The Pen Addict 702/transcript
| The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript | |
|---|---|
| Episode: | 702 |
| Title: | Still Sweet, Just With Edge |
| Release Date: | February 5th, 2026 |
| Hosts: | Brad Dowdy |
| Guests: | No guests this episode |
| Additional Information | |
| Official page: | Episode 702 |
| Audio File: | Audio Episode 702 |
| Podcast page: | The Pen Addict 702 |
| Length: | 5757 min <br />0.95 h <br /> minutes |
| Previous Transcript | Next Transcript |
From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 702. Today's show is brought to you by Factor and Enigma Stationery. My name is Mike Hurley and I have the pleasure of being joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad. Hey Mike Hurley, how are you? I'm good, what's so funny? I feel like you got caught up on 702, like it was like, oh my god. There were two things that happened. One was there was a thing in my brain where I was like, I don't know how this number is going to sound when I say it. I don't know why I felt that way, but I did. And then also, on Upgrade, which is the only other show that I intro like this now, I think, I read the date too.
Okay. And I was considering reading the date and then decided not to do that. Okay. I was like, we just did episode 700. We're like well aware of like our current status, but it was like you were shocked. You're like, oh my god, 702. It is, I mean, it is still shocking. It is still shocking. It is. It's also, so the reason we did the date is that it doesn't really solve the problem for why I do it, but we did it, we recorded an episode a couple of years ago where some pretty big news broke basically after we recorded.
Like the new Field Notes seasonal? Kind of like that. Along those lines? Okay. But like it was pre-recorded by multiple days, the episode, so it's like super weird to have that episode go out and not reference this news that we had been like waiting and waiting on. It was basically that we knew the Vision Pro was coming, Apple had said, but they didn't give an actual date for when it was going to be available. They were just like, it's coming early next year or whatever. And then they announced the date on like a Friday or something.
And we had already recorded the show and, well, they announced it on a Monday. We recorded the show on a Friday. So then I started reading the date, but I don't actually know if it solves the problem. Because you're, but anyway, that's why I do it. It's a long story. Long story. And as you know, people will still not listen to that. So yeah, it doesn't matter, but it makes me feel better. All right, Mike, well, it is February. And do you know what that means in the stationery world? Time for planners for 2027.
When they go on. Pretty much, pretty much so. You can't get your spring planners now. So Chad, get on that April start, April 1st start. No, it means Lamy special edition season. They always, right around February timeframe, they start announcing the two big special editions, I think, for their lineup, which has become a lot of special editions now throughout the year. It didn't used to be quite the number. If they would hire me, maybe we could manage that a little bit better. But the Lamy AL Star limited editions for 2026 are out.
And this is, they'll do other limited editions throughout the year, but this is kind of like their core release, where they kind of go all in on the product lineups. These days, they seem to be doubling up on everything, right? Two pins. So there's two colors this year, which are Flamingo and Pine, Mike. Thoughts? Initial thoughts before I keep rolling on this? I have two thoughts. One, in love. Two, why is this not the Safari, though? Like, why are we going to do this in the AL Star? I want these in the Safari.
That's what I want. Because the thing is, Brad, I'm probably going to buy both of these. Because, you know, and if you know this about me, pink and green, absolute god-tier color combo in my life, including, like, my entire house is pink and green inside. Big time for me. So these feel pretty fitting for my overall aesthetic as a human. Yes. And I'm just, in general, a pink and green fan. Yeah. Maybe not as hardcore as you, but I'm always going to like it. It is a very, very pleasing color combo together, pink and green.
And actually, I think the pink, they actually named it correctly. It is like a flamingo pink. Yeah. Like, it's a shade or two lighter. Yeah. But still, you know, evokes strong pink vibes, which I like. So, yeah. Like, I'm very, very in on this. What I'm curious about, and I don't know if we've seen much of this in the past. Certainly, I have not done this. Like, I want to swap the sections on these. Like, if I get both, like, I want the pink section on the green barrel and the green section on the pink barrel.
Oh, Brad. Yes. Okay. Just yet another reason for me to buy both of these pens. Yeah. This one seems more than the other ones. Like, the last year's came two-tone, right? Was it last year? Whichever year they did the denim and the aubergine. So, like, the denim was a blue barrel with an orange section, and the aubergine was a purple eggplant barrel with, like, a chartreuse section. There was no need to swap those. They were already, like, two-tone. I feel like this is, like, a really good. Like, I would have obviously done it like this, right?
You don't mix and match them on the front end. But I think this looks like a good mix and match set to me. So, they do, they're doing this colorway in every version except the pencil, which I don't think they do a lot of the AL Star pencils to begin with. They do some of them because I was looking. I was like, do they even do the AL Star pencil? Because they do the Safari pencil pretty regularly. I didn't know if they did the AL Star pencil. But this one is not, it does not come in pencil, but it's fountain pen, roller ball, ballpoint.
