Editing The Pen Addict 692/transcript

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name            = The Pen Addict
| number          = 692
| title           = Wham! Namiki!
| date            = November 20th, 2025
| hosts           = [[Brad Dowdy]]<br>
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests          = 
| link            = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/692 Episode 692]
| audiolink       = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/613/clrtpod.com/m/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_692.mp3 Audio Episode 692]
| length          = 65
}}

From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 692. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and Plotter. My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. Hello, Myke Hurley. How are you doing today? Oh, I'm good, my friend. I'm very good indeed. Yeah, I am ready to talk pens. We have a lot to cover today, as usual. I love talking about this stuff. Some of us had a little product launch action in the past week that we're going to get into. There's no easy way to transition into the start. I want to talk about a little bad news to begin the show.

I think it's important to get out there. And I think a lot of people in the community are aware of a really major theft that happened at the Madrid Pen Show. So, Maura Stilos, who is a very well-known French retailer. And Mr. Maura has been in the industry for a long time, longer than I've been following pens and stationery. And had a very large amount of pens. Apparently, you wonder how this bulk got stolen. Apparently, it was like a post-show, like things were packed up type of situation. It's my understanding of how it happened.

But for someone who runs a big classic fountain pen shop and that has been doing this for a long time, you can imagine the quantity and the quality of the products that they had. So, these would be very obvious if they came up on the market where they came from. There's serial numbers. There's all kinds of information. So, my friend Clarissa from the Snowy Studio posted this. And it's got serial numbers of some of these limited edition pens. All kinds of rare, unique items that if they did appear in any type of marketplace,

it would be pretty clear where they came from. So, I wanted to share this, bring awareness to this. This just happened this past weekend and it stinks. And I think Mr. Morris still like putting together the full list, right? Because he, like if you went for someone like him, he'll go to a show. And I'm putting words into his mouth. But this is how a lot of the large retailers will do it. Who have these vast collections. They'll bring the pen and leave the packaging at home. And if someone buys the pen, they'll ship them the packaging, right?

So, he actually has like, you know, the notes and the serial numbers and all these things from the products. You know, still, it's just like the actual pens, I believe, is my understanding or what's disappeared. It's not like, you know, when you're buying these very expensive limited edition pens, the boxes are, you know, shoebox sized, right? So, it's not like you can carry around all that stuff when you're traveling to pen shows. So, I believe he's still putting together the list. And it's just something to keep an eye out.

Like, if you're into the level of pen that was stolen, this is something you would notice immediately. Like, this is not something I would notice, right? Because I'm not familiar with, you know, 90% of the pens on this list. But people who are in the know, and I thought it would be good to share this, would instantly know what these things are. So, keep an eye out. And I hope we get some resolution on this. You know, historically, it's been tough to get these back into their proper hands. But all we can do is cross our fingers and pay attention and see if anything happens here and comes up.

A lot of these pens, they're like things I don't know. They're just like really specific, special things. Yeah. Like, at the top of the list, like the Agatha Christie stuff, is like that was a Mont Blanc writer's edition, right? Oh. So, they don't have like the brand names. They don't have the brands. A lot of these are Mont Blancs. I would know a lot of these. Yeah. But I just don't necessarily know the particular thing. Yeah. Because they are rare. Yeah, this is by course, I guess. Yeah. This is the Mont Blanc section is what's shared here.

So, there's countless others. This is like 20 pens, 25 pens. Just of the Mont Blancs. So, there's, I'm sure, an insane amount more lists. I haven't found a full list. But I think that would be good. Hopefully, we can get that to share in the community for people to keep an eye out on. Because, like I said, people who know these pens really know this stuff, right? And can spot things like very, very well. Yeah. So, hopefully, we get a full reckoning of the list and a full reckoning of the person who stole these.

So, that sucks. Really bad. Yeah. That's so sad. It is. It is. It just discourages people from participating in these kinds of events. Yeah. Yeah. And this is like a career's worth of collection, right? Yeah. Like, this is like no joke, no joke type of stuff. So, it's tough. It's tough. So, again, there was no good way to get into it. There's no good way to get out of it. So, I'm going to talk about a pen. Yeah. I'm going to talk about a pen that would not be on this list. It's the Platinum Curidos.

I mean, there was a time when it looked like it might have been on the rare list. Well, we thought it might go away permanently from the jump. That's what I'm saying. I mean, like, I don't want to say huge failure at the beginning, but they had problems like from the jump, and we've discussed them many times. Pretty fatal problem, if you ask me. It was. They had a physical flaw in the pen, right? It was cracking. Yeah. The feed was cracking. It wasn't like the barrel was cracking. It was like literally underneath the nib, there was a crack.

I still have one. I kept mine that has the crack in it because it actually writes fine. One of the ones that is, like, susceptible to the crack, but mine doesn't have one. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, this was, it seemed like it was doomed from the start. And somehow, they've kept it going. They fixed the original issue. It was the way the, these nibs are specific when, if you're not familiar with the Cure Dust, it's a retractable fountain pen. These nibs are generally very narrow and thin, and they essentially clamp around the feed.

And then there was just some technical mismatches there that were causing cracking in the feed. So, they, they've solved that problem. And then they've just let it sit out there for probably two years and made me wonder, because I'm a big believer in, like, retractable fountain pens, right? We've talked about this from the beginning. They're not for everybody. They're absolutely, like, unusable for many people. But I like them. And generally, I like them because they fit my handwriting style. They're very, very fine pointed.

You can write close to the, you can grip down close to the nib. It's just for, like, my type of writing. They've always worked well. So, I want to see these retractable pens succeed. And this is, even the Kyridos, which is only probably, I don't know, when did you go to that event? Like, pre-COVID? It was, like, five years ago, maybe? Yeah, it was definitely pre-COVID. Probably, like, 2019-ish. I didn't look up the launch date. But it's only, like, five years old. But even since then, we've had just a rash of other companies continuing to try to build a good quality retractable pen.

