Editing The Pen Addict 521/transcript

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name            = The Pen Addict
| number          = 521
| title           = Un, Deux, Trois, Quatre, BAG
| date            = July 13th, 2022
| hosts           = [[Brad Dowdy]]<br>
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests          = 
| link            = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/521 Episode 521]
| audiolink       = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_521.mp3 Audio Episode 521]
| length          = 55
}}

'''Myke:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 521. Today's show is brought to you by Trade and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad.

'''Brad:''' Hello Myke Hurley, how are you today?

'''Myke:''' I'm good my friend, how are you?



== Pen Review ==


'''Brad:''' Good, good. I'm excited about this show. A lot of, this is like the, I mean, I guess it's probably like every three weeks it's like this where it's like the OG Pen Addict. It's a cinematic podcast where we talk about the things we've talked about forever, but we have some fun stuff to talk about today. Are you excited? I'm excited.

'''Myke:''' You've got some big questions and lots of capital letters in the show document today, so I'm pretty excited for our first topic because you're unhinged in our document. Can I just, actually, do you know what, can I just read what you've written before we talk about what it is? Yeah, just read the whole thing, I guess. So these are Brad's bullet points. Well, well, well, what do we have here? Apparently this is real, releasing late summer. Name? Wait for it. Glossy red. Pwahaha. Thoughts. That is, that's what I was blessed with today.

'''Brad:''' That's our, that's our podcast in a nutshell. Y'all think we like, there's a lot of like detailed like scripting that goes on here, but really it's all bullet points. And this is just me being like silly. As I, the more I looked at it, the more silly it got. So what this is, is apparently a very interesting Lamy all-star release. This is an all-star. A-L-star? Whatever, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm a crazy name.

'''Myke:''' I couldn't tell from the imagery.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, it's aluminium. Okay. So it's, so we're going to have this link in the show notes. You're going to have to go to the link in the show notes of this image that has been shared on Reddit. It's been shared in the Panatic Slack. And it's an upcoming release, a pen and notebook set with the Lamy all-star and this notebook. And it's a red and yellow pen, which it's very, like, it's very loud. Like, looks aside, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll let that slide for a second. The compelling thing, Myke, do you know what it is? What's the most compelling piece of this puzzle here?

'''Myke:''' I feel like there's a trick. I'm missing a trick. Nope. What is it?

'''Brad:''' It's the yellow translucent. Right, I see.

'''Myke:''' Okay, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the, the pen body is like a very glossy red, which honestly surprises me that it's an AL star. Cause the imagery in this kind of marketing image, I guess this is, it looks plastic to me. But yeah, the, the grip section is fluorescent, uh, demonstrator-like. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Like chartreuse yellow. Yeah. Like a chartreuse yellow. Like very, very bright. Like, like this is a, this is a low res image and it's just searing, right? It's just completely searing. So this grip normally on this pen is a translucent plastic grayish black. Like it's darker, right? Like it's, it's see-through, but it's like a translucent gray. And that's just been pretty consistent. I think over the all-star lineup. Um, so this leads into with the modifications of the Lamy Vista that we talked about for Goulet pins recently, where they just, you know, it was basically add on parts. Let's be honest. You know, the black clip, black finial, just, you know, they added in some black parts to it. And then this color, non-standard all-star color grip, you know, I, it just, they keep getting my hopes up. Like I'm not allowing myself to get my hopes up that I'm going to get like a Lamy Vista, like all one color translucent, you know, like take this yellow, for example, make a highlighter, highlighter pen. But I really wouldn't want this yellow. I'd want, you know, blue, purple, orange, those, those colors. Um, it's interesting though, at least like they're thinking about it. They obviously have the capabilities to do it. You know, they're making these translucent parts in different colors than their standard gray color or clear color, which they use in the Vista barrel is clear. Um, you know, make, make me a smoke gray Vista. Like, you know, keep, keep going Lamy is all I, is all I'm saying here. It's like, keep going. Um, the name really apparently is glossy red, which like confused me. That's why I put it in there is like, that's what we're going to do. It's not much of a name. This whole, like the imagery of this is electric, right? Like it is bright and bold and brash. And we're just going to go with the glossy red here. At first I was kind of a letdown.

'''Myke:''' Is this something for China? But I was like, no, that doesn't make sense. But that's what I originally thought was like yellow on the notebook. Maybe, but it's, it's too bright. Right. I feel like it's too bright to resonate. Maybe just the red will do the job. But I feel like if it was just, uh, like actual yellow, not this kind of yellowy green, right? That like, um, fluorescent yellow kind of look. Uh, then I would say that this would feel like it was, it was kind of target in China, but I'm not sure. Yeah. What do you reckon the ink is? What do you reckon the ink's going to be if they do one?

'''Brad:''' Black or blue. They're not going to make a special ink for this. You don't think so? They do the inks. This is not the release that gets the matching ink. Oh, okay. That's the release earlier in the year, like in the springtime.

'''Myke:''' Well, I mean, they made a really ugly notebook. It's pretty bad.



== Negative Feedback ==


'''Brad:''' Like, let's, let's get this out of the way. I don't love this at all. Like style wise. No, this is rough. This is, this is again, like. I like the idea of it.

'''Myke:''' Just another, uh, minus for the AL star crowd. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, this is what you get.

'''Brad:''' Like, well, remove the pen from this imagery. Just put the pen on the desk. We're in good shape, right? Like, this is a very, very aggressive marketing. I don't like it, bro.

'''Myke:''' I don't, no, even the pen. I don't like it. It's too chaotic. Like, I don't understand why you've put these two things together. It just makes no sense to me. Why is it glossy red and fluorescent yellow? Like, why are you doing that? I don't get it.

