The Pen Addict 688/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	688
Title:	Fifty Grand on Ebay
Release Date:	October 23rd, 2025
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 688
Audio File:	Audio Episode 688
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 688
Length:	4848 min <br />0.8 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

• Myke: From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 688. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet. My name is Mike Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad.
• Brad: Hello Mike, how are you today?
• Myke: I'm good. We've got so much follow-up today to get through.
• Brad: I love it.
• Myke: Lots of really good messages and notes from listeners on some of the stuff we've been talking about.
• Brad: What we didn't get any of, at least in the feedback form, Brad, is any upset Germans. Didn't get them.
• Myke: Thought we were going to get them. Didn't get them. So what that probably means is they all stopped listening.
• Brad: No, no. They were nice in just a very German way. Like, you know, we love the Germans here on Pen Act.
• Myke: They make some of the best pens, Mike.
• Brad: They absolutely do.
• Myke: We have to remain our friendship. We have to keep our friendship going.
• Brad: Friendship continued with Germany.
• Myke: Yes, yes.
• Brad: Like, I always tell people, you know, like, all the good pens are made in two parts of the world, Germany and Japan.
• Myke: And Germany is always surprising to people. Japan, they understand.
• Myke: Yeah, yeah.
• Brad: It is interesting and now I'm going to get either Germany or Japan madder.
• Myke: Who did it first? Because they both have, like, 200-year-old brands.
• Brad: Like, Pelican's, like, 220.
• Myke: What are, I guess Sailor's, Sailor and Pilot are a little over 100.
• Myke: I'm just going to say the Japanese.
• Brad: No, I think they're only, I'm just talking about the companies.
• Brad: I mean, maybe there's companies that, I'm talking about the current companies that exist.
• Brad: I think Pelican wins.
• Brad: I think it's over 200.
• Brad: And I think Sailor and Pilot are both just over 100.
• Brad: So, we'll see.
• Myke: Hey, look, Mike, we have more feedback for next week's show already.
• Myke: So, I can tell you, Brad, pulls things out of thin air.
• Myke: 160 people from Germany have so far listened to last week's episode.
• Myke: So, maybe that's why we got away with it.
• Brad: Germany isn't one of our top markets.
• Myke: Oh, come on.
• Brad: We can do better, Germany.
• Myke: Maybe.
• Myke: We need to do some ad spend.
• Brad: In Germany?
• Brad: In Germany, yeah.
• Brad: Titans!
• Brad: Titans!
• Myke: That's why we'll start the ads.
• Brad: Hear these two idiots.
• Brad: Would you like to hear an American and an Englishman talk about one of your great exports to the world?
• Myke: That's going to go well.
• Myke: It's going to go well.
• Myke: Justin wrote in and said, another note on the Kaweco branding mess.
• Brad: They do have one other pen with a German name, the Ebonite Sport.
• Brad: So, it's Ebonite without the E.
• Brad: Justin says, seems even more ridiculous that they wouldn't just add one letter to make it the Ebonite Sport.
• Myke: But it is a ridiculous pen at the price point that they asked for it anyway.
• Myke: So, I guess there's some consistency in that.
• Brad: Yeah.
• Myke: Like, I love that pen.
• Brad: I don't own that pen.
• Myke: It was, in context, pretty highly priced.
• Myke: It was mid-300s.
• Myke: I'm going to say like 360.
• Myke: Beautiful, beautiful pen.
• Myke: But now, like, the Titans come out.
• Brad: The Titan is about, I think it was around 260, 270 USD, which actually makes the Ebonite.
• Myke: Because the Ebonite was a limited edition.
• Brad: It was a short run.
• Myke: And I would rather have the Ebonite than the Titan at this point.
• Myke: Both of them are outrageously priced.
• Myke: I don't need either of them.
• Myke: But now, in this current market, I would choose the Ebonite for like $100 more than the Titan just because it's cooler, I think, the Titan.
• Brad: Like I said, I got my steel.
• Brad: But yes, Ebonite Sport.
• Myke: But every time I had to type that or say it, I had to double check that I wasn't leaving it off.
• Myke: And that was actually the name.
• Myke: And yes, that is actually the name.
• Brad: I remember that now.
• Brad: Have you seen that pen?
• Brad: I have not seen it until right now, I think.
• Brad: Yeah, it's beautiful.
• Brad: It's beautiful.
• Brad: Red and black.
• Brad: Kind of like a red and black.
• Myke: It's fine.
• Myke: Ebonite rarely pops unless you can do some swirly stuff.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: I just happen to be an Ebonite fan.
• Brad: But there is very much a non-Ebonite contingent out there.
• Brad: So I get it.
• Myke: We have some stuff about the Remarkable too.
• Myke: So Brian wrote in and said,
• Brad: I really enjoyed listening to you speak about the Remarkable Pro Paper Move E-Ink device.
• Brad: As both a fountain pen user and an E-Ink digital pen user,
• Brad: one of the really big and significant features of E-Ink is the ability to organize, search,
• Myke: and have my notes available on my computer and iPhone for easy access.
• Brad: Using the Remarkable app on my iPhone, I'm able to search and have access to all of my
• Brad: handwritten notes, which is really important if you're a business person or a student.
• Myke: And that is like, I guess we touched on it, but didn't underscore the point, right?
• Myke: Where like one of the things that me and you talk about is how we do kind of straddle analog
• Myke: and digital, right?
• Brad: Analog is, you know, we love to use these things.
• Brad: But if there's something important, something that we need to refer back to, it goes in the
• Myke: digital form, right?
• Brad: Because it becomes accessible that way, where something like the Remarkable actually just
• Myke: gives you the best of both worlds where you can, I mean, okay, it gives you not the best.
• Brad: It gives you a foot in each world at the same time because neither experience is the best
• Brad: version of that experience.
• Myke: But like, so, you know, a Remarkable tablet is not the best way to write something down.
• Myke: And searching for stuff in the Remarkable app is not as easy or as reliable as searching
• Myke: for things that are just in text, because there is a bit of handwriting recognition and
• Myke: OCR going on, so it might miss something.
• Brad: So, but, and I agree with what Brian's saying, that like, they get to then just write things
• Brad: by hand, which they prefer to typing on a computer, and then also be able to refer back to it incredibly
• Brad: easily from any device that they're on.
• Myke: Like, there is a benefit to that.
• Myke: There is.
• Brad: And I think we mentioned it, you know, last week when we were talking about it, that the,
• Brad: I wouldn't call it a fatal flaw of the notebook, but like, indexing is always a challenge with
• Brad: a notebook, right?
• Brad: And like, when you look at something like the bullet journal system, where they've built
• Brad: in, they've kind of taught you how to do a small scale index to refer back to things.