And I didn't think Platinum was going to continue after their initial launch because they didn't do anything with it, right? I thought, all right, we're here. We're going to push this. You know, hopefully it succeeds. Maybe we get a metal barrel. You know, maybe it's a product lineup pen and then nothing, like crickets for years. And then about two years ago, they just dropped a slight tweak in barrel material change. They did, like, the kind of, like, rubberized exterior. So, the first batch was translucent.

And they did more of a little bit of a texture on the barrel. It's like, okay, the Kyridos still exists. And Platinum is still putting money in it. And I'm still curious. I can't help but saying Kyridos makes me say curious over and over again. Those words are completely linked for me.

They still are pushing it a little bit. They're not going, here's the massive engineering change that we've made. They're going, here's maybe a little bit of shuffle in the design. You can't really tell. You know, there's not much. That you can tell the difference between the version 2 and version 3. I don't count. Version 1 and 2 are the same pen. Same design. And then, all of a sudden, they put up some new colors, which we talked about, I don't know, months ago. When I saw them. The reason why I'm bringing this up is because I'll be the first to admit this is not the greatest pen of all time.

But I can't quit it. And it's just like attached to me. In some weird way, myself and this pen get along very well. I really enjoy it. It's kind of terrible in its own weird way. Like, it's not comfortable necessarily. It's wide. You know, it's chunky. It's big. The knock is egregious. Like, there's not a lot of redeeming aspects of the Curidas. But I love it. And I don't understand why. And I'm wondering if people have products like this. Like, this is never going to be a traditionally popular pen.

Right? No retractable pen is. And then, the Curidas is the worst version that this could be. Someone looks at this who doesn't know. Like, who's just getting into fountain pens. They'll think this is the worst looking pen they've ever seen in their life. Right. Like, and I don't think I'm being, like, hyperbolic in that case. Except, I can't put it down. I really enjoy the writing experience. The nibs work. Platinum steel nibs work for me. They're fine. And they're, you know, clean writers. And the pen is weird.

They did, so the colors, this most recent one are kind of these iridescent. They did, like, three iridescent. Like, green, blue, and purple have the green one. It's really great. I don't know. There's no point in this conversation other than there's some products that not even I understand why I like them because I shouldn't. That's a pretty short list. I would even have to think of, like, what the rest of this list is. But the Curidas is the leader of that list. And I'd be curious if anyone has, like, really odd products that they just can't quit and they just love.

So, you know, y'all let me know if there is something like this. It could be, like, it's, it, these things tend to be, like, the more non-traditional stuff. Like, the overly, over-designed, over-mechanical type of things. You know, like, which the Curidas could be.

But I, I get joy out of the writing experience. And if I didn't get joy out of the writing experience, I would really hate this pen. Because it's so weird. But I think that's where it starts. It brings me joy to use and write with. And, I don't know, I think that says a lot about a product. Even if it's not going to ever be widely popular, it can be, like, specifically popular to some people. And that's where I'm at with the Curidas. So, that's my, that's my pitch for the Curidas. It's never going to rate, right?

Like, it's just not. But I'll, I'll keep buying them because I enjoy them. I can't really see much more than that. What does it price that now? Right around $100. I have to look at this edition. They've always been in that $90 to $100 range. I wonder if this one, just over time, you know, it's just naturally went up a little bit. Yeah. Like, $110-ish, you know, maybe. But, you know, let's see if I can find it out real quick. Yeah, here it is right here. Um, no, $96, Mike. Well. Like, really no price change.

Look at them go. In this, in this product. So, the original ones, excuse me, this is cheaper. What? I don't, I'm confused now. So, the original colors, you know, that red, blue, green, $100. Mm-hmm. New Curidas Stones, that's what this one's called, Mike, the stones. Like rolling stones? Sure. Sure. Uh, like gemstones. Um, $96. So, explain that to me in this world that we live in. Well, I would explain it that the product did not launch the way that they wanted. Yeah, fair. It's like, but, they're still investing in it because they made new colors.

Right. But maybe it's just because they have so many insides on the shelf that they needed to do something. Yeah. Maybe it's gonna go away. I, uh, my, my dream scenario's gone, for sure. My initial, like, wild success, make this into, like, a real competitor in the retractable pin space. You know, escalated into metal barrels and whatnot. I, I do. I, I think that dream is gone. Um, and it probably should be. I, it's not going to deliver in this space the, the way this pin looks and is built. Right.

It's just not. But, anyway. Um, so, yeah. That's my, uh, love story to the Curidas. I love it. I would never tell anyone to buy it. Um, it's, it's definitely one of those pins, which there, there's actually a lot of those products, but this one's even more peculiar than most. Right. Staying on the retractable front, Mike, I had more of a broader question. Again, I just rambled about the Curidas. I'm going to ramble about this next product. It's called the Mark Style Azubudai Hills Limited Edition Vanishing Point.

I'll explain this. So, Mark Style Stationery Store, Azubudai Hills is a shop location, like a physical retail store. And then they have the Limited Edition Color for this, uh, store. Okay? Yep. The only reason I saw this is because I'm in love with the color.

And this is interesting to me because it's just a flat, like, almost like a minty green or like a matcha green. I don't know exactly what color you would call this, but it's a popular green color. Like, this is a common green color. But they did it with the blackout trim and they did it with the silver trim. And this is legitimately one of the better looking vanishing points I've seen in quite some time. And it's just the simple one color. It's gorgeous. It's like matte, right? It's just, yeah. A green, sorry.

On the black, but then the silver is shiny. So, it's like two different executions of the same pen, which is interesting to me. It just goes to show that sometimes simplicity wins the day. I'm talking about the Kyridos. Like, the Kyridos is anything but simple, right? Yeah. For a retractable pen, the vanishing point, this is as clean and as good looking pen as I've ever seen them do. Right? It just works. And now comes my question. Like, that could be the end of this. And I got to thinking, didn't Pilot buy Marks recently?

Like, doesn't Pilot actually own this company, Marks? And we talked about this back at the DC Pen Show recap when we were testing Marks paper at Pilot's booth. And Pilot mentioned, like, yeah, we own Marks now. And we're going to work on some notebook products. So, I'm more curious now. So, Pilot bought Marks in 2023. Like, go on Pilot's website. It's, you know, like in their company history. All that stuff. So, it's there. It was just completely under the radar. Still very quiet to this day. But now I wonder.

