The Pen Addict 419/transcript
| The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript | |
|---|---|
| Episode: | 419 |
| Title: | That's So Draplin |
| Release Date: | July 15th, 2020 |
| Hosts: | Brad Dowdy |
| Guests: | No guests this episode |
| Additional Information | |
| Official page: | Episode 419 |
| Audio File: | Audio Episode 419 |
| Podcast page: | The Pen Addict 419 |
| Length: | 6262 min <br />1.033 h <br /> minutes |
| Previous Transcript | Next Transcript |
Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 419. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad. Hey Myke, how are you? I'm good. Are you ready to blaze it next week?
Brad Dowdy: Is it episode 420 next week? 420, baby. Wow, that didn't hit me, but we're going to have to do something special for that. I think we should, you know, get some edibles or something. I guess so. And do a thing. That would be an interesting show.
Myke Hurley: It would be very interesting. One of my favourite podcasts, My Brother, My Brother and Me, they make lots of jokes about, like, drug culture and, like, they just kind of have fun with it and, like, they always do, like, 420, like, ah, you know, like, just the kind of joke that we've just done, which is just, like, a very ironic thing. And as they were building up to the 420th episode, people were, like, like, the excitement was building in the audience space of, like, what are they going to do for episode 420? So, they just skipped it. They went from 419 to 421. It was genius. Because then they were able to do a very funny joke and get away from having to do this, like, Blaze It 420 episode. So, they just went from 419 to 421. It's very smart.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, I do appreciate the Blaze It 420 jokes, but you're probably not going to get more than that on this episode.
Cleaning Pens
Brad Dowdy: To start things off, and maybe I need some Blaze It 420 for what I'm about to say is, I really think a lot about pens, Myke. I'm not sure if you're aware. Like, I think a lot about how I use pens and how I handle pens and what I'm currently using and things like that. Maybe I could use some 420 enlightenment to help me out here. So, you can clear your mind a bit. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I go in these constant cycles, and anyone who's been a long-term listener has heard me talk about this before when I clean my pens about how I generally go, like, just full scorched earth and reset the entirety of what I have inked up. So, I was trying not to do that a few weeks ago when I cleaned, like, six or eight pens, and I still found out, you know, earlier or, like, last weekend that I had 11 fountain pens still inked up. I was like, wow, that is just too many. How did I clean some and still end up with 11 fountain pens ink? That's just too many for me. Like, I don't use them enough for that to be a healthy practice to have that many inked up. You know, it's just wasteful, basically. So, I did the thing where I just go, screw it. I'm just gonna clean them all out, right? So, I hunted down every fountain pen I had inked up. I had more than... I thought, I was like, oh, here's these four pens that I know I'm really... Like, they're kind of my favorites right now. Like, the 823, and the Sailor Fujiyama, and Brooks Arushi, Lamy Safari, and things like that. You know, these, I'm loving using these, having these sitting on my desk, laying around. But, you know, they're just not getting enough individual love, so let's break them down, start from scratch. And then I started looking around my desk, and oh, there's another fountain pen inked up, and oh, there's another fountain pen inked up, and it just kept going and going, and finally it was 11 pens. But it's not surprising. Not surprising, really, is it for you? Not even at all. Like, I tell myself it's not that bad. And then, when I actually go to do the thing, I was like, hmm. Like, 11, for some people, is not bad. For me, that's too many. So, I got them all down. And the only fountain pen I didn't clean was the Platinum Curie Doss.
Myke Hurley: Because you didn't know how to clean it?
Brad Dowdy: That is so true, my God.
Myke Hurley: How do you clean that pen?
Brad Dowdy: I don't know. I don't know. I think I'll just, since this one has the cracked feet, I'll just send it back before cleaning it to get the replacement. Replace it.
Brad Dowdy: Every time I need a new Curie Doss, I'll just replace it.
Brad Dowdy: But I'm still, I still, I'm planning on doing my review soon for that, right? So, it was pointless to clean it, because I still use it. I've put my thoughts together on the Curie Doss enough now to where I feel good reviewing it. So, that one stayed inked. Everything else went. The other thing, the other reason why I chose to go ahead and clean out all these pens is that 10 out of the 11 pens had some form of blue ink in them. And that's just lame. That frustrated me. Since they were inked at all different times, right? Like, the Fujiyama blue comes in, and, well, of course, I'm going to ink that with, like, some bright sailor blue. I put sky high in it. Like, that's the perfect thing. Like, that's what you should do. I had 10 variations of blue ink and one purple ink in the dark lilac Urushi Lami Safari. So, that was another thing that frustrated me. I was like, well, I want to use orange or green or yellow or whatever it is, pink, but I don't want to ink up another pen to add on to these. So, now the challenge is, how long can I go without getting out a new fountain pen to ink?
Brad Dowdy: I'm on, like, two days now. And it's going okay because I've had a rash of new products come in that, you know, I'm not strictly a fountain pen user, right? I, that's probably one of my least used pens on a day-to-day basis. So, having 11 inked up is too much, and then having all these other options that I love to use now has me thinking, can I get away with, how many days can I get away with not inking up a fountain pen? And let me just be perfectly clear. It's not going to be many days. Like, there's no, I'm not trying to say, you know, I'm going to go a month without inking up a fountain pen. That's not going to happen. If I made it to this weekend, it would be a miracle. Right? So, my question to you is, how long could you go without, if you started from zero with your current fountain pen staring at you and none of them had ink in them, how long could you go without inking one up? Like, when would you, would you have a breaking point, like, pretty quick, or do you think you could go pretty long without using it?
