The Pen Addict 717/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	717
Title:	Is AirSteppy Pants?
Release Date:	May 21st, 2026
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 717
Audio File:	Audio Episode 717
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 717
Length:	5353 min <br />0.883 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 717. This episode is brought to you by the St. Louis Pen Show and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Brad Dowdy.

Hi, Brad. What is up, Myke Hurley? How are you doing? I'm good. Thank you so much for holding down the fort last week. Oh, yeah. No problem at all.

We had an amazing talk with April Wu from Design Phil. April's been on the show before. I love all our guests, Brad. I really enjoy April's episodes.

Same. And I don't know if I said it at the end of the show, live or in the post-show talking with April. She is one of the few people where we could do a three-hour episode without notes. We could just turn on and April and I could probably talk for two or three hours and do an episode without a single line of show notes.

So, yeah, I love April. Great friend of mine. And also, the stuff she's doing continues to get more interesting and more interesting and more interesting in her position with Design Phil. When I first met April, she was starting up.

I mean, I knew her before she started doing the Plotter USA stuff. And now she's kind of moved up. The company itself, Design Phil, as an umbrella. If y'all haven't listened to this, this is last week's episode and I implore you to go listen to this episode.

The company's changing, right? And they're such a big player in our space. Yes. They're a... How would you describe Design Phil? Like, they're not a LAMI, right?

Where LAMI is like super universally worldwide known. But like products like Traveler's Notebook have such a massive following. They're hard to find an analog for outside of Japan because it's this holding company, essentially, that you don't interact with as a consumer. You interact with the companies inside of the umbrella.

And I don't know if there are any... I can't... Maybe like luxury brands? Yeah. So I was actually trying to... I was thinking about this while you were just talking there.

And I think they're unique in that they are allowed... Their sub-companies are allowed to be super product-centric and go super niche, right? They're not trying to save the world with a notebook release, right? They're allowed to just run with this super niche, you know, down this path of like just say Traveler's Notebook and just go for it.

Which you don't get to... You don't see a lot of companies with the ability to do that and be able to execute it at the same time, right? So that's why I find them so interesting. My favorite part of the episode, though, is when April is like at first being like, you know, I understand why people get confused by the names and then like ultimately gets really frustrated.

Heck yes. I loved it. If you didn't bring it up, I was. I was dying. And we just got a big laugh. Because she's clearly like, all right, I've had enough now. Yeah. We had a big laugh.

That's when I said I'm going to have to do a mind map of how to call things because I still don't know. I'm, you know, I'm very, you know, just kind of go with the flow when I'm doing reviews and talking about products and the names, the name.

But I do when brands have a certain spelling or certain capitalization or certain styling. I like I do like to do that. Right. And I'm like, I'm still confused. But thanks, April, for trying.

So it was a great talk. Go listen to that. I'm sure we'll have April on again in the future. She mentioned a product, one part of the show at the end.

She talked about her favorite Midori product. And it's this carton opener. And apparently it's been around and it's been popular for a very long time. And I had never seen it.

So I said during the episode I was going to order one. So I'll have to report back. It is in route. But it is basically, what are those blades called?

Ceramic blades. Yeah, ceramic blades. It's like a ceramic blade. So I got one to try. I have a ceramic blade opener thing. That's like much less complicated than this one.

It doesn't got like the swing mechanism. And they're fine. I really prefer the, you know, something like the Keen. Yeah. You're trying to get me on that bandwagon. You don't have a Keen?

No. We'll see. I almost ordered the Star Wars one. But I have this on the way. So let me do this one. And I'm actually still living through the box cutter, the box of box cutters we had when Knock was, Knock was still in business.

I had such a big stash of them. The ceramic ones are really nice as like, this works, it works well, and it doesn't, and it can't cut you, right? Yeah. You know, like they're- You haven't met me. I mean, you haven't met me, but like, I could probably manage that.

Let me just say, the Keen, you got to be careful with that. Right? Like that is a, you know, that is a utility blade. That is a stick them with the pointy end one. You can poke yourself with them, you can run them gently across your skin, and you're fine, right?

Where like something that is, you know, an actual blade is a bit more risky, but also that's what makes them nicer to use, right? Sure. For doing this exact thing. So, yeah. It's always going to be- I'd like to know what you think of this, but I have one.

You just did that. Did you do that on purpose? I did not. I did not, but- Yeah, I'm interested because, like you, I cut open a lot of boxes, always. Yeah, there's a company called Slice.

Okay. And they make- Like, slice your finger off? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They make these like ceramic blade stuff, and I have one of their box cutters. Gotcha. Yeah, so I'm interested to try it out. We'll see. And then, yeah, I will, I can almost guarantee I will break down and get a Keen one day.