Like, this is their own company. Sub company getting the really exclusive limited edition. I don't know. It just feels like very, like, real weird in-house type of situation. But I'm sure they'll say, well, it's a standalone company. They do their own thing. They contract with us just like they normally did. None of this matters. I just think it's more of a curious now that Marks' parent company is Pilot. And they've done these limited edition vanishing points before Pilot owned them at this store.

This store must be, like, in, you know, like a popular, like, shopping district. Like, this is, like, would be like a flagship type of store for Marks. So, they get the nice exclusives. Anyway, no point to this other than, yes, Pilot literally owns this shop where this really cool vanishing point is dropping. So, that was all I wanted to bring up. So, I'm interested to see, it circles back to the DC conversation. I'm interested to see what Pilot does with this brand because so far it's been nothing.

And they've owned it for two years now. Right. And I don't know, maybe it's just more of a Japan slash Asia market thing. And maybe it's not going to come to, like, Pilot North America or Pilot Europe. I'd be surprised if Pilot North America was testing the paper products publicly at DC and it wasn't in the pipeline for, like, 2026. So, we'll see what happens there. But it's just more of a refresher to me. It's like, oh, yes, Pilot literally owns this retailer now. And a stationery maker. So, interesting stuff.

Is Mark Style one word? It's, what do you call it? It's like a word mark. Yes. In everything I've seen from them before, it's always been the way they have it on this. Mark apostrophe S-T-Y-L-E. So, like. As one word with the apostrophe. Mark Style. Yeah. I guess it's the best way to say it. It's like a word mark. A tile that belongs to Mark. Mm-hmm. But that's not what they mean. That's great. I'm not like, you know, it's like whatever. Like. Oh, no. This is like one of these many names that you see, like, of Japanese retail stores where they're using English in a way to be, like, in a cool way.

Right. Like, they're formatting English in a cool way. Like, yeah. I would wonder if there's even a mark, you know? Right. Right. Right. Right. Because I have to, when I do, like, product reviews and list them and tag them. Like, I have some old Marks reviews where I just have it, like, Marks. Like, this is Marks Stationery, right? Yeah. M-A-R-K apostrophe S. Yeah. But I would need to have a correction on that. Like, I correct, like, Lamy, Y Studio, Uniball. Anyone who has, like, specific, you know, casing or anything like that, I create a text expander link.

So, I just automatically don't screw it up. Yeah. Now that I've gone through, I've gone over to scroll down Marks Style Tokyo page. They have, like, a yellow one of these pens, too. The vanishing point. With gold trim. The same black treatment, but with gold. Like, these are crazy. I shouldn't have looked at this page. But it's full. Like, all their big things. It's, like, cute stationery, cute stationery, cute stationery, Namiki. You know, it's, like, wham, Namiki. And then they have these other vanishing points.

There's, like, a slate gray and a tan. Like, these singular color ones are just sick. And this one's from, like, last year's model or 2023's model. Yeah, this yellow one. The yellow one's from 2024. That's the 2024 model. Safety yellow. Yeah, it's great. Huh. Very cool. So good. So, they do, if you're looking in, I'm sorry, this is total distraction. But if you're looking at this page and you see that yellow, just to the left of that is an image of notebooks with that same safety yellow and then black and then, like, a taupe tan color.

That is what Marks is known for, is this notebook style. And that's what I imagine we're going to see Pilot integrate into their product lineup coming soon. Right. That's pure speculation on me. But that's what Marks is known for, is that style with the kind of, like, the plastic or vinyl zip cover on the top. And good quality paper. We tested the paper. It's good stuff. So, yeah. Phew. Where can we get some pens, Mike? Oh, you can go over to Pen Chalet, who is one of the wonderful sponsors of this week's episode.

They have everything you're looking for from the brands that you love, from authentic, amazing rollerballs and ballpoints and fountain pens and mechanical pencils and inks and carrying cases and fountain pen converters and refills and every accessory under the sun. And from brands, like, I'm just going to go to the website because I have a list of brands here. But as I always say, the list of brands goes on and on and on forever. Like, I'm just going to pick out some at random here. Pelican, Lamy.

We've got Estabrook here. Field Notes is up there. Rhodia, Rotring, Twisby, Wardman, Sailor, Fisconti, Pilot, Parker. It just goes, that list, this is a big old list. And that list just keeps on growing. So you should always go over to PenChalet.com because every couple of weeks they're adding new products to the store and new discounts as well. They sell everything that you're going to want to need from pens to accessories. They do international shipping with the best shipping rates they can. And they do free shipping on orders of over $75 in the US.

Pen Chalet has low prices on high quality pens of a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So take yourself over to PenChalet.com slash PenAddict. That is P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com slash PenAddict. To get 10% off anything at Pen Chalet. And to see this week's exclusive offers because you listened to this show. What have we got, Brad? Before we get into that, as I like to do, the front page scroll always gets me. The Diplomat Arrow Funky is the arrow. So Diplomat Arrow is a pen that I've long loved. And, you know, it's a metal kind of torpedo shaped pen.

And this one does not have the kind of like the cutouts in the barrel that the arrow is known for. It's smooth. And that allows them to do this really cool.

Funky. I don't know, like finish on there. They are literally funky. It's like a, I don't know how you call this, like an iridescent purples and blues and all kinds of really, really neat. It's a really neat exterior on this Diplomat. So I wanted to look at that. And then secondly, I think the big focus this week is what they're calling the Pen Chalet Cash mystery box. Or is that cachet? I think it's the cash. In this context, it's cash. You say cash, but the problem is the word cash makes it sound like money.

Cachet has a T on the end. Yeah. Cachet has a T on the end of it. So yeah, this is cash. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you have cachet, you have cash plus a T. It's Mark style. Mark style writing. Mark style.

