you want to give people the information that they need, like maybe you're a restaurant and you want to have your menu and all that kind of stuff easily available, or maybe you have physical products you want to sell, or maybe you want to sell some pens that you own. You can create an online store with Squarespace. They're an all-in-one platform that will let you do any or all of that. There is nothing to install. There's nothing to patch. There's nothing to upgrade. They take care of all of that stuff so you don't have to. They take care of so much for you. They have 24-7 customer support in case you need help. But all their website templates are so easy to get started with and customize. They come with templates for the pages that you would need, depending on the type of website you want to build, so you can make sure you have all your structure in place. It really is fantastic. But you can find out for yourself. Go to squarespace.com slash penaddict right now, and you can sign up for a free trial. And when you sign up for that trial, you can try it out yourself. You can go and actually build the website. And then when you're ready to launch it to the world, you sign up for one of their plans. They start at just $12 a month, but you can get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain when you use the offer code penaddict to check out. That is squarespace.com slash penaddict, and the code penaddict for 10% off your first purchase. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show, and RelayFM, Squarespace. Make your next move. Make your next website. So we've been talking about the Sailor Inc. Studio inks, right? Because you picked some up at Drone Gores. Yeah. And you published a review of the Sailor Inc. Studio 941. I have a question for you. Okay. Why did you pick? Because you got a bunch of them. Like, why did you write a review just about the 941? Because it's the only one that I've kind of latched onto for. That is a perfectly valid reason, right? You got five colors?



== Blue Black Ink Review ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Four. Four. I tried to buy five. One of them was out of stock. The pink one was out of stock. Because I think I don't love these inks for at least the ones that I pick, right? So this is a whole conversation just about ink that I don't even know that I want to have in detail. But just this ink collection is 100 inks. And I went in. Oh, my gosh. There's some really unique and fun and interesting inks that came out of this series. And I picked some that kind of fall in line with the things that I like. So I bought a blue, black, an orange, a bright green. I tried to buy a pink. That's the one they didn't have. And a purple. Like, those are all my favorite ink colors. And, you know, I swabbed them up and took a look at them. And I was like, yeah, they're fine. But the 941 is the blue, black one. That one really stuck because it matches the 1911 4AM, which, you know, I really like that pen, Myke. I wasn't sure I was going to like it. And I've gone back and forth on a lot of these sailors over the years where we see in pictures and think they're great. And I see them in person and they're not so much. And this one I saw in pictures. Wasn't sure it was great. See it in person. Loved it. This one is like the Royal Tangerine, right? It looks okay in pictures, but maybe not for me. Then I see it in person. I was like, yeah, this is the one where on the opposite side of the ledger, like the lime green one they did, I thought it was going to be fantastic. But it just didn't land in person. So this ink matches up perfectly to the 941. I love it. One thing I didn't mention in my review in retrospect, I forgot. Is in these Sailor Ink Studio bottles, they give you this little sticker sheet. So I can put a little 941 label on my ink converter. So I know what's in there. So I did that, which I think is kind of dumb and cool at the same time. So I need to take a picture of that. So I have a little 941 sticker stuck on my Sailor Ink converter inside the 1911 4AM pen. But the reason I did that review first is because it's the ink I've been using the most. I'm definitely going to review the other colors I bought because I want to see if I'm missing something, right? I want to see if there's a reason that, you know, I chose these inks and why they're so popular. Even though these are not the most outlandish inks of that lineup. Like the Sailor 123, which Susan has reviewed on the blog in the past and I did, I bought one to give away, is the highlight ink for those 100 inks. Because it's such a different color, it has different sheens and shading. I just don't want to write with it. Like I think it looks cool and looks amazing. So maybe I just need to branch out more in this lineup. So instead of kind of getting the basics, which is what I did this time, you know, I failed on my year of experimentation theme in buying things I assumed I would like. And I'm not let down by that, but they're not special and I want them to be special. Does that make sense?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I understand. This does look like a great blue black though.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is a really good color. I'm very, very much enjoying this color. I wonder if I'm going to be able to say that about the other three inks I still have to test.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But this is a great color. Very happy with 941. Very happy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Explain something to me in the image that you've got here. The converter says 941 on it. Right? Yeah. Did I put that one in there? Yeah. What is going on there?