• Brad: And there's always types of more hardcore indexing, you know, things you can do with your notebooks.
• Brad: And that's where digital's going to win every time, right?
• Brad: Like, it just is.
• Myke: Yes, yes.
• Brad: But that's, the digital system's always going to be infinitely more searchable, referable,
• Brad: that kind of stuff.
• Myke: Yep.
• Myke: We also had Claudia write in.
• Myke: Oh, no, actually, let's jump to Nathan, actually.
• Myke: Yeah, and I want to touch on, and I definitely want to touch on Claudia's response, because
• Myke: this is my.
• Myke: Yeah, no, we're going to get to all of these, but there was one that I wanted to read specifically,
• Myke: which is actually building on what we were just talking about.
• Myke: So Nathan says,
• Myke: Regarding paper versus digital, it's all a trade-off one way or another.
• Brad: I don't think a remarkable or a similar device gives any certainty that the information put
• Brad: there is safe in perpetuity, given how technology develops, leaving behind old products and formats
• Brad: for new ones.
• Brad: For whatever drawbacks paper has, we know it is proven over time.
• Brad: I can rely on it to the extent I can rely on my own ability.
• Brad: Digital notes are relying on other things I can't control, quantify, or be as certain of.
• Myke: This is very much, did your bed fail during the AWS outage of 2025 issue, right?
• Myke: That's exactly it, right?
• Myke: So I don't know, but I'm assuming remarkable uses AWS in some way, and that would suggest
• Brad: that maybe Brian couldn't read their notes that day, but if they had a pen and paper,
• Brad: they would be able to.
• Myke: And that's what Nathan's saying, it's based on your own ability.
• Myke: Do you have the ability to carefully protect the notebook that is important to you?
• Myke: Yeah, yeah.
• Brad: And, you know, that's, yeah, it's pros and cons to both, right?
• Brad: And they're both very, very drastic, like pros and cons, right?
• Myke: Like, hey, maybe I can't access my digital files because the cloud's down, or, oh, I also
• Myke: lost my decades worth of work in a house fire, right?
• Myke: In a notebook, right?
• Myke: Yep.
• Myke: So it's a give and take for sure.
• Myke: That's why I wanted to mention this one now, because I was slipping into that kind of talking
• Myke: point again of like always instantly accessible, way more reliable than paper, that kind of
• Brad: thing, like a digital system is when even if you ignore something like an outage is what
• Brad: Nathan's saying, well, what if the company has new technology, they move on, they go away,
• Brad: like all this stuff changes in a way that your pen and paper cannot be influenced by those
• Brad: kinds of forces.
• Brad: It's fragile in its own way.
• Myke: But I think you have more of your own control over what happens to those notes than the ones
• Brad: that do with any service that you subscribe to.
• Myke: Yeah, I agree.
• Brad: And Claudia writes in and says, I had the first version of Remarkable when I was in grad school,
• Myke: and I honestly think grad school is the best use case for it.
• Brad: Although the price isn't really there for those folks.
• Myke: I read many PDFs and being able to read and annotate them without needing to print them
• Brad: was a lifesaver.
• Myke: I could also store all my readings together and never worried about leaving an article
• Brad: somewhere.
• Myke: Additionally, I then had infinite notebooks of infinite pages for class notes.
• Brad: So my Remarkable, the hand one, like the pocket size one, I don't think it's so good
• Brad: for the PDF stuff, like for marking up, because it would be hard to mark up a document, like
• Brad: to be able to read the whole document and mark it up because it's too small.
• Brad: But in general, all of their other products, this is absolutely their best use case, like
• Brad: is reading and marking up on them.
• Brad: I think that's actually where the name probably comes from.
• Brad: Yeah, this would actually get, I would be very interested in this if I was in Claudia's
• Brad: situation.
• Myke: That's why I wanted to talk about this.
• Myke: And that's what I was saying last week.
• Brad: It's like, I could see just like, you know, in education and different types of businesses
• Brad: where you're just like churning through documentation, like this could come in very handy with the
• Brad: annotation aspects.
• Brad: But again, like, is it better than maybe the tablet you already have?
• Brad: It's not better than an iPad, right?
• Brad: Like this is the thing of like, you can like this and it's beneficial in a bunch of ways.
• Brad: Like, yes, sure.
• Brad: Like it's a focused device or whatever.
• Myke: But it comes back to what I was talking about last time.
• Myke: If your school uses an app that you have to use, it's not going to be available to you
• Brad: and remarkable, right?
• Myke: And like, if your teacher wants to share things with you via a certain way, you know, like
• Myke: it's going to be Google Drive, where you're going to have to find a way to get those PDFs
• Myke: there.
• Myke: It's not going to be as easy as just downloading the Google Drive app and opening them.
• Myke: Right?
• Brad: So like all of that stuff is, it's like a lot of these things are doable, but they require
• Brad: extra hoops and the iPad is, you know, is right there and is going to be able to do
• Myke: it for you.
• Myke: And so, but like the remarkable is such a focused device that maybe if you're in school, that's
• Brad: what you want.
• Myke: You don't want to have Twitter and YouTube on the device that you want to be doing your
• Brad: PDF markups on.
• Myke: Right.
• Brad: Right.
• Myke: But then again, so I talk around this, this is so fascinating to me, but then again, maybe
• Brad: you do want YouTube on the device you're doing research on because you can watch videos
• Myke: and think notes on, so it's like it, there's a lot of back and forth with these products.
• Brad: Yeah.
• Myke: There is a one, a product line that is interesting to me.
• Brad: It's made by a company called Books, B-O-O-X.
• Brad: They make, they make a product called The Palmer, which gets a lot of like press because
• Brad: it is like a, it's essentially an Android phone of an e-ink screen, but they also make
• Brad: tablet size devices.
• Brad: So is an e-ink tablet device that you could have any Android app on.
• Myke: Okay.
• Myke: And that's interesting, right?
• Myke: Yeah.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Myke: Because then you could, you can kind of straddle these two worlds at that point.
• Brad: You can very easily get access to your files and then also it's an e-ink tablet.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: It just feels like remarkable.
• Myke: Just it's short on the tools that make life easier to win these digital aspects, right?
• Brad: Like, there's just a few extra things.
• Brad: Because they've decided they want to make their own operating system.
• Myke: That's the problem, I think.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: Like, I don't know what's under the hood at Remarkable.
• Myke: Like, maybe they're using a fork of Android or whatever, but it's a very closed system.
• Brad: And I do, I think that is to its detriment.
• Brad: I really do.
• Myke: Like, I think making a kind of customized, pretty heavily customized version of Android
• Myke: that you can also get the Play Store on is maybe a better bet.