'''Brad:''' I will, I will buy this pen. Like, I don't. You're a maniac. Well, no, I don't buy the all-stars usually. If I do, I buy them to give away. Like, I think I kind of want to try this one. Even though I don't enjoy it as much as the Safari. The Lamy's, you know, along with this release, they're releasing the Smurf Safari, re-releasing the Smurf Safari. It's a bright blue barrel with a red clip. I'm sure you've seen pictures of that in the past. So they're doing a re-release at the same time. I didn't grab the image of that one because I don't think it's as compelling to me. But it's a, I guess it's along the lines of the, what, the terracotta and savannah green reissues that Safari did before they're reissuing the, what I call, and most people call the Smurf one. It's, it's, it's, that's really, really what it looks like. But, um, and apparently these are coming, you know, late summer, early fall type of timeframe. So, moving and shaking Lamy. Like, this is more Lamy news than we normally get, right? Like, outside of Asia.

'''Myke:''' The blue with the red clip. I will buy that. Yeah, I've only had one of those. And every time I used to see it at pen shows, I was always jealous. Like, that is a good looking Lamy Safari.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, it's a classic. Like, it's one of the, like, the OG classics, like, up there in, like, in the top three, top five of, you know, limited edition runs that they've done. And it's.

'''Myke:''' I found an eBay listing for one for $600. What? Sorry to this person who's not now going to make.

'''Myke:''' I'm going to put it in the show notes just in case people want to see it.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a little issue with that. Like, I'm not going to totally, like, bang the drum. It's like, if they're putting the effort to reissue, just make me something new. Like, I'd rather just keep making a bunch of new colors. They have infinite colors. Look at this frigging thing they made. Okay.

'''Myke:''' They've done it, and look at it. You know what I'm saying? Okay.

'''Brad:''' I got one reissue and one, like, acid trip. This is an acid trip. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' They basically split the team in half. One, like, half went and, like, went on a vision quest, and the other just got dealt through the archives.

'''Brad:''' Oh, man. I'm happy. I'm happy this exists. You know? It's right up my alley. Like, it could not be more of a me pen. And believe me, I was getting tagged as soon as, like, these images showed up. It's like, oh, Brad. Oh, Brad. Oh, Brad. I'm like, yeah. Give it to me. Like, this is great. I love this. So, I am actually looking forward to purchasing this pen and getting an idea of what they're up to here.

'''Myke:''' All right. This episode is brought to you in part by our friends over at Trade. When you become a Trade Coffee customer, you can enjoy knowing that you're going to have the freshest, best-tasting coffee you've ever made at home. And it's going to be from some of the U.S.'s best independent craft roasters, which also helps out those small businesses a lot, too. Trade's coffee team actually taste-test thousands of coffees. And they do this so they can make sure that they have 450 different kinds of coffee live and ready to ship every single day. Everybody has that coffee. That one coffee that they're going to just love. And Trade is going to help you find it. You take one of their quizzes. It's so easy to do. You go in. You fill in some simple questions. Not complicated stuff. You don't need to have, like, oh, I want to find some cherry notes. You don't need that. It's like, do you like sweet? Do you like it more fruity? They ask you some basic questions. And they're going to use this to find that exact coffee that's right for you, which is so awesome. And Trade is so confident that they're going to match you right first time that if for any reason you don't like the coffee that you're sent, you just give them your feedback and one of their coffee experts will work with you personally to send out a brand new bag for free so you're going to be looked after. Trade Coffee sends you freshly roasted beans from 60 of the country's best craft roasters, small businesses who pay farmers fair prices to sustainably source the greatest beans from around the world. It takes just answering a couple of questions to get your own personalized variety of coffees delivered fresh to you as often as you like. I also, I've been through this. I've done the whole thing with Trade and got some great stuff sent to me. I also like that you can just go and buy stuff. So like once you've found some things that you might like, you can also just buy some extra bags. I've got some on the way to me now, which I'm very excited about for stuff that I really liked from Trade. So like it's really easy to also get the subscription and then also buy extras. You can buy them for gifts for people, that kind of stuff is really great. Right now, Trade is offering new subscribers a total of $30 off your first order plus free shipping when you go to drinktrade.com slash penaddict. That is more than 40 cups of coffee for free. Get started by taking their quiz today at drinktrade.com slash penaddict and let Trade find you a coffee you're going to love. One last time, that is drinktrade.com slash penaddict and you'll get $30 off. Our thanks to Trade for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad:''' I'm half tempted to buy like the five pound bags sometimes. Sorry, I'm continuing the trade ad here. Okay. They do the bulk stuff too. And it's like, yeah, you find a good one. It's like, give me the bulk. Give me the bulk. Give me all of it.

'''Myke:''' I know I'm going to like it. Just give me it.

'''Brad:''' All right. Give me all of it, Myke. Field notes. Field notes time. Great Lakes. Great Lakes edition dropped yesterday. This is a Tuesday release. I appreciate them updating their schedule to get it before the show. It's usually Wednesday or Thursday after the show and then we wait a week. But we got this a little bit prior to the show. So I'm pretty happy about that. So Myke, I'd like to let you go first on these America-centric field notes editions that you love so much. Go. So wait, am I giving you my opinion or am I guessing yours? Oh, yeah. What do you want to do? Yeah. Okay. Well, I just guessed yours. I'm like, yeah, you're like, it's fine. It's, you know, go USA. And, you know, I appreciate that. And like, it looks good. It feels good. I'm sure it's completely fine. I don't, you know, you know, where's, you know, my Loch Ness Monster one.

'''Myke:''' You hit it exactly for me. And I know that you're going to be super into it, you know, USA all day. That's probably Doughty. And you love the blue. You love the blue, right? And that there's five of them. I actually do really like personally that there is a sixth if you're a subscriber. Yes. I think that's a smart way of doing it. Whereas all of them.



== Field Notes Discussion ==


'''Brad:''' Yeah. So yeah, you're pretty much right. Like excluding the Great Lakes piece out of it for a second. I always try to look at like the technical aspects of it, right? Yeah. And the cover and the paper and the add-ons and the extras.