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So that's the sticker. They put the stickers in there. I couldn't remember if I put that in there or not. Where is it? It's right at the very bottom. Oh. Yeah. So it comes with a sticker. In the box when you buy the ink, the little bitty box, there's this little sticker sheet. And I didn't know what it was at first. I was like, oh.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Now that is freaking awesome. Every single ink manufacturer should do that. So it gives you three of them too. It's so good. That's such a good idea. So there's three little 941 peel-offs. Because I have like a million orange inks, right? But they are all slightly different. And I can never remember which pen has which orange in it. And so I would love to have a little label that I could just put on them without me needing to make it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's really good. That's genius. I was very impressed with that. First, I thought, I was like, what is this? Why do I have all these 941 stickers on the sheet in Japanese that I can't read? And then I kind of looked at the imagery of it. And it's like, oh, you put this on your converter so you know what inks that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And it looks cool in the 4AM because you can see right through it. And you see 941.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I didn't even notice that. I didn't think I had taken a picture of that. And now that you've pointed that out, I can totally see it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It looks good. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They're cool. They're cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I like them. You said, like I saw this on Instagram too, it's a good pairing. And I agree. These two, that ink and that pen look fantastic together. Yeah. It's right on the money.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It's almost like it was made for it. And that was an accident. Yeah. I bought them independent of each other. Right? I didn't buy one for the other. I didn't buy the ink for the pen. But I knew once I bought the ink, I was like, oh, this will go perfectly with the 4AM.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah. It's perfect. Like, this is like one of those ones where you pick that pen up and you just, it's almost like a, it sounds weird. But there's some pens where like they're such a good match. It almost feels like you're using a crayon. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's like the outside is on the page. It's a very peculiar feeling. Exactly. But a good one when you can get a match like that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And it doesn't happen all the time. Like, I tried to do match things or do, you know, things that kind of go well together. Like, that's my thing. I don't, you know, I do like lean into that a little bit. But this one came out better than I thought.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.



== Expensive Makie Pen ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. We need to talk about this. I'm not, I'm not talking because I wanted to see how you transition into this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So for the last couple of weeks, Brad has been teasing wherever he can that he has got a very expensive pen, which he has refused to divulge any information about this pen to anyone, including me, even in private messages, would not tell me what this pen was. And it was a pen that I am assuming, because I, I still don't know what this pen is, that you somehow got your hands on at Dronegore's, right? Correct. Correct. Okay. And you set yourself a task, which was cool, but also gave an indication of how much money you spent, that you refused to open this pen until you had sold 10 existing pens. So I made a little dig at you during the Squarespace ad today, that you set up a for sale page and sold a bunch of pens off, which is a new thing for you, right? You haven't done that before, really?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'd done it once before on a little bit smaller scale. It was definitely like a single digit, like five, six, seven, eight pens, something like that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I find this such a daunting task. Like the idea of cleaning out a pen and like the way I treat pens, like I just treat them like I'm using them. I'm not treating them with the idea that they would ever go to somebody else. So I would just feel like I could never sell pens because I don't feel like I've treated them with maybe the care that I would want to give to someone else. So like I, I find it a very daunting task to sell. It is.