• Brad: But then I'm sure what they would tell me is they will say that their customers love the, like,
• Brad: locked down experience without distraction.
• Myke: Sure.
• Myke: And I'm not discounting that.
• Myke: But, yeah, I think it comes with trade-offs either way.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: I think this whole conversation comes about in this last point you were making,
• Myke: and it circles back to, I haven't looked into the Montblanc digital anymore
• Myke: to see if it's actually, like, the whatever Remarkable OS or whatever it's called, right?
• Myke: If it's using that type of system, that kind of hardware lock-in.
• Brad: It is a very locked down system similar to the Remarkable system,
• Brad: but I actually don't think they're using their system,
• Brad: nor do I even know who's making it.
• Myke: But it hasn't become clearer to me in looking into it who is producing this product.
• Myke: And it may just simply be a white-label product.
• Myke: Yeah, so if anyone listening has any Montblanc digital, you know,
• Brad: if anyone's tested that out or tried that out, give me a shout.
• Myke: Send us some feedback, panaticfeedback.com.
• Myke: Really, we just want to know who this person is.
• Brad: Who is the person?
• Brad: Who is the person that just skipped over everything and went to that one?
• Myke: Yeah, I'd get it for a review product.
• Myke: I don't know if I want to pay for it.
• Myke: No, you should not.
• Brad: They should send you one.
• Myke: Well, it's like $900.
• Brad: It's like $900.
• Brad: Remarkable should have sent me one of these products years ago.
• Myke: Sure.
• Myke: Right?
• Myke: But they've never done that.
• Myke: And so I ended up buying one on my own.
• Myke: Which I would say, again, I have used it a little bit more since our last episode,
• Brad: like to take some meat and nuts on and stuff.
• Brad: I enjoy the experience of it.
• Myke: Sure.
• Brad: It's a good product.
• Myke: But I know that if I tried to go, just me personally, if I tried to go all in on this, I would get frustrated quite quickly.
• Brad: Yeah.
• Myke: Look, this might be unfair, but it's the chronodex of digital goods.
• Brad: Man, it looks so good.
• Myke: I don't know that I can use it there.
• Brad: And it has a very devoted following.
• Brad: Devoted following.
• Myke: But it's easy to bounce off.
• Myke: Very specific.
• Brad: Sorry.
• Myke: I don't want to put Patrick Ng in a box and compare it to that.
• Brad: That's a little unfair.
• Myke: But that's how I feel.
• Myke: It's like, man, I stare at this because I find it compelling in some way.
• Brad: And at the end of the day, I don't see how I can use it or that it's better than any other system.
• Myke: But the people who do, like, lock in and, like, love it.
• Brad: And I get that.
• Myke: And that's pretty cool.
• Myke: I just Googled chronodex to put it in the show notes.
• Brad: You're going to have to help me find the actual correct page now.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: He's changed it.
• Myke: It's Description Studios.
• Brad: Or Studio.
• Myke: So the second post is, like, the second result is a Reddit post.
• Brad: This is chronodex.
• Myke: I'm missing something, right?
• Brad: And it's on r slash Bujo.
• Myke: It's, like, remarkable.
• Brad: I'm missing something, right?
• Brad: It's the same thing.
• Brad: You could easily do that.
• Brad: Sorry, Patrick.
• Brad: I apologize.
• Brad: I would have personally apologized to Patrick.
• Brad: They tickle different people's brains, right?
• Brad: Exactly.
• Brad: Like, in ways that, and honestly, I say the same about.
• Myke: A bullet journal.
• Brad: Sure.
• Myke: Bujo is a different thing.
• Brad: Straight up bullet journaling.
• Myke: Like, you are a particular type of person, if that sticks with you.
• Myke: Like, the theme system journal is the same, right?
• Myke: Like, they're all, like.
• Brad: Oh, 100%.
• Myke: Are you the type of person that likes to think about your life in these one year
• Brad: and commence in, like, New Year's resolutions?
• Myke: Like, all of these things are just, like, do you have the right brain chemistry
• Myke: that this appeals to you or not?
• Brad: Yep.
• Myke: So, we'll bring it all back full circle.
• Myke: We have a podcast about pens, and this is the 688th episode.
• Brad: Exactly.
• Myke: Is your brain tickled by this podcast?
• Myke: Even if you're German and we've upset you, you know?
• Myke: Even if.
• Myke: Tom Omos writes in and says,
• Myke: my question is about Toptober, you mentioned in the last podcast that the Top 5 Fountain Pens
• Brad: page for beginners is probably the most popular list.
• Myke: Why don't you have each of the top five lists on separate pages in some kind of drop-down menu
• Myke: on the website?
• Myke: It would make the lists more readable, potentially, but also provide great stats for you.
• Myke: I also think you should do some of the themes and interestingly titled Top 5 lists as regular
• Myke: posts separate to these Top 5 lists.
• Myke: All right.
• Myke: First part of the question about the Top 5 lists, separate landing pages, drop-downs,
• Myke: whatever.
• Myke: I'm not buying the benefit there because I would like someone to explore.
• Brad: Even if they've come for X, maybe they see something in Y that they like, right?
• Myke: And I'm okay with it.
• Myke: I'm actually considering this shrinking a couple of the topics and removing them that are towards
• Myke: the bottom.
• Brad: It's definitely weighted towards the top to Tomos' point.
• Brad: The more important lists are at the top, and then the further you go, you get into some
• Brad: more randomness and things like that.
• Myke: But yeah, provide great stats for me.
• Myke: It has been years since I've logged into Google Analytics or Squarespace Analytics to look at
• Myke: what my stats are, right?
• Brad: That's not a needle mover for me.
• Myke: You know, I wouldn't have a clue.
• Myke: Nor do I care.
• Myke: Because I don't run Google Ads against my page.
• Myke: Yeah, I think the way you're doing it is what is best for you, which is to try and show
• Myke: people like, hey, these are the like, this is me.
• Myke: This is what I'm all about.
• Myke: That kind of thing.
• Brad: You know what I mean?
• Myke: Like this is, and I know you're here for one thing, but why don't you take a look at some
• Brad: other stuff too, you know?
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: Yeah, a little bit.
• Myke: So that's a little bit of the concept behind the page.
• Brad: And I wouldn't be super, I would have to be like super compelled to move it around that
• Myke: way.
• Brad: Now, the second part of the question, I actually fully agree with Tomos in that you should
• Myke: see some of the themed and interesting title top five lists as posts separate to these.
• Brad: Yes, I will do that.
• Myke: And then what I'll do is I'll end up circling back and linking those separate posts in the
• Brad: notes section.
• Brad: So I've already updated three of the lists.
• Brad: I think the last three lists we've talked about on the show.