Like, it's just going to happen. You should. Like, you've annoyed me enough with that. I'm just kidding. No, I've just been, that hasn't been something I've wanted to spend the money on, but, you know, you say, it's one of those things. Since it's been two weeks since we talked, we kind of had a, I don't know if I'd say catastrophic post-show two weeks ago.

Yeah, yeah. But maybe a delusional, I don't know, just psychedelic post-show that I knew, I'd already put down the follow-up for two weeks away for this episode. We got to talk about our pilot Air Step friend, Air Steppy. Yeah. We discovered his name. Is Air Steppy.

Is Air Steppy. Yeah. So this is related to the pilot Air Step pencil. This is, if you remember, we were very surprised about the very strange-looking mascot character, which is essentially the letter A, wearing overalls, dungarees, Yeah. with a baseball cap, and like, you know, Brad was describing that like, the pen was stuck into his face in the sticker that he had.

It's like a very strange thing. And then I found the pilot Air Step product page, which will be in the show notes. And it is, one, full of additional information about the pilot Air Step pen, but also we found the name Air Steppy, and then found the browser-based video game Air Step Run, which is on this website, which only adds to the truly unbelievable lore that Air Steppy has.

It's amazing. Like, you make, as Air Steppy's running, you have to draw, like, the graphite, like, with your mouse or whatever. Like, you're drawing, like, a pencil line for Air Steppy to follow and jump over the, the objects in the run. It is insane in the best way possible.

Yeah. I wrote down hallucinogenic. I've actually found more information that I didn't have before now. Okay. Okay. Air Steppy, which, by the way, is not one word as described here. It's Air Space Steppy.

Really? There is a part of the website where, okay, so it's a bit confusing. Sometimes they write Air Steppy in one word, all caps, and then right at the bottom, we have some information about Air Steppy, and it's like Air Space Steppy, so who knows? I'm not sure.

The imaginary friend of the player who keeps running in P-Town. P-Town is where Air Steppy lives. All right. I guess that's Pilot Town, but they work with P-Town. Pilot Town, yeah. Pencil Town. It has an A shape, wears a cap, and is expressive and silly.

I'm talkative, but I don't want you to know, I don't know what you're talking about. Again, this is translated, so, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. I don't know where he came from or why he was running.

I can't stop except when I sleep. Wow. Just aim for the drawn line and run around P-Town as long as your bad joke creativity continues. That's the information about the game. Yeah. This is the game for us.

We have bad jokes. This is so great for multiple reasons, and I just recommend people just go and spend some time and do the machine translation, because this is one of these things where Japanese culture is so unbelievable, and it's combined with a machine translation, so it's like these things are already past the point of them making any sense to me, and then they're translated poorly, you know?

Yeah. It's great. Yeah, which it totally adds up based on what we've seen over the years. I didn't spend any time thinking on this, but do we have any? I don't think we have, number one, we don't have many pen-based characters, right? Usually the characters exist outside of the stationery world, you know, like the Sanrio world, and then come into the pen realm.

This one is a character created around a product. That's an entry-level pencil, right? This is going to be marketed, like, at kids and for school, you know, and at the convenience store and things like that. It's a $4 pencil.

Excuse me, I kept saying pen. And they have just unloaded on the marketing for this, and I love it. Like, my pen came with stickers and, like, a little Mr. Potato Head looking build for Air Steppy. It's not even to the point that they have the character.

It's that the character comes in the box, right? Like, they are putting this character in front of you. It's not just living on the website. Like, Air Steppy is, like, in the package.

Right. It's great. Is Air Steppy in the room of us right now, Brad? Yeah. Is Air Steppy pants is my real question. Yeah. I want to, please do not take this exactly on the face of what I'm saying, but I want to know what's going on underneath there.

You know? Yeah, that's, yeah. What are we dealing with? It's, yeah. It's like, you know, if you think about it too hard, like, his pants and, like, his eyes are in a unique spot. Especially when you jam the pencil in his face. I'm keen to kind of just understand the anatomy of Air Steppy.

I'm more keen to understand the room where Air Steppy was designed. That's a room. I want to party with you. Yes. That's a room I want to be in. Invite us, pilot. We want to meet the mascot creators.

Yeah, Air Steppy. Love it. I don't know if this is the last follow-up. It's the last follow-up on the Lamy Safari since... A long national nightmare is over. I only needed closure on here, but yes.

It's no one's nightmare but mine because, you know, again, I just want to track these things. Right after the podcast, the Lamy Safari neon colors pink and yellow did release on the 12th and I was just like, I breathed a sigh of relief. Everyone posted on the 12th.

So, to our friend Frank's point, things have been a little bit confusing over there after the Mitsubishi acquisition as far as level of detail and accuracy and clarity on things. So, you knew it was coming. It was just, it was one of the stranger things to witness because I got to witness it in real time.

Right? Like, these products releasing, then Lamy saying on an early release, oh, this is fantastic. Can we share it? And I was like, you need to be telling them to pull it down until the official release date. I'm like, what is happening?