So the Pen Chalet Pen Cash mystery box. See, but I like chalet cachet. Well, so we have them as a sponsor. Therefore, the Pen Addict podcast has Pen Chalet cachet. Yes. But our listeners can now go to Pen Chalet because of our cachet and buy the Pen Chalet cache. Hey. Hey? Yeah. Hey. Which contains one fountain pen of a value of $95. One bottle of fountain pen ink. One single pen sleeve, desktop accessories, and sticker goodies for $49.99. Like it's a value. So it's a retail value of like $150. They were selling it for like $122.

Now it's basically $50. And you can choose like your nib style, nib size, excuse me, in the box. So this is just a fun mystery box for honestly a very, very low price. And then you can include in a bunch of ink samples, which they've done a good job with the brands of the ink samples that they use. So they have the classic, some of the classics like your basic Namiki, Pelican, Kaweco inks. But then they have Dominant Industry samples. And then they have Van Diemen samples. And then they have Tasha samples.

So what you do is you buy the box and you get a bunch of stuff. And then you throw in some extra nib samples, ink samples while you're at it. So it looks like fun. Very cool indeed. So what you want to do is go to penshalet.com slash penaddict, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com slash penaddict. And that's where you can find the information for this, but to get the discount that you want for 10% on anything over at Penshalet. Our thanks to Penshalet for the support of this show and all of Relay. All right, Mike, we got our shout out of the week.

Shout out of the week. Maverick pens. So I owe an apology to Caroline who writes for the penaddict. I usually put the shout out of the week, the meet your maker post, because I think it's kind of like a perfect shout out where Caroline interviews makers in our community and does an article usually every month and shares the story of these makers. And I usually try to remember to put them in the shout out of the week. And I think I've been forgetting. So this time we have Maverick pens. So y'all should go over and check out this article, Caroline's interview with John and

Abby from Maverick pens. They make some really, really great pens. I own one. I own the stratified mic, which we've talked about many times. It's basically the stacked acrylic pen that you'll, if you go over to the post, you'll see exactly what I'm talking about, where, you know, it's basically a layer of all these different acrylic colors that they, that they build and build and turn and make a fountain pen out of. And I'm like, yes, I will have that please. Um, but yeah, great people, really great pens and another great article by Caroline.

So I wanted to give her a shout out to, uh, as well as Maverick pens. So go check this article out, check out what Maverick pens does. And, uh, yeah, you will be a pleasant, pleasantly surprised at all the cool stuff that they make and pleasant. They are also very pleasant people. So, all right, I want to catch up. Uh, we didn't have time last week and I knew this because it was an epic, um, product episode last week. I wanted to catch up on the last update, the last major update that I'm going to make to

the top five list. There's a couple of minor lists that I'm going to tweak. You know, that's the wooden pencils, mechanical pencils, ballpoint pens, some of those things that don't have, uh, Mike, the cache of the top five pens from 200 to $500 list, which turns out I used to not like this list. Turns out it's kind of become the new important list because usually like this is kind of the breaking. It used to be like a really good breaking point of, okay, now you're getting, you're getting more in a form over function, right?

This is where you get your embellishments and your materials and your exclusives. The higher the price you go, um, the writing experience remains similar to the lower prices, but the extras of the pen, um, you know, start ramping up the price and all these other, other reasons other than just the pure writing experience. But now given the, what we've spoken about when I was doing the previous list, the $100 to $200, uh, range two episodes ago or three episodes ago, was that just the price increases

across the board for rare materials, for machining, everything has gone up. So now this list has actually become pretty vital in thinking about how your fountain pen journey goes. So if you notice on this list, um, I'm just going to read off the top five and then we'll discuss them individually. So number one, I have the pilot custom heritage, nine 12 number two sailor pro gear standard or 1911 large number three, platinum 37, 76 century number four pilot custom eight 23 number five Lamy 2000. All of these pens used to be in the previous list.

I think, I think every one of them was formerly a sub 200 price pen. And, you know, over time things have changed in something like the nine 12 lineup, um, to where they've gone from like five nibs available to 15 nibs available, which we'll talk about in a minute. And that's what puts them at number one over something like the 37, 76, but like it used to be easy to pick the 37, 76 used to be number one in the sub 200 category. So why is it number three in the 200 to 500 category when a lot of these pens are?

So that's, that's kind of the balance I was trying to sort out with myself when I'm thinking about it from a recommendation perspective, right? This is also the list that needs the least amount of recommendations. This is where you're getting into the range where you know what you want. These are maybe some good options you could look at, but really in the end, this is where you're getting into like the most personal type of things. I was going to say, once we get to this price range, have we, have we passed into the like

now, now it's about preference because we're into diminishing returns kind of territory. Yes. So this is actually the least useful recommendation list. Because is this one a bit more personal to you, do you think? Um, I would say so. And that's one of the problems I ran into, but the problem ended up being self-correcting, which I'll get into. So yes, no, no, it's kind of like it goes hand in hand, right? With what I would recommend, but versus what I prefer. So when I was thinking about this from recommendations, the Pilot 912 is admittedly boring on the outside.

It's black silver trim, but what they offer and why I think people should consider it is this is where you get nib options galore, right? They have 15 nib choices for this pen. They're all 14 karat gold. They all run the same price. I think it's about $240. I don't have it right in front of me. So you can get an insane selection here and a quality barrel. Is it the most fancy, beautiful, knock your socks off barrel ever? No, but it suits the pen perfectly. It's a wonderful, comfortable writer, right?

So you're paying for the nib difference in an upgrade situation from your previous pen, right? That could be a TWSBI Eco or it could be a Pelican M200. Now you're getting into this gold nib and you can do something different with it, right? So that's why, and the price, it's still, I guess the Heritage, the 912, the 3776 and the Lamy 2000 are all south of $250, right? These are just over $200, right? In a range from $200 to $500, that's three pens that are under $250. The Sailor Pro gears you can get for under $300, depending.

And then the custom 823 is now about $350 or $380. So we don't even have anything pushing $500, which I'll go ahead and state now. The self-correcting part of this list that I mentioned a minute ago was that I wanted the Pelican M600 on here, but it's now like $540. And that's even in the European market. Like there's a drastic difference between the North American market and the European market for Pelicans. You can usually get them cheaper in the European market. And that doesn't seem to have changed, even with like US distribution has changed.