• Brad: We're going to talk about a couple more today just quickly.
• Brad: But the top five page has been updated with the current content for micro gel fountain pen
• Brad: beginners and pens in the store.
• Myke: Right.
• Brad: So yeah, those three lists are updated.
• Brad: I put little dates at the bottom of the notes section on when they've been updated.
• Myke: So we'll keep working through this through the end of the year.
• Brad: And yeah, I thought that that's a really good point.
• Brad: I really want to do these separate posts because I do kind of have an itch for some of the more
• Brad: specific questions that people might have related to the list without breaking up what the lists
• Brad: are intended for.
• Brad: And Andrew wrote in and said, I attended the launch of the Yardle store.
• Myke: Who is this Andrew?
• Myke: Yeah.
• Myke: Cooler than you, Mike.
• Myke: No, this Andrew's probably put a lot of money into this overall business.
• Myke: This is what's probably happened.
• Brad: Many of the people there were brand ambassadors of Bremont Watches.
• Brad: This is the company Nick and Giles English owned prior to taking over Yardle Led last year.
• Myke: I spoke to several of the attendees and it was evident that many people there were just not
• Myke: into pens.
• Myke: Still, the store was lovely and they have a great little meeting place upstairs.
• Myke: Cool.
• Myke: I'm glad we got some feedback.
• Myke: See, we have reach.
• Myke: We have reach.
• Myke: We got like one of like the 50 invites to the Yardle Led store opening with feedback.
• Brad: So yeah, I think that's a mandatory visit now for like London stationery stuff.
• Brad: Like I think if you're into this, you have to like see what's going on there.
• Brad: Whether this pen is for you or not.
• Brad: And I'd say it's more not for most people that listen to this show than it is for them.
• Brad: But I think it's just a spectacular kind of like look into some classic style and craftsmanship
• Brad: of pens and pencils and writing instruments.
• Brad: So yeah, pretty fascinating to me, to be quite honest.
• Brad: I love looking at everything Yardle Led despite not owning any.
• Myke: This episode is brought to you by Pen Chalet.
• Myke: They sell the best products at the best prices.
• Brad: Whether you want something from Pelican, Lum, you know, there's not even been any point
• Brad: in me listing the brands.
• Myke: Has it got all the brands, Brad?
• Myke: Who has all the brands?
• Brad: Pen Chalet has all the brands.
• Brad: And they have all the products that you want to.
• Brad: Whenever you're looking for a new fountain pen, maybe you want a bottle of ink.
• Brad: Maybe you need a carrying case to take your pens on the road with you.
• Brad: It doesn't matter what it is you're looking for.
• Myke: Pen Chalet have got it.
• Brad: They have fast and reliable customer service.
• Myke: Every couple of weeks, you're going to find new special deals on the site.
• Brad: And they're always adding new products.
• Myke: Every month, you'll be able to find new things over at Pen Chalet,
• Myke: which is why their offering has continued to grow over the time that they've been a fantastic
• Brad: supporter of this podcast.
• Brad: Pen Chalet do international shipping with great shipping rates.
• Brad: You can get free shipping on orders of over $75 in the US.
• Brad: Pen Chalet has low prices on high quality products,
• Myke: and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee.
• Myke: They want you to be happy.
• Brad: So go to penchalet.com slash penaddict,
• Brad: and you can get 10% off anything over at Pen Chalet.
• Brad: And to see this week's exclusive offers,
• Brad: because you listen to this show, what have we got, Brad?
• Brad: Well, before we get to that,
• Myke: I hit the main page to get over to our podcast link.
• Myke: And a few things, like one thing just like jumped out on the screen at me,
• Myke: and then I had to browse through,
• Myke: and now I have three things to talk about before we even get to our stuff.
• Brad: There's a new Lamy Pico,
• Brad: which is one of my favorite little weird Lamy pens.
• Brad: This is a special edition Ruthenium model,
• Brad: so that kind of black, shiny, gunmetal-ish.
• Brad: I don't even know how to call like the color.
• Brad: It's like a grayish, blackish, brown,
• Brad: but Ruthenium, if you see it, you know what it is.
• Brad: New Lamy Pico in that, which I have not seen before.
• Myke: I love the Pico.
• Brad: Highly recommend it as a pocket pen or on the go pen.
• Myke: Secondly, they did a collaboration with Leonardo and Jonathan Brooks
• Brad: called the Bengal Tiger,
• Brad: which is kind of a wild orange, orange and black,
• Brad: really tiger-esque material.
• Brad: Like it's like, did they melt down the tiger to get this material?
• Brad: Brad.
• Brad: Because it's so accurate looking inside.
• Myke: Brad, you can't say that.
• Myke: I mean, that's what it looks like, the tigers in the acrylic.
• Myke: Like it's really good.
• Brad: I don't disagree with you,
• Brad: but you cannot say, did they melt down the tiger?
• Brad: You can't.
• Brad: That is not a phrase you can just say.
• Myke: Sorry.
• Myke: Sorry.
• Myke: I don't know what else to say.
• Myke: It's that good.
• Brad: So if it wasn't the Germans who were coming for us,
• Myke: now it's Peter, I guess?
• Brad: I guess so.
• Brad: I guess so.
• Myke: Lastly, I don't know if I can save us here.
• Myke: Beauty and the Beast, Mike,
• Brad: did they melt down the beast to make this pen?
• Myke: I don't know.
• Myke: It is all this time.
• Brad: Best Disney movie ever.
• Brad: I just wanted to put that on my personal record.
• Myke: That's my number one, Beauty and the Beast.
• Brad: I have not seen this pen before.
• Myke: This pen is unbelievably good.
• Brad: It's a stained glass window, basically.
• Brad: Yes, stained glass window.
• Myke: It's a retro 51.
• Myke: It looks like a stained glass window,
• Brad: which is very reminiscent of some of the stuff in the castle
• Brad: in Disney and Paris.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Myke: Yep.
• Brad: So beautiful, beautiful pen.
• Myke: Okay.
• Brad: Beauty and the Beast.
• Myke: Let's get to the list.
• Myke: I would like to apologize to Ron at this point,
• Myke: because I don't even know what we're doing now.
• Brad: Well, I'm talking about the Heinz Tone On Limbs box set,
• Brad: the Jelly Bean, the eggs.
• Brad: These are crazy.
• Myke: You need to go to our specials page right now
• Myke: and look at the price of this.
• Brad: I am...
• Myke: Wow.
• Myke: Is the price.
• Myke: Is the price.
• Myke: And I think it comes with a Tone On Limbs ink.
• Brad: So it's a Heinz and Tone On Limbs egg hunt box set fountain pen.
• Myke: So for like the pen and the ink, the price.
