Editing The Pen Addict 721/transcript

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name            = The Pen Addict
| number          = 721
| title           = A Pen of All Time
| date            = June 18th, 2026
| hosts           = [[Brad Dowdy]]<br>
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests          = 
| link            = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/721 Episode 721]
| audiolink       = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/613/clrtpod.com/m/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.libsyn.com/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_721.mp3 Audio Episode 721]
| length          = 46
}}

'''Myke Hurley:''' From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 721. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hello, Myke Hurley. My name is Brad Dowdy. I am on a podcast called The Pen Addict. I'm not sure if you have ever heard of it.



== Guest Appearance ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' This isn't fair. This is absolutely not fair. Because the thing is, alright, look, sometimes, sometimes, I'm not on the show because I can't be on the show, right? But sometimes, it's you. But the thing is, the show's pointless, just me and someone else. It doesn't make any sense. It has to be you and someone else. So you will always do them, which I'm so grateful for. Thank you for always making it work. Because, like, next week, I'm not on the show. It's not my fault.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know. We could reschedule. You want me to reschedule next week so you're gonna have a time

'''Myke Hurley:''' to be on the show? No, because you're a guest. Everyone wants your guest more than me. So I'm

'''Brad Dowdy:''' fine with that one. Oh, yeah. I mean, I've literally, I think we're even by a long stretch. You know, I, you know, try to get ahead of things when I'm not gonna be here. And then Myke has things

'''Myke Hurley:''' that, uh, this summer, we've had a lot of travel and none of it's overlapped. So it's just been like this. And I think we might be good now because the next time that I think we're traveling, we're actually going to be together. So we'll work that one out later. Yeah, we need to,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' we'll think about that one. Yeah. Um, like, uh, what, six weeks from now? Yeah, we'll be together.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I don't know if we've like really said it, said it. So we should probably say it and we can give more details in the future, but we are both going to be at the New York stationary fest. Yes. The



== New York Stationery Fest ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yoseka hosted. Yes. So we'll be there all three days. We're going to have some scheduled talks. Yes. Um, I have times I'm hesitant to post them yet because we shouldn't far enough out. Just wait until they're, they're ready to, to announce it. But basically once a day for like, uh, one to two hours, we're going to host something. Yes. Right. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, probably in the afternoons on each day. Yep. Um, you know, we'll host a talk or of some sort. So,

'''Myke Hurley:''' so if you are coming or think you might want to go to New York stationary fest, which is from July 30th to August 1st in Brooklyn, New York, you, we will be there. So we'll be hosting things so you can come see us at, and we'll also be at the show. So you'll definitely bump into us. So I know we'd kind of been hinting at it and teasing it, but I thought, no, maybe now we should just say it. Um, so yeah, we're both going to be there. It's the first time that we have both been at a pen event in six years, seven years. So, which is unbelievable to, to think. It kind of is.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It kind of is. So yeah. Um, we did see each other one for Relay 10, but I know you're not. We've seen each

'''Myke Hurley:''' other a few times now, right? But like a pen event, this is the first time since, I guess, San Francisco 2019? Yes. That was the last proper pen show that I went to. That's crazy. So yeah,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' our, our events, our talks, like these should not be ticketed, you know, um, you know, like they have a lot of workshops and things. It's such a massive event and a lot of it's ticketed. Ours should just be, Hey, here's the schedule. Come pop by and see Brad and Myke interview somebody kind of thing. So that should be all it is. So, uh, I'm, I'm getting excited, right? I can't wait. I haven't let myself get too excited yet. Maybe till like we get into July, but man, that's coming fast. Uh, but to kind of rewind back to the, um, the, the little topic here of us, uh, having guests number one, thank you, Tony for last week. Um, I love Tony. She does such a great job with feed your creativity. Uh, I've gotten to know her pretty well over the last couple of years. A lot of people see her pen shows, uh, and her, and her husband, Ruben, uh, they're just great, great people.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Here's, here's what I'll say. My, my, my sum up of Tony from your conversation. Tony is an entrepreneur. Yes. Like through and through. Yes. Love it. Won't stop. Can't stop.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like I could, yeah, I could ask like way more questions like about that. Like maybe that's, maybe that's another, another part of the topic, uh, a future episode, but I am apparently going to sit with Tony at the St. Louis pen show next week, which she will be at and we'll do something. I don't have any details yet, but, um, so look for me maybe on her YouTube channel, feed your creativity, uh, coming soon. Also next week. And the whole point of me giving Myke grief, I just do it. It's, it's, um, I'm just trying to deflect. Everyone thinks it's all deflection. And it's not not me, but it's not all me. It's the point, you know? Yeah. Well, the funny part is like the WWDC was not on our schedule. No, it wasn't online. It just happened. Right. That's what I'm saying. I had a week. We had like a week. We're like, okay, I guess we're doing this, which is always fine. Like we can always make it work. And I was like, yeah, so that was great. But next week is the St. Louis pen show and I'm going to be going. So I have asked Anna to join me. Um, and we'll just do a St. Louis pen show preview episode, uh, next week's episode. Cause she will be there, uh, as a vendor and as a teacher. So, uh, we'll get, we'll get on. But anyway,