So, like, it's like one hand doesn't know what the other's doing in this case. But the pens are out. Mine are on the way. I'm pretty anxious about the yellow.

I keep getting into the yellow neon more and more. So, I'm gonna, I got a Safari fountain pen for me in yellow, extra fine nib. And I'm gonna maybe use the ballpoint. We'll see. I only have one Jetstream refill and I'm just tied into that refill now.

So, yeah, we'll see how this goes. I'll be reviewing, not reviewing, but I'll, I'm sure I'll have some things to say about them when they arrive and we'll do some giveaway. I gotta order the pink one to give away. It looks good, but I'm, I'm pretty dialed into the yellow.

So, don't need both. Yeah, I think that we had a little bit of a question too about the name. And they are neon pink, neon yellow, all lower caps, one word each. Okay. I mean, we weren't sure what they were doing with that.

Yeah, that's how Frank had them listed. So, I just went with that. Like, again, back to my whole point in the beginning, I like to do, you know, have the correct spelling and naming conventions. That's kind of crazy to me coming from Lamy.

Okay. They must have some, they must have some fresh blood in there, not me. But I like it, like I'm in. Well, I expect that is part of the reason why it's been a little bit higgledy-piggledy, I'll say. Sure. Because they, yes, they probably do have a lot of new cooks in the kitchen on these things.

Yeah. Yeah. It's probably going through more red tape than normal, too. You know, it's got to manage a different path to get released. So, anyway, all right, I can finally stop talking about that because that's one of those things that I just get totally fixated on, as y'all can tell.

You know what else I'm fixated on, Myke? Going to the St. Louis Pen Show. It's only like five weeks away, right? Yes, it is indeed.

And I have some information about it, Brad, that I want to share with our audience. If you love fountain pens, oh, do you love fountain pens? I do. I also love air steppy, but just to be clear, I really love fountain pens. Or if you love journaling, if you love writing of any kind, maybe you're just a doodler, it doesn't matter.

The 2026 St. Louis Pen Show is the place for you. It is happening from Thursday, June 25th through to Sunday, June 28th. They are featuring special appearances by the Pen Addict Podcast's own Brad Dowdy and Scott Jones emphasizing the central location of meeting in the middle. I learned on last week's episode what that meant and it's because of where St.

Louis is documented. I wasn't really sure. I thought maybe you and Scott just had very opposing views and you're finally going to meet in the middle. No, Scott's been a long time Pen Show attendee and he'll like, he's an artist and he'll sit there and sell his art and do some drawings there at the show.

I wasn't sure if maybe the two of you were deciding to come together and like bury the hatchet at the St. Louis Pen Show. He's just burying me with his fancy mustache. Very nice. There will be, I would say huge, 102 vendors from across 25 states and Canada that include artisan pens and pencils, vintage pen dealers, nibmeisters, pen repair people, inks, journals, paper, stationery, clothing vendors and so much more.

There is going to be something for everyone at the St. Louis Pen Show. Thursday is Trader Day. Friday is open to the public. We have an evening event of vintage pen panel and a pen tasting followed by a free dessert party.

What do we say? Don't mix them up. Saturday and Sunday are open to the public with an evening pen show after dark on Saturday. It sounds like a fun time.

There are 26 classes over the three days including classes on calligraphy, bookbinding, stamp making, card design. There are also a ton of additional activities this year including a silent auction, scavenger hunts for kids and adults, journal meetup corner, limited edition stamp and sticker collection booklets and so much more.

There is so much to see and to do at this year's St. Louis Pen Show. So how do you get there? It is at the Sheraton Westport Lakeside Chalet on the beautiful Westport Plaza. Plenty of free parking, loads of restaurants and it's only 10 minutes from the airport.

You can also get a special Pen Show room rate of just $155 with breakfast included. So check out the St. Louis Pen Show website at stlpennshow.com. You can buy your tickets at $10 per day admission, $20 for a weekend pass or $30 for a trader pass for all show access.

You can find out more vendor information, you can sign up for classes and get your ticket right now over at stlpennshow.com. There will be a link in the show notes. My thanks to the St. Louis Pen Show for their support of this show and all of Relay.

All right, Myke, we got our shout out of the week. Shout out of the week. My good friend Matoshi over at Stilo Art has done it again. And I didn't think I'd ever see this again, honestly.

So I've known Matoshi for a long time, would come over to the San Francisco Pen Show. I've bought a couple pens from him. Still have one of my favorite pens of all time. From him, my Kenpaku Urushi, which has my Opus Cineris harmonic nib in it.

It's a glorious thing. And he makes what stood out to me in the beginning when I was first looking at Stilo Art was their wooden pens, right? And he still makes just these fabulous wooden pens. And then he does, you know, different Urushi and different, like, technical artwork and a lot of different styles.