Myke Hurley: I mean, it's like, this is a need-want thing, right? Like, I could go forever, right? And my life isn't going to be, like, badly affected. Not like if you said to me, you can't use your phone, right? Like, then we're in a different world. I mean, honestly, I would probably, at max, go, like, two days before I would want to have a new pen inked up. You know, because I could use, for a couple of days, my non-fountain pens. But all of my favorite pens are my fountain pens. So, I would only go for a couple of days maximum before I wanted to do that.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's what I put in the show doc for myself. I said, I think I could go about three days. Because I just, I have these fountain pens because I love how they feel, how they make my handwriting look, how I get to use unique nibs and unique barrel styles and sometimes pieces of art, and get to put unique ink colors and use them on fun paper. Like, I can't always get that with the ballpoint. Like, we're going to talk about the Rotring 600. Like, that's fine. Like, I could use the Rotring 600 for weeks at a time, but I want something different. You know, and that customization that I always talk about with fountain pens, it's going to mean that I can't go very long without inking up a new fountain pen. So, the other reason why I just kind of scorched earth again is so I can get some new pens into the rotation. Like, this is part of the bigger project of what pens make the cut for continued use and what pens need to be sold, right? That's just, that's the overarching theme here is eventually I'll have pen sale round two, which I probably need to have, you know, like, pretty soon. Probably like this fall because I've bought a bunch of pens without selling pens here recently. And it's time to go through that again. So, I'm breaking it all down and having a fountain pen reset right now. But that's, it's totally cyclical for me. Like, this is a conversation we've had a million times. But the thing that struck me this time was how many blue inks I had inked up and how much that annoyed me because it prevented me from going to 15 inked fountain pens just so I could ink a green and a pink. I was like, that's dumb. You need to clean out these pens before you start doing that.
Myke Hurley: I seem to remember it was like a goal for you this year to stop using as many blue inks as you're using. And was, you wanted to be more experimental.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, two years ago, my theme was experiment. And I get frustrated when I don't allow myself to do that, right? It becomes a frustration point when I just want to throw a blue black ink into a pen, right? Right. And I'll actually sit in front of my inks and I'll probably have 200 inks and just be frustrated trying to decide what non-blue black ink I am going to use. I don't know why that just makes it's one of those sticking points for me, you know, because you have to go for me. It's a it's a going outside of my norm thing. You know, if I'm going to put the effort in using this pen and putting this ink in it, am I going to enjoy it or am I wasting my time in filling it and committing to it? So, like, I get stuck on those types of things, which is is ridiculous when you say it out loud. But those are the things that, you know, I get stuck on sometimes. So that's why I'm trying to have this cleanse right now so I can have some enlightenment when I go to ink up the next pen. So I already I already kind of know what the next next couple of pens I want to ink up. I just haven't figured out the inks yet. So we'll do that soon. So in lieu of any fountain pen use, Myke, I've been using some other things of note recently. One is the brand new Rotring 600 colors. Were you going to try to get any of the pencils for you? I know you like the 600 pencil. Did any of the color pencils speak to you in any way, shape or form to try to order them for yourself?
Myke Hurley: Of memory tells me that I liked the green one. But I think it was a case of really wanting to actually. Yeah, if I remember right, it's like, yes, I would. But I want to wait to see it in person, which could be who knows when before. Because, you know, it would purely be seeing one and be like, oh, that color, I really like it. Like, that would be the only reason that I would do it. So I think I would just I would need to see all the colors in their glory before making that kind of decision.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I will say a couple of things. One, it looks like they're going to be pretty wide release. Like this looks like going to be a mainline Rotring release. They seem to be even though they've sold out a lot of places from the get go. So they're at least accessible from a lot of places. Right. Like people, if people want these, they should be able to get what they want. We were worried in the beginning, not knowing what the release was going to be. Was it going to be a regional type release? Are we going to be able to have to fight to get these? Because I really wanted the blue. So I was able to order something from each color so I could look at them and see. And I'm definitely the blue person. And so I got the 0.5 millimeter pencil in blue for myself. And I got I matched that up with the ballpoint, the 1.0 millimeter ballpoint in blue. And that's what I've been using. Like the last two days exclusively, I've used the Rotring 600 ballpoint in blue. I forget the they call the red matter red, which is a weird name. I don't know what the blue and green are called. And they're great. Like I think you will really like the green, the green, any of the marketing. And we just we talked about this when the marketing first first launched. You can barely tell it's green in the marketing photos. It looks very black. And they call it camouflage green, which makes me think, you know, a brownish blackish green. And it is definitely more of the British racing style green. It has a little metallic. Like, yeah, so I think people who want the green are going to be pretty happy with it in person over the pictures. It's got a little bit of metallic to it. Like all the red and the blue both have like a metallic sheen on the barrel. And the green is better looking in person than in pictures. So I will say that the ballpoint that I'm using takes Parker style refills. It's a Rotring branded refill. I'm wondering if it's like the Schmidt 9000. But I don't know, maybe it's just Rotring's refill because it does say made in France on it. So I don't I don't even know what's going on here. But it's a really nice refill. It's smooth, dark black ink. And you can change it into the, you know, the Jetstream SXR 600 refill that I like so much. That's the Parker style Jetstream. I'll end up putting one of these, one of those refills in this pen eventually. And it's just really well done. Rotring did a good job. You know, the only knock that I'll have on any of these new Rotring products is the back end of the pencil with the with the cutout in the eraser cap. That just does not make any sense to me. But, you know, it is what it is. And you don't really notice it that much. But I was like, that is just a weird design choice for someone who makes such clean pens like Rotring. That is just the strangest design choice. Aside from that, I'm using the spoke pen in cyan, which is the bright kind of turquoise blue. And this has been so every week I pick a pen for my William Hanna journal. So I switch that up every week. So this week it's the it's the spoke pen in cyan. And I use the Uniball Signo DX lavender black 0.38 millimeter gel. That's my favorite refill.
Myke Hurley: Lavender black. Mm hmm. What color is that?
Brad Dowdy: It's a darker. It's basically dark purple.
Ink Colors
Myke Hurley: OK.
Brad Dowdy: So Uniball's regular purple gel is a very bright purple. So this darkens it up a bit and makes it like if you weren't looking like if you just looked at it real quick, you just pass it off as a black ink. But if you pay attention, it's actually a very dark purple ink. So it's nice. I really love it.
Myke Hurley: OK.
Brad Dowdy: And they do that in I think the RT one is their retractable pen model. They have lavender black. They I think they might have done that in the 307. They did some they did a few. They did some green black, red black, blue black, purple black in the 307 model.
Myke Hurley: OK.
