Editing The Pen Addict 667/transcript

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name            = The Pen Addict
| number          = 667
| title           = President of Stationery
| date            = May 28th, 2025
| hosts           = [[Brad Dowdy]]<br>
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests          = 
| link            = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/667 Episode 667]
| audiolink       = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/613/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_667.mp3 Audio Episode 667]
| length          = 53
}}

* From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 667. Today's show is brought to you by Enigma Stationery and the St. Louis Pen Show. My name is Myke Hurley, I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad. What's up Myke Hurley, how are you? Good, I'm excited for our main topic of the show later on, which people can look forward to. Yeah, I'm super curious about how this is going to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But first, we have some follow-up. Follow-up to the follow-up to the follow-up. And this story's not going to end because I still have questions. Okay.

== Pen Tuning and Smoothing Discussion ==

* From Chris, wonderful email I received. Said I wanted to follow up on the question about whether the pen experience is still the same after tuning and smoothing. And this is related to the stock stub nib conversation that we're having to where you're taking a stock stub nib and making it a more narrow stub nib. So, Chris is a nib grinder based in Australia. Says, to me, tuning and smoothing don't affect the pen. I'm sorry, I apologize. This first part is about the tuning and smoothing. Like, are you changing the original intent of how the pen nib was finished? So, two-parter, my bad. But, the tuning and smoothing don't affect the pen experience the company intended. The tip material is chosen by the company. And smoothing just removes any blemishes. The glide over paper is mostly determined by the material they use. There might be an exception for pens like Sailor and Graffon Faber-Castell. I don't have concrete proof, but their unique pencil-like feedback is because of their unique grit finishing, which is unique to their company. Like, I could get, like, with Platinum, right? Like, that's the one you and I always bring up. It's like, they probably have a particular finishing process, right?
* That gives it this unique feedback. And maybe you could, I don't know, I do think maybe you could change, like, how a Platinum feels. Like, if you over-smooth that, right? And then you all of a sudden get into, like, a more glassy nib for a Platinum. I don't know. Something to think about. But, yeah.
* So, that's one part.
* One part of that. And so, he says, aside from that, the stock feed is unique to each pen company based on their feed design, which I totally agree. So, that is basically, like, ink management, flow management, making it wetter, making it drier, adjusting the tines to account for that. Final follow-up, which is what I really want to discuss here, is reducing the stub from 1.5 millimeter to a smaller size. It says, the wingspan doesn't have to be reduced much until the feed shows through, only the sides get trimmed down a bit and the whole feed is still hidden. And I'll attach a sample video of a 1.9 millimeter stub converted into a 1.5 millimeter cursive italic. So, this is a good video to get a good visual. And here's where I get to do my favorite thing on the entirety of the Pen Addict show, is I get to be pedantic.
* This is a Lamy nib. And Lamy nibs, if you're familiar with them, are triangular in shape. And I think most people that are getting generic stub nibs are using the more of a Yovo shape, where it comes down a little bit differently from the wings into, like, a diving board type of situation with the nib. And I still think, like, it will be totally fine. Like, I think it'll be totally fine bringing those edges down, taking, like, a 1.5 Yovo to, you know, something finer. I still want to see the visuals for myself on that. So, like I said, I think I said this in the last episode. When I go to the DC Pen Show, that's probably my next Pen Show. I'm going to take, like, a stock 1.5 Yovo and see how small we can grind it. The reason why people don't do this is because there's already a 1.1 Yovo. So, maybe I should take a 1.1 Yovo and try to go to, like, a 9 or a 09 or even finer, right? So, there's different ways. So, it's not a universal stub design, but I think this is a common stock stub design for Yovo nibs. And you see this in a lot of Maker Pens. But then, again, a lot of companies design their own nibs. You know, you look at Pilot. You know, they're going to have their own stub and Sailor's going to have their own stub design. And those are probably much more easily modifiable. They're also not starting at 1.5, right? They're starting from a much narrower base and a different style of tipping. So, this video looks great. And I can definitely see that on the Lamy nib there. And I'm still super curious to get a Yovo nib modified. So, I think I will work on that for no reason other than science and just see what I think. And the more I think about it, the more I think I need to probably start with a 1.1. Because there's no reason to ever get a 1.5 ground into a 1.1 when the 1.1 exists. So, this is my thought process and my level of pedantry that I enjoy.
* So, the more information that we find out about this, the further we get from actually answering the original question as to whether a 1.5mm stub could be ground to a cursive italic.
* Yeah. No, I think the answer is clearly yes. Like, I think it's clear this can be done.
* I'm mostly worried as when we get into this next pen that I want to talk about, the visual aspect of what I'm using matters.
* And if I don't like the visual of that nib, am I going to enjoy it as much? And maybe it doesn't change. You look at the Lamy nib that Chris ground, it looks exactly the same. Which is great. That's good news. Right? Like, I think way back to the original question. Grinding it can be done. I just want to know if I personally am going to be happy with it, how it looks. So, that's a good segue, Myke, into the Colotino fountain pen, which I reviewed this week. Franco Colotino. Franco Colotino. Into the wall. Oh, come on. At swimming pool. Come on. These are F1 jokes, folks. Yeah. That was one of the races of all time. If you like F1 and you're a pen addict member, you're going to be checking out your feeds pretty soon here.