'''Myke:''' With the cover printing. I don't know how they're doing it. And it's incredible. So the cover.

'''Brad:''' It's a huge highlight.

'''Myke:''' Is, what do they call it? It is Cobalt Tech Weave Cover Stock. And it basically, it makes these little triangles on the cover.

'''Brad:''' Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Isometric. And it looks like they have found a way. I mean, I have no idea if this is actually the case and you get it, but it looks like it. That it inspired their design and they have filled in the triangles on the cover. I don't know if it's actually going to be like that when you get one. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' It's not like a match. Like it's an overlay and they complement each other. Yeah. I think it's really cool. It's not an exact match.

'''Myke:''' And I bet these will feel great in the hand with the texture on the cover. And I like, they've got like the little pullout map tells you a little bit about each lake. Yeah. But it's just one of those things where it's like, this means nothing to me. Right. At all. Like I get no, like, you know, it's not like national crop, right? I could feel something there. Sure. I can, you know, I like crops as much as the next guy. You know what I mean? But this is like, it's, I don't even, I didn't even know there were five Great Lakes. You know what I'm saying? Right, right, right. It just doesn't, it doesn't mean to me.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. We have to do the whole thing like in elementary school where we have to like color the Great Lakes and know all the names and all that stuff. So this is an addition that I imagine has been in their pocket for 10 years, right? Like it's, this is literally in their town. They're off of Lake Michigan. And it was obvious, like anytime people would guess, I guess the next edition, Great Lakes, right? It's, it was going to happen. There's more pressure on doing the easy thing sometimes. Yeah. Because you know you can't screw it up. Yeah. And they didn't. Like the color's beautiful. The print is beautiful. I like, like you pointed out, it's a five pack. Yeah. But the subscribers, they always, subscribers in general, it's a two, three pack thing. I don't even know if they've changed the terminology on that because they kind of mix and match. So they have created like a, the six notebook is the subscriber only notebook. Like, I don't know. It's just like an all around like top tier field notes edition. Like again, field notes doing what they do best and doing it really exceptionally well. So it's interesting. Every time I see them, Myke, every time I see like the field notes release, like I'm not using any right now. I always get a bug to like, okay, I should just throw one in my pocket as I'm walking around the house. Right. I work from home. So like, I'm not out and about. I don't need like a pocket notebook to go from the living room to the desk, you know, but I kind of miss like, like thinking about having those notes like available. I know I wouldn't use it. I would use like two pages and I'd be like, yeah, I'm just going to leave this on my desk and go to my desk when I use it. Do you ever have those types of thoughts for like, let me ask you this. Like if you're traveling from home to work, do you ever have the urge to take out a notebook or you're just, you know, maybe typing things on your phone or taking a break, you know, listening to music, podcasts, whatever. It goes on my phone. Yeah. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Notes, like handwritten notes. They are a stationary on the desk, like not moving on the desk, not stationary, stationary. Right. It's a stationary, stationary activity. Right. Right. Right. That, that, that, cause that's when I'm going to, when I'm going to do that kind of stuff. If I'm out and about like this idea capture in my notes app or my to-do app or whatever, you know?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I think we've talked about this, like for the entire existence of the podcast, like capturing things and like this always, like I always get kind of the, kind of the bug to just, you know, shove one in my pocket and then I'll go the entire day. And I was like, yeah, that was in my pocket the entire day and I didn't use it. So I don't know. I think about it a lot and never action on it. So who knows? I thought about something else recently that I did action on Myke. I went through my personal Black Wings volume subscription, you know, related to the field notes. Like I don't have a field note subscription or a Black Wings subscription, but I've had both of them since the beginning and I had all these Black Wings pencils just sitting there, Myke. So you know what I did? I went through, I, reviewed, you know, mentally reviewed, which sets were my favorite out of all of these Black Wing pencils. And I kept three volumes and you know what? I've decided to sell the rest. So it was a big audit of my pencil collection. And you know what? If I wasn't going to use them, they just need to be sold and go to someone else who might use them. So yeah. So what do you, what do you think about this whole madness that I'm actually using eBay for? Which is, that's a whole another topic we can, we can approach as we go through this.

'''Myke:''' I mean, eBay is fine if you know how to use it. And I think this is good. I've done this a bunch of times with Field Notes. We've put Field Notes notebooks on eBay a bunch of times to clear out some of my collection. I think I might do it again because I've been holding on to some, but I don't need to. Actually, I think, I think the ones I have now, like in my kind of, in the drawer where keep this stuff, they've all been opened. So we probably wouldn't do that because that's just like a whole other kettle of fish. But I think this is a great thing to do. I mean, looking at the page, I am really surprised about some of the prices that, that you've gotten to. Like there's one volume 211. It's up to $157 in bits. That's, that's really expensive. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' And it's only, yeah. And it's only eight pencils, right? Like it's not even like the whole dozen. So it's eight pencils. Yeah. That was one of the rare additions. Okay. I mean, there's a bunch like from the beginning. It's just like, you know, in the beginning of Field Notes, there's just less availability of these products, right? Because, you know, people weren't, you know, really ahead of the game necessarily. Not that I was trying to be ahead of the game or at all. Not that I buy these to sell them, which we'll talk about that in a minute. It's just like, yeah, I like Black Wings. I'm going to do the subscription. And it turns out like, okay, well, there's four pencils missing out of here. So I've used something from it, right?

'''Myke:''' I think that's actually really nice that you can, you can do this. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. But it was just, I was, every time I'd go into the closet of Doom, which is what I refer to is like my big stationary stash closet. Like I just see all these boxes sitting here and I was like, you know what? Like they're going to come out with a new one that I enjoy using, or I can pick one of my old favorites that I love. So I kept three volume editions. I kept the two baseball editions, which was 56 and 42. And I kept the exquisite corpse edition, which is 54, the pink one, which I think is good. And they, they just are all really, really cool. So like I have dozens of Black Wings still. So there was, I didn't need to keep all these and I chose to do it on eBay. To be quite honest, I didn't know how to price them. Right. So like, this is just a good place. I just threw them all up there. 99 cent bid go. And whatever they sell for, they sell for, I really don't care. Right. So it was just an interesting thing to get back on eBay. I haven't sold anything on eBay in, I don't know how long. It's been quite a long time. You were making fun of my account name. Yeah. Not just you, but a lot of people.