'''Myke Hurley:''' I guess on the, the week after we'll, we'll do a big recap. Cause I want to hear your experience.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. Should be good. Cause I'm, I'm hosting an event, uh, or our talk. I'll be giving a, like a Q and a session and then we'll do, we're going to, we have some other small things.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Um, and I'll just say, you know, just, they've been a sponsor, but now it's sponsoring this, but it's July, uh, June 25th, 28th, the St. Louis pen show. In case you're still thinking of going, Brad's going to be there. Yep. If you're listening, if you're listening in this,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' uh, you know, uh, in the next day or two, um, it's one week, one week away. So, um, yeah. So I'm getting, uh, excited for it. Although I really haven't put any thought much into it yet, which is kind of my side reason for having Anna on. It'll force me to get more prepared for the actual show next week. Um, cause this will only be my second show of the year because this is when it starts to ramp up for me and why I'm kind of took things easy in the first half of the year is because starting now it's pretty much on every month until November for me. So, which is great. I'm looking forward to it. All right. Should we do a show about pens? Yes. Well, specifically about paper. So, uh, from Trevor, FYI, I, I, I saw this note, Myke, I purposely didn't click this link. So FYI, the Kukuyo auxiliary is back in stock at the paper mine order. Two of the A4 ledgers just to be safe. Um, this was a surprise notebook entrant for me that, um, came out of an ask TPA question and basically one, have you ever seen this to why can't I get it anymore? Was the question. And then we had a lot of feedback saying, Oh, well, you know, if you shop at Amazon Japan or go through all these, you know, hoops and hurdles to get the notebook, you can actually get it. But our good friend Blake over at paper mind has them in stock. Yes. I'm purposefully not ordering this for reasons, which will become clearly apparent, uh, momentarily. I say that. Uh, he said, did you just press by? Well, I'm scrolling through. Well, no, no, no, no, no. I'm scrolling through it now. This is such a unique product.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes. There's nothing like this. I think this is, this is why we had that question. Cause it's like the person was using this product was out of stock and they were worried they couldn't get it anymore. And like, they need this, like this layout, which is, I would say like very, very financial ledger

'''Brad Dowdy:''' kind of looking, you know, it's a ledger book. Yeah. Honestly. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and it's hard bound and it's, and it's fountain pen friendly. It's fountain pen friendly and it's, it's fancy bound, right? Like it looks like it could be on like a bookshelf from a hundred years ago type of situation. They also have, have a small version, a B5, 100 page version, as opposed to an A4, 200 page version, which is a behemoth. I had to Google it, but this is case binding. I thought

'''Myke Hurley:''' it was, but I didn't want to just say it in case it was wrong, but that's what this kind of binding

'''Brad Dowdy:''' is called. So there's pretty much very few notebooks in our space, at least like the most popular fountain pen friendly ones never come in this type of binding. So having Kikuyo do this, I don't know. It's just kind of a very particular notebook in the best way possible. Right. Yes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' We like our peculiarities. And so it's one of these products that like, it's so particular that if this works for you, there probably isn't a replacement, right? Exactly. You, you are like in on what makes this thing, the thing. And so if this thing stops being a thing, you're out of luck.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So the good news is that it's backed by Kikuyo. It's one of their products and they're a massive, massive company that does deal with office stationary. They're probably shipping this

'''Myke Hurley:''' to financial companies, right? Like they make this for banks in Japan or whatever, you know,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' and it exists for that reason, as you say. Yeah. So I don't know. I'm not in a rush to go get it, but if I did it, B5 100 page would be all I need just to like play around with and test. So anyway, thank you for the followup. I'm glad to see that they're, they're continued to be available. Cause I think it's just a neat product and like someone in, in a non, you know, traditional financial accounting ledger type of situation, like a, a pen addict could have a lot of fun with a book like this. Speaking of a notebook, you could have a lot of fun with Myke. I snuck this into last week's episode. Um, but I launched a notebook collaboration. Yes. So sick, Brad. MD product. I am thrilled with this. Can you please hold one for me? I'll bring you one to New York. That's what I want. Thank you. They are selling well. There's plenty left in stock. Like I ordered 500 of them. We have about half of them left. So congratulations. In good shape. That's pretty great. For like, it feels like this has been pretty low key so far. It has, it has, it has. And I, and I, I didn't keep it that way on purpose, but like, you know, it's when I looked back at the original requests, could we even do this? Yeah. Was 16 months prior to delivery. So that's how long it's been in the, in the hopper. And I couldn't talk about it until I actually physically got it. It's such a stunner. The kind of like the,