== Review of the Colotino Pen ==

* Coming up. Coming up soon. So, the Colotino, Myke, if you are on the stationery internet, you've probably seen this going around. It's fun when companies, like, send out a product to, like, all the reviewers and all the pen influencers. And we all kind of post it, like, around the same time. I don't know why. I get the biggest kick out of that. And I always have to, like, make some kind of joke about it because I think it's funny. But it's also good because every person who tries out a pen has their own opinions because, like we're talking about in the stub nib conversation, I have a certain visual that I want to see in the nib. And with the Colotino, I can't say. I just should call it the Colopinto now. That's going to bother me every time. And it's also going to get too confusing. So, let's just let everyone forget everything that we've been talking about for the last few minutes. The Colotino, you know, it is a stunning pen. Like, but in the end, I'll, like, go ahead and work backwards from here. This ended up being a form of a function pen. And I think that's very much something to consider. Like, we talked about the Agiotto, their pocket pen, you know, a few weeks ago and how, like, I really, really liked it. But I don't know that I'm actually going to enjoy using it that much. Like, it's a very particular pen. The Colotino falls into that same category. If you look at this pen and it's sitting there on a desk and it's capped, you might think, like, this is, like, a really, really cool pen. Like, I think it is. And you uncap it and it's like, yeah, this looks great. Like, it's kind of, you know, got the, my particular model, and we'll have a link in the show notes to my review, is in a full brass model. They make an acrylic barrel model that uses a brass grip section. And I'm going to relate to that. I'll circle back around to that here in a little bit. But what I, I like the style and shape and the design. I like pocket pens, right? So, it's just a very cool, small, nice fountain pen.
* But it's not a good writer for me. And I think it's not going to be a good writer for a lot of people because it has this massive step down from the brass barrel into the grip section. So, it's a triangular barrel, which looks great. And when you design a triangular shape into a cylindrical shape, you end up with various, you know, peaks and flats around that connection. Right? So, if you're like me and have a traditional grip, my grips kind of run up the flat sides. But they're still kind of like a big edge, even on the flats. And then if you have a little bit of an off grip, you really get into these huge peaks of the triangular barrel. And it's just an uncomfortable situation between the grip and the barrel. Like the step down is really large. So, you either have to grip it really, really low. Which if you do that, you still kind of touch the flat. Or you come all the way up on the flat. One of the things I enjoy, and I just, I didn't want to put too many more pictures. But if you go to like the Colo product page for the Tino fountain pen, there's like someone holding it like way up in the barrel on the flat. Like way above the grip section. And then there's another person like holding it like way down on the nibs. Like they don't even know where to hold it. And I found that to be kind of humorous when I was looking at the product shots. It's like, yeah, they don't even know how to hold this pen.
* So, all that's fine. Like maybe you can work around that. Maybe you can't. But the issue, the bigger issue I had is the length of the pen unposted and posted. Neither of those hit the sweet spot for me. So, unposted it's too short. And posted it's too long. Which is like really hard, really difficult to do.
* Unposted. So, like you take a Kaweco Sport that a lot of us are familiar with. You can uncap that and it hits in a certain area in your hand. And everyone's hands are different. Everyone's hand sizes are different. I have very, very average hands. And the end of the barrel unposted does not come up over. Like I just call it the cusp of my hand. I don't even really know what that little, you know, that edge between your thumb and forefinger. Right there in that gap. So, it kind of sticks in there, if you will. Right? It like hits your edge of your hand. And like I could pick it up and write a quick note. But I'm not going to write like sentences like that. So, you take that and it's like, oh, well, I need to use it posted. Which is totally fine for short barrel pins. And it puts it into a length that's a little bit too long visually. But the challenge with this particular model, the brass one, it now, your brass cap throws off the balance of the pin. It backweights it. So, I don't know. I'm really concerned. Like the writing experience seems secondary with this pen. The last little tidbit that bugged me. And this is the follow through from the stub nib conversation. The connection between the cap when you post it and the barrel looks so strange. Like it is really visually jarring to where I look at it all the time. It's a round into a flat. Yes, nice. And it leaves a gap. So, it's like round, flat posts, triangular edge, straight edge. It's very jarring to me visually.
* So, in the end, like I don't know who this pen is for.
* And like my recommendation was like, you know, you may like this and it might be perfect for you. But I would just implore you to try it because it's going to feel a little bit awkward.
* Circling back on the acrylic portion. So, this brass barrel is about 69 grams. Pretty heavy. I didn't find it to be overly heavy. Like if you like a brass pen, like you're not going to think this is outrageous. You're going to, your expectation that it's going to have some weight to it and it does. It's not ridiculous. Except when you post it, it's unbalanced. The acrylic barrel, I was curious. I didn't get to try the acrylic.
* And I was wondering, did the, does the acrylic overlay like a brass sleeve on the interior? And as best as I can tell by the weight differential, it doesn't. So, the acrylic, you almost might be able to work around some of the grip section because of the weight of the brass. Just like it, like gravity pushes it down, right? So, it's going to push it into your hands and push it into your fingers. So, when you post the acrylic, it's going to be much more airy, much lighter.