'''Brad:''' This account is from 1998. It's a very, very old eBay account, older than maybe some of the listeners of this podcast. And I just wasn't compelled to change the name at all. It's an old Bell and Sebastian song. I used to use, this is Listen Up Kids. This is back before streaming services and you had to buy music. So I would buy import music off of eBay was how I would get a lot of my music because I'm a huge, big music fan, as a lot of y'all know. So that's how you could get the cool stuff. We're talking CDs? Yeah. Cassettes. Singles, Myke. Limited ca-singles. Yep. And CDs.

'''Myke:''' Surely you weren't buying cassettes in 2009 or whatever.

'''Brad:''' I would buy, I had a bunch of singles that I did buy, but no, mostly I would buy CD singles as well. But yeah. So yeah, that's the name of the account. And I just really don't use eBay enough to care about changing it. Right. Like it's a 24-year-old account that has 149 like ratings on it. So you can tell like it's, I'm not hanging out on eBay very much. I have bought pins from eBay before. I just can't believe that you've had an eBay account for 24 years.

'''Myke:''' That just doesn't seem, it just doesn't seem possible. Right?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. My math's right. Yeah. 98. Yeah. That's right. Right. So my eBay anniversary is coming up next month. It'll be 25 years. No, it'll be 24 years next month. Unbelievable. Crazy. So yeah. Pencils, they're there. If you are like a super Blackwing collector or missed out like a favorite edition, I've got 21 listings. I think there's some duplicates on there. So there's three, six, five, four. So I think 17 unique volumes are listed on here. So yeah. Check it out. It's just a fun thing. It'll close next week before the show, which I didn't even think about that. Didn't plan on that. But we'll audit some of the pricing afterwards. But yeah, there's some over $100 bids on three different ones right now.

'''Myke:''' So you can look forward to next week's episode. We marvel in Brad's riches.

'''Brad:''' Nah. Like I said, I don't even care. Like whatever they go for, they go for it. And just, you know, whatever. And then I'm going to do some more stuff. You know, I've got a bunch of Retro 51 stuff that I'm going to put up there eventually. I'm actually going to do some of that.

'''Myke:''' I might do that. Charity related.

'''Brad:''' Like I get all their Christmas editions. They send me all the Christmas ones. Well, I don't want to sell those.

'''Myke:''' I don't have the tubes though. Do you still have the tubes? Yeah. See, I don't keep that stuff.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. So like I'm thinking about doing like charity ones. Like this is before St. Jude's. We're going to do a bunch of stuff for St. Jude's. I got cooking already.

'''Myke:''' You know we're going to go all out again in September.

'''Brad:''' But like, yeah, I'll have some. I have like all the Christmas editions. And it's super nice that they send me that. But like they're just sitting there. So like I don't sell things that I didn't pay for myself. Right. So like I can put them on eBay and donate like 100% of that to charity kind of thing. So we'll do that kind of stuff later.



== eBay Account History ==


'''Myke:''' September's coming so fast, man.

'''Brad:''' I know. Oh, it's here.

'''Myke:''' We're on weekly meetings now.

'''Brad:''' Yep. It is here. It is here. It's coming. Speaking of raffles for great causes. I did want to give a shout out to a Twitch follower. If you don't mind here. Myke goes by the name of Glyph on Twitch. They reached out to me kind of, I don't want to say like a new pen addict user, but kind of new-ish to the community. And they have, you know, someone in their life who's affected by Alzheimer's and they were, you know, have a huge fountain pen collection and they're in a, you know, situation right now where they can't really be using their pens as much. And they have so many pens. Glyph was like reaching out. It's like, what do I do? Like they gave them all to me to do something with. And it's like, I don't know what to do. So Glyph did this great thing where there's a charity raffle up the link. We'll have a link to the Reddit post for this charity raffle. So it's similar if you've participated in like the St. Jude stuff that we've done in the past through the pen addict, you know, you can, can donate to help support Alzheimer's research and send in your receipt and to be entered to win like all kinds of crazy pens, like lots of Mont Blancs, lots of really cool stuff in there. Glyph also sent me five of the pens that I've been slowly giving away this week on stream. So y'all still have a couple of opportunities to catch me on stream, twitch.tv slash pen addict, where I'm giving away these pens and I'm doing them blindly, Myke. So these pens were wrapped like in a bubble wrap and I'm just doing a giveaway, letting the winner pick one of the bubble wraps and then we unwrap it on the stream. So it's been, it's been really, really fun. So I just wanted to give a shout out to this charity raffle and the link is in the show notes and I appreciate Glyph like sharing this with everyone and I hope they raise a bunch of money for Alzheimer's research.

'''Myke:''' That's so good. That's really, really good.

'''Brad:''' I love supporting that kind of stuff. Yeah. You know, like that it's, it's in our DNA with relay and it's just us as, as people, you know, like to support these things and share these things. So yeah, and it's something cool that y'all can look into for yourselves.

'''Myke:''' That's so good. That's a, really sad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. A really good thing that, that, that people are doing.

'''Brad:''' Yep.

'''Myke:''' Oh, that's rough.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny. So Glyph is taking this, he said that, so the, the, the person whose collection is, is, goes by the name of L and, um, Glyph is letting them know like how it's going and they're getting a lot of enjoyment out of it. So should be happy in that aspect. So.