'''Myke Hurley:''' the orangey like copper orange stamp on a cream is a good combo, Brad. Yeah. That is

'''Brad Dowdy:''' real good looking combo. Yeah. I love the shape. The shape is kind of Goldilocks size. It's B6 slim, which I think is pretty much a fake size, you know, past me would like give myself grief over choosing this size, but I think it's just such a proper size. It's kind of a tall and skinny notebook, which has become something that I've come to enjoy over the years is like my favorite types of layouts. So the thing, the feedback I've been getting so far on this is mostly been from people who haven't had an MD product before going, OMG, I can't believe the quality of this notebook.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, okay.



== Midori Notebook ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' They, they, you know, I like, I've used this type of notebook from Midori slash MD product for years and years. So I'm fully aware of, yes, this is an exceptionally nice notebook. Um, but people who haven't and who ordered this, I've gotten like two bits of feedback already is like, I did not realize like the quality that I did not know your game, you know, it's like, and it's, it's just an impressive little product. And, um, I'm very, very happy that I got to do this collaboration. Uh, it was a pretty unique situation.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I have a question for you about the design, like a, like a decision you made. Do you, can you guess what my question is before I ask it? Uh, grid color. No, but that's a good one. The, the foil stamp on the front. Sure. Oh yeah. Did you, did you debate the placement with yourself? Yes. Yeah. Cause it's a, you, I think you've made the right decision, but it's an incredibly complicated thing to work out how to do. Yes. And it's, do you center optically or correctly?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Yeah. So we did three different, this was a whole process for this placement was three different locations. And I think without thought you would do like, if you weren't, didn't put any thought into this, right. And if you weren't a stationary person, you would just go like mathematically center of the front cover. Yeah. And I just don't think that looks right on the shape of this notebook. So I moved it to this spot. Like Midori didn't, didn't give me any guidance. They said, here are your options. And I like went through it and debated it and thought about it. And it was a pretty easy answer to say this one. And they're like, okay, good. Basically. You chose correctly.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think it was, I think it was like, yeah, I mean, this is where it should be. Right. Because it can't, it's got weird binding, right. It's like a tape binding.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Cause you would center it and then it would start to touch against the binding. And then that would also look, well not also, that would look wrong. Like it, it, it would. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then

'''Brad Dowdy:''' the middle, like, and if you put it in the middle, I just don't think that's right for a rectangular.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, I wasn't even thinking about height. Like no question. Yeah. No. Yeah. Like one of the,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' one of the ones was like dead center middle, like middle, middle. And I was like, I just can't,

'''Myke Hurley:''' it's not right. So while the only other option I could imagine, which is also the wrong one is much smaller and in one of the corners, but then you don't benefit from how good it looks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's a, that was another option. We, we had a, we had a bottom right, you know, small, you know, coin sized logo. And I was like, well, I kind of, since like the notebooks are so plain and I have the option to do something big, I want to do big, go big or go home, you know? Yeah. So we, we had literally touched on all these options. I love it. Oh, I loved it. I love