* And I don't know that the step down from the section is going to be as challenging. It's still going to be there, right? But, like, I talk about a pen like the Secure Picma Micron. Like, it has, like, a really edgy step on it where your fingers hit. But it's lightweight, right? So, you're not getting that gravity pushing everything into your hand and your fingers. And your hand fighting back against the weight to, you know, rein in the balance and get the proper writing form. So, the acrylic could be nice. It's about a third of the weight. It was, what, 20, 27 grams or something like that? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, 21 grams. There's even a, there's a 21 grams. But it's the same price as the brass one. Yeah. So, acrylic and aluminum. Yeah. Acrylic is 21 grams. There's an aluminum barrel, which could be good. It's 27 grams. And the brass is 69. All of them the same price, which I did find interesting. But I kind of want to, I'm going to try the acrylic. Like, next time I go to a pen show, just kind of feel it and see if it's a little bit better in the grip section. But I don't really find this one to be, like, a usable, like, long-term writing pen. Like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to journal with this pen because it is just too heavy and too uncomfortable. And, like, the design is just kind of broken for me outside of the initial capped laying on the desk aesthetic, which looks spectacular. So, you don't want to spend money on a pen you don't use, though. So, I would definitely hold off on this pen until you can, you can try it. So, interesting concept. The acrylic barrel would solve a lot of the problems that you have. But it wouldn't solve the visual issue. But I feel like it could probably solve, like, the weight when posted issue. Mm-hmm. But is it worth it?
* This is a pen I actually really want to see a version 2 of. Right. Like, can they, is there a change they're willing to make? Like, and this is a design, like, this is made by, like, a designer in his design firm, right? So, maybe this is there. They're a thing and they're only shot at this. But, like, if they're going to make, like, a pen whose functionality equals its form, like, I think it needs a revision. Right? Just something has to give. Because, like, it's got, it's got, it's a good concept. It just doesn't work as a writing instrument compared to, like, literally every other pen I own. Right? Like, I'm not going to choose it, even though it looks cool as heck on my desk. Right? Mm-hmm. What's the point of that? Yeah, it looks nice when it's not in use. Mm-hmm. Which is weird. I don't mean that in a bad way, but, like, it does. Exactly. It looks really nice when it's not in use. Yeah. When I say that, like, it is, that's not a negative. Like, this is a sick looking pen. Yeah. But I'm not going to make the choice to use it when I have options. All right. This episode is brought to you in part by our friends at the St. Louis Pen Show. If you love the feel of cursive writing with a fountain pen or documenting your thoughts and ideas through journaling, or hey, maybe you just like to doodle, the 2025 St. Louis Pen Show is the place for you. It's from Thursday, June 26th through Sunday, June 29th. And this year, their Friday night event includes a vintage pen panel, a pen tasting, and a free dessert party. There are some exciting new classes for 2025, including writing with Quill. You can also learn copper plate, cursive, flourishing, bookbinding, letterpress, and card making. That's so much stuff to do. I love that. There will be classes on the four types of journaling and a class on celebrity signatures and how to make yours extra special. Or you can sit in on the significance of writing with Brian and Lisa Anderson. There are over 20 classes over four days. That is something for everyone. So you're probably thinking, oh, man, this sounds so good. How do I get there? The St. Louis Pen Show is at the Sheraton Westport Lakeside Chalet on the beautiful Westport Plaza. There's plenty of free parking, loads of restaurants, and it's just 10 minutes from the airport. You can also get a special pen show room rate of $143 with breakfast included. There will be 95 vendors from 42 different states at the show, including Sailor, Pens Empire, Retro 51, and Specialty Hues, as well as Artisan Pens and Pencils from Countrymade, Heinz, Derail Pens, and Magnolia, and so many more. Go and check it out for yourself by looking at the St. Louis Pen Show website at stlpenshow.com. You can buy your tickets at $10 per day admission, $20 for a weekend pass, or $30 for a trader pass for all show access. For a fun-filled and educational weekend, don't miss the St. Louis Pen Show this June. Visit stlpenshow.com for all the information and tickets. That's stlpenshow.com. Our thanks to the St. Louis Pen Show for their support of this show and all of Relay. Multiple shout-outs here, and we're going to get to something special for this show. But I like it when shows, and St. Louis is a prime example here, put the emphasis on the class stuff up front. A lot of us who think about this, yeah, we know we're going to be able to go shopping, and we're going to be able to see some awesome stuff. But leaning into that as a prime focus of the event, it just makes me want to go. It makes me feel like the show has a really good perspective on an entire experience, rather than just a shopping experience. I think that's important these days. One of the other things that the St. Louis Pen Show has historically done is they collaborate with KWZ to make an ink. And this year, it is the St. Louis 314 Blues mic. So that's the area code. It's a color that represents a lot of the community, but it's really based around a lot of the music that has come from the area. So it's a really good combination and collaboration for an ink. I like that they continue to do, if they switch ink vendors, it would be fine. But I like that it's a KWZ ink every year. Because, well, one, I like KWZ inks, but it's very consistent. Like, they're doing a thing. They're doing it well. And they're doing it every year. And this year is just adding to the color palette of the previous things that they've done. It's a really nice bright blue with great shading. And it's just super cool. I like how on their Instagram page, which we'll have a link to, you know, not only is Myke, Myke and Kovieck's work spectacular, they put the little mood board up there on all the reasons why this color is awesome. So go check that out. And I've got a sample of it. I inked it up yesterday.
* And I am enjoying it and using it for show notes today.