And in the past, he was making wooden barrels for Pilot Vanishing Points. And they were just kind of, like, the sleeves on the barrels and they were just gorgeous. And, you know, I don't know if he was, like, you know, hint, hint, wink, wink, you know, kind of, yeah, maybe, maybe don't do that, you know, from somebody.

I don't know. That's unofficial. I don't know. I don't know. But the reason why I wanted to put this out there is because he has a new model of his wood Vanishing Point, which uses the Pilot Vanishing Point internals. And I'm kind of enthralled by this. These are beautiful.

Yeah. So I wanted to point these out because people are always looking for, like, a different style of, like, a Vanishing Point look, right? As opposed to, you know, can people, like, embellish or modify Pilot Vanishing Points? This, he basically, instead of keeping some of the old external type of hardware on the Vanishing Point, this is just a full wood sleeve for the nib.

And I'm actually interested about how the mechanism works on the inside. But these are great. I'm super interested. I have no idea, you know, where they're going to be available, where you're going to have to get them from. Definitely in person. I don't even know if he sells these online.

But he does, they do, SteeloArt goes to enough pen shows to where, if you're interested, you can find one. But I wanted to point these out for people who are looking for something like this. It's a very unique shape. And I'd be interested to see how it feels and works in the hands.

So check these out. And shout out to SteeloArt and their amazing, amazing work. So, yeah. What do you think? Would you use this?

I know, like, the Vanishing Point is not one of your pens because of the clip, right? Well, only because of the clip, yeah. So this is much more interesting to me. And I think it's beautiful.

But I think I would get along with this even better than the standard Vanishing Point. For sure, for sure. It's a pure cylinder. Grippy the wood feels.

I wonder that, too. I do. Like, I don't know that this would work for me, honestly. I'd have to see. But I love that he even covers the knock in the matching wood.

Yeah, that's nice. Like, the detail knows no bounds here. So they look beautiful. And it really caught me off guard because I thought he'd stop selling these for various reasons. So speaking of unique design, Myke, I got a link while I was on stream.

And they were like, oh, check this out. It's a guitar clip that's a pencil. And so I looked at this. And this is from Yamaha.

And unlike Mitsubishi, related to Uniball, this is actually the Yamaha you're thinking about, like Yamaha motor. So they basically have, like, a design research group who does some, you know, interesting, fun things. And they have this guitar clip pencil, which I will put a link in the show notes to look at.

And it's kind of fascinating. Well, you would assume this is actually the music part of Yamaha, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they have a lot of things. So the header is Yamaha Corporation, Yamaha Motor Designers in the U.S. collaborated on designing, writing, and drawing tools.

So this is super unique and, like, absolutely just, I don't, non-functional. This is concept car type of design work, right? Yeah, so basically these are, they've created a set of guitar picks made of graphite in different corresponding hardness levels to traditional graphite pencils. And they are kind of pointed so that you could use them to draw sketch with.

Yeah. But they are in the shape of a guitar pick. Yeah, so you'd be like fingertip writing. Yeah. At first, I thought these were, like, those infinity writing, you know, those metal, fake pencil, metal, stone things. Yeah, I hate those.

I thought this is what it is. And then I saw the grades on there. Yeah. And if you'll notice, they change the design of the tip based on the hardness or softness. Yeah. Right? So the 4B is a very, very soft one.

So it has an extremely rounded tip. Can you imagine how messy your hands would get? Yeah, totally. I actively dislike this product as something I want to use. But as a concept design, I adore this.

Like, this is fascinating. Do you have a sense of why they're doing this? Like, this whole project? I think it's just, it's just experimentation.

Just like a lot of big companies will experiment. okay, we've done this and maybe we can use this, whatever we learned from this bit of fun. You know? Yeah. What did, one of the, one of the tech companies, you know, you would use what, I don't even know if it was Apple or Google or you would have 5% like personal project time or 10% personal project time because maybe something comes out of that that we can use later.

So I don't know if it's maybe, like my curiosity is how do they technically form these shapes out of graphite and have them stable, right? Like a stabilization thing. So they're probably looking at things like that other than like, oh, does this, does this make a good stationery product?

Probably not. But did our processes and what we learned throughout this, you know, is something we can use later in a different project. Yeah. But that's not all, Myke. I started scrolling down this page. It's like, oh, what is this page?

And they have these weird products like some other, there's, this is a whole product page of, you know, just concepts. And I'm scrolling down and like, there's like a, you know, a balancing pin, like a pendulum pin and like a line, a straight line snapper. And then all of a sudden you get there and you get there and you see this product and the image shows two cylinders, one red, one blue with two tubes coming out of them.

Yeah. Connected into a writing instrument. Yeah. And I went, oh no. Yeah. I went, oh no, it's the scribble. Oh yeah. It's the scribble. Oh yeah. But it's like, what have they done?

