The Pen Addict 145/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	145
Title:	Pens Have Feelings
Release Date:	March 10th, 2015
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 145
Audio File:	Audio Episode 145
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 145
Length:	5757 min <br />0.95 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 145. We're nearly there. Today's show is brought to you by our friends over at Hover, Simplified Domain Management, Massdrop, an online community for enthusiasts of all kinds, and Hoban cards, affordable and beautiful custom letterpress printed calling cards. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined, as always, by The Pen Addict himself, Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Was it worth it, Myke? Yes. Really? I mean, you're going to push The Pen Addict podcast back a day and not care about the listeners to this show to listen to a press conference about watches.

Myke Hurley: Look, I'm just going to say, this is slander, what you're doing to me right now.

Brad Dowdy: Are you sure?

Myke Hurley: I mean, I guess it probably was worth it. I apologise, Pan Out listeners, but it seems like, for all intents and purposes, it was a good business move for the day.

Brad Dowdy: It was a busy day for you, no, I can understand it, and you gave me plenty of advance. You're like, look, this is going to be like an all-day thing, so let's just move it to another day. And I'm like, I'm good. Like I told you, I slept for 11 hours.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I don't know who you're complaining about. See, the thing was, is it like, it wasn't that we were like doing stuff all day, it was that we didn't know when we were going to be able to record. Right. Upgrade. Upgrade. And it ended up being a bit of a mess anyway, we had to record it in two halves, because we recorded too long, and then Jason had to drive home from the Mac or studio. But I think the show came out really well. It has one of the greatest moments in podcasting history.

Brad Dowdy: It does. I listened to that part. I hadn't listened to the whole thing, but I couldn't pass up listening to that, but I won't spoil it. It's pretty great, right? It was worth it.

Myke Hurley: It's like in the first two minutes, if you want to listen, I'll put it in the show notes.

Brad Dowdy: There's actually a link right to the timestamp. Someone had one, that's what I listened to.

Myke Hurley: Oh yeah, it's probably an overcast, but you should listen to the first, because I think listening to the first minute or two helps set the stage. Yep. But it's in like, I think it's like a minute, like 90 seconds or something is the point that you want to hear. But listen to the first couple of minutes. Plus, you know, if you're at all interested in what Apple did yesterday, I think it was a really good roundup. Um, so you should, so you should go listen.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So we'll, we'll leave that, uh, there for all of your other shows on the network and, um, you should definitely tune in this week. I'm sure. I know y'all got a lot planned in, uh, all kinds of, all kinds of shows, but, uh, let's get into pens and stuff.

Apple Store Talk

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Pens and stuff. So I'm talking about, Oh, one thing I will mention, I think we, did we speak about the Apple store event thing that I did on this show?

Brad Dowdy: You know, I said something once and you're like, Oh yeah, that was it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So I gave a talk at an Apple store a couple of weeks ago and, uh, the, the audio is now up, uh, on the iTunes store as of today. Um, I'll put that in the show notes as well. Um, so that's fun. I love, I love when I do these things. Cause I always talk about the pen addict as like an example of why you can have a podcast about anything.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's true. It's a weird never hurts.

Myke Hurley: That's a show title right there.

Brad Dowdy: So, um, I did some weird this week myself. I, uh, I did something on a whim that had kind of had the seeds planted in my head for a long, long time. Since I've the last year or two of the pen addict, when things have kind of ramped up, people have been wanting to do, you know, have more of a community around it. And I've been asked, um, how about adding a forum to the pen addict? I've thought about it. I've looked at all kinds of forum database, all kinds of forum software, all kinds of setting it up. It just looked overwhelming to me. I didn't want to deal with the maintenance of it. I didn't want to deal with the, uh, issues that come along with those types of things. I didn't want to deal with the support, all that kind of mess. And earlier this week, or I don't even know what day it was late last week, the fountain pen geeks website went down and this all kind of ties in together. And I don't know anything about that. People are asking me about all that drama over there. I don't know Dan, Eric, anything about all that. So I don't even have any words to say about that. But what people were most upset about is the FP Geeks forum went down and people were really up in arms about not having that outlet. So they're still working through the issues with FP Geeks website, but they put the forum back online until they hash out their differences and get the website back to normal.

Myke Hurley: What do you mean hash out their differences? I'm fully away from this because I don't really, forums are just not really a thing that I'm, I've never been much of a person for.

Brad Dowdy: So it didn't have anything to do with the forums. The whole, the overview of the FP Geeks thing, and they've changed the homepage now, is there's basically a power struggle between the two owners. Oh, that sucks. So one of them took it down, took down the site without the other one knowing. So that's the short version. Everything else, I don't know.

Myke Hurley: What a shame.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so they're working it out. But anyway, they put the forum back up. But that made me think, again, about doing the pen addict forum stuff. And I still, I just don't want to deal with all that a forum entails. And since we've been using Slack for Relay, and we've been using Slack for Knock, I've gotten kind of used to that platform. And I didn't even cross my mind as something that would be useful for pen addict people. But I saw some other communities, like an Atlanta technology community, just have a Slack room with all these boards and like a thousand users. And they had all these different types of channels that you can talk in for different topics. And I was like, well, maybe this will work for the pen addict. So I literally just sat there one morning and created the Slack room, posted it out there, started sending out invitations. And it's been awesome. The feedback has been killer for this room. It's insane. It's insane. It is. You know, I think we're at about 100, it's somewhere between 150 and 180 users so far. There's channel topics you can talk in, like fountain pens, regular pens, paper, ink. There's a general channel. There's a place where you can sell stuff. There's a place where you can, I call it pimp yourself. You know, if you're a blogger or you make stuff, you can put stuff in there. I just want to, it's just this really, really fun community. And everyone's so kind and helpful. And the conversations, if you're a completionist, don't even, you need to file that away.

Myke Hurley: I just pop in a couple of times a day and just see what's happening. Like, I don't even really say much because I don't even know what to contribute. But it's fun. It's amazing that it's there and just happening all the time, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So anyone who hasn't gotten in on this and is interested right now, I'm doing all the invitations manually. So all you need to do is get in touch with me, Twitter, email, whatever.