== Shout Out of the Week and PenFount.inc ==

* All right, Myke, we got our shout out of the week. Shout out of the week. And our friends over at PenFount, PenFount.inc. I have talked about them before, but I'm always impressed by what pops up in their feeds. I follow them on Mastodon. They're a big part of, they have their own instance, PenFount.inc. Again, head over there. But then they post very, like, educational articles. Like, recently there was a Flying with Pens article that PenFount posted. Right now there is an Estabrook J, your first vintage pen article, which I always get questions about, hey, I'm kind of interested in vintage pens, but I don't know where to start. And spoiler alert, neither do I, except I will point you to articles like this about the Estabrook J because that is a vintage pen that I do own. And I think it's a really, really good choice for your first vintage pen. So great part of Mastodon. I appreciate everyone that produces work and content over there for PenFount. They're always, you know, they'll have different prompts, you know, that they'll post on Mastodon and people will reply. It's just a really good community and a great time and a great educational resource for everything Fountain Pen. So shout out PenFount.
* All right, Myke. Okay.
* We didn't do this at prime season for this, but I feel like it could be our own season for running for office here at the Pen Addict. And what office is that, Myke? President of Stationary. We're going to run for President of Stationary. Okay. You and I. You and I. I hesitate to say we're running against each other. We are. But I think at this point we definitely are. We are. We're running against each other. You know, we could be doing a debate here. I don't know if there's like a debate topic. Do we need to have timers? Do we need to have... Moderators. You know, time limits, moderators, mute buttons.
* You're going to be able to stop me from standing in front of you. I don't think so. Yeah. If whoever yells loudest wins.