'''Myke:''' Good. Yeah, that's good. Yep. All right. Let's take our second break and thank our friends over at Pen Chalet for their support of this week's episode. Pen Chalet, they sell authentic, amazing rollerballs, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and so much more. And they have all of your favorite brands like Monteverde, Pelican, Lamy, Pilot, Namiki, Sailor, Cafeco, and many, many, many, many, many, many, many more. And of course they're an authorized dealer of all of them. Pen Chalet have low prices and high quality pens and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee with very fast and reliable customer service. If you have any issues, they will sort it for you. Pen Chalet are always running great discounts. Every couple of weeks you're going to find new discounts and also new products going on sale over at Pen Chalet. They're always adding new stuff. I can't even keep up. As well as all the other stuff that I mentioned, Pen Chalet sell limited edition pens. They do accessories, you know, maybe looking for some ink, maybe you want a converter, maybe you want a pen holder, they got it all. They sell internationally with great shipping rates and they do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the US. So head to PenChalet.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website. When you enter the password Pen Addict, you will get the 10% code, 10% off code that you need. So you can save any, you can save 10% on anything at any time at Pen Chalet with that code that you'll find there. And also access to a set of offers that are just for listeners of the Pen Addict podcast. Like, what have they got, Brad?

'''Brad:''' Like the Lamy All-Star Custom Logo Fountain Pen. It looks like Pen Chalet has some logo cap Lamy All-Star. So if you need to rep the shallot on your writing adventures, they have this cool black All-Star with the Pen Chalet logo on it. I've never seen this before. I don't know if this is something new that they're doing. This is wild. I know. When did this happen? That's what I'm saying. It caught my eye.

'''Myke:''' What is going on?

'''Brad:''' So it must just be something they had done or do themselves. I don't know. This is brand new to me. So I have not asked Ron or anything. But it's on our page now. And it's like an all black All-Star. And honestly, it looks pretty good. So on top of that, they have several of the Estabrook Nook pen cases, not to be confused with Nock pen cases. These are really good cases. I've had them in my hands. I've had them for giveaways. They're like a firm-sided boxy storage. But they're really enjoyable to use, really well made. I'd recommend any of these cases, to be quite honest. They're all very good. And then you go down, you have some Viscontis, Myke, the Demo Stones on sale, one of the larger Homo Sapien sizes, and the Demo Stones that they did last year or so, I think. And then a couple of Pelican M200 series that you definitely want to check out with those prices that Ron gives us from Pinchelet.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, such, such, such good prices. So as Brad mentioned, go to Pinchelet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password, Pan Addict, and you will be able to feast your eyes on these special offers exclusively for listeners of this show. Our thanks to Pinchelet for their continued support with the Pan Addict and Relay FM.

'''Brad:''' Did you have any idea, when I put this in the notes, that Spoke design was 10 years old? That doesn't seem... As of yesterday.

'''Myke:''' That doesn't seem possible to me. Okay.

'''Brad:''' So, Brian texts me. So, Brian, my partner in Spoke, Spoke Design. Brian, the founder, the owner, the brains behind Spoke. He is Mr. Spoke. I'm just a hanger-on. He texts me yesterday, or maybe even Monday. He goes, you know, Spoke turns 10 tomorrow. I'm like, what? How is that possible? He says, yeah, the anniversary of the first pencil launch on Kickstarter was 10 years ago. And I was like, how can that even be? Like, I remember this pencil when it came up on Kickstarter at the time. Like, I remember it not being for me, right? I was like, oh, that's cool. Like, I see what they're doing here. And like, cool. And like, I remember passing on it, right? It's funny. I have these stories. Like, the same thing. We're going to talk about show and design next. I did the same thing on that. It's like, I look at it. It's cool. And I was like, okay, yeah, I'll wait and see. And then, now, like, I'm part of Spoke, like, years later. I'm trying to think of, like, when me and Brian started. I'll have to go look at the Spoke pen campaign. I guess that's maybe been, like, four years now, if I really think about it. I could be wrong on that. Maybe it's only three. But anyway, it was cool. Brian dug out. He's been in the process of a move. Even had found some of the original Model 1 pencils from the original Kickstarter. And just threw a handful of them up for sale. Obviously, they were snapped up, like, really, really quickly. So, hopefully, maybe y'all got that. But I just wanted to give a shout out to Brian for 10 years of Spoke. Yeah, that's amazing. It's hard to believe. I really can't believe it.



== Spoke Design Anniversary ==


'''Myke:''' Like, I mean, I guess we found out about him multiple revisions into the pencil, right? I guess I remember talking about his products. And it wasn't the first one. I mean, you probably knew. But I think the first time Spoke came up on this show, it was maybe, like, the Model 3 or something like that.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, the Model 4 was the one that changed things for me. And the way it said, okay, I need to talk to this guy. Because this is speaking my language here. And that's the pencil I talked about last week in the mechanical pencil roundup. Like, the Spoke Model 4 is the one that changed things for me. And I think, honestly, changed things for Brian. I think it's still probably the bestseller. Maybe the most popular pen. So, yeah, it's been a good run. And hopefully we're going to keep doing some more fun stuff there at Spoke Design. So, just keep your eyes peeled. That's really well. Yep. I did a review this week. Another anniversary edition. This is the Machine Pen Version 2 from Shown Design. The anniversary edition roller and fountain pen. So, Shown Design. Again, Myke, 10 years old. 10 year anniversary for Shown Design. I guess this was, was this the Kickstarter heyday? It must have been. It must have been.