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It is. And that's what took me so long. So that's why I needed some type of impetus, some trigger to make me actually do the thing that I said I've been wanting to do, right? Just kind of move out some really great pens that I've enjoyed, but do not currently reach for to use. So there's no point in them sitting there, but actually going through the process of choosing the pens, taking the pictures, finding their boxes, make sure the converter, make sure they're clean. You know, all the things, you know, uploading them to the website and just doing all the things that you need to do before you actually sell the pen. It's just like, eh, I'll do that later. You know, it was never like a priority A under any circumstance until the fateful trip where I made the purchase of a very expensive pen. And I was like, okay, if I'm going to do this, we need to clean house a little bit. You know, it doesn't have to be grand sweeping changes, but we need to move some pens out and, you know, make some money to afford this pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I was not going to open. So the pen I bought, I had to have shipped to me because they didn't have the right nib size. So that was good. Like I had like a week delay of, you know, not having this box in my house teasing me, but then the box arrived and I was like, okay, I need to get these pens up on the site because I'm not opening this box. I'm sticking to my word. I'm not opening this box, looking at this pen, inking this pen, using this pen until I sell 10 pens. And so I finally put those up this past weekend, Sunday. And, you know, I was able, I put up 19 pens. Like I just went through and I just picked like the first pass. I was like, I came up with 19 pens. And as of the show, I'd sold 15 of them, which is fantastic. So Tuesday, which is yesterday, I unboxed the pen and I'm pretty happy with it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. So I have the name. I haven't looked at it yet, but the name I think tells me a lot about what I'm expecting here. Namiki Yukari Milky Way Raden. Okay, Raden. Okay. There's a few keywords in that one. All right. Let me open this link. It'll be in our show notes. Oh, so it is a pilot pen. So I assume you got it from the direct from the dealer who was there with all the fancy stuff. I'm faced with a loading spinner right now. So we're really building the anticipation and the, oh boy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Ooh.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. This is a very expensive pen. I mean, I haven't seen the price, but I can tell just because the website is fancy. I can move the pen around. The website is fancy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And it's got a little enlarge button. Oh, I should put this in the chat so they can see it. I'm sure they've seen it already. Okay. But it's fun to play with it on the site because you can spin it around and do all kinds of fancy stuff with it and get some close-ups.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is, I'm assuming, an Arushi pen?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So it's a Makie pen. Okay. So the Yukari lineup is essentially a Namiki. Namiki is Pilots' high-end lineup where they do all the luxury, expensive, fancy artwork type of stuff. So this Yukari lineup is a group of pens. What are there? There's probably 10, 12, something like that, of these pens where their artists create a design. These are all hand, you know, handmade artwork on all of these pens. The particular one I have is the Milky Way Rodden. So you can imagine there's some planets and stars that you see in Rodden. There's some gold, like, galaxy swirl around through the pen that kind of spins around the barrel. And, you know, it's all hand-done, artisan craftsmanship. Very, like, awesome looking. Like, the level of detail is spectacular. Like, even these images and any images I take, you just can't tell until you see it in person. And that's what got me. I'd seen this pen like a year and a half before at Drum Ghouls. I've seen it at pen shows. I've picked it up several times in the past, just like as the dream scenario, right? I looked at, there was actually a different model that caught my eye first before I knew the Milky Way existed. There's one called Shooting Star, which is a similar planetary star motif, but without the galaxy swirl around it. When I got to see them side by side at Drum Ghouls, this one, like, made me feel things that I don't normally feel about a pen. Like, I just fell in love with it. And I had to figure out a way to own it. So these are not huge pens. Like, you can't tell scale in these pictures. This is a writer's pen, right? It's a brass barrel. It's got a number 10 size nib, which is one of Pilot's smaller nibs. It feels perfectly in my hand. The weight, the look, the style, the feel, the nib, everything just fits my hand perfectly. And then you have this glorious artwork to look at. And I just fell in love with it. And full disclosure, I did get a discount on the pen. I did not pay street price.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's like $2,500, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah. So I didn't pay full freight for it. So thank you to Drum Ghouls for that. I did get taken care of a little bit there. But it was still more than I've ever spent on a pen by a long shot. And I don't know. It's kind of, I'm so in love with this pen. And maybe it's just still, you know, the newlywed thing going on. It makes me want to sell more pens because I know I'm going to use other pens less now that I have this pen. Does that make sense? Yes. Like, this pen is so important to me. And I have never felt emotional feelings about a pen until this one. Like, I love my Nakayas. They are some of the best writing pens I ever have. There will always be, like, some of my favorite pens. This pen feels different to me on a personal level. I don't know that I can totally explain that in words. But it feels different. And it makes me want to use less pens so I can use this pen more. So, that's probably going to be a focus of mine going forward. Is, like, I think I'm going to sell another 10 or 20 pens. Probably pretty soon. Just because I'm not going to use them. And I always preach that if you're going to buy things, you have to use them. And there's no point in having something sitting around that's a perfectly good product. And someone else can get some joy out of if I'm not going to use it. So, I'll be selling some more pens because all I want to do is use this pen. And that's kind of where I'm at with it. I'm very much in love with it. But I've just, I've really, and I've only had it inked up since last night.