== Campaigning for President of Stationery ==

* But no, I thought this would be a fun topic that if you or I were going to run for the President of Stationary, what would we campaign on? Like, what is our platform? What types of things do we want to see if we got installed as the President of Stationary? What changes would we make? So, I asked Myke to, you know, pick two or three or four things to come up with as a platform. So, do we need to flip a coin? How do they determine who goes first on these debates? I think you should go first. Okay. You just want to be able to answer back to me. Well, maybe, you know. I didn't know that. Maybe. Maybe I can shift around to what I want to put in and where I want to put it. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, I will go first.
* Dear friends, thank you for joining us here today. I appreciate you. Thank the moderators. Thank the hosts. I don't watch debates. I don't know how they go. You couldn't pay me to watch that mess. So, I am here to run on a platform of change, Myke. Wow. And that change needs to start with manufacturers of fountain pens and inks. Because if you're a company that manufactures both, you are now going to be required to also manufacture notebooks.
* Why is that, Myke? Because, as a manufacturer, if you make a fountain pen and you make an ink to go into that fountain pen and you tell your customer that their warranty will be voided if they use other inks, well, you're also forgetting about the third part that is very important of the writing experience and that is the paper that you use. So, if a manufacturer, if you're a manufacturer, you're going to use. So, if a manufacturer, from a warranty perspective, wants to control the ink that you use, they can't fully do that unless they control the paper that you use. So, I'm looking at you, sailor and platinum and pelican and pilot. Even though some of you have manufactured small amounts of paper, you should have a stock notebook that your company stands by that works with your fountain pen and your inks. You need to manage product expectations through the entire writing cycle.
* And if you don't provide paper to go with your fountain pen and your ink, are you really selling the full experience? So, this is something I strongly believe in. We've seen companies like Lamy dabble in their own paper goods and that I appreciate. And their paper goods are very good. And I need to see all companies, if you make both a fountain pen and a line of ink and tell people that they can only use these things together, well, you need to include paper into that mix. And therefore, all manufacturers need to manufacture notebooks to go along with their paper and ink. All right. Thank you. I like it.
* If you vote for me, we're going to live in a land of freedom. That's what we're all about here. Freedom. And I think for too long, for too long, we have been constrained by standardized paper sizes. It is time to break free of the shackles of A4 to slice at A5. And we could just make them in any size we want. Who even needs standards? We need freedom. We need freedom of paper size. That is what my platform begins on. I've had enough of foreign nations telling me the size of my notebook. So if you vote for me, we're going to make notebooks in whatever size we want. You want a big one? You want a little one? It doesn't matter. You can have it because we're going to do whatever we want. Ah, the crowd goes wild.
* Was that cheering? Yeah. That was cheering. Okay. Thank you. Oh, thank you. I wasn't expecting that from you, to be honest. Oh, just wait. That wasn't for me. That was from the crowd. The crowd's on your side. But over here, Myke, we're a party of standards. And while we may not be looking for paper standards, and these notebook manufacturers may choose to create any size notebook that they wish, We do believe in a new world of worldwide standardized nib sizes.
* This is a problem for people new to fountain pens, to stationery as a whole, that they go buy a pen from one manufacturer that says the nib is a fine. And then they go buy a pen from another manufacturer that says the nib is a fine, and they aren't even close to being the same size. From a beginner experience, it is a huge negative on this industry. So we need to standardize and come together with one standard between Western and Eastern nib sizes. Now, companies like their specialty nib sizes and making unique products, those can stand alone. But if you're marking a pen nib with extra fine, fine, medium, or broad, those should be in the same guidelines across the world. That should be, you know, a pretty standard, common experience for customers. If we have to create new sizes on the outer bounds of these ranges, that's fine too, as long as we can make something that's standard. If a Japanese extra fine nib right now is finer than anything on the European side of the ledger, let's make an extra, extra fine. That ranges from one millimeter to two millimeters. An extra fine would be three to four millimeters, or 0.3 to 0.4 millimeters.
* And standardize the writing experience from the stock product lineups for all companies. Thank you. I trust my opponent to think that he can solve things by trying to bring people together. This is the platform that he's running on. You vote for me. We're not letting the Germans tell us what to do. Japan, get out of here. We're making our own standard that everybody else is going to have to go and look at. You want to make a nib and be successful? When I'm president, we'll make our own sizes. And do you know what? We're not going to have anything around here, extra fine. Get out of here. We don't want you. Fine. What are you doing? No, we're not fine. We're great. Our nibs start at great.
* We're better than fine. Great is the smallest size. It's bigger than any of this nonsense that these people are going to have. We're going from great to greater to greatest to greatimus maximus. And that's going to be like a Sharpie. And that's going to be a fountain pen. I don't care if it's possible. We're going to find a way to do it because we can do anything. Just vote for me. We can do anything.
* Are you getting it yet, by the way? Yeah, yeah. You're getting what I'm doing. Yeah, I am. I'm really feeling like Joe Biden and I don't have any words right now. I'm just staring. I'm so excited about this. This is so good. Oh, my God. We've got two more. I know, man. You're on it. All right. Next topic. I think even my opponent would be signing on to this change in the fountain pen world.