• Myke: I'm not even going to tell you because it's...
• Myke: Very good.
• Brad: Again, wow.
• Myke: Wow.
• Brad: They have my friends over there at Y Studio,
• Brad: have some of the brassing ballpoints.
• Brad: They have a Visconti Michelangelo collection,
• Brad: which the Visconti steel nib entry-level pens
• Brad: are highly recommended.
• Myke: Like I think that's something that I need to personally look into more.
• Myke: We've done a couple of reviews on there.
• Myke: And Visconti has made a little bit of an effort
• Brad: in the $100 to $200 price range
• Brad: and maybe like $200 to $250 price range
• Brad: that I think is worthwhile.
• Brad: So go check these out.
• Brad: Ron has a couple of these on sale on the Pen Addict page at Penchalet.
• Brad: That is over at penchalet.com slash penaddict.
• Brad: Thanks to Penchalet for their continued support of this show and relay.
• Myke: Yeah, sorry about the melting tiger thing.
• Brad: We got a shout out of the week, Mike.
• Myke: The Beauty and the Beast show.
• Brad: Shout out of the week.
• Myke: Oh my God, that was great.
• Brad: That was great.
• Myke: So there's a thing about this.
• Brad: So Adina plays often for the baby.
• Brad: Like she would just put on this Disney music playlist,
• Brad: which is great.
• Myke: That song, the Beauty and the Beast song is so bad.
• Myke: Like that's how it sounds.
• Myke: It's like...
• Brad: It's only...
• Myke: Tell us all this time.
• Brad: Yes, that one is rough.
• Myke: So we're going to have this running joke now
• Brad: where we do that to each other.
• Myke: The Beauty and the Beast.
• Brad: Oh my God.
• Myke: It's so bad.
• Myke: So bad.
• Myke: I'm with you on that.
• Brad: Still my favorite movie.
• Myke: Still my favorite.
• Myke: Shout out of the week, our friend Mike Antkowiak.
• Myke: He is part of St. Louis Pen Show crew.
• Myke: He has done the mugs that we are so fond of, Mike.
• Myke: And he's done the artwork and helped us out with a lot of that.
• Myke: It's been really just fun to work with him
• Myke: and have some...
• Brad: You know, have a good time with these Pen Shows.
• Myke: But the other thing that Mike does,
• Brad: which I think I've talked about on this show before,
• Myke: and he's probably been shot out of the week before,
• Brad: is he does the artwork for Sailor's 50 State Ink series.
• Myke: And he just put up the post.
• Brad: I think they're done, which I didn't realize that.
• Myke: So he has all the colors.
• Brad: So there's a page on his Instagram called Mike's Favorites.
• Brad: It's the Sailor 50 State series.
• Brad: He's so beautiful.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: So he does all this artwork.
• Myke: And I'm going to have to get Louisiana.
• Myke: I think Louisiana might be my one.
• Myke: I think that's the one everyone's kind of calling out
• Brad: as like the top one.
• Myke: So I'll have to see if I can get that one.
• Myke: Plus I was born in Louisiana.
• Myke: So I have Georgia, which is where I currently live.
• Myke: It is not one of the most highly rated ones, Mike.
• Myke: Just to be clear on that.
• Brad: It is not in Mike's top 10.
• Myke: It's in my top 10, though.
• Brad: So I must say that.
• Myke: But Louisiana, I think, might be number one.
• Brad: So go check out this post and flip through the carousel
• Myke: because this is all of Mike's artwork.
• Brad: A lot of it was used for the bottle art
• Brad: and just the promotion of this.
• Brad: And this is all his handiwork.
• Myke: Like this is him playing with the ink in his notebooks.
• Brad: So these pieces, Sailor used these.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: Like he made them for Sailor.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: He was essentially commissioned to do the art for this,
• Myke: I believe.
• Myke: So good.
• Myke: So, so good.
• Myke: His art is incredible.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: I don't know why I'm not following him.
• Myke: I have rectified that.
• Brad: Yeah.
• Myke: So I got to sit with him at the Chicago Pen Show
• Brad: a few years back and flip through his notebooks.
• Myke: Like this is what his notebooks look like.
• Myke: It's insane.
• Myke: This is a man using fountain pen ink well.
• Brad: Yeah.
• Myke: You know?
• Brad: Yeah.
• Myke: So if you're not following Mike on Instagram,
• Myke: go go follow.
• Brad: Great guy.
• Brad: Amazing art.
• Brad: And yeah, just you can stare at this stuff for hours.
• Brad: So speaking of staring at for hours, Mike,
• Brad: did you see the latest field notes?
• Brad: We haven't talked about field notes in a while.
• Myke: Very, very, very good.
• Brad: Very, very good.
• Myke: Okay.
• Brad: So I'm not crazy, right?
• Myke: Because I think I got,
• Brad: I think people think I'm crazy for saying how good this edition is.
• Myke: No, no, no.
• Brad: These are great.
• Brad: And these are also like superbly giftable.
• Myke: Yes.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: So I think this is like, you know,
• Brad: if a field notes gets chopped down in the forest,
• Myke: did anyone hear it?
• Myke: Like, I feel like this is kind of like a lost edition already,
• Myke: but I think it's like spectacular in execution,
• Myke: which is what they do well, right?
• Brad: Like we've always talked about this.
• Myke: It's a very vintage style.
• Brad: It's called fall flowers,
• Myke: but it's got very vintage themed.
• Brad: And I think the colors and artwork that they chose is glorious.
• Myke: Like you said, very giftable.
• Myke: The inside is lined, which I got some feedback.
• Myke: Like people were asking me when I was talking about these.
• Myke: I was like, how can you like it so much if it's lined?
• Myke: And I said, because that's the correct format for this edition, right?
• Brad: I don't need this cover.
• Brad: This cover doesn't match with a grid or reticle, right?
• Brad: This, you look at this and you go, oh, this is a very classic,
• Myke: very vintage, very beautiful.
• Brad: And like, if you put a grid paper in this,
• Brad: it's going to like break the immersion of what this is.
• Myke: That's how I think about products sometimes, right?
• Myke: Just because I don't like it to use lined paper, right?
• Myke: It's not my thing.
• Myke: It's also the correct decision, I think, for what this edition is.
• Myke: And I think it's pretty cool.
• Myke: I don't think we ever spoke about the spring edition, the Chicago look.
• Brad: Yeah, I don't think we did.
• Myke: That's frigging cool.
• Brad: I bought a couple of those.
• Myke: Those are cool.
• Brad: And it's in their weird big size, which I love.
• Brad: So I bought the weird big size.
• Brad: Then I bought the next one.
• Brad: Oh, it's in an even bigger size.