It's still over. You can probably find them on sale. I didn't want to count on, this list is not, you can find it on sale at X. You can find an M600 for like $400 and something, you know, I'm sure. But as a base standard, it's over $500. The Leonardo Memento Zero Grande with the gold nib and the piston filler, also now over $500, right? So there's the Aurora Optimas. They bounce back and forth, but the Optimas in the 88s are usually like in the $400 to $500 range. They're now more than that, right?

So this list ended up self-correcting from a price perspective. Right. Which brought back a pin like the Lamy 2000, which hasn't been on my list for a while. But that's just how the market works to where now, even though the Lamy 2000 is more expensive than it ever has been, it now fits in a price bracket to be a better option, or at least a consideration, a better consideration than maybe a Pelican M600, which will cost you like $200 more or $300 more. So now the Lamy 2000 gets to come back in the list, which, you know, wasn't an easy decision,

right? Because that's an actual, a hard recommendation to make. It's a uniquely good pin. It just doesn't fit everyone. It's the least traditional out of this list, right? These are four very traditional pins and then the Lamy 2000. Um, it's traditional in its own, you know, museum design quality way, but not in a traditional fountain pen way, which doesn't fit everyone. So the only other consideration I had was the Sailors versus the Platinum in two and three. Um, my personal recommendation would be the 3776.

I think I would recommend most people to start looking at the Pro Gears and the 1911s, the large sizes, which is the Pro Gear standard in the 1911 large, because you're going to have what the Pilot Custom Heritage doesn't have. And that's personality, right? You don't have, you lose the nib choices, which I think is such a huge selling factor for the 912 lineup, but you gain character and personality in the Sailor Pro Gears and the 1911s, which you also don't get in the 3776. I think the 3776 nib is better personally.

I think a lot of people would enjoy the style of Sailors more than the 3776. Literally coin, literal coin flip here though. Like depending on what you like. Um, I just think there's just more options from the Sailors in this price point than Platinum. And I'm discounting like just the extreme limited editions here. Like Platinum does a lot of great limited editions. Follow up from last week's episode real quick. Um, since we gave, uh, Twisby of the week and Sailors constant releasing of new products,

a special shout out to Platinum, who has apparently gone off the deep end with Japanese limited editions and store exclusives. I've never seen so many Platinum 3776 limited editions in my life that are popping up as store exclusives. So they have definitely kind of, uh, turned a corner on their releases here. So, um, special shout out, I guess, to them for just over for like flooding the zone with product, uh, right now. So we'll see how that plays out for them. So I didn't want to overlook that because I did get, uh, someone did mention that to me.

And I had noticed, I had noticed this, uh, in the past like six months, how aggressive they've been pilot custom eight 23 used to be number one in this list. And that was when it was two 80, $280. And now it's about three 80. So it's not as good a bang for your buck from a recommendation. Um, it's uniquely positioned for its filling system and it's in capacity. And it's just like pure writing quality. Like this is a writer's pen. Like this is, this could be like your one and only pen that you ever own.

Um, it's just, I mean, since I bought mine, it's gone up $200, right? I paid under $200 for mine, but now it's gone up the, the, it went from, you know, I think in like $50 increments ish. So it went from like two 80 to like three 30. Now it's like three 80 and that just doesn't mean it's not a great pen. It's just now you have to think about a little more when I thought before it was like a easy two 80, it would still probably be number one on this list. Maybe, I don't know if the nine 12 still might be just because of the nib options.

I think they're useful for people. And then the Lamy 2000, I said what I needed to say about that. It's a unique pen. Um, I think it's in an odd way. It's almost backed itself into this list based on the ejection and price increases of like three or four other pens that would normally be a really good fit here. Like personally, my personal list wouldn't have the 2000 on it. I'd probably have like the Aurora Optima on it. Uh, if it was under 500 or the 88 that the Aurora Optima versus the Aurora 88 is basically

the same as sailor pro gear standard 1911 large. It's just the, the end barrel ends is the only difference. So good piston filler, things like that. But like, it's, it's just priced into a different bracket, but it's just, it's a different scale now and you know, things are changing. This has become a very interesting list basically from the, you know, 200 to $300 range. Um, and then the pilot 823 is like 380. So we're not even sniffing like 500. Um, but five years from now, this list might be the same and they're all $400.

So who knows? Yeah. I do feel like for me with this, um, with this bracket, you know, like at the start of the conversation, we were talking about the personal, like the personal part of it all. Right. Like once you're into that, when kind of, once you get past 250, I feel like you're, you're kind of, now you're looking for something specific, right? Like you as a, as a consumer that what's why I like the, the pro gears or the sailors, right? So the pro gear in the 1911 and even the 3776, maybe more than say the pilot custom heritage

because they allow for expression and individuality and design. Yep. So that, that was all I wanted to say. Yeah. This is, uh, again, one of those buckets. You just put them all in a cup, shake it up and whatever order they come out in would have no argument. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Even the Lamy two, if someone says Lamy 2000 should be number one, I would not argue that whatsoever. Yeah. From a recommendations perspective. Like if I'm saying go look like you're ready to spend big money on a pen, start here.

Um, any order of this list, I would be completely fine with. Yeah. Okay. They're all very, very close. It's now you're getting into, that's why we don't, I don't do lists more than this because you're just getting even more into personal, personal tastes that you have already figured out by this point. So, uh, but this is like usually a lot of times, like this is like the final stop, right? This is like, this is the big pen, pen range. Like you don't need, you don't really need more than this. Again, like you mentioned diminishing returns.