* All fountain pens, regardless of price, if it is a cartridge converter filling system, will ship with a converter. This is not something that companies should upcharge for outside of the product that they're selling. This is part of the experience of using a fountain pen, is adding in your own ink. And to ask me, even for an inexpensive pen, to pay more than I just paid for the pen for the experience of using a converter. Well, that's going to end here with this administration. You may have to raise the price on that platinum preppy by a couple of dollars, but the experience you're going to add will be more than worth the change by giving new customers and existing customers of your products the tools they need to fully experience what a fountain pen should be. Trust my opponent to suggest such a limited scope and then say you're going to charge more for it. No, if you vote for me, you're getting a cartridge. You're getting a converter. You're getting a blunt nose needle. You're getting grease in the package. And you know what? It's going to be cheaper. All right. And that's what happens if you vote for me. But this isn't even my campaign path long. He just riles me up with the way that he makes these suggestions. No, if you vote for me, we have one rollable refill. It's the Schmidt P8126. I love those people at Schmidt. We had a great meeting. They bought me something. They bought me a plane. This becomes the new standard. Nothing else. There will be... I've been talking to Schmidt. They don't know this yet, but I'm going to let them know they're going to make these in different sizes. So we can have little ones. We can have big ones. It doesn't matter, but it's all P8126 when I'm voted president. One rollable. Why bother with anything else?
* P8126. Thank you to my fine friends at Schmidt. I love them.
* My opponent is going to be thrilled with this next campaign talk. Because he can make it for all of the products he wishes to create and grift from. What all products need for my opponent clearly is a barcode on each and every one of them. So he can scan them and put them into his Bitcoin wallet and watch the money just go up in his account and his account only while taking from everyone else. If your product has a barcode on it, you clearly support my opponent in this race. And I am here to eliminate the gaudy, tacky, beautiful barcodes that my opponent loves. Big, beautiful barcodes. All over pens and products. If you put a barcode... Wait, you want to remove barcodes? If you imprint a barcode onto your pen, you are no friend of this campaign. Oh, on the sticker on the pen? A sticker or something? Not on the sticker. On the barrel. There are companies out there. I'm looking at you, Pentel. That's gross. If you put the barcode on the pen, this needs to end and it needs to end now. Well, let me say, audience, even a stop clock can be right once today.
* More for you, right? Do you want to hear my final campaign platform? This is my final message. All right. Let's bring manufacturer back home.
* Let's do it. All right. I'm sick of this. Let's bring manufacturer back home. We need more manufacturer here. Companies that can should actually accept the work. Or you know what? They'll be forced to. And everyone's going to be making everything. And there's going to be more notebooks of different sizes than you could ever imagine. They're coming back home. This was legitimately, Brad, my first one. And I was like, oh, I see where this is going now. Because I actually agree with this.
* Make more notebooks everywhere. Let's bring manufacturer back home. Bring it back home, baby.
* All right. Last one. I'm a party of the people, not for myself. So we're going to make Fountain Pen Day a worldwide government-recognized holiday. We're going to sit with all the other countries. And we're going to get this on the calendar and make it an official day. A day of celebration for our community. Not just, you know, a one-off day here, you know, randomly for retailers. Let's make it a worldwide holiday. Let's bring writing back to the people. Thank you, everyone, for listening to this, for putting up with us. And for voting here, you know, coming up in a few weeks. We're going to have a big vote. Wow. And, yeah. No, I mean, we're not. But, you know. I look forward to it. I look forward to becoming president of Stationary. Yeah. President of Stationary. Myke Hurley, or president of Stationary. Brad Dowdy. You have heard our platforms. Let us know what you think. I'll let you be vice president, if you want. Yeah. We'd be a good team. Yeah. You could be vice president. You're a little bit questionable. I'll meet people at least once a week.
* You nailed it. This episode is brought to you by Enigma Stationary. Enigma Stationary offer unique items from in-house designs, made from in-house designs, along with top brands and hard-to-find imports. It's time to export worry and import joy with Enigma's new, lower prices throughout the shop. That's right. The Enigma team says, Tariffs Schmariffs. Yeah. It's time to treat yourself with the best prices yet on both regular items and a refreshed clearance page. And on top of all those great prices, Enigma have a limited-term offer for anyone purchasing a new fountain pen. From now until July 31st, every fountain pen sold for $150 a war will receive a special gift with a value of at least $30. No code required. So forget about those duties and focus on doodles of your pen-abling friends at Enigma Stationary. Head on over to enigmastationery.com slash penaddict. And you can also use the code penaddict25 at checkout right now. That is enigmastationery.com slash penaddict to get your hands on all of Enigma's great discounts, plus a free gift and free US shipping on orders of over $50 or more with that code penaddict25. Our thanks to Enigma Stationary for their support of this show and relay.
* Less duties, more doodles. That's a campaign platform right there. Yeah. Tariffs Schmariffs also. Big fan. Mm-hmm. Big fan. All right. Let's hit some ass TPA. Okay. Rain this madness back in. Gustavo wrote in and said, I recently moved from San Jose to Denver, and the difference in local availability of stationery beyond greetings cards is stark. There's a part of me that's considering embarking on the long journey of starting up a brick-and-mortar stationery store of my own. I've run a family business in the past, but never a stationery shop. Could you beautiful people either talk me out of it or give me some sage advice on how to build a community hub the likes of Atlas or Yoseka? What makes a good shop? This is a great question, and I will never talk anyone out of doing this as long as you realize it's going to be insanely tough, right, in this market. I don't think we even have to tell that to Gustavo. Yeah. I think that's understood. Here's the thing that I'll say to begin with, Gustavo. Are you okay with making no money for a while? Mm-hmm. Because that's kind of the realities of something like this because you need to establish yourself with vendors, you need to establish yourself in the community. And then, you know, I'm sure that like stationery retail is a pretty thin margin business. Mm-hmm. I would expect anyway. Unless maybe you're working kind of directly with some independent makers. I think the fact that there is such a strong distributor presence in the business, right, would make it quite hard for the margins to be pretty decent is my expectation. I don't know, but that is my expectation.
* That you would have to, you know, you really have to be shifting a lot of product for it to be something that's good. But I feel like Denver, that feels like a place that could have a good store, right? Right. My understanding is like Colorado's pretty hip.
* Yeah. No, Denver would be a great place, I would think. So the challenges in an odd way play a little bit into like some of the positives. And what I would do if I was starting a brick and mortar is you're going to be forced to start small, right? You're going to be forced to be very particular about what you carry because no one's going, no new one-off stationery retailer that's not a chain, right? Like Kino Kaniya, like a massive, massive chain is going to come in big, right, into a community.