The ballpoint, I've checked. Some of the retailers, they are still using the old refill, which I guess was so the classic Lamy M16 ballpoint refill, which, if you've listened to this podcast over the last year, know, or last two years really, know that Mitsubishi Uniball bought Lamy and has since, one of the first things they did was make a ballpoint refill with Jetstream ink in it, which is far superior than Lamy's stock ballpoint ink refill. So the M17 refill does not ship with this. And I think they're, as best as I can judge, like that's just going to be the premium, right?
You're just going to have to buy that on your own. You're going to have to pony up for the refill if you want that separately. I don't know that they're going to upcharge you on the ballpoint and kind of take that price out of alignment with kind of what it's been or where it's at in relation to the other products. Does that make sense? Yeah, I feel like it's only going to be like the premium. Like if you want the Kaweco premium nib, you have to just buy the nib and put it on, put it on a pen and go from there.
So I think they did great with these colors. The colors I do find interesting in that several other companies have come out with like these, not totally pink and green colors, but a pair of products in the same realm. So like the Graf von Faber-Castell has dark green and dark Bordeaux, which I prefer Lamy's naming here. Let's go with flamingo and pine as opposed to dark green and dark Bordeaux. I don't know why we need to do dark. Both of them say dark is weird to me, you know? Right. And Bordeaux is just Bordeaux, right?
Like this is the color of Bordeaux. Like if you said this was Bordeaux, I'm like, yes, agree. It's dark Bordeaux. I don't know that that makes sense. Dark green makes a little more sense in this context. But it was an interesting, I was like, oh, well, that came out a few weeks ago. I wonder what Lamy was thinking about that color. And then Narwhal, not Velour, excuse me, came out with a green and this, it's more of a red. This was like, this is the Eclipse, so the retractable pen and ruby and emerald.
So very gem-based. It just seems to me like they were just late for Christmas holidays on this one. That's what this one looks like to me. So I do wonder, especially looking at the Lamy's, it's like, was this supposed to be a wicked collaboration that didn't go through? Yeah, I don't know. Because they are, you know. All these companies are the same, yeah. Like, this time of year to have these specific colors, you know, like, is it? Or were they inspired by it? Or whatever? I'll just let you know, by the way, I've ordered both with left-handed nibs just for fun.
Oh, good. I'm excited to, we definitely need some feedback on that. Yeah, I used one a long time ago, but I would like to, I'd like to give it a bit more of a go. I think these are going to get, I love the colors of these so much, they're going to get, it's going to get some use out of me. So, yeah, this looks like a, this is definitely like a U release, like just going in on it. And like, to your wicked point, you know, people were replying in the comments with like wicked gifts and things like that.
So, yeah, people are like, yeah, this is, we, we see you working there without you explicitly having to say it. So, yeah, now I'm waiting for the safaris. Like, these, these aren't, you know, compelling enough to me to like order for my personal collection. I'll probably order a couple to like maybe test and give away kind of thing. These, these are perfectly fine and really great colors. I just really don't need them. Also, Lamy has done some of this green before, like they did the Lamy Ion in green before.
Like, it ended up being a little bit darker, but I don't know. It's, it's a good color and. No matching inks. Both of them are good colors. For these. Yeah. Um, I thought they, looking at this, like the green would be kind of a no brainer. I could get not doing something in the Flamingo range. That's a tougher sell, a light pink. It's quite light, isn't it? If they were going to match that, I don't think that would work the way they would want. Yeah. But dark greens are just, it's a great choice for an ink.
Uh, that does seem like to be the one that would have been a good, good choice. But I could see it would be weird to do just one, right? If you have two pens, one ink. Is that weird? They've done it in the past. I believe they've done that in the past. Yeah. Uh, I'll have to think about it, but, uh, it seems like I recall some of that. Although like when they did the safaris with the blue and pink, they did, they did a blue ink and a pink ink. So who knows? Who knows? That's, that's what I'm waiting for next.
So usually when we get the all-star release within a few weeks, we'll see like a safari release, like maybe in the next month, the limited editions that doesn't preclude them from doing many other limited editions throughout the year, but this is usually kind of their big first release and kind of the one they go more in on like in the past, like to your point, they would do inks with some of these releases, right? This will be their kind of let's, let's kick off the year with our limited, limited releases
of these. So anyway, um, good release for the all-stars looks great. And, uh, yeah, I think people, I think people will dig them and I'm going to see some color swaps of you for, uh, for you. You have a lot of, you have a lot of homework on this one. I need color swaps and I need left-handed nib tests. So I'll put you on the calendar. I don't know when these will arrive, but they've been pre-ordered. Yeah. I think they release in like a week or two. They, they usually do like only like a week or two ahead.