Myke Hurley: If you want, there are tools that can allow for automatic sign up.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, I need to look in that. I just haven't, I've done some basic searches on that, but I haven't done anything yet. So right now I'm doing it the hard way, but that's okay. It's worked out well. I'm getting everyone in within a day of when they send me their email address and send them an invite. It's really, really fun. It's a great community. It's been fun to watch the banter that's going back and forth in all the rooms. And, you know, it's, someone asked me to, several, a lot of people don't know what Slack is and they asked me to explain it. I mean, on its own, it's basically, it's a collaboration tool really made, designed for workplaces. But it's built in such a way that you can use it as a community platform. And in this case of the pen addict, I related it to like the bar, the neighborhood bar down in the corner. You know, the unfortunate cheers reference where everybody knows your name. You walk in any time of day. It's open 24 seven, pull up to the bar, barkeep will pour you a drink, ask you what's going on. And you can just talk about pens. It's just really, really cool. It's so easy. It's just simple, nothing to it. And, you know, I've already had a lot of great feedback on it. So if you're interested in that, definitely get in touch. So I posed a question, Myke, in the general forum today, that's kind of relevant to what we've already talked about in opening this show. So what are you most interested in this week? The Apple Watch event or the new Fields Nodes release, which should be tomorrow?

Myke Hurley: Well, I mean, now I'm really interested in a new Fields Nodes release.

Brad Dowdy: But it was before it was the Apple Watch. You're pretty jacked about the Apple Watch. Well, yeah.

Myke Hurley: I mean, that's I love pens.

Brad Dowdy: That's your thing. That's your thing.

Myke Hurley: But it's pens are my second thing.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I hear you. They're like my mistress or something. You know, it's the thing that I like to do that I don't tell anybody about.

Field Notes

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So we should have Field Notes tomorrow.

Brad Dowdy: I think according to their cryptic tweets that they like to send out, you know, whether they'll just say tomorrow or something's happening tomorrow. So we'll see. I read up my subscription just for this one. I have no clue what it's going to be. But they don't fail to disappoint.

Myke Hurley: I think it's going to be a big one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I kind of have that feeling, too. And every time they seem to top themselves. So it's always interesting to see now. They've definitely built this hype train up to epic proportions. So we'll see what it is.

Myke Hurley: Hype train's rolling on through.

Brad Dowdy: Speaking of the hype train.

Myke Hurley: I'll tell you what, before that, let me take our first break. We've got a few sponsors today. So we'll just take our first one now. Let me just take a moment to thank our friends over at Hover for supporting this week's episode. If you are a person like Brad or anything like me, you have a thing that you want to do on the Internet, you're going to need a domain name for it. It's one of the most important things. So you can say, you know, go to penaddict.com. You need that. Domain names is what you need if you want to have a website, you want to have a pen blog, you want to have anything. You've got to have a domain name for it. Hover is the best way to buy and manage domain names. It's super simple to go to hover.com. You type in what you're looking for, and they're going to show you what's available. If the .com's available, you can buy it straight there. Are they going to show you other things that are available? You know, maybe different suggestions of the names that you're looking for. So they might suggest different words or different modifiers to help you get the top-level domain, like the .com or .co that you're looking for. Or they will just show you, you know, they'll say, oh, let's say that you typed in penaddict Slack. You wanted to register that for whatever reason. You could say, oh, penaddictslack.com. You can get that. Oh, no, somebody's taking it. Okay, I can get .co, .me. They'll show you the big list of all the stuff that you can get. Maybe you want .net, .co.uk, all of those things. It's going to show you them there. You can select which domains you want. You can buy as many as you want, and you just put them in your cart, and you just go and check out. They don't show you a thousand different options of horrible, scammy things, and you have to uncheck a checkbox to check a checkbox to show that you maybe are or are not interested. They don't do any of that rubbish. And also, Hover do something great. They include domain privacy. It's called Whois Privacy for free. Many competing registrars don't do this. They make you pay for it. But with Hover, they bolt it on for free. It's just that Hover believe that your information should be private. So I think that's a really great thing, and it's something that sets them out, I think, way ahead of their competition. Another thing that I think is fantastic at Hover is their fantastic customer support. They have a no-hold, no-wait, no-transfer telephone support policy. When you're on the phone with Hover, you'll be talking to an actual human being, and they're not going to pass you around all different teams all over the world. They're just going to – I think they've got everybody based in Canada, which is where they're based. So you're going to talk to some very friendly people, and they're going to help you out. But if you do prefer robotic communication or text communication of some kind, they have great support documents, and they also have great email support as well, which I've used before and have always been very, very happy with that. So go to Hover.com to try them out right now and use the code FOUND at checkout, and you'll get 10% of your – there you go. If your first purchase at Hover.com will show you support for this show, that's FOUND, F-O-U-N-D, because I found my pen. Thank you to Hover for supporting this week's show and all of RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: Do you think Walmart.horse is available?

Myke Hurley: Maybe.

Brad Dowdy: No, it's taken already. Ah.

Myke Hurley: See, someone got to Hover.com before you did, Brad. I know. So an interesting thing about the pen, about the ink, right? The found pen. The found ink. So I was very happily starting to use it again, and I was like, great, okay, I can use my ink all the time as I love to and have it by me and write with the show – you know, I've got my show notes, and I can sit and write my little notes out as I go, like old Brad cursed at this point. I have to cut that out. You know, I write my little notes down. So I have a new microphone set up, and it's slightly different to how it was before. I haven't noticed any problems of it. Actually, I've been very, very happy with it. But what must have happened is it is slightly more sensitive, because I was editing connected. And basically, the way that I edit a lot of this stuff is I write the little timestamps down, and then I go in and listen to the point and cut it out, right? So I'm like, I'll cross talk here. So then I look at my notes, and I go, right, at 20 minutes and 22 seconds, go in. And then every time I was doing it, I was like, what is that noise? Like, I could hear this noise. I was like, what is that? What is that? And it was this.