'''Myke:''' If everyone's hitting this at the same time.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, because Knock came shortly after that, I think. So, gosh, I'll have to go back and look at the dates now. I'm so confused. Bad podcaster. I didn't prepare all this. But if you saw my Lamy All-Star notes about the Glossy Red, you'll know why. But yeah, this is a 10 year anniversary celebration that Ian, he made this pen to be like, for lack of a better term, a triple threat, right? He made a barrel for the anniversary. And it's got these little unique markings on there for the anniversary edition. And then had a fitting for a ballpoint tip, a rollerball tip, and a fountain pen. So, you'd buy one pen barrel and three different tips. So, it was a really neat pen. And since I had reviewed, shown ballpoint pens and shown fountain pens, I wanted to give the rollerball tip a thorough looking at. Which I did on the blog this week. And I came away kind of impressed with what is a Schmidt rollerball part, right? So, this is a part that, so, you all hear us talk about Schmidt a lot. They make a lot of parts for a lot of pens, from refills to pencil mechanisms to knock mechanisms to this tip that a lot of makers will use to build things around. And it's not limited to, say, a smaller maker like Ian, but to, you know, other more, what you'd consider more of company makers. Like, Monteverde makes a pen around this tip, the Montegrappa, excuse me, Monteverde Engage and the OneTouch, like the ruler pen. And to use a fountain pen ink cartridge, an international fountain pen ink cartridge, with this tip. And historically, when I've tried these in the past, and I don't know if they've been Schmidt mechanisms or not. I don't know if the Kaweco one was or the J. Herban was. They probably could have been. And maybe they were an earlier version of this. Because, again, that would be like 10 years ago, 12 years ago when I started reviewing these. I hated them. Like, it was a bad experience, right? The rollerball tip combined with fountain pen ink generally wrote poorly. Like, it was scratchy. It didn't feel good. You know, I think one of the issues is the ink formulation, right? You get a much thinner, watery fountain pen ink as compared to, like, a more lubricated, rich rollerball ink. You know, like a Schmidt P8127 rollerball. It's just rich and smooth and nice. And fountain pen inks aren't designed to have that, like, flow or viscosity. So asking that type of ink to move through a metal ball tip mechanism like in these rollerball tips, like, that's – it's hard, right? Like, it doesn't feel as nice. And I'm not going to say this feels equivalent to, like, a Schmidt P8127. But it's better than the things I have tested. I would use this on purpose, right? That sounds weird to say. But that's a very high praise. Like, I would use this on purpose is, like, one of the nicest things I can say. Because it works. Like, it feels good. It works well. It has an option for me to throw any ink color I want in there, right? I could just buy cartridges and pop them in there. Or I could empty out a cartridge and syringe fill any other fountain pen ink and have a pocketable rollerball pen, not a fountain pen nib. And all the things that, you know, rollerball pens might work better for in certain situations than fountain pens. And I just find it super nice that it works well. Like, I was – I'm talking about this like I'm a little bit surprised because I kind of am. Like, it's not the greatest thing under the sun, right? It's not transformative. And, oh, it's going to write, like, a Pentel Energel or a Retro 51. But it's better than I expected. And I think that's pretty high praise.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, I never really know what to think about these pens. I've always avoided them. I'm kind of like – not really so much in performance, but I'm like, why would I – why would I want it? And it's like, you know, I like what you said in the article. It's like, well, it gives you the option to – like, now you can have any color, you know? Like – Right. Because even if you can't get a cartridge in the ink that you want, you could syringe fill cartridge or – would any converters fit in this?

'''Brad:''' I'm sure the Kaweco mini converters that I hate so much would. Which kind of sucks, but, you know, you could at least get it. Like, whatever ink you want, you can put in there, right? Right. Although I expect shimmer inks would destroy this thing. But, you know, I would love to. I would not – I think I made a point in there that I would not use a shimmer ink. But nevertheless, you have all this optionality, right?

'''Myke:''' But then – Right. For me, it's like, yeah, but I don't – Still why? I don't want to use a rollerball. Yeah. Like, with this in mind, you know? Like, if I want to use a rollerball, for me, I'll just use a rollerball. Like, it doesn't need to be J-O-Bomb, whatever, whatever, in the mix, right? Like, I'm not using it for that. Like, because I'm never going to get what I want, I feel like, in, like, performance and the amount of ink laid down to really appreciate it from a rollerball than I would from one of my fountain pens. Yeah. So, I'm always just a bit, like, I don't know where this would fit in my life to have a rollerball that I can put an ink cartridge in.

'''Brad:''' Right. Like, you're already covered, right? Yeah. Like, you have a bunch of your fountain pens inked up. They have all of your favorite inks in them.

'''Myke:''' It's also just, like, you know, I would just get some rollerballs in different colors. Like, just get some Jetstreams or high-tech Cs or whatever. You know what I mean? I don't know. Like, if I really wanted that, I'd just get that thing. I don't know.

'''Brad:''' I don't know. It's kind of nice to think about, hey, I could put Pilot Orochizuku Shinkai in this little brass pocket pen and not have to worry about the nib. Or I could just put it in, you know, a Kaweco Sport and then, you know, fill up an ink cartridge that way and put it in a fountain pen nib. I don't know. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Or, like, for me, like, I would just, if I really wanted it, I would just get the fountain pen version of the Shown Design Anniversary.

'''Brad:''' Right. Right.

'''Myke:''' Use that.

'''Brad:''' This will, I would wager that Ian would agree with this statement. It is the least used of the tips, right, between fountain, ballpoint, and this. I would say that's probably fair. And the lowest seller, you can also buy just, like, an individual. You don't have to buy, like, the whole setup, you know, with all the three different tips. You can just buy a rollerball or a ballpoint or a fountain pen. And this is clearly the third seller in my book. And, honestly, I don't see a lot of people using them. No. But I do see makers offering a double section option now to where they buy, if someone buys a fountain pen barrel, they can also buy a fitting for this rollerball tip. So, it's a very low percentage sale.

'''Myke:''' Like, if you don't have to change your product and you can offer this as an option and it's, you know, pretty easy for you to swap that out, then do it. Like, because if you end up getting 10 more customers for it, well, there's 10 more customers for you, right? But I think you mentioned in the article, like, you're not going to see this become the thing like the Schmidt PA-126-127 has become.