Brad Dowdy: I believe as well. But that's just one of my favorite, favorite combos. If I'm not using black 0.38, I'm using lavender black 0.38 and then blue black 0.38. Those are kind of my go to's for the Signo DX and putting them in the spoke pen. And then to just go full company man here, I'm using the spoke model for mechanical pencil, which is actually the pencil that got me talking to Brian way back in the day. My partner at spoke, I think this is just one of the greatest pencil designs. And he changed. He inverted the grip and made a brass grip and put it with an orange barrel. And it's just it's just the daddy of all pencils. Like it's it's which one is that one? My pencil. So it's spoke model for orange barrel brass inverted grip.
Myke Hurley: I just noticed on the website, the model five. Yes. That's new to me. Yes. How new is this?
Brad Dowdy: Uh, early this year, six months.
Myke Hurley: It's nice looking.
Brad Dowdy: Very professional. Maybe not. Maybe not. It's great looking. It's have been very well received. So it doesn't have the separate grip section. And it's basically like a unified barrel as opposed to the model four, which is a separate barrel and grip section.
Myke Hurley: So I would say like the model four is the fun version and the model five is like the business version.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And we and the model five can now come in point three as well, which we had a lot of requests for. And that's done very well.
Myke Hurley: And are you now involved in the mechanical pencil part of the business too?
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So it's all kind of rolled up together now. So any of the spoke design stuff I am, I am a part of now.
Myke Hurley: You have input at least. Yes. Yeah. Because I remembered you saying that, that like the thought was if the Kickstarter was a success, then you were going to become a partner in the business. Is that, is that, yeah.
Brad Dowdy: Yes. Essentially that's correct. So, so yeah, I, I definitely have say in the, in the product design and I'm, I definitely say we need to charge more for the spoke pencil. So we're working on that.
Myke Hurley: Business spread.
Brad Dowdy: They're too cheap. They're such, there's, they're legitimately good products, even though I'm biased in saying that completely. But, um, I love them. I have my model four right here. Yeah. That's why I want to be part of a company that does that. It's the same thing with knock, right? Like I really believe in the product. So I'm, I'm willing to just say, you know, how great they are because I believe in them that much. Um, last thing I've kind of been using in the non fountain pen categories, the black wing Ravi Shankar pencil. It's so pretty. It's just really good. It has the extra firm cores in it. So it's, it's a dark firm lead. It's this beautiful yellow pattern pencil with the yellow eraser. It's just, it's really good. I'm sure this one's sold out. If not, it's on the way to being sold out. They did a really, really great job with this black wing did. And, um, I always keep some pencil handy. I have way too many pencils, but I just, I like them. There's something about a pencil, Myke, that gets me. I know you don't, you don't share the same, the same feelings and that's, that's cool. Not wood. Um, not wood case. Yeah. Yeah. Not the wooden pencils. Yeah. I totally get that. So, um, last thing, which I just got in and I want to say, I'm going to use it in like ASAP, but I'm really trying to be a good boy because I got in a Misubi notebook to use for myself. So I've, I've ordered some products from Misubi, um, after we talked last week, or maybe even before we talked last week about the Tomoe river paper and the blog post that Daryl, Daryl wrote. And there's been some updates to that link. So y'all can go find that link in the chat or in the show notes from last week. And I placed an order because I've, while I've bought several Misubi notebooks, I've always bought them to give to other people because they're really, you know, exquisite there. They really make an impression and I've never ordered any for myself. So I did that and I'm about halfway through my current notebook, which it's going to take me like another couple of months to get through. So I have this Misubi notebook waiting for me when I do, I got iridescent indigo. It's just glorious. It's glorious. I'm very happy with it with a bank paper on the inside, which is, uh, give it a good feel for all types of pens and inks and pencils and all the different things that I use. You see how many non fountain pens I use on the regular. I don't necessarily, that's why I've never really gone for the Tomoe River notebooks as much as I appreciate and enjoy them. I need a paper that's going to be, um, work well with many, many types of writing instruments and the bank paper is it. And the iridescent indigo cover is it. And it's going to be hard to not crack this, crack this open, but I'm, I'm holding strong. The iridescent notebook philosophy.
Myke Hurley: Indigo bank paper. Oh, it looks nice.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Mm-hmm. It really does have a little bit of iridescence to it, but I, I really like the fabrics that Daryl chooses, especially the vintage denims and the wools that, that they uses for the, um, for the covers of the notebooks. That's my style. You know, the blues and the blacks and the grays.
Brad Dowdy: Oh, I also ordered a pen case, a pen sleeve, the two pen sleeve, which I never had. Like I bought one of those too and I give it away. So like, they're just such good, good giveaway items. They're spectacular stuff. So yeah, I loaded up at Misubi and I'm, I'm keeping it this time. I usually give it all away. I'm keeping these for me. Ha.
Myke Hurley: What is bank paper?
Brad Dowdy: It's hard to explain. It's, it's definitely more of a non-coated paper and it's got a little bit of texture on it, but it holds fountain pen ink very well. Like it doesn't bleed or feather. Like you, you feel this paper and you think, oh, my inks are going to soak into this paper, but they don't. So it holds up well to fountain pen inks, but it's not going to have like the, the sheen that you'd get out of Tomoe river and it's going to work better since it is textured. It's going to work better for pencils and markers and different types of pens like that. So I did a review of the life bank paper pad and I enjoyed that style of paper. It's a very different feel. Like it's not even, it doesn't even feel like a Leuchtturm or something like that. Something you'd say is a non-coated paper. It has more texture to it when you're writing on it. And some people just flat out don't like it. And that's fair, especially with, you know, maybe with like extra fine fountain pen nibs, it might not be the best paper.
Myke Hurley: Oh, I think looking at the pictures in your review, I know this kind of paper. Or like I've used paper that it's reminiscent of where it's just like bleed through. Well, what about just see through? It's like, you know, you're in a different world now, my friend.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So I've liked how it performs, but some people, you know, like heavy fountain pen users might just swear it off completely because it's not the perfect fountain pen paper, even though it's good for fountain pens.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. Your dry time is going to be a long period of time. I see them on paper like that.
Brad Dowdy: It's not as bad as you would think. Like everything, everything about this paper for fountain pens is not as bad as you would think, which makes it ends up in totality, makes it a good paper for fountain pens. So, but yeah, it's, it's a, basically it's a, it's a different flavor of paper, if you will. Right. It's, it works the same. It looks the same, but you kind of got to, it's an acquired taste maybe.