Myke Hurley: So the microphone now is picking that up, and it was doing that before.

Brad Dowdy: So now... The on and off.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Well, maybe, I don't know, maybe it's not your microphone. Maybe your pen's just mad at you for ditching it in the closet.

Myke Hurley: Screaming at me. But I still use it a lot. I just can't use it for that one purpose.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, I can understand that. That's a very tinny, tinny sound that probably picks up really well.

Myke Hurley: I was always dropping it.

Brad Dowdy: Like, I was always dropping the cap or something like that, but there you go. Well, just remember, Myke, pens have feelings. They do. Don't put them in the closet like that, and it will act better for you.

Myke Hurley: I put it back into its lovely home, which is the aluminium cube that sits on my desk.

Visionnaire Pen

Brad Dowdy: Nice, nice. So I want to... This is the story that won't die, but in all the good ways. This is about the Visionnaire, which we all know about. And then subsequent to that, we recently had a Visionnaire go up on eBay, which we all found quite hilarious. And then the Ebayer happened to be a podcast listener, and he emailed me the whole story about selling his Visionnaire. And then all of a sudden, I get an email in my inbox. I have... You know, Thomas Hall is my pen guru. He spends all my money. Well, I have an ink dealer as well who will remain unnamed, and he sends me all these rare, hard-to-get inks that I test out and are awesome. Well, it turns out he's the guy that bought the Visionnaire. So he sends me an email. Yeah, I bought the Visionnaire, and I just wanted a piece of this little history. And then about a week later, he sends me another email. He's like, I got the Visionnaire. You're not going to believe this. So in the show notes, which is at relay.fm forward slash penaddict forward slash 145, there's an image of the picture that was included with the purchased Visionnaire from eBay. And I would like to read this, Myke, to everyone. So this is from the guy who sold the Visionnaire on eBay. I congratulate you on your momentous winning of the Visionnaire eBay auction. I believe this will end up being a pivotal moment in your life, a moment after which everything will be subtly different. At first, you may not notice the changes. They might be as small as a found quarter on the sidewalk, but it will add up quickly. All the best. And there's a drawing of the Visionnaire, a pen. It's got an arrow marking the highlights of the pen. So it's got the full drawing, nib included. It says, it's got an arrow pointing to the barrel. It says Visionnaire. It's got an arrow pointing to the nib. It says Iridium Point, Germany. And then it's got an arrow pointing to the ink line saying the blood of kings. This story took the thread that was just not something that I would have ever imagined in a million years. And it's all because of this podcast. I've got an arrow pointing to the link between all these people that I don't know at all doing these things. And it just ended up being hilarious. I got a monstrous kick out of this. People are probably tired of me hearing about it, but I thought this was just absolutely hilarious and brilliant. And I can't get enough of that. But maybe that's the end of that one. So I just thought it was fantastic.

Myke Hurley: It's not going to be the end.

Brad Dowdy: It's never the end, man.

Myke Hurley: Well, no, because you haven't used one yet.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, that's true. You're going to bring yours? Oh, you bet I am.

Myke Hurley: It's number one on my list of pens to bring to Atlanta.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Well, that will definitely have to be on the video episode, me getting to test out the Visionaire. All right. So I got a question for the listeners and need some help. With a gentleman named Ben sent me an email. He is in the Coast Guard and he's out at sea. And he travels nearly constantly. And he wants a notebook with archival paper qualities. And I thought, this is going to be easy. And I started kind of checking myself on what I thought was archival paper. And I learned a couple things that I didn't know previously. So I wanted to share them with everyone. So there's a difference between acid-free paper and really true archival paper. So people say they want archival paper. For our intents and purposes, Myke, acid-free paper is, you know, like you'll find that in Rhodia products, like in their Webbys, you know, at Oichterm. All those, all the products that we talk about, nearly all of them have acid-free paper. You'll see that touted in their description. But there's actually a true archival paper that you can get that maybe isn't as good as for journaling. But what I found is that the acid-free paper is really perfect for what, you know, Ben is trying to do. So for our everyday writing, the paper that we use, if it's acid-free, it's going to last for hundreds of years. We're not looking for something that's going to last forever. We're not writing, you know, these documents like the Declaration of Independence anymore. That doesn't happen, you know, we're not writing these things on documents in some type of permanence. But you can get a cotton-based paper that does that. And I'll put some links in the show notes to the notes on acid-free paper and where you can find cotton paper. Which I didn't know there was a huge difference. Number one, I didn't know acid-free paper, well, that's going to be, you know, last for hundreds of years as it is. I didn't know it would last that long. But the cotton paper will last even longer, practically infinity, just because the fibers are different. Regular acid-free paper is made from wood pulp. Eventually, that's going to degrade. That's why they got the acid out of it. But, you know, over 500 years or something, it will eventually degrade. The cotton paper does not degrade. It becomes frayed and maybe torn, but it's not going to go anywhere. So he asked for a recommendation for archival paper in a hardbound notebook in approximately a 5x8 size. And it turns out the things that we already like, like I recommend the Rodeo Web Notebook. It's acid-free paper. The Leuchtturm, 1917, acid-free paper. All these things are great. And then one that we don't talk about ever, and mostly I don't talk about it because it only comes in blank and lined, is the Quo Vadis Habana Journal, which I've tested one out. They're really awesome journals. I just don't like the paper format. That's something you should really look at, Ben. And if anyone has anything to add on this archival paper question that Ben has and anything I'm missing or misrepresenting, let me know. Get in touch. Because I wasn't exactly clear on what the meaning of acid-free was. I knew the literal definition, but I didn't know what that meant for the longevity of the paper. So that was kind of interesting to find out. So more in the hunting of things down, Myke. I got an interesting email.