== Starting a Brick-and-Mortar Stationery Store ==

* But if you come in with like the right selection of products and can tell the story and share the stories of these products and participate in the community as like an open sharing space for hangouts, like I would have like, I would have a shop space and I would have like a hangout space in any stationery store I built, right? And like that's giving up some of the very expensive, you know, retail footage that you need. But I think people need to be comfortable once they find you is to like spend some time and learn and share and bring in other people into the community and holding events and educating the community.
* And, you know, it's going to be a lot about the products are going to what gets your door open. But figuring out how to build community is, is going to be what gets your growth and continued to growth, continued growth. So I'd start looking at these other retailers that you mentioned, you know, look at someone like, um, and like, I generally do not know how to say this name. It's bomb Kukin, uh, out of Los Angeles. Like if you're, if you're looking at this, you probably run across them. They started like a pretty small retailer retail shop. They really focused on like, um, like the education aspects of products in store, like not really even like online. And, um, you know, they've just continued to grow and continue to build and like have the, uh, just a great community of people that support them. So figure it, find these small stores and small communities that may not be the biggest, um, you know, the biggest online presences, right. And figure out what they're doing to thrive in their local markets. Um, and, you know, decide even if you want to run an online, you know, retail shop, like, um, um, the, the shop in Chicago, is it pen, pen, paper, pencil, Chicago? I forget the exact name. I apologize. Um, they don't even run an online, uh, retail operation, right? They're like on Instagram, they share everything, but they want you to come to the store, right? They don't even, um, they don't even have online retail. So that's a decision like you have to make. That's a, that's a man. That's a tough decision. Like, I don't know if I could do that. Right. Um, but like, that's also the habit that I've been into is, is running some online. So does the online, does the Instagram, um, paper and pencil, Chicago. Gosh, I, I can't remember the exact name. Okay. Um, but like, it's easy to find and, um, we'll put a link in the show notes because I'm, it's, you know, I'm all, I'm all over the name, but, uh, give me the correct name. Paper and pencil, Chicago. Okay. I just couldn't, I wasn't sure. So they do not have online retail, right? But they are really driven by growing the local stationery community. Yeah. Right. So that's, what's keeping them going. And that's a really neat business to, um, to follow and learn from. Um, they're the ones who did, um, the Chicago stationery fest earlier this year as well. Right. That also. Great. Then if you can sell something like that, you're doing good. So like, this is a great, great thought.
* Um, and you know, it could be a great experience. It'll be super, super difficult. Like I, like, I feel like I don't need to say that, but like, I think, you know, that, but you know, if it's, if you're like really, really dedicated to it and you take, if this is your only job, like you're, you know, take an oath of poverty for like a year or two, because that's what it's going to take to, to build something like this. But yeah, I think it could be good, especially in the right place, right location.