The steampunk version of it. Yeah. Like it's worth noting, it is going into this mammoth fountain pen. Yes. Right. It's going into a, these weird tubes are powering the fountain pen. Yeah. And you have like accelerator or brake.

Yeah. Motor, motorcycle parts. Yeah. That would, I mean, this isn't real. No, no, no. Just, just obviously. But you, you would press on each one of the, the brake levers to kind of actuate how much red or blue you want from either side of this like machine. This is unbelievable.

And it truly is the, the, the thing that somebody comes up with. It's very much scribble pen like in that, assuming that this is a thing that would work in any way. This is funny because everybody wants this from like a magic. If I could dream of any project or any product to make, right, this is the dream of everybody.

But like, it's not going to happen. It's just so far. Like, I don't know that we'll see it in my lifetime. This actually happening and being a valid product.

But if you're newer to the show. I don't even think there is a market for this product, even though people want it so bad. Like, of course not. I just, I just don't, I think it's not one of, it's not actually something you really want to use.

It's just something you think you want to use. Yeah, it's never going to be satisfying. No. I think, I think the graphite guitar clips would be more satisfying than using the good guitar picks, I should say. They would be funny.

It should be more satisfying. They would be fun to use. And they would actually work where I don't think anything like the scribble pen is actually going to work. What I was going to say, if you're newer to the show, you'll just have to go Google scribble pen and it's just a nightmare.

Give yourself like an hour. Like, do it over your lunch break or something. I just don't even know at this point. It goes on forever.

Like, I don't even know. Yeah. It's actively, probably still going on to be quite honest behind the scenes. We're going to, we'll have another iteration here in the next year or two. It just keeps rearing its head.

Yeah. And I just died when I saw this. I was like, you have got to be kidding me. Like, this is just a dream scenario for everyone. But it's really, like, they have a super wild mechanism.

I actually found a page which needs some updating on the stationery wiki. Yeah. It goes into some detail of the first few years of the scribble pen, which I will put in the show notes. But it don't, I don't think it includes the, when it reappeared again. Yeah.

When they were doing the live testing in the factory. Yeah. It was unbelievable how bad it was. It was so good. They were just committed to it too.

And it was awful. It was the worst thing you've ever seen. So bad. And they're like, yeah, we got it working. I'm like, ah, do you really?

I don't think so. So anyway, when I saw this, I just like, okay, this is going in the show because they like, hey, everyone, everyone wants to make this happen. And I appreciate the attempts, but wow, this will never be a thing. So who knows? So that was, I appreciated that link.

And I like, hey, I like Yamahas out there, like their, their concept designs are making a bunch of stationery products. That's, that's cool. It is. It's fun. I get, I don't, hats off to them. And I applaud that they have a design team that they're paying well enough to do these things.

Because I just don't understand what the result of this work is. Like you, all these people spent quite a lot of time, I expect, putting this stuff together. And it's like, the result is what? Oh, well, I mean, everything you just said is going to fit into this next topic pretty seamlessly, but not before we talk about our good friends over at Pen Chalet, right?

Yes, of course. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Pen Chalet. They sell the products that you are looking for from the brands that you love. Whether you want a new rollable or a new fountain pen, maybe you're looking for a bottle of ink or a pen carrying case, or maybe you want to check out what's new from Lamy or Pilot, Sailor, Kaweco, and many, many more.

They have always got new stuff being added to Pen Chalet. Every month, you'll find new products, new pens, new inks that you can peruse through and you're going to get great prices. They do the lowest prices they can on the highest quality products and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee to back it up.

Pen Chalet believe in fast and reliable customer service and discounts. So every month, you're going to go and find every couple of weeks, in fact, new discounts being added to products in the store. And of course, we have a selection of discounts that are exclusive to you because you listen to the show.

Pen Chalet sell internationally with great shipping rates and they do free shipping orders over $100 in the US. Go to PenChalet.com slash PenAddict. that's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com slash PenAddict. You will get a code there to save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet but also, you will see some exclusive offers because you listen to this show.

Yeah, so one of the interesting ones and I'm not totally familiar with it, I'm familiar with the Aurora 88 model but I haven't seen this gold collection that they've released or, you know, maybe in the past year or two released. I haven't specifically seen this one. So this is a gold nib Aurora 88 which is a piston filler at a price that's really, like, spectacular.

You normally definitely don't see Aurora models on sale especially, like, the gold nib ones. So that's a pretty great price. Have some Ferris wheel press ink, some 10 milliliter sample bottles of a couple of different colors that look great. They have the new Narwhal Triad which is their entry level pin.

This is a rollerball. They also make a fountain pen version. And the aforementioned Lamy Safari Neon stuff that is available at Pen Chalet. So the neon yellow, neon pink that I was talking about before in the fountain pen, roller ball, and ballpoint models which look very, very cool.