I think this is like peak, peak like fountain pen experience right here. So. Yeah. All right. Let's take our second break and thank plotter for their support of this week's episode. Yeah. Plotter is Japanese leather binder ring system driven by the desire to transcend the boundaries of the system planner, encouraging freer and more creative use like a notebook. The leather binders are designed to be compact and portable with fountain pen friendly refills made in house. Plotter refill memo pads are designed as tear away notepads so you can use them comfortably

even if you're left handed or worry about the rings getting in the way. Its accessories and other refill types are also designed to inspire users to maximize their creativity of its function, but minimalistic aesthetic. In 2025, Plotter marks its ninth anniversary since its founding. And opens its first flagship store in Tokyo, Plotter Tokyo. To commemorate this truly significant milestone, two limited edition box sets have been created. Plotter USA online shop features a special Pueblo limited box set that includes a leather binder,

a ring supporter and a pen holder with lifter, all with the matching Pueblo leather in limited color red brown. These box sets are available in all five sizes that Plotter make. A5 Bible, narrow, mini and mini 5 rings. Plotter USA retailers will have their own limited edition box sets that feature Lischio leather, both Pueblo and Lischio, Lisico, I'm not sure which one that is. Yeah, that one's a tough one. Lisico, I think. Lisico. A premium Italian leather with limited box sets. All you need is to add your preferred refill memo pad type, ruled blank grid or whatever,

and you're ready to start enjoying the Plotter system. This holiday, Plotter can be a great gift for friends and family with creative projects or for those starting a new career. The ease of organization makes it a preferred choice for professionals or stationery lovers to manage tasks and personal projects. I'm a huge Plotter fan. Like, anyone who listens to this show should not be surprised by this. And I'm so excited that they wanted to advertise on the show. That makes me, like, very proud as not only a creator, like, in this space, in the stationery

world, but that they see, like, the value in, like, talking to Panatic customers or Panatic listeners as, you know, maybe new customers. And as a Plotter fan myself, I've used the system since they came to the U.S., which is the five-year mark. But, again, they've been around in Japan for nine years. And I had the pleasure of meeting Takeyuki Saito at Chicago's show. I met him at the San Francisco show. Just a joy to talk to. So inquisitive. Like, Mike, the favorite thing about product designers in, like, on a smaller scale, you and I.

Like, I like talking to you about how you go through your process. And I think you, a little bit, like to talk to me about how I go through my process of design. Well, getting Takeyuki, when I was at, I think, at San Francisco and building my current Plotter, which is the narrow version, which I've used for about over three years now, wanted to know why. Like, why this? Why this shape? What is my, you know, plan usage? How am I going to use these things? And just asking, getting the opportunity to ask that to a customer over and over and over again,

really, like, shows in the results of their product. And this one is cool. So the Pueblo Limited Box, one of the things that they did differently is have the pin loop and the ring protector be the same leather as the outside cover. So that's not a normal thing. So this is a really unique setup for this system. And it's really cool that they decided to do this because it kind of fits in with the aesthetic. So I have, you know, just, I have like a brown leather cover and then I have like the black ring loop

and then like a black ring protector, black pin loop and ring protector. So it's really neat to see just like the whole like through line of the materials. And they take their materials. They're talking to Takeyuki and the plotter team. They might take the material selection more seriously than the design. Like I've talked to them about materials and sourcing and what they do and the efforts that they go to to get the right thing and to not use the wrong thing is unbelievable. So I'm a plotter fan.

I appreciate them supporting us and supporting the show. And if you have any questions, if anyone ever has any questions about this, this I've been a customer long before they ever decided to use this. This has been my core planner for, like I said, I think three and a half years now. I've never stuck in a planner system this long. The system Techo design with the rings works extremely well for me. And it works with how I work. And that's the best part of the plotter system to me is it's very, very compatible to how I work.

And it allows me to do my best work. So it's a daily item for me and I love it. As a special gift for the listeners of this show, use the code PENADDICTGIFT, or one word, when you check out at plotterusa.com to receive a set of plotter leather-pressed paper coasters of your order ending in December 2025 while supplies last. That's plotter, P-L-O-T-T-E-R-U-S-A.com with the code PENADDICTGIFT for a free set of plotter leather-pressed paper coasters with your order and to show your support for the show.

Our thanks to Plotter for their support of this show and all of Relay. Last anecdote before we move on to some other design that we want to talk about this show. Takeyuki would always bring, as the creator of Plotter, you can imagine the quantity and variety of plotter systems he has. He would bring his personal stuff and just throw them on the tables at the shows and you can just dig through them and look through how he builds his plotters and how he sets them up. And all his designs, all his drawings and all this stuff,

just be like a stack of plotters there. And it's just like, yeah, go look at how I use this stuff. Very cool. It's pretty cool. When the founder believes in it that much, he just puts the stuff out there for you to just dig through. It's great. It's great. Great. We made a pencil mic. Yeah, let's go.

Spoke Design, the company I'm partnering with, my friend and genius engineer, Brian Conte. He doesn't like it when I say that, but I'm going to say it. Brian's an amazing engineer, an amazing person. And we continue to iterate on our popular pencil designs, which is how Spoke Design launched. A lot of people may just know them from some of the pens we've done more recently, but it was really a pencil company when Brian launched the company.

And when I came on board was around the time of the Spoke Model 4, which we talked about last week as being like the classic OG best spoke pencil model. Ever. And we have, you know, do you mess with the formula that works, Mike? Can you tell me? Yes. Yes. And I think we've created an even better. So we've called it the Model 7. So it takes the aesthetics of the original Model 4 with the same like upper barrel design, the same spoke design philosophy with the different color barrels and different color sleeves.

And we updated the grips and a couple of new designs with like the groove grips along with the side, the knurled and allowed for a different tip style in that we have the traditional conical tip, which a lot of people are familiar with the Pentel Sharp series. And that's what we use for our mechanism. Now we have the engineering style tip, which we're calling the step tip just for ease of use. We have a conical tip and a step tip. And that required us to build two different grips for to fit these different types of nose cones.

But you can get a different aesthetic. Now you can get that more engineering style. You can get the classic conical taper. And then this design also allows us to interchange parts more easily so we can build products easier and more customizable. And, you know, eventually as we do, like we went really big with this launch, even though it was only four colors of this pencil of the Model 7. Each of those four colors you can get in three millimeter, five millimeter, seven millimeter, nine millimeter.

And in your choice of, well, nine different grips, but it's really based on like the nose cone that you use because the nose cones are particular to the grips. So it's super modular, super customizable. We'll eventually get into some customer builds. You know, if you can have a request to have a different color sleeve with a different color barrel. Brian has designed these for us to be able to swap these things out, right? I can take the blue sleeve and put it in the gray barrel or something like that.