Muji Pens

Brad Dowdy: Oh, when did that come in? Yesterday, I think, from Frances. She went shopping at Muji. Everybody loves Muji. I love Muji. You love Muji. They're a good company. Make good, basic items. Household goods. And they also carry stationery. And we've talked in the past how much I enjoy their gel-ink pens. They make some fine gel-ink pens. She sent me a really interesting email. She was just at the San Francisco Muji this past week. And she's a pen fan already and picked up some of the newer Muji gel pens. And then laid them down next to her Zebra Saraciclips. And what do you know? It's identical. Like, down to the T, identical. Except for a cutout in the clip and the Zebra name. It is crazy identical. Like, I would not be able to tell a difference in a blind test at all.

Myke Hurley: So, in this Sarasa image, are some of the Zebra and some of the Muji.

Brad Dowdy: So, can you tell?

Myke Hurley: No, I literally can't. I'm assuming that the one in the middle is different just because the label, the sticker, is different. That's honestly the only difference I can see. Right. Because even the clips on all three of them are different.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So, yeah. The middle one's the Sarasa and the other two are the Mujis.

Myke Hurley: Oh, man.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, they're down to the grooves in the grip. Down to the threading on the barrel. Down to the barrel. The clip mechanism on the clip. The spring-loaded clip. And it doesn't end there. She also picked up a highlighter, which I couldn't find on Muji's site. She picked up a highlighter that is identical. I mean, dead, solid, identical to the Uniball Propus. And why that's interesting is that the Propus is one of the see-through tip highlighters. Right. So, it's got like a clear cutout in the middle of the highlighter tip.

Brad Dowdy: It's exactly 100% the same. So, I'm wondering, has something changed with Muji? Because in their past pens before, they look like their own pens. Sure, someone's making them for them. But now, it looks like they're in like the manufacturers of like the top brands like Zebra and Uni. And I guess this is good. It's basically the generic brand cereal. Right. Some of those get made in the same factories. Right. But you don't have to pay for the advertising or marketing upgrade to this pens. You know, to the cereal in my example. Right. It's the exact same product. Unbranded. And that's kind of a big deal because these pens are $1.50 instead of $2.50.

Myke Hurley: All right. I'm playing devil's advocate here. Mm-hmm. How is this any different to the Kickstarter pens?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I don't know. That's why my curiosity is piqued. I don't know how they're doing this. No.

Myke Hurley: What I mean is like the Kickstarter pens that we've rallied against and said that they're wrong for doing this stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Because they're marketing it as their own, which I see Muji doing the same thing. So, that's why I'm questioning it. I don't know.

Myke Hurley: So, I mean, does it maybe help that Muji sell them for much cheaper? Like, they're not saying that they're high quality or whatever? I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: No, I don't know. No, I think that's a legitimate question that I don't have an answer for. You know, if they're...

Myke Hurley: I don't think it's much different, to be honest. And I think if we're going to be upset at one, we should be upset at the other. If not, you know, maybe even there's an argument to be made that you should be more upset at Muji because they don't have to do this. And there are people that are doing this Kickstarter stuff and they don't have a lot of money and they have a little idea and they're trying to... You know, I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: No, I think that's a fair point. And I think what it comes down to for me is how are we going to get an answer for this? Right? Muji's not going to say.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, you're not going to.

Brad Dowdy: You know, but with other projects, we're able to suss out the information and go, look, here's this. Can you explain it? And most of the time they avoid the question or work around it. And then, you know, I agree with it's not...

Brad Dowdy: What's the right word? Legitimate?

Myke Hurley: Kosher?

Brad Dowdy: Legitimate. Yeah, it's kind of not kosher. It's kind of... Muji has gotten to be well known for their stationery. So it does feel to me like they're taking away from brands like Zebra and Uni.

Myke Hurley: And from themselves.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. They're not knocking off their pins. They're the exact pin. It's a very obvious thing to me. You know, they've just changed a couple little design tweaks.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, but they're not exactly the same now. So like, they are potentially knocking them off. They're not necessarily... I can't imagine that like they're getting them from the same manufacturer.

Brad Dowdy: I would imagine they are getting them from the same manufacturer. That's my question. Yeah, because the pieces...

Myke Hurley: Don't Uni like make their own? Like an...

Brad Dowdy: Well, they have factories, right? And if they contract out to other things... Yeah. Right. I'm curious, right? What's the answer to this? Because like you can look at the knock mechanism because it's a clear barrel. And you can see the grooves in the barrel at the top of the knock where it clicks in. It's got these angled grooves. They're identical. I mean, if you're going to knock off the pin, it's not going to have that level of detail, right?

Myke Hurley: No, do you know? I see what you're saying. And the clip's slightly different, but that's not...

Brad Dowdy: That's an easy change.

Pen Refills

Myke Hurley: That's an outside piece. Right. Because the grips are exactly the same. The screw, like the way that the screw thread is done is exactly the same.

Myke Hurley: I wonder if... Do you know what is really interesting? What's the refill in that?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, I have pictures of that too. She sent it to me. They're marked the same.

Myke Hurley: No, see, that's where it gets really weird. It's like the same pin.

Brad Dowdy: What I find it even really, really strange is that it's two different brands. It's not like all Zebra across the line. It's Zebra and Uni in this instance.

Myke Hurley: Well, because they're just picking what they think is the best stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: So how do they even do that? Or Zebra and Uni both subcontract to this other factory. And Muji is just going in and picking things off the line.

Brad Dowdy: Maybe. You would think you would see that show up in other places. Why? Because there's plenty of knockoffs, but you can tell the difference in the knockoffs that they're not, you know, up to snuff.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, but it might be like a Foxconn type scenario, right? Sure. Not anybody can just walk into a place like that. But Muji might already have some stuff made by this manufacturer. So they're just saying, can we have this, this, and this? And they're like, yeah, whatever. Like, we have the plans. Because I think that's how a lot of that sort of stuff gets done. It's like, well, we have the plans so we can just make it. But, yeah, see, this is weird. It is weird because they do. See, I find it, if the refills are the same, which they look like they are, that seems even weirder. Because, like, you'd think that a pen company would have pride in the refill enough that they wouldn't allow it to happen to this. Like, isn't that the heart? I guess it depends from person to person what the heart of the pen is. But, like, to me, that's what sets you apart. Like, the way it feels to write with. And to imagine that that, I don't know, maybe I'm, like, romanticizing it. But to imagine that that's a thing that you would farm out to a contractor, it kind of seems weird. But, like, clearly what's happening here is they're just using the same factory. And the way that I would look at it is that Zebra and Uni are using a factory that Muji also has access to. So they're just picking it all up.