• Brad: It's a bigger size one.
• Myke: I haven't.
• Myke: Oh, wow.
• Myke: It's not like the five by seven one.
• Myke: It's not the arts and sciences.
• Brad: This is six by eight.
• Brad: What's going on there?
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: So I bought that one.
• Brad: I haven't used it yet.
• Myke: Then I have the Is the River Alive one, which is the last one.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: Because they do some map work on there.
• Myke: And if you put maps on a notebook cover, I'm probably going to buy it.
• Brad: So Fall Flowers, I'm probably not going to buy.
• Myke: But that doesn't mean this isn't an eight or nine out of ten type of edition.
• Brad: I think it's great.
• Myke: It caters really well to be a particular type of person.
• Brad: Yeah.
• Myke: And the execution is good.
• Brad: In all the shops that Field Notes is in, the physical shops,
• Myke: you put these on the counter, they're going to fly off.
• Brad: The shelves.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: Yeah.
• Myke: A hundred percent.
• Brad: Because it's like 15 bucks for a three pack of just like beautiful,
• Brad: beautiful notebooks.
• Myke: Like easiest sale ever.
• Brad: Like more so than like the Is the River Alive or the Chicago one.
• Myke: Like that's a harder sell on the counter, right?
• Myke: In the display.
• Brad: This one, like sign me up.
• Myke: It's gone.
• Brad: This also brought up, I kind of want to talk about this
• Myke: because I've spent the last couple of days going through,
• Myke: I've called it my pocket notebook shelf in the Closet of Doom.
• Myke: Which is my storage area.
• Myke: And it's basically just, you know, like a one foot by two foot shelf
• Myke: that is just, was just crammed.
• Myke: Like literally crammed with stuff, right?
• Myke: You can't, there's no good way to stack notebooks
• Myke: because they're all different shapes and sizes and used and all that stuff.
• Myke: I found some really cool stuff that I didn't know I had.
• Brad: I found a grass stained green three pack in there,
• Brad: which is my all-time favorite.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: It's my all-time favorite.
• Myke: 50 grand worth of notebook or something?
• Myke: Yeah.
• Myke: It's like 50 grand on eBay as well.
• Myke: I think that's what we said.
• Myke: 50 grand on eBay.
• Myke: Okay.
• Brad: I was like, yeah, I got, man, I got to, I got to put kids through college.
• Brad: Um, I found the, um, the dry transfer edition,
• Brad: which I definitely didn't know I had,
• Brad: which is where it's a craft notebook,
• Brad: but they don't say field notes on them.
• Brad: And they give you like a little lecture set sticker.
• Brad: So you can put all kinds of funny things on there that you want.
• Brad: I have, it's unused.
• Brad: I found an unsealed and unopened box of the, um, uh,
• Myke: national crop edition, which I think was their first six pack.
• Brad: Um, and they did, I think that's one of my favorite ones to you.
• Myke: That's a, definitely a top five edition,
• Brad: like grass stained greens, one American tradesman's probably number two.
• Myke: And then it might be, might be national crop.
• Brad: I don't know.
• Myke: It's way up there.
• Brad: Someone here on eBay who has one singular grass stained green for $150.
• Myke: Buy it.
• Brad: Yeah.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: So three pack unsealed 500 probably.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Myke: Probably at least if it would sell, I couldn't tell you, but.
• Brad: So I'm not going to sell it.
• Brad: I'll, I'll end up using it or something.
• Brad: If I, if I get the, the, uh, intention to,
• Brad: and that was kind of the other thing that I found.
• Brad: I found so many filled notebooks there that I need to collect them and organize
• Brad: them a better, like all my trip notebooks are field notes and I love field notes.
• Myke: And it's, it's shocking to me how many of these I had filled.
• Brad: And I knew I had plenty filled and I use them for a lot of trips and a lot of
• Brad: different things, but I just kept finding more and more and more.
• Myke: And, um, we, I found a non-field notes pocket notebook, Mike, that we're going to have to
• Myke: hold until, um, I don't know, maybe around January 1st, 2026, when my 10 year anniversary
• Myke: comes up, I found this notebook.
• Myke: Um, it was a word.
• Myke: Remember word notebooks?
• Myke: I don't know if they still make them, but we talked about them back in the day.
• Brad: And I used one page of a word notebook.
• Myke: I found a lot of notebooks with like three pages used.
• Brad: So sorry about that.
• Myke: Uh, paper, paper people.
• Myke: But, um, this word notebook, it said, um, my first day of being self-employed.
• Myke: Then I wrote a little note there.
• Myke: Whoa.
• Myke: And, uh, so, uh, yeah, I about lost it on stream.
• Brad: I didn't know I had that.
• Myke: And, uh, it was pretty fun to read.
• Myke: Wow.
• Myke: So if you go, if you, you can go find my videos, it's on there, but we'll, I will save that
• Brad: for you, uh, until I actually hit my 10 anniversary, which will be in a couple months of working
• Myke: for myself.
• Myke: So it was pretty, it was pretty wild.
• Myke: It was pretty wild.
• Brad: Yeah.
• Myke: So that's what we've been doing on Twitch this week.
• Myke: So it was a pretty cool to see.
• Brad: I really like all my travel notebooks.
• Myke: I'm really happy with how I do my travel notebooks in the field notes and have this
• Myke: one little self-contained capsule of a trip and then just put it away.
• Brad: So, all right, let's hit, um, one topic.
• Myke: This will be maybe a little bit quicker than some of our previous Toptober discussions where
• Myke: I'm working on my top five lists, which we referenced at the beginning of the show and
• Myke: the feedback.
• Myke: And I'm always looking for more feedback on these lists.
• Myke: Um, especially this one.
• Myke: Well, these two, and I'm kind of lumping these together.
• Myke: So I have a list called top five paper brands and I have a list called top five ink brands.
• Myke: And I've done it that way to give, again, keeping in mind, this is a recommendations page.
• Myke: So giving a more broader look at paper products or ink products, other than saying, you know,
• Brad: this exact notebook in a five grid size, that doesn't really serve a purpose.
• Myke: But what I think does serve a purpose of this page is saying, Hey, this brand is consistently
• Myke: good across its entire lineup and probably any format that you buy, you're going to like.
• Myke: So let's take paper first.
• Brad: And I I'm actually, you'll see in this list in the results of this list and how little
• Brad: change there is.
• Brad: I actually struggle with both of these categories.
• Myke: Once we get down the list a little bit.
• Myke: So for paper brands group, I'm not putting these in order, but actually this is probably
• Myke: the general order one through five.
• Brad: Midori, Morimon, Life, Kikuyo, and Claire Fontaine.
• Myke: It's pretty much all Japanese brands.