'''Brad:''' Right. I don't need more than one of these. Like, I'm good. Yeah. Like, I'm covered. I can play – this is my little playground area where I can have this tip that works well and I can do some – have some fun inks in a non-fountain pen. I don't need five of them, you know. I enjoy five different fountain pens for five different reasons, you know, the different style of the barrel, the different grind on the nib. You know, this rollerball tip, like, it's like I'm good with one and I'm just glad that it actually works. And now I can actually recommend, say, people can ask me, hey – because I get this question pretty frequently and I can actually recommend if it's using this Schmidt mechanism, like, you should probably be happy with it. Even though I haven't tested out, like, a huge range of inks, but I think my experience would translate to a lot of inks outside of, like, your aggressive inks, like Big Shimmer, Big Sheen, that kind of stuff, your standard inks.

'''Myke:''' It's funny, like, Big Shimmer. It makes it sound like, you know, like you're in the pocket of big whatever.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, the big corporation.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, you're in the pocket of Big Shimmer.

'''Myke:''' You know us.

'''Brad:''' You know us. We're in the pockets.

'''Myke:''' All right, should we do a couple of RSTPA before we finish out today? Let's do it. All right, this came in from Neil. Neil says, I feel like I've been in the fountain pen world for a while, but this is my one desire that continues to remain unfulfilled. I'm a teacher and I use a bullet journal technique for my yearly planner. I've been using Rodia Dot Grid A5 notebooks for years and enjoy making my own layout for my needs through the year, but the paper is ivory, not white. What notebook would match my needs and be accessible for purchase by me living in Seattle, not looking to spend $30 on shipping from Japan? I need similar page count to Rodia A5 size Dot Grid or blank paper, but white fountain pen friendly paper.

'''Brad:''' I have a question that I should have posed to other people before thinking of me and as you're reading this. Why is cream and ivory paper so predominant? I don't know, man. Versus just like a base white. I don't know. There's plenty of white paper out there, but when you get into these notebooks, so what we want here is essentially a bound hardcover notebook, you know, your standard 200 page notebook. And it's kind of hard to get just that stark white page. So, like, I posted this question in Twitch one day so we could kind of talk about it and figure out what the options are because nothing really comes easy, right? Like, it doesn't come easy to answer this question. So, we came up with the stology. Hey, I think it's pretty easy. Yeah, why do you think that, Myke? Because I made this frigging product. Except for one important factor.

'''Myke:''' What's the important factor?

'''Brad:''' It's not A5.

'''Myke:''' Oh, it's basically A5. Get out of town.

'''Brad:''' You're one of those people. A5-ish.



== Paper Size Standards ==


'''Myke:''' It's A5-ish. Look, it doesn't appear that Neil, like, requires it for specific sizing. It's just like, it's roughly an A5 thing. The central notebook is a dot grid notebook with page numbers and white paper.

'''Myke:''' You can go buy that. It's smart-sized. It's smart-sized. I improved upon A5. I improved upon it.

'''Brad:''' I made a better size, I think. So, there you go. What have you become?

'''Myke:''' I've become a paper magnate. Well, you know. You just wait. If there's anyone here. See what I'm working on right now.

'''Brad:''' I've got something. That's different. Like, I can't say what it is. That's different. That is not this. This is different. This is, you're trying to ride on the coattails of international paper sizing that are these standards that are built in. You think you're better than them. I've gone ahead and created my own size now.

'''Myke:''' I've gone. Seriously, we're working on something. It doesn't conform to sizes. I've made my own size. It's Myke 1, I'm going to call it.

'''Brad:''' So, everyone knows my stance on this. So, Myke is just getting me agitated on purpose. I'm a big fan of the standards.

'''Myke:''' Who needs standards? Standards? Shmandards. You know what I'm saying?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So, okay.

'''Myke:''' Standards? Shmandards.

'''Brad:''' So, there you go, Neil. Myke is selling you his own non-A5 notebook. It's A5. To fit your needs. Come on. Not even hardcover.

'''Myke:''' Did Neil request hardcover?

'''Brad:''' No, that's just what the roadie is. Yeah. The Stalogy is not either. Then you have the Nebula by Colorverse. The Nebula is another option, which I forget about. That's a really good notebook. It gets great reviews, great paper. The Endless Recorder is an option if you like Tomoe River. Same with the Galen Leather Tomoe River cover. So, you have a few options. And then, Myke, the last but not least, we might have mentioned this once on the podcast before, but we should mention it more often. The greatest named product that we'll speak of today. The Clairefontaine Age Bag.

'''Myke:''' What?

'''Brad:''' The Clairefontaine Age Bag.

'''Myke:''' This seems like news to me. I don't know what this is.

'''Brad:''' Maybe we've just talked about it on stream because I have no idea why it's named this. Is it actually called Age Bag?

'''Myke:''' Click on.

'''Brad:''' It's on. No, no, no, no.

'''Myke:''' I can. I read it, right? Like, I can see it. But like, is this something said with an accent? Is like one half of these words not actually English?

'''Brad:''' Is it like French or something? I mean, it's a French company, but it's not. It's not Age Bag. What if it's Age Bag? Age Bag. Yeah, it's Age Bag. It is in the Age Bag collection. And like, maybe I'm Americanizing the words. Like, I don't know how else you pronounce Age Bag. A-G-E space B-A-G. What does it mean? There's no accents. There's no anything. But it, hey, it meets the requirements of Neil. This was a recommendation from Twitch viewers. And you know what? They were right. And it's called the Age Bag.

'''Myke:''' Why is it called Age Bag?

'''Brad:''' I can't figure that out. Like, I'm looking.

'''Myke:''' Now, what's worse, right? A5-ish or calling your product Age Bag?

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I'm going to let you win this one.

'''Myke:''' I'm not going to. See, look, I can make it A5, but then I've got to call it Age Bag. So, like, you know what I'm saying? It's one or the other.

'''Brad:''' Maybe that's French for A5.