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is a real stunner.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. You will like it, like, in person. I know you like it in the images. But, like, when you see it in person.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I'm going to fall in love with it, I'm sure.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because this is a brass barrel pen. Oh. So, it has some weight to it. All of these pens are made from, or have brass interiors. They're not lightweight. They're not heavy, right? But there's a density to these pens that is different than, like, you know, you'll feel in other pens. You know, like our Sailors, you know, which are all plastic barrels. So, this has a, or the Nakaya, which is an ebonite barrel. So, the Nakaya's are feather light. This is not feather light. It's not heavy. It has substance because it is a metal interior with the Maquillage artwork on the exterior. It's glorious. It's just such a good writing pen. And all I want to do is write, and it makes me feel great about it. Love it. What nib did you say you had in it? It's a fine nib. So, it's a stock fine nib. That's the finest they offer. Fine, medium, and broad in this lineup. And I wanted the fine. They didn't have one in stock, so they had to mail it to me. And so, the question I got about it was, was I going to modify the nib? And I don't know. Like, I don't think so because Pilot's fine gold nibs stock version are great for me. They're one of my favorite. So, I have no intention right now. Maybe that's something I do in the future. I don't know. I'm not worried about that right now because I like it as it is. I didn't buy it with any intention of modification. That's why I went with the fine instead of a medium.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. What ink are you using? Oh, yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Pilot Orochizuku Tsukiyo, which is kind of a deep blue, a little bit of a greenish undertone, a little bit. It's called Moon. I think it's Moonlit Night, I think, is the translation for that. So, it's kind of a perfect fit for this pen. And I will definitely be using – I might change up the ink color a little bit, but I think I'm going to get, like, the one ink that I like in this pen. And it's just going to stick with it. And I think it's going to be Tsukiyo. I think I made the right choice right out the gate.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I'm pleased you're happy with it. It's a real stunner.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It is. It's – I'm – yeah. I can't put it down. Like, I'm thrilled with this pen. Yep. Thrilled with this purchase, so.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Should we take a break?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We should.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Today's episode is brought to you by Harry's. We have been shaving for thousands of years. And the secret to a great shave is it hasn't changed much. The ancient Greeks didn't use flexible handles or heated handles, and neither do you. That's why Harry's doesn't add gimmicky features to their razors. They focus on qualities that actually matter for a close, comfortable shave, and they never upcharge you. Harry's is a return to the essential quality. They're only durable blades at a fair price, which is $2 per blade. To keep prices low, they cut out the middleman. They manufacture blades in their German factory. It's been honing precision blades for a century, which means you get incredibly high-quality products at factory direct prices. Harry's is super convenient. Their blade refills are delivered directly to your door on your schedule with or without a subscription. And there's no risk to you for trying them out. If you don't love your shave, let them know, and they'll give you a full refund. Can you tell me something, Mr. Dowdy, about your Harry's experiences?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I can always tell you something, but I'm not sure I should tell you this thing, which makes me want to tell you this even more. Oh, here we go. I'm going to put razor blades in my daughter's stocking for Christmas this year. Does that sound bad?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, again, this is something like, it doesn't bother me to know. It might bother her for you to be talking about these things.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I buy so many Harry's razor blades because they're so good. But I have to keep my stock under close wraps for the rest of my household. I've said this a million times because we're just all bought in on the quality of Harry's blades and their handles. And it's just such an enjoyable thing to use for what's not necessarily an enjoyable practice that we are all stuck with now for the most part. And Harry's makes it delightful. So, yeah, I'm going to be sticking razor blades in a stocking?