• Brad: I was going to say you're over indexing there on Japanese.
• Myke: The Germans are going to be very upset.
• Brad: I know.
• Myke: And I would like to be talked out of any of these things.
• Brad: If you want to put Rodia, Leuchterm, I don't know what, what other non-Japanese brands would
• Myke: you say are equivalent or better than Midori, Morimon, or Life?
• Brad: I could see Kikuyo sliding because they have the weirdest formats.
• Myke: Where does Claire Fontaine come from?
• Brad: France.
• Myke: Wow.
• Brad: Germans.
• Myke: Claire Fontaine is better than Rodia, just for the record.
• Brad: I just want to get in.
• Myke: Well, I mean, obviously, because it's on the list.
• Brad: Well, Rodia and Leuchterm have both been on the list in previous runs.
• Myke: Yeah, I wouldn't.
• Brad: But I think for broadness of product and, you know, the ability to handle whatever someone
• Myke: wants to throw at it, whatever, you know, pen, ink, pencil, marker, I think they're just
• Brad: a little bit below, let's just say Claire Fontaine.
• Brad: If Claire Fontaine's five on the list, I would put Claire Fontaine ahead of both Rodia and
• Brad: Leuchterm.
• Brad: But that doesn't mean Rodia and Leuchterm are bad.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: It just means that they are, Rodia, I think, is limited in that their paper is glossy.
• Brad: It's very coded, right?
• Myke: Right.
• Myke: So a lot of people don't like that.
• Myke: And then their Bound Notebook series, the Web Notebook, is actually poor paper from when
• Brad: I've reviewed it.
• Myke: So it's fine.
• Brad: Over time, it has indicated itself as being bad.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: You know, like years ago, like many products, right, that we've spoken about, we were all
• Myke: about them, right?
• Brad: Yes.
• Myke: All about the Web Notebook.
• Brad: It was like the best you could get.
• Myke: It's like, why is anybody still using Moleskine when the Web Notebook exists, right?
• Brad: Yeah.
• Brad: Yeah.
• Myke: Where Leuchterm is the actual just one-to-one Moleskine killer, right?
• Brad: Yes.
• Myke: It's just better than Moleskine.
• Myke: And in every way.
• Myke: And it's just a fact, like in every way.
• Brad: But it is not like super great for fountain pens.
• Brad: It's good.
• Myke: I've used plenty of Leuchterm, fountain pens and Leuchterms, and they're fine.
• Brad: But I think I just prefer some of these other brands.
• Myke: But what Leuchterm does well is hardcovers, right?
• Brad: When you look at Midori, Morimon just introduced a hardcover.
• Myke: Life, no hardcovers.
• Myke: Kukuyo, no hardcovers.
• Brad: Clairefontaine, they do some thicker covers.
• Myke: They don't really do hardcovers.
• Myke: But Leuchterm is kind of like the best hardcover notebook, but it doesn't have the best paper,
• Brad: I don't think.
• Myke: So it's an interesting group because it falls off quick, honestly.
• Brad: I'm going to always hold a candle for Munkun, which is the paper brand that I use for my products.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Myke: I think that they are a really excellent all-round, but they don't make products, right?
• Brad: That paper is supplied to people like me who then put it in their products.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Myke: So that's where I think the list falls off like a cliff.
• Myke: Yes.
• Brad: Because you get into amazing stuff that's made in very small, unique releases.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Myke: And you might, you're going to, like someone can sit here and tell me, like Robiki Note is better than Midori or Morimon in life.
• Brad: And you're not going to be wrong.
• Myke: It's just that I can't remember, I can't recommend that to people to say, hey, go buy that Robiki Note notebook.
• Brad: Yes.
• Myke: Right.
• Brad: That's not what is the intent of this list.
• Myke: If you put Rodia on this list, I would be like, well, in my opinion, Munkun is better.
• Brad: Like Munkun is more well-rounded than Rodia.
• Myke: Yes.
• Brad: But you can't go to Munkun and be like, hey, Munkun, give me some paper.
• Myke: Right.
• Brad: So like there's other like Japanese brands that I love, like Apica and Cialogy, which I'm going to put in the notes section.
• Brad: But they're just not as well-rounded as a Midori or Morimon or Life or Kikuyo.
• Myke: Right.
• Myke: While the paper is equally as good, they're not as broad.
• Brad: And then you just, then you're just really getting into specific like small brands and things like that.
• Myke: So it's interesting to think about this as a grouping because I think the list is actually short of the recommendations.
• Myke: Right.
• Myke: The recommendation, I could name, you know, a lot more pens in a pen list than I can papers in a paper recommendation list because the papers get to the niche products quicker than some of the pen stuff does, I think, is what I'm finding.
• Myke: Right.
• Myke: Like this is stuff that's easy to find and people are going to have a good experience with it.
• Brad: And the easy to find aspect of this category drops off real quick is kind of like your point you're making, the point I'm trying to make.
• Myke: And then that goes right into the ink brands.
• Brad: And with the prevalence of ink in our community right now, you would think this would be easy, but it's actually the same problem as paper.
• Brad: It's like once I get past a certain level of recommendation, it's like literally every other brand ever.
• Myke: I think it's a little bit broader in inks.
• Myke: You could probably have a top 10 brands in inks.
• Myke: I also think your ink list, which you're about to read, would be more readily accepted than your paper list.
• Brad: Yeah.
• Myke: Yeah, I agree.
• Myke: But I want to hear what I should change on the paper list.
• Brad: I'm genuinely not at a loss, but I'm curious on a broad spectrum as a recommendation.
• Myke: I don't want to hear your personal favorites.
• Myke: Right.
• Brad: I want to hear what you're going to tell someone to go buy to experience great paper.
• Myke: That's the question I'm trying to answer.
• Myke: Right.
• Brad: So that's where it gets challenging.
• Myke: Inks a little bit easier.
• Brad: Like I said, I think I could probably have a top 10 inks.
• Myke: It's easier than I could have a top 10 papers.
• Brad: But my ink grouping, one through five, this might switch around a little bit.
• Myke: I don't know.
• Myke: Because I think it's the top three could all be number one.
• Brad: And the top three are Diamine, Sailor, and Robert Oster.
• Brad: Like any of those, I would be fine at number one.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: My personal would be Sailor Robert Diamond.
• Brad: Diamond.
• Brad: Diamine.
• Myke: That's how I would go.
• Brad: Yeah.
• Brad: Sailor's ink range is so deep and so good.
• Brad: I think they're probably number one.
• Brad: And they're easy to access.
• Myke: Like just that numbered line.
• Myke: I don't even remember what they call it.
• Brad: Right.
• Myke: Do they even have a name for it?
• Brad: Yeah.