'''Myke Hurley:''' that it wasn't just a question and there was actual, like they did it all for you, like showed you. I think that's good. But yes, I think you chose the exact right spot, but I just, I have been in this place many times. And so I just, I wondered like what you would do with, um, with the sidekick notepad, I did the option of, we're not going to even attempt to center it. And I just put it towards the bottom of the main panel because there's like optically, you could center it in like four different ways. Cause we have all the folds for the cover. And so I was like, I'm to get around this. I'm just putting the logo at the bottom. There was no good option other than that one, but you chose the right option for this product.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Good. And I'm glad we get to talk about these things that as much as I've talked about this notebook, we didn't talk, go through the decision-making on logo placement. Um, and then like, I have all kinds of like drawings and mock-ups of all the placements and, um, this is the one. And I, it was a, honestly, in the end, it was a pretty easy decision because it just, it's sometimes, yeah, sometimes you have to go with what feels right. Um, because you've, as someone, and you, I mean me, like we've seen enough products in the stationary world to understand that like, this is going to add up in people's heads when they see it. Yeah. Regardless of like the technicalities of it. Right. Agreed. Yeah. Felt good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So where can people go buy this, Brad? Uh, panadict.com slash shop. Great. There'll be a link in the show notes too as people go check it out. I think especially if somebody hasn't had an MD, I don't even, I don't think I've ever had an MD product.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So like the one, there is one, maybe two hangups with this. Some people don't like the cream color paper, which totally understandable.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think the cream is amazing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And this one's not too yellow, right? Like life notebooks to me are much more yellow than this. Like, so this, I've just used this for years. I'm kind of used to it. Yep. Uh, also I did grid, which is my personal favorite. Yeah. So that's just a choice because I made this for me pretty much. What were your choices? Just dot. Like I don't think I want to do. Yeah. Yeah. I could have done blank, but a blank wouldn't have been one of the two choices. Yeah. Okay. Um, and I could have done orange grid at a much higher, uh, commitment level. Oh yeah. I was like, yeah, I'm good. I'm good. You know what? Who wants it? You know, who wants it? I'm good. I'm good. They're like, sure. It's like, would you like to order three times as a mini?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Let me see on that one. No, no. So yeah, it's thrilled with how it came out. Um, ecstatic even. So, um, we'll see how it goes, but we'll see if this puts a damper on my notebook experimentation. That's one thing that usually doesn't happen for someone like me who does product reviews, right? I still need to review notebooks, but it's harder and harder to use. Partially use a notebook and go back to the same one that I keep using, which would be this one. So good times. Good times.



== Pen Chalet ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Pen Chalet. They have your favorite products from your favorite brands, all available at the best prices you can find with the best and most reliable customer service in town. Pen Chalet run discounts twice a month and closeout specials as well, along with adding new products, new styles of products, new brands. The list goes on and on and on forever and ever because they really believe in giving you the most that they can. It's not all about fountain pens and ballpoints and mechanical pencils over at Pen Chalet. You can also get refills, inks, converters, cases, and everything else. All the paraphernalia for your stationary hobby. They do free shipping on orders of over $100 in the US and they sell internationally too with great shipping rates. Pen Chalet has low prices and high quality products with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So go over to Pen Chalet dot com slash Pen Addict. That's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com slash Pen Addict. And you'll find a code that you need to save 10% off anything at Pen Chalet at any time and to see this week's exclusive offers because you listen to this show.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I also listen to this show and listeners know from the last time we were going through our deals page at PenChalet dot com. I got got, which we'll talk about in a minute. So you should always scroll all the way down to the bottom because that's where I found a product that had to jump into my cart. But again, over at Pen Chalet, the Estabrook JR is just a great fountain pen. It's smaller than like their smaller Estee than their Estee models. Is it a piston? No, it is not. It looks like it. So this is theoretically vintage styled, you know, with these types of cap bands and the way like just the general appearances are with these modern materials. Like the Blue Breeze is just a stunner, right? Like I've had that one across my desk before for a review.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, that would have been piston though, right? Is that that's kind of what they're aiming for visually?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They didn't. They always had a lever in this original JR. But yeah, I totally understand what you're seeing here. Yeah. Right. And that's just like in the way they do the the finial on the end of the barrel does make it by all appearances. But it is a cartridge converter.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because even though there's a pen down lower down, which looks beautiful, the LeBan Desert Mirage 326. Yes. That has a band, but there's also like a different color in the section. So you can kind of it makes more it like makes visual like, oh, I see why that's there. But when I saw the yeah, I was like, oh, it must be a piston filler. But it's just a visual detail.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So those the LeBan pins was another one I was going to mention. They're just a very good quality pin that I always speak highly of when I get to test them out, try them. I don't have one in my collection, but I probably will one of these days because they do. They do a lot of this style where they'll do just like the middle section of a material and do just like the ivory finials and grip sections. Nice. And they're always exceptional quality when I get them like to try that. They always feel really, really good as a writer. Same with the JRs. They also have an SD Maui in here, which is just basically like the ice. This looks like an ice snow cone or whatever that famous. Oh, yeah, it does. Hawaiian ice. Hawaiian ice. Shave ice. Shave ice. That's the word I was looking for. That's the phrase.