Brad Dowdy: So I wonder how I can hunt this down. Because, like, this, you know.

Myke Hurley: I bet if you can get a hand on some packaging, that would be a really good start.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Like, if you can get, even if you just get the Zebra.

Brad Dowdy: Muji generally sells their pens loose.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, no. What I mean is, like, if you can get your hands on the Uni ball and the Zebra and look at them and see if there's any way you can try and understand if they're made in the same place. Mm-hmm. That would be a really good start. I love how this show became, like, a detective show a while ago. And now we're just latching onto it. I think that would be a really good start. And then if you can assess that, there might be a way to find out. There might actually just be a way, like, in a corporate responsibility type scenario, that they have to disclose factories they work with. And if you can try and find a link between them all.

Brad Dowdy: So I put the link in the chat room to the refills. And Dan is yelling at us in the chat room saying, guys, this is not abnormal. It is abnormal. It is abnormal to see such a huge brand use such other huge brands' products. So I think this is abnormal, Dan. And in the fact that their visibility is huge. Yeah. I mean, you want to argue Dan's arguing semantics. And, you know, we can argue that until the cows come home. But I don't think these huge brands, we probably go to Japan or China right now, we'll find thousands of knockoffs on the shelves right now. But you don't see this from Muji in the U.S. knocking off the hugest pen companies in Japan. And so, I don't know. It's very, very, very weird. So, but, yeah, I'm sure it's factory-based somehow. And, I don't know, I found it extremely interesting because it's virtually identical. I mean, I don't see how it's not the same pen. So, we shall see. Yet, Dan's saying it's not a knockoff. It's white labeling. And I've never known Zebra and Uniball to white label products.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, so this is the thing. I have a few people saying this in the chat room. Like, I also appreciate that this happens. But it seems weird. It's weird, or is this the first time that we've come across it happening with pens made by these companies? That's kind of the difference. It's not that, like, this stuff doesn't happen. Because it totally does. Of course it does. Hence why you can get, like, cereal and toothpaste and all that kind of stuff, right? Right, right. But it's weird to see it coming from these companies.

Brad Dowdy: It's weird to see it at Muji.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It just seems peculiar. Maybe we've just been blind to it this whole time. Like, we just haven't seen it. But it does seem really peculiar. It just seems really, really peculiar.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. And I think you're right in this should fit in the same category as some of the Kickstarter stuff that we've seen in the past. Yep. I agree with you there. All right. That's enough of that. So, maybe we'll have more on that. Maybe we won't. And I'm good either way.

Myke Hurley: Maybe Dan's going to chase you down. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: He's so ticked off right now that hopefully we'll just put this ball in his court and then we'll just leave it from there.

Myke Hurley: All right. Should we make everybody a little bit happier?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, I don't know if this is going to make them happy or not. It made me pretty happy.

Lamy 2000

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Well, we'll explain it in a moment. I think that's quite interesting. Because I think you'll hear it and it'll make you happy, but your wallet maybe not so much. I'm so happy that we're welcoming back MassDrop to sponsor this week's episode of The Pen Addict. MassDrop is an online community for enthusiasts of all kinds, from audio and electronics to quilting and cooking. It's a place for you to connect with people like you to discuss your favorite products and activities and buy them together. MassDrop represents a new type of online experience that combines community, content, and commerce. MassDrop offers its users a place where enthusiasts can meet and connect over the products they love, a forum where you can vote on and discuss the products you're passionate about, and a platform to connect directly with manufacturers to buy products together to get bulk pricing. They are not a flash sales website. They are not a deal site. They are not Groupon. I love that this is like flat out. We're not Groupon, okay? The thing that is most important to guys and girls over at MassDrop is that they want to build communities around things that people love. That's what they're passionate about. Ultimately, they are here to help you by making the products you care about more affordable and accessible and providing you with a platform to connect with other like-minded enthusiasts. I know that the group buys are something that's super interesting to the Pen community, and it's something that happens quite a lot. And some of the stuff that we buy can be pretty expensive, but buying in bulk can help with that cost, because what you're doing is you're sharing the cost amongst a bunch of people. And this is where a service like MassDrop that can actually help facilitate these group buys is actually something that's really cool for this community. I've taken a look at MassDrop. They have some great deals where they've gotten like 20% to 30% off brands like Pelican and Franklin Kristoff, and I want to highlight something at the moment. If you go to MassDrop right now, they have a Lamy 2000 MassDrop at the moment with a price of $114.99, is what it's at currently.

Brad Dowdy: That's insane.

Myke Hurley: So you can go there now, and you can get your hand on one of these things, which is just super awesome. What you should do is go to dro.ps slash thepenaddict and sign up. Once you've signed up, search for the Lamy 2000, and you'll be able to get your hand on one of these things for just shy of $115. Now, these, you know, we know this, they go for $199. But like, yeah, they, MassDrop email me this morning to tell me about it because they wanted me to talk about it. And at the moment, it's at that incredible price of $115.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so the MSRP is $199. The street price is about $140, which I've never seen really much lower than that, unless you've got some discounts from somewhere. But I've never seen the Lamy 2000 for this lower price. That's pretty nuts. A lot of people ask us, you know, what's their next step up fountain pen? And I think this one comes up probably more than anything, right, Myke? Like when you're getting out of, like, the beginner range and want to do something, like, really nice, but not go totally ape and break in the bank. The Lamy 2000 is really hard to beat. For me. At its regular price, and at this price, it's just ridiculously good.