Myke Hurley: And just on the Musubi, they're referenced on the website as diaries, but they're not printed diaries though, are they?
Brad Dowdy: No, not at all. Like my bank paper one is blank. I think a lot of times that I've seen in Japanese and other Asian stationery brands, diary references a shape or a size, almost like the A5 or a even smaller, it doesn't have to be A5 size, but it has to be a thicker bound style of book as opposed to a spiral bound or a glue bound, some type of, of almost hardcover bound book that has a decent amount of pages in it. Right. Okay. So it's kind of, I think it's kind of a more of just a generic term in this situation. Whereas if you were, there was some US maker that made a diary, I guarantee if we went to the product page, it would have like calendars and dates and all that type of stuff in it. Right. It would have different kinds of sections.
Break Time
Myke Hurley: Okay. All right. Should we take a break?
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, let's take a break. And then we're going to hit up some products and some reviews and some, some interesting stuff.
Myke Hurley: All right. Well, this episode is brought to you by our friends over at Pen Chalet. Pen Chalet, have everything you're looking for from your favorite brands, whether you want a rollerball, a fountain pen or a ballpoint, whether you want to buy something from Lamy, Monteverde, Pelican, so many more, they're going to have it because they're adding new products all the time. Every month, there's going to find new things over at Pen Chalet. And you're also, if you go back frequently enough, you're going to find lots of great discounts. A couple of times a month, you're going to see wonderful discounts over at Pen Chalet, as well as the great exclusive discounts that we have for Penn Addict listeners. But it's not just the writing implements that you can find at Pen Chalet. You can also get everything that you need that surrounds them. Whether you want notebooks, whether you want carrying cases, whether you want fountain pen converters or ink, they're going to have it at Pen Chalet and you're going to get great shipping costs because if you buy anything of over $50 and you want to get it shipped in the US, that's going to be free for you. So free shipping on orders of over $50 in the United States with great shipping rates going internationally as well. Pen Chalet has low prices on high quality pens and offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee. They want to make sure that you're super happy. They offer fast and reliable customer service because they care about your business. Go to PennChalet.com, that's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password Penn Addict and you'll get your hands on this week's special offer and the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time at Pen Chalet because you are a listener of this show. What do we have on offer this time, Mr. Brad Dowdy?
Brad Dowdy: So a couple of things before we even get into the offer page. Number one, we were talking about paper. Pen Chalet carries the endless notebooks in their Tomoe River paper and they're always very well reviewed and received by people who use them. It's a 300 plus page Tomoe River and Pen Chalet even did like a custom cover version of that one for their shop. So you should look that one up. I'm not sure if it's on the list. I haven't scrolled all the way down or anything like that. Second, every time I land on their web page, which is pretty frequent on the home page right now, the first image that shows up is the Visconti Crystal Dreams Homo Sapiens. So the Homo Sapiens is kind of a famous pen in fountain pen world and people have always asked for some type of ink window in that. So last year they did kind of like a side ink window, like almost porthole style ink window. Now they're doing like a full clear barrel. I'm still not sure it's for me, but that always pops into pops up in there and makes me stop in my tracks. It's like, yeah, that's pretty cool looking. So onto the discounts, you have to scroll. There's lots of good stuff from the Cross Townsend Rollerball, the price that it's offered at. If you're into rollerballs, this is the classic shape cross. That is probably one of the few cross pen shapes that I recommend. So they make a fountain pen in the Townsend and a rollerball and a ballpoint in the Townsend. And it's just really, really well done, well made. And this is well percentage off. So it's a very good deal. And if you scroll all the way down, scroll down a bunch. I mean, this is a long list. Again, Ron likes to sneak stuff in there from time to time. And there is a Pelican M205, which is one of the pens I always talk about. And it tends to be pretty expensive for what it is. But I always say how good of a deal it is that you can get on it if you shop for them. And Ron has a green translucent M205 for a price that is the no-brainer price for the M205. So if you've ever wanted one of those pens, that's the price. That's a price you need to check out. Plus, this style and model is one of the best. It's in the classic Pelican green. It's the green of their ink windows on Pelican. But it's the entire pen, essentially. So it's pretty cool. One big ink window. Yeah, one big ink. So quick update from the chat. Thank you, chat. The Endless Notebook is only 192 pages. But everything I said still stands. So it's a very cool Tomoe River paper notebook. So yeah, there you go. Thank you, Pen Chalet, for being awesome.
Paper Discussion
Myke Hurley: So if you want to find out more about those deals and get to see the prices that we're talking about, you want to go to PennChalet.com, click the podcast link at the top of the website, and enter the password PennAddict, and you'll get your hands on these offers and the 10% code to use to save anything at PennChalet at any time. Our thanks to PennChalet for their continued support of this show and RelayFM.
Brad Dowdy: So I reviewed the Kaweco Supra this week, Myke, which is a long time coming.
Myke Hurley: This is a pen that is so strange to look at pictures of, because when you see it on its own, right? So like the first few pictures on the page, it's like, oh, that's like a Lilliput. And then you see it later on down in your page, like stacked next to the other Kawecos. And then it just looked like my brain, it breaks looking at the images. Because then when you see it next to the Twisby, it looks like a Lilliput again, and it's just a tiny Twisby. And then you see, it's very, this is a very strange, like, I'm really struggling to get my head around the size and scale of this pen. It's very weird.