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Question mark? Be careful with that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' As a listener of this show, you can redeem your Harry's trial set at harrys.com slash penaddict. It includes a weighted ergonomic handle for a firm grip, five-blade razor with lubricated strip and trimmer blade for a close shave, rich leathering shave gel with aloe to keep your skin hydrated, and a travel blade cover to keep your razor dry and easy to use on the go. Go to harrys.com slash penaddict to start shaving better today. Our thanks to Harry's for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I got a very interesting link, Myke, from the penaddict Slack. So credit goes to the penaddict Slack for this next topic, and I didn't write down the name of who I saw. And they said, oh boy, Brad and Myke need to talk about this. Have you clicked this link yet, Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I have to do this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It is a rotten covered Lamy Safari.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think we're going to have a throwdown between our good buddy, Mr. Jonathan Brooks, and the maker of this amazing Lamy Safari. This is everything I want, right? This is borderline. It's not even borderline. It's straight up ridiculous. Yes. There's no bones about the ridiculousness of this, and it should happen. Like, this should exist. This should be, I fully believe this should be a thing, as ridiculous as that makes me sound. But I love it. Like, I love this pen. I love it so much. It is asinine what I'm looking at, right? This should not exist. It's completely ridiculous. But it's glorious. I'm glad this exists in our little pen world. I think it's fantastic. So nice job. I don't know if this is the Mark JP, who I follow on Instagram. Like, I already follow this account, but I did not see this come across my screen. If you scroll down, there's a Pilot Kakuno cap in their feed that looks like it's got a rushi lacquer on it. Yeah, I've seen that. So, I'm loving everything that is happening with this account, so you should go follow this account. And this is what I want to see. So, Jonathan, time to step your game up, son.

'''Myke Hurley:''' We don't know what he's doing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We don't. That's true.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's true.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Maybe this is his stealth account.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Speaking of which, did you see a couple of weeks ago, he posted some imagery. Here we go. I'll put it in the chat. I'll make sure it's in the show notes, too. This is some progress on my king of pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, no. Oh, no. I didn't see this. Mm-hmm. Ooh, baby.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I don't. As I said, like I said this before, the amount of instruction I gave him was very, very, very little.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you. Like, was there anything that you said to do?

'''Myke Hurley:''' He just showed me some, like, some things that he'd been working on. And I was like, I like this. I like this. I'd maybe like this color and this color. And then I was just like, you're the master. You just go for it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right, right. Yeah, I totally missed this. And I wouldn't put it together that this was yours. So, yeah, that looks great. So, something's happening.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Something's happening. That's as much as I've seen is those images.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Cool. That's all you should. But it's good that way.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's all I want to know. I want to just kind of like, I don't want to see a lot of, I would see as much as he wants to show me, but I'm not going to, like, bug him for it. Like, just let him do his thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep, yep, yep. So, we have some Ask TPA we might get to today. We'll probably get to some. But I wanted to run a topic by you real quick for your opinion, even though, like, you probably haven't read this review. Or, like, you don't read a lot of the reviews on the blog unless I, like, point them out and say, hey, check this out. I do. Oh, I know. I haven't read this one. I just don't want to put you on the spot.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I haven't read this one. This one did pass me by. I subscribe to the Pen Addict and my RSS reader, which is why I get to read the majority of the stuff.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so I had, it's about two weeks ago, I reviewed the Wildman Pressure fountain pen. I love saying that name. And this is a wonderful pen. But I had an extremely difficult time reviewing. And it's kind of funny that it's coming in on the heels of me just raving about this pen that I spent so much more on in the Milky Way and, you know, just falling over. It was a difficult review for me to do to try to, like, be objective about this product. Because, and I went through this little spiel in the review about objectivity and subjectivity. So, like, I want to be objective, but I also want to have an opinion on the product. There is absolutely nothing negative to say about this pen, you know, from a review perspective. But from a subjective perspective, I do not want to own this pen. Like, I will never own this pen. So, how do you base a review around that battle between objectivity and