Myke Hurley: I think once you get to a certain point, for me, the Lamy 2000 is a must-have. Like, it's, I love mine. I love mine so much. And this is a great deal. I have to say that this specific MassDrop is only available to U.S. addresses, I'm afraid. Yes. If you're international. But there are, there's loads of stuff there. You should just go and check it out. And they've got loads of really great, great, great products there. Like, for pen addicts, you guys are just going to love this stuff. It's a great community. They've got great stuff there. It's something really interesting. I think it fits really well with what we do. So if you go to dro.ps slash the pen addict, sign up, and you can go and check out some of these incredible deals. Thank you so much to MassDrop for helping support this show and all of RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and I don't know if we mentioned it. You may have, but there's just five days left on this one. They're not in perpetuity sales. Yeah, that's the thing. They're like, there is a time limit.

Myke Hurley: Yep, because they then have to place the order, right? Yes. These things don't go forever. But yeah, I really like these guys. And I think you will too.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, doing awesome stuff. Very cool. Thank you, MassDrop. All right. So I threw out a tweet this morning. I had a couple of spots to fill in the show notes today, Myke. So I wanted to see what everyone was looking for for questions. And one of them, and we've kind of skated around the surface of this when we talked about my Nakaya. What's the next grail pen? If the Nakaya was my grail pen, what's the next grail pen? I think I answered when we talked about this a few weeks ago, probably similarly to what I'm going to answer now, is there's not a next grail pen for me. I have a shopping list. I have pens that I want to acquire. None of them fit what, for me personally, would be a grail pen, which is just something like really, really special.

Myke Hurley: For anybody that, like in case this misses anyway, it's obviously the holy grail.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, the holy grail. So the pinnacle, the ultimate, cannot be surpassed. And, you know, I've thought about that. And for me, right now, any pen that I'm interested in is a button click away. There's not going to be a lot of thought other than do I want to spend the money. So I thought about this, and there's a pen that's kind of always been in the back of my head. And maybe this has to go on the grail pen because it will involve a hunt, right? And that's part of the grail thing. It's either a hunt or a discovery. There's a process to getting to that point. Or it's super expensive. Yeah, or it's super expensive. You have to, yeah, it costs you something, whether it's time, money, brain cells. It's not something that you just go throw out your credit card and say, I'm done. I have my grail pen. There's no fun in that. So we've talked about probably, I think it was two pin shows ago, that I bought a Parker Vacumatic. I bought one of mine. And you bought one of yours. It's one of the most beautiful pins I've ever seen. There's one Parker Vacumatic that I've always seen pictures of. And every time I see a picture of it, it stops me in my tracks. It's called the Parker Vacumatic Golden Web.

Myke Hurley: This looks nothing like mine.

Brad Dowdy: No, it doesn't look like anything like any Parker Vacumatic.

Myke Hurley: If you go to the page that's in the show notes, I have the blue one. That's it. That's on that page. Like if you go down, there's like a selection. I have the blue one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So mine looks like yours, except it's gray. Yeah. This one is basically like fractured glass in there. That's just, or mosaic type thing.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, mosaic's a really great way to put it.

Brad Dowdy: So this pin blows my mind. I don't know that I've ever seen one in person. But if you had to pin me down to what's a grail pin that I want, it's probably this.

Myke Hurley: It costs $5.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I'll pay $5 to anyone who has this pin right now. There's actually one on eBay right now. I went and looked when I was doing the research for this. I was like, I'm wondering what they're going for. Because I really don't know. It could be a thousand something dollar pin and I wouldn't know. But my guess was a few couple, few hundred dollars. And that's about right. There's one on eBay right now that's approaching $300. And it has 28 bidders. So it's a sought after pin. So this is something I would be proud to own. It would be a unique talking piece.

Brad Dowdy: You know, something like this, I think, is fitting into my grail pin category now. Like, if I didn't own a Pilot Murex, right? Something like that would be a grail pin. There's a challenge in an effort to get, like, a good quality Murex because they're not made anymore. And, you know, that's just my definition. Everyone else is different. And so that's kind of where I'm at right now. I don't have an absolute certain grail pin. I have pins that I want to buy. But they're all new pins that I can just order. They're always available. I'm looking for something that really appeals to me personally, aesthetically. Something that's challenging to acquire. And something that I will appreciate greatly once I own it. Because buying it is only part of it. Owning it and loving it like we do to a lot of the products that we talk about on this show. And it becomes part of you. That's a whole different thing. And that's what a pin like this golden web would be for me. Okay. So I hope I explained that. Excuse me. Well enough. That was from Tim from the Erasable Podcast, by the way. Thank you, Tim. So if you see a Parker golden web at the Atlanta pin show, don't buy it for me. Just, I mean, don't buy it out from under me. Tell me where it is and I'll go look at it.

Fountain Pens

Brad Dowdy: Another question we had, and I don't think we've ever discussed this topic. And it comes up a lot on the podcast. And that's having something like a fountain pen repair kit. You know, fixing minor problems for your pens. We've talked about cleaning a lot. So, you know, you definitely want to have a bulb syringe for your cleaning kit. And probably even a traditional needle syringe for your cleaning kit. But for a repair kit, I have a couple of minor things. I don't do it too much. Like if tines are misaligned, I don't get into that. I haven't really adjusted any tines. Like if you're crooked and you're getting a real scratchy performance, that's not my forte. But I have smoothed out pens. I have, you know, cleaned out the nibs, things like that. And Goulet pens has this package that they put together that you can kind of get an all-in-one thing. You get a loop, which is, you know, the little magnifying glass. You can see what you're doing. You get some micro-mesh. And you get some mylar paper. Those are things that will help you smooth the nib. So those are kind of, you know, if you have a little bit of a scratchy nib, you know, something, if you're very delicate on these micro-mesh, it does wonders to the nib of your pen. I use that pretty frequently. There's also a, like a brass sheet. It's like a floss that you can get in between the tines. You know, sometimes they either get gunked up with ink or paper within those nibs. That's sometimes hard to clean out. It's a brass sheet that you basically floss the nib. And, you know, it's stuff you don't always need, but it's stuff good to have around. And it's always cheap. I mean, you can, you know, when I go to the pen show, I usually pick up a couple spare parts from the Andersons. Like, that's where I bought my micro-mesh last year, and I think I bought an extra syringes or two from them. So it's just kind of stuff you want to have handy. It costs you a few bucks each item, and they're really, really helpful on the few times that you need them. So that was from Tolliver on Twitter, so I hope that helped.