Brad Dowdy: And it's definitely one of the stranger pens on the market, which is why I definitely wanted to review it, also being a Kaweco and also being stainless steel. So they came out with the brass version, probably, gosh, it's probably been two years now, at least a year, year and a half, they came out with the brass one. And what the Supra is, is a metal barrel pen. If you're familiar with the Lilliput, it's like an extra large sized shape Lilliput, just straight barrel, rounded ends. And it uses a number six nib, which is the key in all of this. So based on the configuration, it's a configurable pen, right? So it has a barrel section that you can take apart and remove almost like an inch long section out of the barrel to either extend the pen to a full traditional death size pen or shorten the pen into like a pocketable, a little bit larger than the Kaweco Lilliput style of pen. I love the idea of this. I just don't know that it needs to exist because I don't think the end use of this pen is both configurations. You either want it for the long pen or want it for the short pen. And I think most people, myself included, would want it for the short pen because that's where it's a standout pen. If the barrel section is removed, you take that off, set it on your desk, and then you screw the barrel back together with the grip section. And you can cap it. It's a great sized EDC pocket pen. And it's still, you know, big enough and heavy enough and substantial enough to write with. It's got a number six nib, which is great. And we're going to talk about the nib a little bit more later because I had some issues. And it's just, it's kind of perfect as the Lilliput XL, which is what I call it, right? So it's kind of perfect for that small size. And also in the small size, it just takes short international cartridges. So if you put the middle section back into the pen, screw it all back together, it's now a full length pen. It uses a full length international converter, right? You can fit, you know, your normal converter into that. You just have a much more bulky pen and the middle section sticks out a little bit, right? Because they have to have all this, these threading options to, to build the pen how you want. So it sticks out a little bit. It doesn't really bother me too much, but it becomes too big and too heavy when it's at full length and there's no way you can post the cap on there. I mean, technically it's, it's made to post, right? It's a threaded cap posting, but then it becomes a baton in your hand, right? It's like a, it's like a weapon at that point. It gets so long and so heavy, it's unusable. So I almost want this to like, to be split up into like two different pens. When I was sharing it on stream, someone mentioned, well, what if they, we all like the short configuration. Like, I think it's pretty universal that everyone loves the short configuration of this pen. So why don't they make that and call it the Lilliput XL or call it the, some different kind of the sport model, right? It's about as wide in diameter as like the AL sport, but uses a six nib instead of a five nib. And then take the full length barrel, just make it a single, single length barrel and do some unique acrylics in that full length barrel and make like a longer eyedropper pen, you know, kind of like a nicer Perkyo. So the Perkyo is their long barrel entry level pen. It uses a number five nib. I think it might be, it might be a six or something in between. Um, and I just don't think the use case for this pen is in the full, fully extended configuration. So that's my hesitancy. And it's like, how do you recommend this? It's like, well, if you really love the Lilliput and want a little bit bigger pen, you're really going to like this pen outside of that. Like, I don't know how I could really recommend it for anyone because I don't think the long version is, is that good.
Myke Hurley: I really don't like the way it looks when you have the extender part in it because you end up with like this up, down, up, down type, right? Like you can see it in the images. It's like a plateau. Yeah. And there's like the middle part is like thinner than the grip section and the cap. Like it, it just looks really weird both when it's capped and when it's posted. Um, that just seems, it seems strange to me. Like, frankly, like, you know, you could maybe say this for a lot of brands, but like, I feel it here. I'm not really sure why this pen exists. And maybe I feel like Kaweco might have too many pen lines now. I think they might have a couple too many.
Brad Dowdy: I think about this a lot, right? This is one of my things. Like if I'm Kaweco and I'm in the lab and I am experimenting, I think I come up with this design and think it's a good idea, right? Like I can see talking myself into this experiment and selling it up the chain as this is something we should make. I think in the end, it's probably not a necessary product, right? I think you're better off just making a Lilliput XL and going from there. So, but I could see why Kaweco makes this. I just don't know that we're going to see them continue with this product, right? I think it's, I think that's probably, yeah, I think they've probably gotten what they needed out of this product. I don't think it's going to be a long-term win for Kaweco like some of the other product lines that they've done. So, so I'm on Kaweco's website. It's so interesting.
Myke Hurley: I want to list to you their series. Classic sport, Skyline sport, Frosted sport, AL sport, Brass sport, Steel sport, AC sport, Lilliput, Supra, Sketchup, Special, which is a line, Elegance, Student, Dire 2, Perkyo.
Brad Dowdy: So I know all those except the Elegance. I don't know what the Elegance is, but all those I have, I can, I can tell you exactly what they are. The biggest problem I have is they keep, I think they muck up the, the classic sport lineup with all of the different names, Skyline, Ice. I think you just make them classic sport and then do the colors that you want for Skyline and Ice and all of those things. Yeah.
Myke Hurley: I'm not really sure why Skyline as a line exists. Like it doesn't make sense to me. They're just all sports in different colors.
Brad Dowdy: Right. So the Skylines are the silver stamping and the classics are the gold stamping, gold stamping, gold nibs, Skylines are silver stamps and silver nibs. Yeah, I know. I'm agreeing with you on this one. I've, I've never liked that. The other ones I get because they're at least invoking the material name and the name of the product, even though it's technically the same shape, like the, the AL sport, the brass sport, the steel sport and the carbon sport are all the same. Silhouette of pen with different barrel materials. It's the, it's the, the plastic sports that I don't like the naming convention of.
Brad Dowdy: All right. We good with that one? Cause I'm going to talk about this next topic. I find it very interesting.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, this is, yeah. Okay. Go on.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. This is the, um, this is the St. Louis pen show virtual maker fair. So St. Louis was one of the, they were scheduled for the end of June, actually probably coming up here in the next week or two would have been their pen show here in St. Louis, Missouri in the United States. And they do a great job of having makers kind of, I guess you would say, get involved in a theme of making products, specific show specific products for them to sell at the show. Well, of course the show got canceled because of COVID-19. And so a lot of these makers had already had these products. So what the St. Louis pen show did was feature all of these products on their website and allow you to go buy them from the makers. How great is this idea? Yeah.
Myke Hurley: I mean, it makes a lot of sense, especially if they'd asked, you know, they've got the buy-in from these companies to commit to making, it looked like purple was the theme this year. Yeah. And I think that maybe one or two of the products already existed. Like one of them is the kind of layer pen co Eolani, but it was maybe they'd made more for that show. Right. Or something. But I think that that is like, it feels like the right kind of thing to do for me as like a goodwill gesture towards these brands because, you know, like they don't, it's nobody's fault. Right. Right. It's not like it's product that these companies don't have to sell, but it's nice to put them all together and try and draw a bit of attention to some companies that you'd kind of tried to get on your side. I think it's a nice way to deal with it.