So if you're in the market for the new Lamy colors, they have them. And then lastly, a product I have for review is a pen case brand called Kiyoku Haku. And I've seen these for a while. I started seeing them like last year at pen shows and they look fantastic.

And I haven't seen this four-pin carrying case that Pen Chalet has before. It's really, really nice looking. And I have like a zip six-pin case that I'm going to be reviewing in the future. but this one looks really, really cool. So the Kiyoku Haku Flap 4 pen carrying case that looks spectacular.

I'm going to have to get one of these. It looks great. So yeah, go check out everything over at penchalet.com. That's penchalet.com slash penaddict. That's where you can go to get the discounts and the special offers.

Our thanks to Pen Chalet for their support of this show and relay. Michael, speaking of design and design and design challenges. We got a new release from Sailor this week which is the new and hot fresh now redesigned Sailor 1911 Rialo. So those familiar with Sailor will know that the Rialo lineup is their lone piston filler or at least mainline piston filler that they've sold in the past and it's never been like the top seller for them.

They tend to just release all the regular standard fountain pens, king of pens, everything lower priced and higher priced than this piston filler just kind of sat in the middle. The Rialo has its fans but it's never been like a standout. Right? And I compared this when I was talking about this on Streamr this week.

The Rialo had a Pilot 823 problem in that the Pilot 823 existed even though it's a vacuum filler and the Rialo is a piston filler for a lower price and a superior product. So the Rialo always was up against that 823 price point a premium price point for an interesting filling system.

And they've done some special releases of the Rialo over the years. Those tended to do pretty well as all sailor special editions do. And then for some reason now they have decided hey well I mean I know the reason why they decided to go hey let's update the Rialo.

And I don't know what they're doing here. I'm half like impressed and I'm half confused. So let me go over the basics here. And again this is the Sailor 1911 Rialo.

It's a Sailor's piston filler. It has an 18 karat gold nib. The previous ones had 21k nibs. The previous model had a one milliliter ink chamber where the new one has a 1.5 milliliter ink chamber.

Okay. So a little bit larger capacity. They're really the marketing of this you read it they're going oh capacity you never have to you know you're going to be able to write so much longer like they just repeat that over and over and over again in the marketing it's like okay.

And then the big selling feature of this is the ability to swap sections and nibs with your other Sailor pins but only specific ones which I'll get to in a minute. So in the past the Rialo was the grip section on the Rialo was fixed. It was basically glued it adhesed adhesive to the barrel.

As is very normal for a piston filler. Yes. So the whole front end and you could pull out the nib itself right if you wanted to put another nib. They tend to be just part of the body right? Yes. So they've put in the time to redesign the front end of the Rialo to where it now has like a coupling mechanism in there that looks like the end of a cartridge right?

Yeah. So the pin barrel essentially now has a cartridge coupling to where I could take say a Sailor Pro Gear large or Sailor Pro Gear standard front end pop that nib and grip section onto this Rialo barrel. Right. Or I could take the Sailor 1911 large front end grip section and nib and put it on this Rialo barrel.

So I could move around I could order my Rialo with whatever nib I wanted and then I could swap in a different nib from a compatible pin which the compatibility list is going to be very small. And they kind of went at it backwards here. I kind of wish they would say what does fit and instead they list what doesn't fit.

You know? Yeah. It's going to be a much shorter list on what fits. What's going to fit are your Pro Gear standards and your 1911 larges and that's probably 95% of the list. But they say the body is not compatible with the Slim series model such as the 1911 standard and professional gear slim king of pin models special nib and 1911 casual L series nor with the certain cartridge cover models including the Ebonite sculpture Kirikani and Arita four years anniversary collections.

No one cares. It's such a weird thing to do it this way because what it's compatible with is the pens they probably sell the most of. Yes. Which they don't like it should say it's compatible with those two lines. Yeah. When you go about it like this it makes it seem like oh yeah you know like most of the pens that you may have yet doesn't work which is not the case.

It's not. It's the larger version of the 1911 and the regular pro gear. Yeah. It's probably the two singular most popular versions. It's weird. They make it sound like this is bad news but actually it's great news. Yeah. And the final detail it's $750. Right. It's very expensive.

Aside from the price. I think this is a great product. Okay. Yeah. The one thing I want to mention and I will continue down that path of good bad indifferent product. I've looked and looked and looked.

I can't figure out why they have a pinch in the barrel other than just a delimiter of where these now when you're replacing swapping the nib that metal section kind of goes up into that area and kind of stops on the lower side if you will before like the waist and then continues on up.

To me this just felt purely like a design element. Yeah. Which I don't care for. I like it unposted but whenever the cap is there it looks weird. So that's one of my issues with this design.