Brad Dowdy: This was an interesting question, Myke, from Father Michael Gossett. The fountain pen elevator pitch. What is your elevator pitch for fountain pens if someone sees you using one?

Brad Dowdy: So I didn't have to think about it too long, but I did have to put some. At first, I was like, I have no clue. But I think it boils down to this. And I think it boils down to making your own custom writing experience. That's what a fountain pen can do for you. You can do something very specific to how you write, what you write, the format you write in, the papers you use. You can take all of these items, and you can find something that's perfect for what you need. So that was kind of my quick pitch for the fountain pen. Do you have any thoughts on this?

Myke Hurley: I would love to say that I have something that's really...

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I don't want to put you on the spot.

Myke Hurley: I think for me, it's just kind of like, I just love the way that they feel. To use a fountain pen is like a totally different experience. And there's so much to it that is really kind of special.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So it's hard to explain. And it was a really good question. So, you know, maybe that works. We'll see if we get the seal of approval from Father Gossett on that one.

Myke Hurley: I think part of it as well for me is like, if you do start to get interested in pens, like I feel anyway, this is where all the really good stuff is. You know, the really pretty stuff, the stuff that's really interesting and the stuff that's weighted differently. And you can get into inks and find your favorite nib. And, you know, if you are interested in this stuff, that's where it starts to get super interesting because you can really, really start to get away with yourself.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right. So, yeah. So, good. I think we're kind of on the same page there and, you know, maybe we should make a slide deck and go around and present. What do you think? And get some VC funding.

Myke Hurley: I think that's a great idea.

Brad Dowdy: All right. All right. So, we could probably use some of this next product when we're making our deck pitches, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: When we're out and about, let's do this.

Myke Hurley: Well, we're going to need it. We're going to need some fantastic, we're going to need some really beautiful cards. Some lovely calling cards. And that's what Hoban Cards can get us. Hoban Cards creates affordable, beautiful, custom letterpress printed calling cards. Just go and stop what you're doing right now. Well, I mean, you can keep listening to the podcast if you want. But open a web browser and type in Hoban Cards. That's H-O-B-A-N-C-A-R-D-S dot com. And just go and look at the stuff on their website. They are absolutely stunning. Hoban Cards is perfect for people who don't need a lot of business cards, but want a small batch of cards so when they have those special interactions, you just want to knock someone's socks off. Maybe you're going to a conference and you want to impress some people or you're going to an important business meeting. These are the times you want to leave a good impression and a really fancy card can do that. Hoban Cards have 18 gorgeous pre-designed templates that you can choose from. And they're focused on typography and simplicity. The cards that you'll see from Hoban Cards are elegant. That is the perfect way of describing them. They're really classy, handmade goods. It's something that every pen addict loves and will need. Each card is hand-printed on a thick 100% cotton paper with a great texture using a £1,500 letterpress from 1902. So you know that these things, right, they're going to last forever, right?

Brad Dowdy: These bad boys are archival. Yeah, that's what you want.

Myke Hurley: This is the real deal right here. And if you want, Hoban Cards can also provide matching stationery items like note cards and writing stationery if you so desire, which can really help you up your correspondence game. There are free samples available from their website. And when you choose to buy, use the discount code WASHBURN, that's W-A-S-H-B-U-R-N-E, for free shipping anywhere in the world. If you haven't already, go to HobanCards.com to find out and more importantly, see more for yourself. Thank you so much to Hoban Cards for supporting this show and all of RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: Awesome. Thank you, Hoban. And their site is droolworthy. The work that they do is really epic and it looks great.

Brad Dowdy: All right, one more question from Twitter, from Junie. What was your first fountain pen, Myke? Who was your first?

Myke Hurley: Do you remember I bought mine?

Myke Hurley: What? Do you remember I found the original fountain pen, like from when I was a kid? The Yikes fountain pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's what I thought you were going to say. Yeah, that was my first one.

Myke Hurley: The Yikes fountain pen of all knowledge. If you Google Yikes fountain pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we're supposed to have a whole show on this, remember?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, episode 96.

Myke Hurley: Pops back up.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yeah, the Yikes is a phase that I missed, thankfully.

Myke Hurley: I think they were just UK, though. I know I said that and I was wrong, wasn't I?

Brad Dowdy: Well, yeah, Andy was pretty adamant about all the stuff that he had when he was growing up. That was Yikes. So, I don't know. I don't know. So, what's your first big boy fountain pen?

Myke Hurley: It would have been a Lamy Safari.

Brad Dowdy: That's exactly mine, too. I remember it, you know, not counting, you know, I tried a couple of disposables like the Preppy before, but, like, my first, like, I guess traditional fountain pen was the Lamy Safari in a very non-traditional color. It was, like, the Chartreuse limited edition when they did, I want to say, like, 2008 or so. I actually reviewed it on my blog. So, that's the first legitimate big normal-y fountain pen that I bought. And from there, I don't even remember what was next. Probably something like the Pilot Pereira and on from there. So, yeah. It's interesting to think back the evolution. We've been having a bunch of new listeners recently, Myke. I've been getting a bunch of emails about people that are just finding the podcast still, and they're going back from episode one and going through. That would be quite a journey to take these days and hear all the changes that we've gone through over this time. So, it's pretty crazy.

Party Announcement

Brad Dowdy: All right. Let's wrap it up on one big note.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: There's a party going on.

Myke Hurley: Yes.

Brad Dowdy: And it's in Atlanta.

Myke Hurley: There's a party going on around here. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yep.

Myke Hurley: Celebrates the time.