subjectivity, right? Like, I'm known for having an opinion. I'm going to have an opinion on a pen, right? So, in the end of the day, I will tell you what's good and what's bad about this pen. And there is nothing bad about this pen, right? Other than the fact that I never want to own one. So, is that fair to put in a review? Like, I really had a hard time reviewing this, even though that sounds completely dumb. That sounds like a, Brad, you're just being ridiculous. Just say what you want about the pen. But people want to know the pros and cons of a product. And at the same time, they want to know what Brad feels about the product. And this one is one of those pens that I can safely say is at the opposite end of the ledger for those things. And I just, I don't know, I wanted to throw that out there. Something for you to check out even later. And, you know, I'd be happy if there was anyone else had feedback. But I'm always going to have some type of opinion on this on my reviews. Like, whether you should buy it or not. Like, I'm not going to tell anyone to buy a pen or to not buy a pen. Because there's different reasons that everyone has. But from a reviewer's perspective, when there is something just... Like, I liken this pen to, like, your basic standard Cross Parkers and Waterman pens. They're really great pens. They're perfectly fine pens. I have no interest in owning one of those pens. So, anyway, I wanted to throw that out there for feedback. Maybe check it out. If anyone else has any comments on that, I'd be happy to hear them. Because I don't know why this one was so hard for me to, like, write words about. Because it shouldn't be. Because it's a really good pen. And I have no negatives to say about this product. So, it was just a weird thing to have happen to me. I mean, like, when I look at it. For 12 years of reviews, like, this was challenging.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I look at it and it's like, this pen... It has a look of a pen that's trying to do more than it is. And I know what those pens are typically like. And I tend not to like them. You know what I mean? Right. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. But I also want to review this pen. Because at the same aspect, they're nice. Like, there's one in particular, like, I think it's called the Tuscany. With a steel nib, it runs about $200. And it's this great chocolate brown and copper-looking rose gold pen. And it's just fabulous. And people want to know my opinion. And my opinion is, Waldman makes a heck of a good pen. It's just not for me. So, how do you put that in words? Do you try to be completely objective? Or do you let, you know, do I let my personal thoughts come out about it? And I kind of went both ways in this review. And maybe that was the right way to go about it. But, you know, it's hard to... Like, I'm not going to... There's nothing bad to say about this pen. But it's not exciting either. So, I don't know. It was a tough... I'm pretty sure I'm way overthinking this. But, like, I had a really hard time doing that review. But I really wanted to do that review at the same time. So, I don't know. It was this weird balance thing. Sometimes it's usually not that difficult for me to do a review. That one took me longer to post. Just because I had to think about it more. How I wanted to present it. So, anyway, that was just a... That was a Brad moment I had recently that I thought you would enjoy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think it's still good that you did the review, though. In that way.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Oh, I was totally doing the review. Like, I'll... If there's bad pens... Like, we've talked about this years and years ago. And I don't want to just belabor the point. But we've talked about bias in reviews. There is bias in my reviews that I'm not going to spend the time to review a terrible product. So, that's a bias. Right? It's not worth just going online and just crushing a product and wasting my time saying, I hate this product and it's terrible and you should never buy it. Like, that's a bias. Like, I will cut... I will not review everything that comes across my desk. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Which I think is the right thing to do. All right. Let's do a couple of RSTPA before we leave today. First one comes from Peter. Peter says, Hey, guys. You're like me, right? You have a drawer of inks by your side all through your work days. Just having all these potions right there at any time. Keeping things infinitely interesting. Here's my question. Do you ever find a little foil disc from inside the ink bottles dislodged? What are you supposed to do with that? Toss it out? Glue it back in? Do what I do and kind of tap it back in place and get inky fingers? Love to hear your thoughts from Pete in Australia. This is a great question because I never know what to do. I don't know why sometimes that little piece of foil cardboard is not in the cap anymore. And like, what am I supposed to do with it? So, Brad, can you help?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' These are the questions I'm here for. I'm glad you said that, that you enjoyed this question so much because I thoroughly enjoyed the absurdity of this question. This is what we're here for. I jam them back in at all costs.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I assume they're there for a reason.