That's a down the line type of thing. You had to get these out and get these into the world. You know, see what the reception is. I'm assuming based on the orders that came in, everyone was very excited about it. This is easily our biggest launch ever. However, I'm still, I still haven't caught up with like Friday's orders as of this recording of this podcast. And I've been shipping like for about four or five hours every day. So it's been a huge, huge, massive launch. And for that, I'm thankful.

The Model 7 was not the only thing that we launched. The Model 8 mechanical pencil is our first pencil with a clip. So we took our C, Model C pen and Model C X pen concept and moved it into, made some tweaks to the barrel to fit the mechanism to where you could still have the clip that's used on the Model C. So we've always been asked for a pencil with a clip. We just have a couple of colors, those right now, but we'll be having more colors. We just have like the traditional titanium, shiny titanium and matte titanium.

Those have done extremely well. People really like the clip. You can still choose your lead size, all the 0.3, 5, 7 and 9. You can choose all the different grips. And then eventually you'll be able to add on different clips if you want to have a different or unique clip color, just like on our Model C and CXs. Finally, Mike, a surprise even to me, which Brian is prone to do. Brian will be like, so I did this thing and we're going to launch it in like two days. And I'm like, what are you talking about?

So we have our Clickstream retractable pin was a very like uniquely popular design. It's a little bit of a different shape for us. Kind of love it. It's done really, really well with, because the shape is so cool and fun. Well, we've transformed that into a pencil with a pencil grip and again, all the lead options, you know, all the size options and the nose cones and the grips. We only tested a limited amount of these. So those sold out pretty quick. We'll have more of those coming early next year, but we wanted to do a test run of those.

Turns out, Mike, people liked them and I think they like all this stuff. And I'm anxious to get some feedback on these once they're out in the wild. They should have started arriving in people's mailboxes yesterday and throughout the rest of the week. And I'm still working on shipping. So hang in there if you've got some orders in. But yeah, they've been a hit, for lack of a better term. And a pat on the back, like it went insanely well. Like we're very, very pleased. Have you had any feedback from people?

Because there's so many options that you've got to like really think about what you're doing, right? This was the most complicated launch we've ever had. And it went by far the smoothest. Almost zero questions. Okay. For hundreds and hundreds of orders. And that's a shout out to Brian who built the back end to assist with these orders and have them, have the customers have very, very little questions when they were ordering on what to do, what they might like, what options there were. It was unbelievable how little questions we got.

Because we're sitting there, we're monitoring all day Friday, right? When we launched it at noon, we're just sitting there like battle stations are on, right? For like the whole rest of the day. Just waiting for like messages to come in, you know, mistakes being seen, you know, you know, things happen. Like when you're building, this is probably, this was probably like a three or 400 SKU. Um, set up, right? For like, for like, you know, a dozen products, right? Yeah. And that can go very, very poorly, right?

For not just you on the back end, but for the customers on the front end. And Brian just crushed it. He worked really, really hard at it. We did a lot of testing beforehand. There were still some mistakes, but like no, no, like deal breaker mistakes, right? There were still some like bundling visuals that didn't like on people's like purchase receipts. Like it kind of unbundled some of the stuff until we fixed that. But like, that was, that was our, if that was our worst problem, um, we could not believe how well it went.

It was, I think we're still kind of astonished. It's like, dang, like we did it. Yeah. Because this was insanely complex for like, we do this to ourselves, right? Like we're not selling singular items. But it makes it worse, right? Like if it's not successful, it's like, oh, we, we, we've now added like so much complication. Yeah. And now what, you know? Right, right. So yeah, like everything has to be tied together and inventoried and somehow all this stuff is linked together. But it, in the, the backend was very, very complicated to build to make it so the customers had it easy, right?

Yeah. Um, which is a huge challenge and it worked and it's like, dang, all right, like you did it. Like it's, it's great. It's, it's working. It's like, yeah, but I want to fix this. I'm like, yeah, but like, look, like how many emails did we get? How many like live chats did we get? Like single digits through like hundreds and hundreds of orders. It was crazy. It was really good. I guess this is what we were talking about earlier, right? People, they know what they want. They see what they want.

They know what they want. Yep. Yep. So very proud of us. Good man. Shout out Brian. He put in a lot of work to, to make this happen. And, uh. Brian, the genius, I understand. Yes. Yeah, definitely. And I'm still working on, uh, fulfillment. I'm going to still, I'm going to keep cranking out widgets, Mike. Actually, when we're done with the podcast today, right back at it. Shipping every day. So, uh, it's good. Not too many more to go, but like, I'm literally still, I've shipped like, I don't know, who

knows how many hundreds of orders, how many hundreds of pencils. And I'm still like on Friday at like two o'clock orders. That's how heavy it went. I look at the thing is like, let's say like Friday one 52. And I'm like, wow.

So yeah, it went well. Yeah. Good stuff. All right. To finish out today, I have a bit of follow-up from us TPA. Um, about, uh, remember what we spoke last time about grinding a king of pen nib and if that was a good idea or not. So this comes from Chris. Chris says, I am a nibmeister based in Sydney, Australia. Chris has actually given us some follow-up before. Yes, definitely. Uh, I'm writing to chip in some thoughts on the recent query regarding making a king of pen right, drier or less wet. Given the substantial value of a king of pen nib and the potentially heavy cost if an adjustment

goes awry, far more than a standard steel Joe nib. My philosophy is to start with the least invasive adjustments. So part one is prioritizing ink flow adjustment. Before attempting any permanent grind, I would highly recommend consulting an accessible nibmeister to adjust the ink flow on the pen. This is can be done in a couple of ways. Number one is a tine or span adjustment. A professional meister can delicately adjust the nib tines and their span. Spreading the tines will allow for more ink to flow, a wetter writer, while gently squeezing

them will tighten the span for a drier writing experience. However, this method only allows for a limited range of ink flow adjustment. Number two would be feed design. The second major factor is feed design. Unfortunately, there is generally not that much that can be done here unless the swap option is available, which to my knowledge is not the case for the king of pen, unlike some pens where you might swap between different materials like ebonite versus plastic or use something custom designed.