'''Myke Hurley:''' We got there, gang.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We got there. It looks so cool. I've seen this pin in person a million times, and it just looks amazing. They also have the Benu Pixi for a really, really great price. A bunch of them, actually. So, several models. So, yeah, go check it out. If you're a pirate fan. Pencholet is loaded up. You know. Yeah, they have pirate ones. Jolly Roger. And they have glitter ones. So, they have a lot. They have a lot. So, yeah, go check out everything over at pencholet.com.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com slash penaddict. That's where you go to fund special offers. Our thanks to Pencholet for their continued support of this show and relay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, Myke. We got our shout-out of the week. Shout-out of the week. The Stationer. Just recent shout-out of the week when Tessa announced that they were opening up a storefront in London. Would you say in London or outside of London? What would be the description?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, South London is London. And how dare you? South London. I don't know. That was a genuine. All right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That was a genuine question, outsider.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Now, I will give you that there are people that live in places that are outside of London that say they live in London. No, South London is very much London. I thought so, but I just wanted to catch. So, see the postal code is SE23. SE means Southeast, which means London. Gotcha. So, it's like you've got Northeast, West, Southeast, Southwest. Wow, I got scolded. Yeah. Well, you know, us South Londoners, Brad, we take it very personally.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I can tell. Yeah. I can tell. So, I wanted to follow up because the actual physical store is now open. Yeah. So, I wanted to give Tessa a shout-out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' How beautiful it is, too.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's so cool. She does such a good job. Yeah. The pictures are great. She's super excited. Obviously, nervous, right, getting all this done. Everything seemed to move very fast. I've been following her on Instagram, seeing all the updates and stuff. So, yeah. Go check it out. I literally, like, about a month ago, I got feedback. It's like, hey, I'm going to London. You know, what store should I go to? And now we can put the stationer on there. So, it's great. And congratulations, Tessa.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm hoping for Tessa that this becomes, like, a destination store for people. And I think that she's doing everything she can, including the visuals of the store and all this kind of stuff. So, I haven't visited the store yet, but we're hoping to pop by sometime this weekend. Yep. I'm really excited.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, I think literally we're within days of opening. Yeah. Like, it's just a few days ago. Probably, like, I don't even know, Monday this week. I don't even know. But, yeah, very, very recently. So, congratulations. Just an amazing person and an amazing store. So, definitely go give them some support. Speaking of amazing, Myke, the Tiger King of Pen has arrived.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I guess so.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You're like, oh, this is one of the pens of all time.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You know what, Brad? This is a pen of all time. How about that?