Brad Dowdy: It's in Atlanta for the Pen Show. All you people that made us happen, made this happen, made Myke be able to get to Atlanta. We're announcing an on-site party that hopefully we'll get some video of to share with all of you that can't be there. But if you're going to be there, we're having the Sassafras Spring Fling Friday, April the 17th at 7 p.m. at NotCo headquarters.

Myke Hurley: Look at those fine sponsors of this event.

Brad Dowdy: So, we actually, Jeff's been working hard. We've been working hard. We have a beer sponsor from a local brewery, Red Brick Brewing. Thank you, Red Brick. We have a couple of other sponsors that you all know and love. That would be Keras Customs and Dudek Modern Goods. They're all providing things for our raffle that we'll be having. Providing some sweet goods for us. Providing beer for us in the case of Red Brick. Jeff knows them well. And this is going to be a straight blowout. And I'm already worried about parking.

Brad Dowdy: Because our shop is about 800 square feet. So, it's not a big place. But we have some outside room to mingle around in. And if anyone was there for the Fodderstack Fall Festival, you know how much fun we had. And this will be even more epic proportions. So, I hope...

Myke Hurley: Here's the thing. We should probably have this conversation away from the podcast. But I'm going to say it to you now anyway. So, I'm assuming that probably quite a lot of people will be coming from the pen show? Yes. Why don't we get like a mini bus?

Brad Dowdy: That's not a bad idea. That's really not a bad idea at all.

Myke Hurley: So, then people can drink too.

Brad Dowdy: Jumping all around. And yeah, that way we can get people back to it. So, I am writing this down. I wish I could tell you what pen I was using.

Myke Hurley: But I can't because it's so awesome. This is the kind of awesome stuff we can do with the extra money. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So, that is a brilliant idea.

Brad Dowdy: Writing it down now. This is why we make a good team. This is why we have pens. This is why we have pens. I wish... You should see this pen I'm using.

Myke Hurley: It's so awesome. Is it the Nakai again?

Brad Dowdy: No. It's a $3 pen. And it's amazing.

Myke Hurley: What is it?

Brad Dowdy: I can't tell you. I told you I can't tell you.

Myke Hurley: Why can't you tell me?

Brad Dowdy: Because it's not released yet.

Myke Hurley: Who is it by? Do I know the company? Muji. It's not really, is it? No. No. Okay.

Myke Hurley: It looks just like this pen called an ink. A company called Karas Customs.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Are they white? Are they white label?

Myke Hurley: Can I ask you a question? You can dodge if you want to. Sure. Because this has come up in the Slack.

Counterfeit Pens

Myke Hurley: There's been... And we don't need to go into too much detail. There's been this company floating around that's kind of ripping you guys off. Oh, yeah. How do you feel about that?

Brad Dowdy: It's a little uncomfortable.

Myke Hurley: So, basically, this came up in the Slack channel. Somebody posted, I think, in the Field Nuts group.

Brad Dowdy: No, no, no.

Myke Hurley: It's in the Fountain Pen Network Facebook group. There you go. Sorry, I got the Facebook group wrong. I knew it was in a Facebook group somewhere. And they were basically saying, oh, my mom makes these. And it's just a straight up. Like, it looks like a rip off. And then he effectively says, yeah, well, they don't ship in Europe for cheap prices. So, we kind of make them. I was like, oh, my God.

Brad Dowdy: He basically said, I don't have the exact quote, but it's basically, yeah, I told her to do it. Yeah. Just like that.

Myke Hurley: Because you guys don't ship cheaply to Europe.

Brad Dowdy: What are you going to do? I mean, you know, Muji will start carrying them before long. I mean, it's bound to happen. I don't know what to do. I mean, maybe, you know, Dan and I can talk offline about that. But in this particular instance, I don't care. It's not. It's more of a personal thing. You know, maybe they'll do Etsy or something like that. It's very different materials that they use. But the pattern is identical. So, for a split second, I was like, oh, this makes me mad. And then about two seconds later, it's like, you know, there's nothing I can really do. So, what do I care? Actually, I went in the thread and like, I said, hey, nice job.

Brad Dowdy: I said, looks good. Thanks for being honest. Basically, thanks for being honest that you ripped us off directly. He's like, yeah, no problem. So, whatever. There's nothing I can do about it. So, it's what it is. I fully anticipate this to happen. When I'll really start getting ticked and still won't be able to do anything about it is, you know, when they come out of China or something like that. It's probably inevitable, you know, in a few years. But, you just, you know, my theory is this. We're building this company to make products that we believe in. And no one else is going to have me and Jeff making their products. And we believe so much in these products. And we're putting our heart and soul in these products that I don't care if someone copies it because it's not going to be the same. It doesn't have the meaning, doesn't have the heart, doesn't have the soul of anything behind what we're doing. So, it doesn't affect me.

Myke Hurley: All right. No, I'll buy it, man.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. You said you're going to buy one of their cases? Is that what you said?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I bought one. That's what I meant. It's coming. It's on the way.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, now the chat room is wondering, do I need to go register at HoverKnockOff.com? Oh.

Brad Dowdy: So good. Yeah. All right. Before we turn into Bonanza, let's wrap this up.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, good idea. If you would like to find the show notes for this week's episode, go on over to Relay.fm slash PenAddict slash 145. Or you can find the link in your podcast app of choice. If you want to find us on social networks, I am at imike, I-N-Y-K-E on Twitter and Instagram. And Brad is at dowdyism on Twitter, D-O-W-T-Y-I-S-M. And just to be difficult, he is PenAddict on the Twitter. No, the other way, no, wait. It's the other way around, isn't it? Wait, your Instagram is PenAddict. See? See what happens?

Brad Dowdy: I rage quit Instagram that one time, so I can never get dowdyism back. But it's better to have PenAddict anyway. That was never available on Twitter.

Myke Hurley: So there you go. That's the story there. And you can go to PenAddict.com as well to find Mr. Brad Dowdy's incredible work. It's always a good thing to go to that website. It's a nice website. Thanks. I want to thank our sponsors again for this week. Our friends over at Hover, Hover on Cards, and Massdrop. But more importantly, thank you for listening. Until next time, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.