'''Brad:''' That's not correct at all.

'''Brad:''' You've just said. Un, deux, trois, cinq. Sank.

'''Myke:''' Un, deux, trois, cat bag.

'''Brad:''' I had to figure it out.

'''Myke:''' Why is it called Age Bag? Like, can somebody write in and let us know? Like, I'm Googling furiously. And there's no, like, I can't find, like, a page, like, on Claire Fontaine's website that, like, talks about the theory of Age Bag. So, like, if anyone knows why it's called Age Bag, I desperately would like to know the answer to this question.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. All of the aforementioned products that I mentioned are all traditional international standard A5 sizes.

'''Myke:''' Except that one that I mentioned, which is superior size.

'''Brad:''' You mentioned that one. I did not mention that one. Created by a genius. Smart size. You should just call them Cortex size or something. I think I might go, like, CB, right? Because I call it a brand. So, we'll go, like, CB1 or something? Yeah. CB5. You got to at least troll us standards.

'''Myke:''' No, but you see, that's where I'm going to make it worse. Right? Where, like, I'm going to name them, but not in size order.

'''Brad:''' There you go.

'''Myke:''' So, CB1 is the first size, and then CB2 is going to be a completely different size.

'''Brad:''' There needs to be a decimal, too. Not logical. Do a 1.e and just make it random. All right.

'''Myke:''' I can do that.

'''Brad:''' You asked for it. Oh, man. I did not ask for this whatsoever.

'''Myke:''' I'm just, I'm completely shook by age bag. Honestly. I can tell. I can't think about anything else right now. I don't understand.

'''Brad:''' Well, think about this next Ask TPA. Let's do one more. All right.

'''Myke:''' It comes from John. I recently got into needlepoint on microtip pens inspired by the list on your website, Brad. I started with Japanese.

'''Brad:''' That needs to be greatly updated. Sorry. Wow.

'''Myke:''' I started with Japanese gel pens. Scene. Like the high-tech C. Recently, I purchased a Nagahara needlepoint from Franklin Kristoff. At first, I thought that microtip gel pens seemed like the easier, less fussy solution to wanting to write really small. But as a dyed-in-the-wool fountain pen obsessor, I couldn't resist the siren call of a needlepoint nib. When do you use a microtip gel pen, and when do you use a needlepoint nib? What makes you choose between the two? Which tiny writer better provides the better tiny writing experience?

'''Brad:''' This is such a good question. Talk about right up my alley.

'''Myke:''' Hold me closer, tiny writer.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. This is right up my alley. So let's take this first question. When do you use a microtip gel pen, and when do you use a needlepoint? Paper dependent. So the fountain pen, I do consider the paper more than when I'm using a microtip gel pen. The microtip gel pen will work on more papers than the fountain pen. So the fountain pen, I'm generally more specific on the paper choices. You know, Timoe River, Rodia, Clairefontaine, Morimon, Life. Like, I mean, literally, like, all the papers I use are great, are purposely designed to work well with fountain pens, including needlepoints. If I'm using, like, more standard notebook papers, field notes, things like that, I will never use a needle tip fountain pen because they tend to grab the fibers, right? They're just not made with that type of nib in mind. So that's the win.

'''Brad:''' Which tiny writer provides the better tiny writing experience? This is a much harder question for me, Myke.

'''Brad:''' I think it's the microtip gel pen is the better experience because of consistency, right? It is pure in size, in general, like, in general senses, right? You do get slight variations in needlepoints in fountain pens, whether they're steel or gold, whether, you know, the paper you're using is rough or smooth. So if you want deadly consistent lines, the microtip gel pens are going to provide that.

'''Brad:''' The needlepoints, I just tend to, I don't know, I just enjoy using them and don't worry necessarily like if, you know, like one downstroke is a little bit different from another downstroke. It's just kind of the nature of the beast, right? Like I'm prone, I will accept the variance in a fountain pen needle tip knowing that, hey, I'm using a fountain pen needle tip. I'm getting generally what I want. But it's not going to give you the precision control of a microtip gel ink pen because there's no flexibility in a gel ink pen tip, right? It just is. So the only thing that's going to mess up a gel tip pen is if the, you know, the paper, like if it gets a little bit messed up, you know, like the paper fibers get in the tip and that's going to be, make it inconsistent. But then that's the same problem that you have with a fountain pen. I just think the, depending on what you're looking for, like if the consistency is the key, the gel pen is going to be better. But I just think for overall enjoyment, I use more fountain pen needle tips than, I won't say, maybe almost anything. I don't know. I'd have to think about that. I do like my fine cursive italic nibs. That's probably like my, one and one A is needle point and fine cursive, Japanese cursive italics, which is, you know, pretty, a pretty narrow line. So yeah, that's an awesome question. I really, really like this question because I too have a Nagahara needle point that is so fine. It's really, really good. But it's, you know, it's particular, right? These, these are the very particular things that we obsess over kind of like international paper sizes. So yeah, there you go.

'''Myke:''' If you would like to send in a question of your own to be answered on a future episode of the pen addict, just send out a tweet with the hashtag ask TPA, or you can use question mark ask TPA in the Relay FM members discord. You can go and find show notes for this week's episode at relay.fm slash pen addict slash 521. If you want to keep up with Brad, you can go to pen addict on Instagram, dowdyism on Twitter. You can go to twitch.tv slash pen addict where you can find Brad. Brad is Jenny's photo on photo Jenny, I should say. On eBay. If you just want another one to like just toss in there.

'''Brad:''' Don't follow me there. You're not going to see much there ever.

'''Myke:''' Go to spoke design.com pen addict.com. If you want to find me online, I'm at I Myke I M Y K E and you can find wonderful products in perfect sizing over at cortex, much.com. We'll be back next time. Thank you to trade and pen chalet for the support of this week's episode. And of course, most importantly, thank you for listening until then say goodbye, Brad. Bye Brad.

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