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm. But I don't know what the reason is. Air tightness, I'm assuming air tightness. It gives you that one little place of give where the bottle top can compress against the lid top and just help air stay out of that, right? So, you don't want the airflow coming in there. So, it gives that little extra seal there. So, at all costs, I will keep them in. I know sometimes it's harder than others. And what I usually do is if they get stuck to the glass bottle top as opposed to inside the lid, I'll play the little game where you take the cap and like try to flick it up into there, right? You're like, you're peeling. Like, I don't peel it off with my fingers. Like, I'll get the cap, angle it, and try to like somehow like get that lid back up in there, then jam it in there with like the bottle cap and make sure it's back in place. So, I say keep it just for airflow reasons. You know, you want to keep your inks healthy. Keep all your potions remaining interesting by keeping them sealed up tightly. And that's what that does.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And our next question comes from Josh. I've got a sailor and a pilot question for the two of you. The sailor 4am really clicked for me and has me really wanting to pick it up. The problem is I've never owned a sailor pin before, so I don't know what nib would be good to get with it. I tend to like fine nibs. Pilot and Platinum are in fine, a perfect line width for me. But I've also been wanting to expand my collection with some wider nibs. The zoom nib option really caught my interest as being kind of weird and unique. But maybe that's too unique for a first purchase. What's a good nib size for someone that likes fine nibs but wants to be more adventurous with wider nibs? So, let's answer this part first. My kind of initial feeling on this is it depends what you want the pen for, right? Like if you write with fine nibs and you get a zoom nib, you will not use this pen to write within the same circumstances in which you write with your current pens. Very correct. It will be different. That's correctly said. And that's perfectly fine, but you need to know that going into it because that's far too much of a variation.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's correctly said. I really enjoy Sailor's medium nibs more than I thought I would, which I know that's not a specialty nib, but from someone who comes from a fine and extra fine writing preference standpoint, Sailor's medium nibs are a glorious writing experience, which I found out with the King of Pen, even though that's a very different nib. It's a large and a little bit more flexible nib. And that allows you to later get the nib modified if you wanted to. And that's probably the route I would go as opposed to buying one of Sailor's strange oddity nibs like the Zoom or even the Music, which is big and wet and bulky too. I would more think about trying a medium Sailor nib and seeing how you enjoy the natural experience with that and then knowing that, hey, I could get that modified into a sub or a cursive italic. That's more interesting to me, especially for a first purchase, as opposed to risking getting something like a Zoom and hating it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Completely agree. Josh asks, There's a

'''Brad Dowdy:''' tiny chance in the coming years they might do a rhodium trim, but I think that's just asking for a lot out of pilot.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You could just be just sitting and waiting forever. Right. There's no reason to assume that they would do it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Which is why I went overseas, because I didn't want to buy the Amber for aesthetic reasons. So I went overseas and got the Clear model. Whether they're going to bring the Clear model into the U.S. And actually, I don't know where Joshua is. He could buy it from somewhere else. The smoke looks really good. I think it's better than the Amber, but I prefer the Clear even with the Gold trim. That one worked for me, aesthetically speaking. So if you can hunt one of those down, at least see what they look like online. I wouldn't, like, if you like the pen, it could be years to never if they will ever do that. Right. My dream is that they would start doing more with the 823 lineup. Just at start, rhodium trim would be a start. And then they could do just so much more with that product lineup. They just don't seem to be interested in it, because this has been the same product lineup for, I don't know how long. I guess since it was introduced, maybe. I don't even know. Forever.

'''Myke Hurley:''' There's an interesting irony in a pen that's called the Custom to have so few options in colors.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's across the board, pretty much.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. All right. If you want to send in a question for a future episode, just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA, or you can email them to hello at penaddict.com. Penaddict.com is where you can go to find Brad's stuff, all of these great blog posts and links, and you want to go find the top five pens, or you want to go subscribe to Refill, so you can do that. Brad streams twice a week over at twitch.tv slash penaddict, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' 10 a.m. Eastern, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like a boss. Brad is penaddict on Instagram, dowdyism on Twitter. I am iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thanks to Harry's and Squarespace for their support of this episode, and we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]