Only after exhausting the above ink flow adjustments would I then recommend considering a grind on the king of pen. So kind of me jumping in here, really, you only have the tine adjustment, right? Because as Chris is pointing out, you're kind of out of luck because the size of the feed for the king of pen is just something nobody else makes. I've never seen like a one-off. Not that there hasn't been someone at their house like manipulating. That's not something you're going to be able to go and order a different king of pen feed.

That may have never happened. So on grinding and finer lines, while the medium size is the quote smallest stock offered from Sailor, they can definitely achieve finer lines as you will see in their specialized Naginata series. I recently launched my new signature grind series called The Pencil, which was developed in close consultation with artists in our community. It takes elements from the Naginata senior grind and a needle point to create a smooth, ultra-fine tip. The key is a unique grind feature at the tip of the nib that delivers a very pencil-like

feedback. I know what he's saying. Okay, continue. The resultant grind writes very fine at the tip and broader as you slightly change your writing angle, resulting in an organic line with natural variation. No two lines are exactly the same, much like a real pencil. The beauty of this is that the nib doesn't, quote, wear down or dull quickly, essentially giving you a fine pencil that never needs sharpening. I hope these insights are helpful for the owner of the King of Pen. Okay, so we have some links in from Chris, and this is amazing feedback.

And let me see if I can explain what he's talking about on the KOP nib to make it finer. So, if you took a Yovo medium and I wanted a needle point, okay, you're going to start shaving down the sides, okay, of the tine. If you can just picture that. The sides are just now getting narrower as the nibmeister works on it. What he's doing is, and Chris can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I understand. He's taking the ball underneath the King of Pen, right? So, when you touch the tipping on the page, right, it's like a ball shape.

He's reshaping underneath for what hits the page, as opposed to, like, channeling the exterior of the nib finer. He's just going underneath and making a point underneath. There's a Japanese grind that I've heard of, and I've tested it, and I hated it. But I think it's this nib to where it becomes basically, for lack of a better term, like he says, like a pencil. Imagine, like, a pyramid shape underneath, like, that ball tipping. So, you're actually not changing the width, per se, of that tipping.

You're changing the bottom shape of that curvature into something finer, which, like, is the point of where your nib hits the page that will actually be modified to be finer. So, yes, I think I'm understanding this correctly. If I've explained that correctly, I have no idea. I can visually see this, and I've tested a pen like this once, and I chose to get a needle point instead because I didn't like the feedback. But I think it was exactly like this, and it was actually from the nib shaper himself,

Mr. Naginata. So, that's where I tried this. So, I think this is that grind. It's crazy, but it's basically a point underneath the tipping. So, yeah, you can get it finer. That will do the trick. I promise you. I think it was finer than, like, my needle point. Wow. It was crazy. Well, it will certainly do something, whether you like it or not. I mean, and that is always the problem. We're forgetting these kinds of adjustments done. So, the long and the short of this, I think, is still, like, I'm not touching it with a

10-foot pole. Yeah, I think the result of this still is don't. Right. Because, like, notice Chris says, we're not reshaping this into a needle point, right? I think you're going to have a bad time. If you're starting to go outside and narrow that nib down, I'm talking with my hands very much. You're going outside, narrowing it down. This, what Chris is saying, we're going underneath. So, we're not necessarily changing that splay of the tines as much as we're just now getting a finer point on the page from the tipping itself.

Interesting. I like it. I wouldn't do it, but I like it. Yeah. If you would like to send in any feedback, follow-up, or questions for a future episode of the show, it's very easy to do that. Just go to penaddictfeedback.com and you can send those in. I would like to thank Plotter and Pen Chalet for their support of this episode. Next week, I'm going to be replaced by the one true host, Anna Reiner, and you're going to be doing the annual gift guide episode. Yep. I'm looking forward to that, especially after last week's episode where I talked about all

the things. Now, we get to talk about even more things. And I think we're going to, just to give everyone a little preview, we got great feedback on last year's small business focus, and I think we're going to keep that up this year. And I think that's just a great way to go through this process. It's like, you know, we can all tell you to buy, you know, Twisbees and Lammies and Retro 51s. But, you know, what if we took it down a little bit to like the smaller, more unique brands? We did that last year, and I think it worked out well.

So, we're going to stick with that coming up next week, and I'm looking very much forward to it. If you'd allow me a moment of promotion, Brad. So, we're actually going to be doing our first Black Friday set or Cortex brand on Black Friday. So, people can check that out. You can go sign up for our email newsletter. I'll put a link in the show notes for that. We'll be sending information out about that there first. So, try it out, Brad. And I will have... No, yeah. I'm going to have... I will have that in the notes when we talk.

We have a personal section. So, we're going to have Mike's personal section in there for next week. Check out your Cortex brand products as long as... As well as mine and Anna's products. So, yeah. Great stuff. So, yeah. We're going to have all that in there. But, yeah. We're trying it out. Just want to see what happens. You know? Who knows? Who knows? Have you ever done a Black Friday? Once or twice. I am going to do a shop one this year. Ah, yes. Yep. Yeah. But it's going to be like pretty short window.

But we'll talk about... It'll be like next Friday to Monday type of thing. All right. If you want to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com. Of course, go to spokedesign.com to check out the new Spoke Model 7 and 8. Especially in the new LED stream as well. Lots of cool new stuff going on there. You can find Brad online over at twitch.tv slash penaddict where he streams multiple times a week. I'm sure you're doing lots of shipping streams right now. Yeah. Since Sunday... I've gone Sunday through Wednesday so far and we'll be doing it again on Thursday.

I'm going to take Friday off because that's a big writing day for me and podcasting day for next week. So, yeah. But then we'll be back at it through the weekend. I should be caught up by the weekend. So, six out of seven days shipping. It's a good place to be. Well, unless penaddict listeners, you know, they blow up the shipping department with orders. True. True. True. And maybe you'll be in there forever. Who knows? I'll be all right. You can find me online over at theenthusiast.net and at cortexbrad.com.

We'll be back next time. Brad will, at least. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

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