I have a few issues. So to your point this is a translucent like smoky black brown barrel amber barrel and the cap is black solid. Yeah. And it doesn't just make the whole thing. Yeah. The cap throws it off because then like on their product image they then on their nib swap they swap in with a white grip section.

It looks terrible. It's never going to look good. Right. I don't think it's going to be useful for people who have several of the compatible pins to maybe have now a piston filler with a nib they already have and use. But I don't know. Do you think the caps are interchangeable?

Probably. Right. Given the design and the hot swappable aspect of this I would say probably which is going to make it even uglier. Well it depends. Yeah. It depends. I think this is a cool product. I like the I think it aside from the cap I think the body of the pen looks nice. like the pinched is I think an acquired taste.

Maybe I like it but I don't dislike it. You probably get used to it. Yeah. I don't like the cap design. I think they've chosen poorly as you say.

I actually yeah I don't like the black. I think it would look but I don't even know it should be a 1911 style cap. I think this could look good with a pro gear style cap. I think that the cap is a little big for the pen. traditionally they kind of did that with the Rialo.

Yeah I know. A lot of the Rialos had a flat cap and then a tapered end. It was like both. And now this is all like the 1911 taper. And I liked that about the Rialo.

Like I thought that it made the pen quite interesting. But maybe I could swap it out if I wanted to. I do think that the swapping part is very clever for a couple of reasons. One it's giving people some customizability right which is a thing that we're always looking for in our products.

Right. But also it helps the gold nib change issue. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So again this is the reason they've done this. Yes. This is totally this is why it's redesigned right. just like platinum did the 2.0 version of the 3776 so they can adjust so they can like add in costs without saying we're raising price right.

They could raise the price without saying we're raising the price by introducing like an updated product which is fine like I have no issue with that. So yeah I'm mostly with you in that when I first saw this and kind of got my head wrapped around it I said when I was discussing this on Twitch that I would be the person in the room pitching this product. like I would be in there what if we could swap nibs on the reality.

And like I would be that guy and then I hope someone in that room would tell me it's like that you know that's that's cool Brad but have you thought about the added overhead we're now asking for problems for general usage. Like how many problems are we introducing by allowing by designing this product in just a customer service overhead in a service overhead in just a regular like usage overhead.

How much how many problems are we now introducing. and like I think that's getting a that's something I think about you know whether that matters or not I don't know but that's something I think about. So what I would have I would have gone yeah that that makes sense.

I think what I would have ended up pitching is the same exact pin but they sell you the second nib so it matches and go ahead and charge me like $995 but I get to pick a second nib section that matches. that way I could have my fine nib and I could have a zoom nib and they would both be the translucent black and it would match and I would go ahead and get it and it was pre-built essentially for me and I would rather just pay more and get the matching nib even though you know could I put on my Sailor Progear Ocean you know with a fine cursive italic nib like how much how often am I gonna am I gonna swap that around I don't know.