== Pen Chalet Read ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' It is. It's outrageous. So, it's called, so, when I was doing the Pen Chalet read, this is the pen that I got with. It's called, the official name is the Delta DV Original Midsize Orange Primary Manipulation 4.5. I'm never calling it that. Right? I know it's a Delta. I have, you can just forget the rest of this. I have no idea what it is. It's the Delta Tiger King of Pen. Because, it's absolutely ridiculous. And, it's even better in person. One little bit of detail, Myke, I want to point out on this, which I didn't really, I guess in the third picture, I have a link to an Instagram post I did. But, the cap band rings have the orange material between the bands. So, the barrel material, the orange acrylic barrel material is what Delta is known for.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, my word. I never would have noticed that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I didn't notice it. And, that is incredibly hard to see. Yeah. Why did they do that? I don't know. I have no idea. You know, Brad, that is the question of this pen, though, right? Yes. Why did they do this?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, I wrote a bit about this pen for members this past weekend. And, my theory was, well, the impetus for the article is, why would you do this for this pen? And, the conceit was, well, companies do this because they have extra material laying around. And, they may not have enough for a full-size pen. So, therefore, they can use parts to make, you know, a cap or a section or, you know, whatever small piece added to a pen. But, that's not what happened here. Because, Delta made, that's something someone would do and make three pens of, five pens of, and just sell them, you know, just like ad hoc. Delta made 88 of this pen, which means they did this on purpose. Because, this was, they made this decision on purpose, which makes it even better. That this was a dedicated choice. Because, you would have to buy at least, probably like, 44 rods of material to do the amount of, use the amount of primary manipulation. So, the orange is Delta stock. Like, they have billions of rods of material. You go look at Delta, you see this orange everywhere. That's what they're known for. They had to make a commitment to buy enough rods of this material, which is Jonathan Brooks' primary manipulation 4.5, to make this pen on purpose. And, for that, I applaud them.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Make it on purpose. It wasn't an accident. It's like, it was not an accident. The orange pen fell into a vat of primary manipulation and became radioactive tiger king of pens.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Next time I see Jonathan, I'm going to ask him about this. It's like, I know they probably, they just, like, did you know this was going to happen when they ordered X amount of rods? Did you know that this was going to, where this was going to go? Man. It's so good. So, I'll bring this to St. Louis.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's unbelievable. Like, I bet when I see it, I'll like it. I actually agree. But the images are just, like, unbelievable, right? It's like, they just replaced the, they replaced what is usually black, what is, with what could not be less than black, you know? Like, there is no comparison, exact opposite of what, it's unbelievable. My hat is off to Delta for doing this, because I don't, I'm trying to find a nice way to say, but it almost feels like, like, they're kind of poking fun at themselves in a way. Yes, which I appreciate, right? Like, I think you do too. Which I really respect.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Totally. Like, if Sailor, like, would you see Sailor doing this? No. The Sailor makes some outrageous pens, but they're made purposefully, like, a cocktail series, right? We're going to make a drink-themed pen, and blue Curacao is going to be, you know, blue and yellow, and it's going to look amazing and probably different. They're not going to do that and then mix in, like, I don't know, like, the wedding pen or, like, the hammered metal pen, you know, with these other parts. Yes. And just go look what, and do it on purpose, right? It would be, like, a one-off thing or just some random thing. But, yeah, I told it, like, you know, a pilot's not going to do this for sure, right? No. So, yeah, it's great. It's great. So, anyway, it's here. I'll be bringing it to St. Louis. I'll bring it to Brooklyn so we can share the love of the Tiger King of Pen. And, yeah, I probably won't stop talking about it. You know, it just hit me. At the end of the year, for Pen Attic members, I announce a Pen of the Year. We have, it's on a contender list. Uh-oh. It's on the contenders list. Uh-oh. There haven't been many that have jumped into that list yet. But, you know, we'll put it on the list. Another product on the list, although not a pen, so it won't be the pen of the year. The Pentel Multi 8 lead holder, which we talked about before. I just wanted to do a follow-up since you and I haven't talked for a couple weeks. That I did my review of it. So, this is another product, another stationary product that is, like, super visually appealing and seems like a great idea. And I've avoided it for years because I didn't think it would actually be a good idea and, like, work properly and be useful and have some reason to spend, like, $30 on a 8 lead core multicolor pencil. So, turns out it's pretty darn good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, there's a key thing. So, I read your review. And there's, like, a key thing that I want to try and understand. Because I've used colored pencil lead in the past. It's been very soft. Yes. Is that the case here or no? I know you referenced about it being kind of, like, reinforced.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. So, it is not soft at all. So, one of the things you'll notice, say, with a traditional wooden color pencil.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Uh-huh.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You'll sharpen it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And number one, like, the tip will break off. That's fine. Like, there are sharpeners that you can, like, dull down. And the, the, so you don't want a pointy tip when you're done sharpening a color pencil. But, forgetting that part, when you have, like, a fresh color pencil, sometimes you still get, like, a little bit of color breakage on the page. Like, a little bit of shrapnel, you know, might, while you're coloring, you know, a little piece might come off. But, at no point during this entire page that I colored here that I've put into the show notes has that happened. The lead material is strong. And so, what happens on these thinner leads, they are more clay-based. And that's what builds up the structure to not have them be destroyed every time you extend the lead, right? Yeah. It's a two-millimeter lead. The problem with color pencils, and if they have too much of that clay, is it mutes the colors, right? The colors aren't rich enough. For some reason, this one found that balance to where it just flat out works flawlessly. Now, the colors still aren't the richest, but as compared to, like, a single barrel, good quality color pencil. But for what it is, it's kind of great. I wouldn't use this for coloring, right? Unless you had, like, a small, portable adult coloring book that you just wanted to use. Like, a full-page coloring, you're going to burn through these cores pretty quickly. And they're, like, $1.75 or a two-pack. Which doesn't sound expensive, but you can see these leads. You know, if you're coloring with them a lot, you're going to tear through them. But overall, for other things besides, like, literal coloring, I think it's kind of great. And, like, I would carry this, like, if I was traveling and had time where I thought I might be taking, you know, some little, making some doodles, doing some highlights, sketching some notes. It's such a good accessory product where it might not be your primary product. Yeah. But it's just secondary product, I guess.



== Colored Pencil ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' That's what I was thinking of, like, just, like, a fun thing to have. Like, maybe you're taking notes and you want to do some, like, highlighting, you know? Like, underlining things and stuff like that. Exactly. And you have all these different colors for it. To me, this looks like a great journaling product.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' About 100%.