Brad Dowdy: I think it generates a lot of goodwill too, between the promoters and the consumers with the, you know, vendors in between, you know, that the vendors know that the promoters have their back and the, the customers or attendees of the show know that the promoters are putting in the work to support these makers. And it's just kind of all a great little ecosystem. I think like these pins, like the ones from Heinz pens is, is really cool material, like this purple and turquoise swirl. There's a couple of brands in here that I'm not familiar with that I'm going to look at. There is a, from Opus, Opus Michan. It's a really neat pin called the musician. You know, it's just your acrylic pin, but it's this beautiful purple and black swirl. And I think a lot of the pins have already sold out because they did this and were able to feature these pins directly. And like, I know you can get the, the KWZ ink. That's a really, really good purple. And there's like, I think there's still more of the purple. They, they, I think maybe they changed the name after the, after they found out they're going to have to show the, the, the ink is called KWZ stay home purple, which is, is brilliant. Like they're just, they're leaning into this and I just love what they did.
Myke Hurley: If it was called stay home purple beforehand, then whoever named it is a witch.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Or they just needed to be fired at that point, but now it's genius. If you're, if you're, if you're custom ink for your pin show, you're getting everyone to attend to stay home, then you've probably lost your job.
Brad Dowdy: You're no longer part of the marketing team, but if you did it after the fact, yeah, now you're like, oh, this is genius. You just got a promotion on this one. So yeah.
Myke Hurley: This is still highlighting to me though, a thing that I think is needed, but hasn't been done. And I don't know if it can be done, uh, which is like a truly online pen show. Um, which is totally that has serious buy-in from a lot of the brands that would be on the pen show circuits, you know? So we're talking like good, you know, different pricing, additional product available, show special products available, limited times, you know, like, so certain makers will open their table at nine in the morning. You know, like that. I would like to see something like that, but that would take a lot of coordinating. I think could be a successful thing if you could get enough people on board. I mean, frankly, it could even be better than the typical pen show, um, kind of turnover that these companies would see. I think that there is a real, you know, there's a business case for it, which is the same business case that, uh, all of these makers and vendors would go to a pen show for. Um, but it would take a lot of coordination. Uh, I'm not going to be the person to do it and, and it would need a lot of like technical know-how to really kind of get things taken care of and put together properly. It would take a lot of planning, but frankly, we have the time and there is not going to be an in-person pen show anywhere, uh, especially in America, uh, this year. Like it's just not going to happen. So, you know, uh, I will just put it out there, right. As an idea, like if people think they could do it, like, I think they should try.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. There's a huge opportunity for someone to be an online pen show promoter right now, right? Take ownership of the online pen show once a year or twice a year to, to do this. But it's, that would be, like you said, it's a massive amount of work. Like, like if you started today, it's not even going to happen this year, but it could, it could happen even in years where there's full of pen shows. You can still get all these companies from around the world into virtual events, you know, twice a year.
Myke Hurley: Like one of the larger pen shows, like the promoters for one of the larger pen shows, I am thinking about a specific one right now. Like, I feel like they have the relationships, like it could be done. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brad Dowdy: That's why I wanted to put this in the doc because the question is, are any other shows going to do something like this, you know, for this year's show? And could they have an alternate calendar year, say like six months apart from their regular show, have their virtual show, you know, where they've, you know, feature these brands twice a year, you know, one in person, you know, in the future when we're back to attending shows and once at the exact opposite side of the schedule for a virtual pen show? Yeah.
Myke Hurley: I would like to see it. Someone could, someone could do it. But don't all do it. I'm wonderful.
Virtual Pen Show
Brad Dowdy: Then if everyone does it, then no one does it.
Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it really needs to be like a very coordinated affair. You have to get buy-in from a lot of people to make it like truly doable. Yeah. But it doesn't seem impossible. I mean, like, you know, even with something like that, you could end up helping companies that don't have typical online representation, right? Don't have an online store, could still do something like this if you can coordinate. It's like, you know, what I'm saying is there's a lot of work there, but I think there could be, there could be some real benefit there if it was done right.
Brad Dowdy: I mean, we do have Fountain Pen Day every year, you know, just saying. Like in November, just saying. All right. What do you think about the Retro 51 Pearl, Myke?
Myke Hurley: It's beautiful.
Brad Dowdy: It's pretty beautiful, isn't it? So this is their 30th anniversary pin, their last anniversary, the final anniversary. It's a pin of teardrops, Myke.
Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.
Brad Dowdy: But yeah. So this is the, the Pearl anniversary is the 30th anniversary and Retro made a set of pens this time. And I think there was, is there 1951 models, versions of this pin? Like, is it a limited edition? I think of 1951. So it becomes, it's in the Roller Tornado, Rollerball, the fountain pen, and the mechanical pencil. Will you be acquiring any of these said products?
Myke Hurley: I would like to get a fountain pen version. Oh, yeah. Interesting. But I haven't yet found where to get that from.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think the, they're about to drop, it was, I read some follow-up to their posts that like their initial online release sold out directly, but all the retailers haven't had theirs out yet kind of thing. But I could be wrong in that. So yeah, like this is not a pin for me. Like I have zero interest in this, but I love this at the same time. It's great looking. It's what I would expect for this type of anniversary pin. I like that it's across three products instead of just simply one. And it's just an all around good job that we're going to miss when they're not around anymore. And I'm going to keep hammering that home, Myke.
Brad Dowdy: So yeah, it's great. It's great. So the one that came and went real quick, we didn't put this in the show notes because it arrived and sold out so quickly. They did a stealth one a few weeks ago. Did you happen to catch that?
Myke Hurley: The what?
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Don't go look up their previous release before this because it sold out so fast. It was a tornado and I don't know the exact model number, but it was essentially, I don't think it was a stealth bomber, but it was an all black in their airplane series. And it sold out so fast that you couldn't even get one if you weren't there clicking the button. So I'm not surprised that you didn't see it.
Brad Dowdy: So yeah, that was pretty cool. We didn't even get a chance to talk about it because there was no... By the time it launched and by the time it sold out was within the span of one of our recordings. So there was no point in even discussing it. Blimey. Until now.