So anyway it's interesting like I'll be interested to see when people get this what they think and how useful it is do they find them do they find the benefit of the swap to be a good thing is the is the construction good right does it does it technically work right the realo has always been a questionable pin that's why it was never so popular because it kind of had some design flaws that would just kind of show up over time with seals and instability so yeah it's super interesting I don't personally like it from a style and design perspective but I get it I'm glad they did it again this is one of those where I'm probably not going to use it but I'm also glad that they did it because I want to see what happens here and I think people will find a good use for this the thing that I want them to do they're not incentivized to do just don't put a nib on this pen sell me it without a nib yeah no way I know they're not incentivized to do that because right that wouldn't make it out of the room yes the design room yes I know but it's what I want though yeah because I don't need this for seven hundred dollars I'll take it for five and I'll just use one of my better nibs right I already know many of yeah I already have a bunch of 21k nibs exactly that's what I'm saying like I don't I want this pen I don't want the nib it comes with and the price that makes it yeah you know and but I know that it's like why on earth would they do that that's what I want so this is interesting I I love this for them in that I'm glad it happened right and now I just want to watch yeah I want to see I want to see what people think I'm going to see how people change up and and use use this pen with some things they already have and get get joy from it I think a lot of people will will like this yeah quite honest so yeah I wanted to bring that up because that was it wasn't just it was a little more in-depth than like the platinum 3776 2.0 release who did tweak some things but this is a pretty pretty broad change for the Rialo so I've found it very very interesting to discuss and I'm going to want to watch this one pretty closely all right last little bit today I did a review this week of the Visconti Mirage Mythos Persephone fountain pen Myke that's a lot to talk about and it's a Visconti entry-level pen for them it's a $215 entry-level pen which that's Visconti's entry-level price point and you know what it's heckin' good it looks like right I have been astonished by this pen from the moment I bought it in how much I want to pick it up to use and enjoy it so this is an eye-catching pen right it's a very stunning the whole series of these there's seven or eight of these maybe six in various colors and various trim complements this one one is a purple and blue acrylic with a matte finish and then ruthenium trim so like that gray metal make gray metal trim Myke I don't know if I'm delusional and I haven't like officially done any measurements the the the classic Visconti clip seems to be more streamlined it doesn't poke out as much I absolutely think it is because I like the look of this pen and would consider owning one and that's not a thing that usually yeah because of the clip and when I was reading your review it jumped out to me immediately that it is it is much more flush to the body I mean I'm looking at pictures on pen chalet of this one and just the air gap between yeah and compared to their other pens it's it's quite significantly different and the reason why it is is because the cap tapers right so the seating at the top of the cap is lower and so the I think they had to trim off the front end of the clip to make it level so it's almost if you look at it too hard it's almost tilted by the the taper on the cap which flattens out the design right as opposed to being on a straight a straight cylinder it would be a little bit more bulbous if you will so I think it's just part and parcel of this design of the barrel the clip had to be adjusted and it ended up being way better like completely unobtrusive does not stand out at all in my mind the one thing that is obtrusive which I I'm still like questioning is the design element on the grip section which is metal yeah I don't understand what's going on here yeah I like I don't mind it right because I I liken it to like a knurled grip section I don't mind rough grips but this isn't this is a mixture of grips it's a mixture of smooth and rough and and for me it's right where my fingers land it hits right what is it like what actually is it it's basically the the cap band design is also on the section so those V's on the cap band right it's just another band it's basically a section band it's just a detail element like I don't know that it benefits anything decision yeah to to to put essentially unnecessary it's unnecessary yeah work into the grip section of a fountain pen I don't it's good on pictures right it doesn't add anything and I don't think it does look good in the pictures I think it looks like a little messy in the pictures yeah yeah yeah it's an unnecessary bit because then you have detailing on the nib right so and it clashes with that design the designs on the nib are not matching those elements right so it's a little bit clashing at that connection point there yeah I think people will look at this and go oh my god look at this pen and pick it up and then they will open the cap and put their fingers on the grip section and go what is that I think that is a slight detriment to this pen because overall this is like a knock it out of the park pen for me which is crazy I've never really gotten into like Visconti's other entry-level lines like the the Van Gogh's and Rembrandt's they never really just like hit for me and you know they were all around this $200 range they used to be like 150 now they're in the 200s because that's where the market is now but for this price point I think it's excellent and they have it's just such a cool feel I love the like the fluting on the barrel and the textures it has I don't know this has been an all around winner of a pen and that surprised me I didn't think it was going to be bad by any stretch but I think this is more of a like top tier up there if you're going to spend this on a steel nib pen like a Leonardo you know like 200 like 199 I think for the standard Leonardo's this is certainly a consideration and it gives you something different right a little a few different design elements from say like a something comparable like a Leonardo so I don't know I I really fell in love with this pen actually I like it so much I think I'm going to get like the nib modified to be a little bit finer like it only has a fine medium and broad nib and the fine's great it's just you know European fine it's it's wide it's wet and if I'm going to use this pen all the time I think I want the nib kind of modified down for me and I do think that's that's a good recommendation for a pen when I want to keep it and modify it to make me want to use it even more right so it's not because there's anything wrong with the nib and or anything like that it's that I actually want to use this and make it even better so those are just great I really do like the matte finish because they're not all a matte finish right in this right product line some are glossy and some are matte right the matte is super unique it's very satiny yeah they call it sand blasted it's it's it's smooth right but it doesn't have like that gloss on it like you would get with a polished acrylic it's and with that this color of trim that all works right like I don't know that this would work as well with a shiny barrel and this ruthenium trim I think the I think the glossy ones might have the gold trim I haven't totally dialed it in but I think the orange one is glossy and gold trim which that was my second choice I almost bought that one because it's orange but this one I couldn't pass this one up it's really great if you want to find a link to that pen and all of the other things we've discussed in today's episode you can find them in our show notes which will be in your podcast app or over at relay.fm slash pen addict slash 717 next week Brad you're going to have another guest episode because you're going on vacation this time yep I my turn for vacation going to be off next week and I've already recorded next week's episode with my friend Derek Deweese who I was on his podcast about a month ago and we had a great great conversation because we already recorded it so I know what we talked about so y'all will like it as well and Derek's always fun to talk to and we could just we could just chat spoiler alert if you're into typewriters you might want to check this episode out oh that sounds fun oh I'm looking forward to that that'll be yep so that'll be in next week's episode excellent so look forward to that one I want to thank Pen Chalet and the St.

Louis Pen Show for their support of this week's episode but of course I want to thank you for listening as well if you want to find Brad online go to penaddict.com spoke design.com twitch.tv slash penaddict you can find me here on relay at cortexbrand.com and theenthusiast.net thanks so much for listening we'll be back next week until then say goodbye Brad goodbye Brad