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

'''Brad Dowdy:''' 100%. And one listener did reach out to me, said that they bought this when I started talking about it. And it's their knitting marking tool for, like, you know, there's all kinds of different ways to, when you're, you know, sewing or, you know, doing any type of knitting, to have, like, different marks and things. And they just keep it with their knitting kit. And it's all kinds of things. So, it's a very useful product. It's not cheap and it's not the best colored leads. But overall, as a product, it's kind of great. It's kind of spectacular, which I'm here for. I had my doubts. So, I'm happy to be wrong about that one. I probably should have put this up higher, maybe when we're talking about the Midoris. We had a sneaky Galen leather drop mic that caught everyone off guard. Yeah. Not me. Not me. Not me. Because this has probably been in conversation for as long as that Midori product. Probably for probably going on two years. Eunice at Galen Leather always said, he's like, hey, can I make, you know, do one of those knot collabs like you do the Sinclair with Rickshaw? Can we do something like that? But in leather, I'm like, yeah, absolutely. Like, let's get some samples. Make something up. Let's see what that looks like. And then, you know, if it's good, I'll sign off on it and we can go to town. And he sent me some samples and I approved them. I don't know. It seems like a year ago. And then all of a sudden, bam. Galen Leather Sinclair, Galen Leather Lookout. And he sent me the final versions of them. Oh, my God. They're so good. I can't believe how good these came out. And the feedback so far has been great. They launched them at the Dutch Pen Show last weekend. Feedback's been good. My samples are here. So you have a Leather Sinclair, which is the zip case, three pen slots on one side, notebook slot on the other. And then the Lookout, which ends up being, when you do it in leather, it's like an ultra thin case, which turns out people really like about that case.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And also, that is going to patina so good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'll have to bring this to you. Are they sold out or are they to come? The first round is sold out. Will there be more? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're going to be a stock product. This is a stock product for Galen, and I'm sure now that they've seen the results. So they went to, so Galen launched them and they went to retail, and they're pretty much like they went quickly. Okay. It's, I'm stunned at how good this is. So I really, really like it. I'll bring it again. Another thing I need to bring to New York when we see each other, just so you can see them. Yeah. They're pretty great.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They're pretty great. How do things like this make you feel? Like, does it make you feel happy or sad?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's a good question. Happy, for sure. I'm not sad at all. Okay. And I, but I do wish I could do more. Yeah. Right? I wish I was making cases still, but I, at the same time, I know that's a bad idea. Right? Right? So I'm, how about torn? I'm not happy or sad. Yeah. Well, I'm happy. I'm not sad, but I do have thoughts of, I wish I could continue to design products like this. But there's, but I know there's just literally no way we can make that, make a, make that go. It's just too much, too much work. Yeah. So I'm happy that these companies like Rickshaw and Galen reached out and wanted to continue this on from like a design perspective. And like, I do, it's basically like licensing, right? Like I get a small percentage of sales just so we're clear on how this works or for people listening.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And yeah, I think I'm, I'm very happy that this gets to live, live on. I do have like an itch to scratch from a design perspective that I miss when I see something like this. But overall, like I don't want any part of making these myself anymore. Like I know how busy I am right now just with Spoke and just with like launching this one notebook product. It's like, yeah, there's no way. Like, I don't know that I would just have to like turn off everything and just go be a bag designer. And that's all you'd get for me. And I don't want that for myself. I would not do well like that. So, so yeah. But yeah, these came out great. And I'm glad everyone's liking them so far. I've got, again, a lot of good feedback on that, which I appreciate. Very nice. All right. You want to hit this topic pretty quickly? And I, I have some thoughts on this and I got this email and from Nick and Nick says, you should talk about this on the show. And usually when I see that, I was like, yeah, I'm not going to talk about this on the show. I usually don't. I was like, you know what, Nick, this is, you know what I mean?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I know what you mean. But usually when people send me topics, I'm like, no way. This time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, no. Only if they ask me to cover it on the show. Yeah. You just don't ask. Anyway, I'm just messing with you, Nick. This is a great question. Nick's premise is you only need three fountain pens. So let me read what Nick wrote and then we can talk about this. So Nick says, when it comes to fountain pens, you actually only need three. And I use need loosely. Your workhorse ride and die. What you use when a ballpoint or gel is not needed. So that's number one. Number two, a second pen. Your favorite nib that you land on after massive experimentation, a specialty nib. This makes your writing special. And then number three, the backup nib that makes you second guess your second pen. And then to wrap it up, it says, everything else causes overwhelm and frustration. Okay. So that's Nick's premise here that you only need three fountain pens. Yeah. Do you want to give this a go? What do you think?