Myke Hurley: No, I didn't see that.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So the SR-71 under the radar. So it's pretty sweet looking. I got to admit, like, again, not for me, but this is why we like Retro 51 because they do really cool stuff like this.
Myke Hurley: Oh, it was the SR-71. Okay. Mm-hmm. I get it a little bit more now. Huh. You know, I didn't even see this one. Didn't even see it. I mean, this wouldn't have been my... You know, I wouldn't have run for it, but I can see why people would like it.
Brad Dowdy: Exactly.
Myke Hurley: When are they actually going to stop? Do we have any idea?
Brad Dowdy: At the beginning of the year, it was going to be September. Okay. When the end of new products was going to happen.
Myke Hurley: Okay.
Brad Dowdy: But whether that's changed, like, I don't even ask the question anymore. I guess because I don't want to know.
Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.
Brad Dowdy: Yep. All right. So what's next here? You put in this topic. I want you to lead in and tell me why you added these to the show doc this week.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. So there was... You wrote a review of a nib called the Estabrook, the Journaler nib, which is an interesting nib. But it reminds me of, like, the Franklin Kristoff kind of model of taking a nib and having a nib grinder produce a nib for you to sell. Like, you know, like I think of, like, the Myke Masayama nibs that they would do. Or the Sig nibs, right? That kind of idea. Right. And so they worked with... Who was it that they worked with? Was it Nib Studio?
Brad Dowdy: Gina Salarino Custom Nib Studio.
Myke Hurley: Custom Nib Studio. To create or to basically work some nibs into a shape, right? And they've called it the Journaler. Do you know why it's got that name?
Brad Dowdy: I don't know exactly why it's that name. I guess just the intent of how the nib is designed to write. So you got to... When you're looking at Estabrook nibs, you got to look at the history that they're trying to recreate. And Estabrook is famous for creating, you know, 200 or so different styles of nibs for all types of different works. You know, they used to have, like, just highly specific accounting nibs and general writing nibs and school nibs and all of these different categories. So this was designed to mimic a specific nib called the 9314. All of these nibs were based on numbers. And you just have... When you look at Estabrook, like the vintage stuff, they just have charts full of nib styles and names. It's really wild if you dig into the Estabrook history. Yeah. So that's what they're trying to do here with this.
Myke Hurley: And then it's camera industries that own Estabrook now, isn't it? And... Yes. They've done some interesting stuff where they've created pen models where you can attach the old nibs to the new pens, right? Like, there's like... Yes. Is that correct? Like, they've created, like, attachments to do that, which I think is quite interesting. But what it really seems like in recent times is they're really pushing the brand and they're doing some interesting stuff. Like, there's... I actually would really like to get my hand on one of the composition pens that they've done. Mm-hmm. Which is their Camden model. And it looks like the composition notebook. They do... I have a green one, which I think is awesome looking. Yeah. They've done a couple of styles. And then as well as the journal nib, and we'll talk about it in a little more detail in a minute, they also have this very sparkly finish. What is the name of this pen? I've seen these floating around.
Brad Dowdy: That is a great question. That is a great question, Myke. This is the hardest, one of the more difficult names to come up with. So, it's the Estabrook SDOS Sparkle Montana Sapphire is the specific one I have. And then there's two other colors in there, which I don't have the names to memorize. But it's essentially Estabrook SDOS Sparkle and then the barrel color name. The other ones is, like, a burgundy and gold and the third one's a blue and gold. So, yeah. The one I have is called Montana Sapphire.
Myke Hurley: Amazing. Like, they photograph very well. It's basically just, like, they took a tub of glitter and just dumped it into the pen barrels.
Brad Dowdy: So, I'll tell you specifically, in this case, it's not glitter. It's called Diamondcast. It's literally diamond dust in there. So, that's the kicker with this series of pens, with the Sparkle series of pens. Wait. So, it's...
Myke Hurley: What?
Diamondcast Pens
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, if you look up Diamondcast, that is the maker. I forget the name of the maker. He's here in the U.S. And he has... He makes acrylic rods using diamond dust particles. And that's what this is. Wow. So, that's why you get this unique depth and coloration, just because of the way the light reflects off of it and the amount of dust put in there. It's pretty amazing. It's a really amazing looking pen.
Myke Hurley: Okay. This explains the price. This is more expensive than I was expecting. But now I feel like I understand. These are $395 at retail. I thought it was going to be a lot cheaper than that. I don't know why exactly. But now I feel like I have a little bit more of an understanding. I really like the Montana Sapphire one that you have. It really does look very special. Now I understand why it looks that special, I guess. So, then the journal nib is a $50 nib. And you were very complimentary of it. I really kind of... I just wanted to kind of jumble all this stuff together that I personally am just quite impressed by what... Like the Estabrook lineup. It looks really great, honestly. Like overall. And I just kind of wondered how you're feeling about it all now.
Brad Dowdy: So, that's what I tried to get across in the journaler nib review. That I appreciate how they're handling some of these smaller batch releases with the journaler nib and with the diamond cast resins to where they're saying, hey, we're essentially building this new brand. Let's just say it like that for Estabrook, right? It's been around. It's had different iterations. But this is the new Estabrook.
Myke Hurley: So... It has a good history, a good name. They harken back to some of the history of it. But they're also leaving it behind, which is the right thing to do. Right. And so... In a way. I mean, like in a sense of like... So, they started out kind of making a lot of products that were very like Estabrook that you know. And now they're making stuff which is like these sparkle pens, which is this is what you want now. Right.
Brad Dowdy: Right. So, they've handled this transition pretty well. Like they started out simple and straightforward. And I don't mean that in necessarily like the pen design. Like the materials they used were pretty cool in the beginning. And from day one, you could buy the attachment that allowed you to use your old Estabrook nibs with no... Which no current version of Estabrook ownership had ever tried to do, right? To take hold of some of the vintage favorites, stylings of Estabrook, put them into new pens, allow you to use things like the nibs. Yeah.
Myke Hurley: Which is like when you look at it, it's like there's the obvious thing to do. Right. Like it's wild that it hadn't been done before. But it's not easy.