== Diagnosing Issues with Vintage Estabrook Nibs ==

* Next question comes in from Scott who says, I have a vintage Estabrook that writes like a dream at low angles and like a thumbtack at high angles. Well, there are steps that I should go through to diagnose the problem or alternatively, what is the problem and how do I fix it?
* What if it's not a problem? Yeah. And that's how the dip was designed. And because Estabrook has literally hundreds of nibs and it actually might be a feature. Now, Scott, you could have something technically wrong with the nib, right? Like if it's pulling, scratching, digging into the paper, you have a problem.
* So you can expect, inspect it. Like if you can, I don't know if you have like a small magnifying glass or some, any way to like look at it, see if the tines are two different lengths, right? So if the tines are two different lengths, it could just be like a manufacturing flaw. At a low angle, you could still get smooth writing, but when you raise it up, you're going to get that difference between those tines. So you can fix that. If you just Google like micro mesh smoothing and tuning for fountain pens, you'll find some videos. You'll have to buy like a little piece of micro mesh or something like that. And you can smooth out the tip of the nib. But like this, this specifically with Esther Brooks, like the vintage Esther Brooks, I like, I question, like, it could be, it could be on purpose because they design a bunch of weird nibs. And, you know, with that particular, if you said, if you said, Hey, I've got a Parker Vacumatic that does this, you know, I'm probably leaning towards there's definitively a problem. This is probably like a coin flip. It might be on purpose.
* This one comes in from Rob who says, what's the word for the impatience you have while waiting for ink to flow from a new cartridge down to the nib? I think of this question as I scribble and shake waiting for my decimal to start writing again. Do you do this? Do you like shake? And like, what do you do? I don't get, I don't get violent with it. Like I'll, I'll shake and prime it a little bit. And then if it doesn't write right away, I'll just stand it vertically and then just go do something else like nib down, nib down. I should say nib down because it vertical could be the other way too. I'll just stand it dim down, come back and check and you should be good to go. So yeah, the, the word I, I would use is I can't say it on this podcast, but it rhymes with frustration. It's just a different, like, kind of like beginning of the word.
* Um, the good news is pilot is usually like the quickest starters. And if your decimal is not writing for a length of time, you need to take it apart and clean it. Um, pilot is really, really one of the quickest starters that I've used in, in just popping in a new cartridge and, um, getting it to write. So if you're, if it's continually a problem, I would definitely try to clean it and start over. Yeah. Um, and next question comes in from listener Jeremy. That's it. I was going to say Rob again, though. It's Jeremy in the past five years. I have run the course of sub $30 pens from around the world, as well as your top five beginner fountain pens. Last year, I decided to step it up and purchased a $60 Conklin durograph. While it was more aesthetically pleasing than my platinum preppy, the writing experience wasn't any better. This year, my budget is $150, excluding tax and shipping. Is there a pen in this price range that will produce the wow factor I had when I first tried King Charles's favorite pilot varsity? So I have a little bit of a question here for Jeremy. And it comes from saying that the writing experience wasn't any better. And that's a challenge, right? Because the most experienced people that listen to this show are going to sit here and say, and I'm going to sit here and say this, that the platinum preppy for $5 writes as good as any fountain pen I own.
* Right? So what are you wishing for from a new pen? Right? You can get a different writing experience than the preppy. Right? You could get a Pilot Falcon nib, and it's got this kind of weird kind of bouncing flex.
* But like, what are you trying to solve for? Right? If your only reason is the pure writing experience, a TWSBI Eco is going to be as good as whatever, I don't know, $200 pen you want to buy. Until you start getting up into like some of the gold nibs, they're going to feel a little bit different. Are you, how do you quantify that the writing experience is better though? Right? So, again, this is just me being me about this question. Taking that like, like real difference in just the writing into the overall experience category, which is how I will get to answering this question, you're going to start looking at something like a Leonardo. Leonardo Momento Zero, something like that, that is very aesthetically pleasing, very beautifully made. The quality of craftsmanship is noticeably different than something like a Platinum Preppy or even a Conklin Durograph.
* And then the nib is going to be really, really great. Right? It's, is the nib of $150 pen going to transform the writing experience from a $10 pen? Like, I'd be lying if I said for sure that's going to happen. Right? Right?
* So, it's, you got to think about this in like the totality. What is, am I going to get this enjoyment from spending more money on a pen? What are the parts of this I'm going to enjoy along with the writing experience? Beautiful material that speaks to me. You know, quality craftsmanship of the barrel. Like, it, you know, it's got a great, you know, all the threading's great and, you know, all the, the fit of the pen is great. And it's just like, it feels like a quality writing instrument in your hand.
* But yeah, like it's, it's, if I'm going to, I, I'm just, I'm getting a little bit stuck on the writing experience wasn't any better. Right? That's a hard one for me to get past for some reason. Um, because I will agree with that. Like, you know, that's why people, you know, don't need to spend a lot of money on pens. If like the writing experience is the first thing, it's a very, it's a much more narrow window. Right? I can talk you into like a platinum 3776. You're going to get like a different writing experience there with a gold nib, right? It's going to feel different. Or I could talk to you into like a pilot double broad nib. That's going to be pretty cool to write with.
* Um, you know, we could talk about flex nibs and, or Falcons and FA nibs from pilot. And like, that's going to change your writing experience. But most of the pens are going to be a great writing experience. But the differentiation of the writing experience between an inexpensive pen and a very expensive pen is, is a little bit narrower. You know, that's a, that's like a little bit of a narrower concept. If, and I'm very rambling on this, but like, I'm trying to explain something that's a very tactile thing, um, verbally, and it's, I don't know how well it's going, but I hope that makes sense. But, um, yeah, just, I just wondered, like set your expectations accordingly. Right? Last question comes from Ben who says, I recently got myself a Rotofaden Tasha bag lighter, which is the A5 size and was wondering if you have notebook recommendations. I'm currently using MD paper, but find it difficult with the dotted type in the UK and would like to try others. Dot grid, fountain pen friendly with minimal covers seem surprisingly hard to buy, especially if you're trying to swear off Amazon. Have you tried the Rotofaden, uh, notebooks Ben? Uh, because when I've tried those in the past, they've been very good for fountain pens. And so the challenge that Ben is having is the way the Rotofaden system is. You have these prongs that fit in thinner notebooks, right? Let's just take the, he's using the A5 size. So you need like the thinner. If you're going to use multiple notebooks, um, I guess you could use one larger notebook, like an MD. If you want to use a larger notebook, um, I think life or Kikuyo.
* Kikuyo makes some thinner A5 notebooks too. So I'd look at Kikuyo, see what you can get for dots there. I'm not sure off the top of my head. Life, you might be able to get dots.
* Um, so I would look at those two brands. I don't know outside of like trying Rotofaden's own notebooks. Um, the MD would is probably one of my best choices. Um, yeah, A5 soft bound thin notebooks that fit the system are few and far between. So check out Kikuyo and then life, maybe look at some of their thicker notebooks. Um, and you might be able to get dots. I'm not sure on that though. I know I'm questioning myself. So those are the brands I would look at and, um, see what you can come up with there. But, uh, I really like the MD if you can figure out a way to get it. Like if you're in the UK, you know, probably, you know, Colt pens and there, there's several retailers in the UK and Europe that should have some dotted versions of MD that you should be able to take care of. If you would like to send in a question for us to answer on a future episode of the show, just go to penaddictfeedback.com. That's where you can also send in your follow-up. I can't think of any reason that you'd have to send in any follow-up, uh, about this week's episode. No reason at all. Nope. If you want to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com, spokedesign.com, and you can find Brad streaming, uh, over at twitch.tv slash penaddict three times a week. Uh, you can find me here on Relay. Go to relay.fm. You can find more of our shows and you can find the products that I work on over at Cortex Brand. Thank you to the St. Louis Pen Show and Enigma Stationery for their support of this week's episode. But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

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