== Pen Categories ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I will say to start with that I think the general premise is actually a really good one. Yes. Because I agree with the categories that Nick has said, right? That you have one you use all the time. You have one which is like, this is the weird one. And then you have a backup one, which is like the pen on the outside that you love so much, it's going to try and maybe overtake the second one, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because I think that my pens tend to fall into the two categories of like, I'm going to use these all the time or I'm going to use these infrequently and or I just love to own them, like especially my fountain pens. So I agree with the premise. The problem is that means I can only have three fountain pens, which is just not going to happen. That's just not going to happen. But I agree with the categories.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I do too. And I agree that, you know, it's obviously clearly not going to happen for most listeners of this show.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I think you can only find two and three by buying lots. And so then the premise is, I guess you have to sell everything.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I guess. I guess. My premise would be actually you only need two, right? By that point. Yes. And I would call them basically the same categories that Nick has. My writer, my everyday writer, and then my fun pen, right? Which would probably have just a vastly different nib than my number one pen. And like that would technically be it for me. Like I don't even think you need a third.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' If I'm going to this length, I'm going to, I would cap it. I would actually go stronger. I would cap it at two.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like again, that'll never happen because we have reasons. Like we have different products that we have. Some visually, some by how they write, you know, special situations, things like that. But yeah, I'd be interesting to think, you know, most of us have a minimum, a handful of pens or at a maximum like me, you know, like over a hundred fountain pens. And could I ever wind it all the way down to like two? No, because I don't want to, right? It's something I enjoy. Like having these choices and having these visual differences. But in a perfect situation, I could do a one and a two pen. I don't think I'd need a third pen, honestly. I think it's just one and two and we're good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think really it is only you need the two, right? But it's just kind of giving you a bit of, because it's not like you'd stop. And so like it gives you that kind of like the one on the bench to replace the other one. Do you have any idea what these three or two pens would be for you?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Man, this is an entire episode. I know one of mine, which is the workforce. I think it's a lot of Safari. Oh, okay. No, I would go Platinum 3776. Yeah. That is my like, I can use that pen all day, every day, and I will be a happy man. Yeah. Like that one for sure.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So I always say the Pilot Murex is my favorite pen. I don't know if I would want that in my number one. That might actually be number two. That might, yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I could imagine putting the M90 in the number two spot.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What else would be good for number one?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, Lonnie Safari 3776, maybe a 2SB of some kind could do it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What's when you're getting into the Pilot 823 is a classic number one workhorse only. The Pilot Pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, I just love my... I know it's not cool anymore, but Celer Pro Gear would also live in that spot real good. Yeah. The larger ones for me, the L or the 1911 L or the standard, I should say, for the Pro Gear standard, which are great. The old 21K.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I'm not so much of a fan of the slim.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a couple that are super unique as far as materials wise goes and style goes and specialty nibs, but the ones I use to write with are always the bigger of the two versions.



== Workhorse Pens ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. The workhorse list is pretty short, right? The number one category, that's a very short list. And the number two opens up, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, because just the idea, just like the fundamental idea of your workhorse being a fountain pen is funny.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That's why I classify the Lamy Safari as possibly my choice for that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because not only is it good at my desk, it can go with me anywhere and not have to worry about it just because it's so durable and you can bang it around and you can refill it with cartridges. And it's just like, it's kind of like a perfect EDC pen while being a great desk pen. That's what the kind of number one category, I think about more than like the most special pen as the number one workhorse pen, right? I think about that category differently.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, it's interesting. This is a good topic. I'd love to hear from like anyone else if they think about this. Like this is just like pure, like never going to happen, very clearly not going to happen for me. But I do like thinking about the restrictions and like we've always talked historically on the show, you know, about restrictions because we do have so much stuff and we're making these choices to how we use these things. And then it's fun to just like restrict yourself, you know, on like a Ticonder October type of situation where I only use pencils for a month. Like I love doing that stuff. So I could do like a number one and a number two pen for a month, like very easily. I would have no problem with that. I could probably go longer even, you know, I wouldn't get crazy and do it for a year or anything like that. But yeah, that's a situation I could put myself in happily and be good. And then I'd want all the things. Then just give me all the things and we'd be fine.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If you would like to send in topic suggestions that maybe one day Brad might want to get to. Please. You can go to penaddictfeedback.com. Send us in your follow up there, your ask TPA questions as well. We always really appreciate it. I do read all of them, even if we don't get to them all. I would like to thank Pen Chalet for their support of this episode. If you want to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com. And you can also find Brad's shop page there where you can buy his beautiful new MD product notebook. Is that the way we would call it? Because I know that MD notebook is not product. Yes. It's a different thing. Sorry. No. No, it is. It is?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, it is MD product. Okay. It's so, and it's, I love April so much because she even gets confused. This is MD product notebook with Midori paper. Okay. Which doesn't help. That doesn't help the situation. It's an MD product notebook. Okay. Love it. You're like, I hate all of this. I hate all of this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Brad is penaddict on Instagram. You can find me, I'm Myke, I-M-Y-K-E and at theenthusiast.net and also here on Relay. We'll be back next week with Anna filling in for me. So you can enjoy that. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

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