• Brad: Ink Studio.
• Brad: Ink Studio.
• Myke: Thank you so much.
• Brad: Yeah.
• Brad: The Ink Studio inks are just like unbelievable.
• Brad: So where they lose out to someone like Diamine is access.
• Brad: Right.
• Brad: They're pretty broadly available.
• Brad: That's why they're going to be.
• Brad: They might be number one on this list.
• Myke: But they're not going to be worse than like number two or number three.
• Brad: They're pretty broadly available.
• Myke: But they're not cohesive.
• Brad: Yeah.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Brad: To your point.
• Myke: Like what is that one line that I like?
• Brad: You know.
• Brad: That's Sailor inks.
• Myke: Right.
• Myke: And then they have sub brands everywhere.
• Brad: So Diamine tends to be an easier recommendation because it's a more stable story to tell.
• Brad: You can say, you know, get Diamine Havasu Turquoise.
• Brad: And it's always going to be Diamine Havasu Turquoise in like the two sizes that they make it.
• Brad: Where if I say go get Sailor, I don't know, Shikiori or whatever.
• Brad: It's like, well, that's in the, you know, the Manyo lineup.
• Brad: And it has to be in like, you know, it's a little bit more complex.
• Brad: They've made it harder on themselves while being insanely good.
• Myke: Out of a walling.
• Myke: Yeah.
• Myke: Diamine is just easy for people to understand.
• Brad: It's super broad in colors.
• Brad: They have, I don't know how many colors they have.
• Brad: Hundreds.
• Myke: Right.
• Brad: And there's still, Diamine has still remained relevant in the new colors and inks that they make.
• Myke: So I'm talking myself into them as number one.
• Myke: Probably over Robert Oster.
• Myke: Only because the bottle.
• Myke: I think I've actually made a bottle judgment on between, if I'm going to choose, say if Diamine and Robert Oster are my only choices for number one.
• Myke: Okay.
• Brad: I'm going to recommend Diamine more because you're less likely to spill their bottle all over your desk.
• Brad: And if it's a recommendation.
• Myke: Yes.
• Myke: And if this is a recommendation list, I need to take experience into account.
• Brad: And Diamine's bottles are going to give you a safer experience.
• Myke: Right.
• Brad: While giving you the same, same breadth and depth of inks that Robert Oster has.
• Myke: Like, that's why I love Robert Oster is they just, they work.
• Brad: The colors are amazing.
• Myke: And the bottle will end up on your desk if you're not careful.
• Brad: So I think those are the top three.
• Myke: After that, I put Pilot and G Herban.
• Myke: Just from the simple fact that Pilot has one elite lineup in Orochizuku and not much dalliance into other things.
• Brad: Right.
• Myke: It's like Orochizuku is where we're going to focus.
• Brad: Their base inks are great.
• Myke: But they keep working on the Orochizuku lineup and they can have 20 or 25 inks, whatever they're at right now.
• Myke: And just continue to focus on those.
• Brad: And they're make them in cartridges.
• Myke: And the ink quality is great.
• Brad: The colors are great.
• Myke: Gherban, kind of the same thing.
• Brad: Except they have two lineups.
• Brad: They have their standard Gherban lineup.
• Brad: Then they have their Jacques Herban lineup.
• Brad: Which is some of the fancier stuff.
• Brad: Some of the shimmers and things like that.
• Brad: I think that's a good mix and match kind of lineup.
• Brad: That's widely available to people.
• Myke: And then that five spot, this could be easily a list of ten.
• Brad: Lamy is the same as Pilot and Gherban where they have a stock ink lineup.
• Brad: And then they have their crystal ink lineup.
• Brad: Which are both good.
• Brad: Pelican, stock ink lineup.
• Brad: Edelstein ink lineup.
• Brad: It's the same as Pilot and Gherban.
• Brad: After that, then you start getting into these specific brands.
• Myke: That a lot of people who listen to this show will rank as their number one or their number two.
• Myke: Like, Wearing Ool is one of my favorite brands.
• Myke: It's not going to be on my recommendations list.
• Brad: Because it's more specific to, let's say, people listening to this podcast.
• Myke: Same with Colorverse.
• Brad: Dominant industry.
• Brad: Like, Tono and Limbs.
• Brad: I could name 50 more ink brands that go into this next category.
• Myke: So this will have a big notes section.
• Myke: But I think you have to, for the purposes of this list, lock in the big players.
• Myke: And the accessible inks.
• Myke: And the high, like, I never hear about, like, real consistency issues with, like, some of these best brands.
• Myke: Right?
• Brad: And you just want to be able to give a recommendation that someone's going to be happy with.
• Brad: And using, like, their first bottle of fountain pen ink or their next bottle of fountain pen ink after they've tried something and want to explore a little bit more.
• Brad: So I think the ink's a little bit easier than the paper.
• Myke: But, again, I would love to hear some feedback on this.
• Myke: Because it's not really cut and dry.
• Myke: Like I said, I think the top three inks are easy.
• Myke: I think after that, it's pretty open to interpretation for a recommendation.
• Myke: But I'm sticking with, like, the big ones.
• Brad: Like, Orochizuku, Jarabon.
• Myke: Or the back end of the top five there.
• Brad: So there you go.
• Myke: That's my thoughts on this.
• Brad: This list doesn't change a lot.
• Brad: It just kind of shuffles around a little bit.
• Myke: But I don't know.
• Myke: I definitely feel way more comfortable with the ink group than the paper group.
• Brad: And I'm realizing how specific in nature the papers that we as a pen addict community prefer over what the broader paper market is.
• Myke: Right?
• Myke: So, I don't know.
• Myke: I might have some thinking to do on that.
• Brad: So, yeah.
• Myke: Please.
• Myke: Please send in that feedback.
• Myke: You can send that feedback in to a few places.
• Myke: One of them is by email.
• Brad: You can email Brad at hello at penaddict.com.
• Brad: But you can also go to penaddictfeedback.com.
• Brad: You can send us in your follow-up there, your feedback, and also your ask TPA questions that we can get to in a future episode.
• Myke: I would like to thank Pen Chalet again for the support of this show.
• Myke: If you want to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com.
• Brad: You go to switch.tv slash penaddict.
• Brad: where you stream multiple times a week and spoke design.com.
• Brad: You can find this show on Relay.
• Brad: You can go to relay.fm.
• Brad: You can find this show and others.
• Brad: You can find my work over at theenthusiast.net and also at cortexbrand.com.
• Brad: Thanks so much for listening.
• Brad: And we'll be back next time.
• Brad: Well, Brad will.
• Myke: I'm going to be away next week.
• Myke: Until then, say goodbye, Brad.
• Myke: Goodbye, Brad.