Brad Dowdy: Like you have to have someone that can commit to that. Yeah. So, then they've taken that and then they modernized the barrel, right? None of the barrels are really reminiscent of classic Estabrooks. I mean, they have the Phaeton, which I really don't like that one. But that's really not the main product line. Yeah.
Myke Hurley: That looks like an old product line.
Brad Dowdy: The main product line is the Estee. The rest of them don't. Yeah. The main product is the Estee and they're really leaning into, hey, how can we become... How can we tell the story of Estabrook? And then we can also have these cool collaborations with people that are part of the fountain pen community. Like Gina for the Jertalor nib and like the Diamondcast Resin. And I know they already have another nib that's going to come out to mimic. Like it's the perfect idea to mimic these old popular Estabrook nibs that no one has been able to use but might have heard of. And have it in a modern pen that speaks to like the modern style and aesthetic. That makes...
Myke Hurley: It's starting to make a little bit more sense to me now why it's called the Journaler. Yeah. I mean it's not a nib that's going to help you journal any differently. But it's like if you said I used to have nibs named for professions. You know because you have like the accountant's nib or whatever. So it makes sense to like name them based on what people are actually using their pens for now. That's kind of clever.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I know who's making the next one but I don't know what the next nib is. I don't know what the feature... What it's going to mimic or what the style is going to be. So I look forward to that. Like I find that interesting to keep like your brand awareness going for Estabrook to sell more Estabrook pens. Because that's really what they want to do. Right? So I think this is a cool thing to do. Now the sparkle like you I have a little bit of consternation at the price on this. Because even though the diamond cast resin is more expensive than your standard acrylics that Estabrook's using. And maybe two to three times more expensive. That doesn't make the end result pen like twice as expensive as what the normal Estes are. It's a pretty big jump for the sparkle. So it's done really well. The Montana Sapphire the one that I have I think is far like a runaway sales hit. I'll be interested to see if the blue and the red ones eventually start to sell out as well. Because it's such a big jump between like the the lilac. I use the Estabrook SD lilac which is like $160 pen. And the Montana is like $320. So it's almost exactly twice as much at retail. Right? So they have the MSRPs. Then they have the 20% off that all retailers get when they sell them. So it's you're asking twice as much.
Brad Dowdy: And I think that's a lot. I think it's too much honestly. But I mean I'm I've been proven wrong quickly with the the Montana Sapphire though. Because I think it's pretty much sold out everywhere.
Myke Hurley: I'm not surprised.
Brad Dowdy: I mean that is no it's the winner of the three.
Myke Hurley: Like I think if you were going to buy one of them it's probably the one you would buy. So it doesn't surprise me if that any of them are going to sell out. That would be the one to sell out. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. So yeah I overall big picture. I love what they're trying to do. I love what they're executing. I love the quality of the pens. They they've they've delivered on everything that they've tried to deliver. Except the Phaeton so far. And I see them continuing to be to be able to do this type of work going forward with Estabrook. It makes me interested in watching what they do which when you're building a brand I think that's kind of all you can hope for. That people are interested in what you do next because you've done interesting things and you've done them well so far.
Myke Hurley: I have a long-term follow-up for the show. Yeah, this this one surprised me. I finally got one of the Aaron Draplin watches.
Brad Dowdy: Was there a relaunch? Did it come into the store? How did you do you come about this?
Myke Hurley: They well like the Draplin Design Co had another I think 400. It's like the second edition and they had 400 of them. And they I saw the post go up. I also had a bunch of pen addict listeners like alert me that that they announced like we're going to be selling these like in a couple of days or whatever. And I put a reminder on and I got one and I'm wearing it right now. And I absolutely love it. Like it's so fantastic. This thing was $85 plus shipping and it's awesome. It's orange and black and white and it's got like that, you know, like the typeface is like the on the watch face is just so Draplin. It really is like awesome. It's very it fits my kind of styling a lot like my kind of day-to-day styling. I'm super super super super pleased. I'm very like I'm really pleased that I was able to get it. I'm super happy that I got it already. Yeah, this is a great purchase for me. I just love something that is so stylish and and kind of comparably like so cheap like compared to like typical watches, you know, or like especially even like the watches that I tend to own these days like are much more expensive than this one. So I love it. I'm super happy.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So if you want to hear more from Aaron Draplin, he was just on the Erasables podcast. We'll put a link in the show notes to them. He was in their last episode. Oh, really? With him. Yep. Yep. So I haven't listened to it yet. It's queued up. It's probably next couple of days. I'll listen to it. It's been out for like a week or so, if not more. Second, this is a little bit like Estabrook in that what Draplin did was take one of the all-time classic Timex designs as the platform and Draplinized it. Right? So even though it's not the same, like Estabrook's not making some of the old like J-series pens and making them, they're modernizing, they're changing it up a little bit. But Draplin like sees a classic design like this Timex and puts his stamp on it and it just comes out so good. Like it's really, really nice. Also nice. I don't know what, I don't know what nice is.
Myke Hurley: It's all of those things together. He nice'd it up. I love it, man. I'm really happy with it. Like black and orange, like fits perfect for me.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. If I was more of a watch guy, I would get one. I just don't need it. This is a Brad Dowdy watch though. I'll tell you that. Oh, 100%. 100,000%. I just, I mean, and it's not, I mean, compared to like, I have to compare it to like the expense that I've spent on pens recently. And it's just like, I don't need an $85 watch if I'm not going to wear it. Like the price doesn't matter if I'm not going to wear it, even though I love it.
Myke Hurley: All right. I think that wraps it up for today's episode. You can find links and show notes at relay.fm slash penaddict slash 419 or in your podcast app of choice. I want to thank Pen Chalet for the support of the show and for RelayFM members who support the penaddict. Thank you so much for doing that. We really appreciate your support. You can go to penaddict.com to find more of Brad's work. Go to spokedesign.com, knock.co. There's a lot of great products on all those websites. Brad streams on Twitch on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 a.m. Eastern time. So you can go and check Brad out. And all of those are posted to YouTube as well if you want to catch them kind of on demand. You can also find Brad. He is penaddict on Instagram. Dowdy is on Twitter. And I am iMike. I am YKE. The show is a part of RelayFM. If you're looking for a new podcast to listen to, go to relay.fm slash shows and you might find something for you right there. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.