So they're not like way out or anything like that. So they're pretty close to the, to the launch date. Speaking of launch dates, we have a follow-up on the Omos question we had a couple of weeks ago. I don't know. Maybe the, um, maybe the listener knew something, but there was actual, actual Omos news. So we'll put a link in the show notes. What is the chance of this happening? Seriously. Wild. Yeah. Um, they are, and okay. Okay. Long story. No one knows what the, the question was a great question.
It's like, what's the deal with Omos is basically the question, the current iteration. And the answer was nobody knows. Like there's so much, there were so much. There were three or four entities that all claim some connection to Omos as it shut down. Right. There was different parties having different pieces in different regions and all these things. But now as best as I read this, and we'll put a link in the show notes. This is a release, um, on the Omos Instagram page that Unibrands Corporation, which I don't
know their full product lineup, but that this is basically a novel or which was getting involved with Omos last year in some way, shape or form. So Unibrands Corporation and the Simone family unite to reform Omos and Bologna. So I'm not going to read this whole letter, but it's basically saying this is an announcement that we'll be joining together to reform Omos and Bologna, crafting a new company to carry the Omos name forward with the care, continuity and ambition that its legacy deserves, Mike.
So then it goes through all the- This is uni as in uni ball, uni, right? No. No? No. Of course not. So when I search for Unibrands and I'm taken to unibrands.co, which has Lamy, Uniball, it's not that? Definitely not. That's not confusing. Not at all. Yeah. I don't get the reason for the Unibrands Corporation other than just to cause confusion. Yeah. Unrelated. There are two companies called Unibrands. Well, I don't know that Mitsubishi Uniball is technically called Unibrands. They might have a site that says the Unibrands, essentially, right?
They own the website Unibrands.co. Right. But I think they're saying that as two words. Oh my God. I'm not saying you're wrong, but on the website it says Unibrands Corporation. That is like the name of this entity. It's Unispace Brands, as in Unis Brands. Oh my God. I hate it. Where this company is Unibrands.
I hate this so much. I'm not disagreeing with you on any of this, but yeah. Unrelated. I don't know why. And this is not the company that manufactures household electrics and non-electric cooking equipment, which is also called Unibrands Corporation? That I can't guarantee. Okay. All right. So who is this then? It's Novelor. Ostensibly. Like, that's, so Frank Zhang, the signer of this letter, is who started Novelor. Okay. I'm very annoyed about this. I don't, fair. I've actually didn't know that the parent company was ever called Unibrands before this letter.
What are they parenting? Narwhals, apparently. Yeah, but you know what I mean? Like, is it just Novelor? Is that the entire? I doubt it, but I don't know what it is. Why would you do that? Why would you call it? I mean, look, I don't know the people behind Novelor. I'm just going to go out on a limb brand and say they're bad at naming things because we've already had to rebrand. History proofs. We already have to say, like, they have a word and we're not supposed to say it like that. And then they're a pen company that created a corporation which shares the name of another pen corporation.
Massive corporation. Which, honestly, like, I'm not, you know, like, this is the kind of thing where, like, if you tried to open a bank account with this name, they would be like, I don't know, man. It seems like you might be trying to do some fraud here. Like, this is a thing we were taught. Like, when I worked in the bank, like, if a company came to you and they were like, oh, we're just like, our family name is McDonald's, so we want to start a company called McDonald's. It's like, no, you can't do that because, like, you can very easily start frauding people here.
Which we're not saying is the case. No. Well, no, no, no. I'm not saying that. I really don't say that. But you're frauding my mind because I don't understand what's happening. I'm very confused. I'm but one man, Brad. So, this is, I'm glad, well, I'm not glad you're confused, but yes, this whole thing has been confusing and everything they seem to be involved in is confusing. I guess it is fitting that the very confusing situation of Omas has now entered into another confusing situation. That is very fitting, isn't it?
Yeah. But maybe we have refinement in our future because they're bringing things back to Italy for manufacturing, as best as I can read this, and then going forward. So, who knows? Who knows what the future holds for this because the past has sure been a mess. So, this is a wait and see type of situation. Yeah, this is interesting to me because I don't, I mean, you can tell me if I'm wrong, I don't get the sense that Novelure is so big that it could support what sounds like such a big undertaking.
Yeah, I'm not sure. That's something I don't know, right? Like, maybe there's clearly more brands under the uni name there. If I could find any information about that company, I'd be able to tell you, but I can't. So, we'll work on that. We'll work on finding that information for next time and get a listing for you.
All right, you ready to talk about something new that will probably also get you fired up somehow? I don't know how, but it probably will. Why would you say that, you know? Well, I have a Blackwing pen. I mean, they're a pencil company. I have a Blackwing pen to talk about. Yeah.
Is that all you got? Yeah. They should make a pen. Well, yeah, why not? Like, this is a correct product. I have no issue. No issue with that. But they launched a pen this week. It's not available yet. It's a pre-order. It's coming next month, I believe. But they sent me a preview of it, and I was able to talk about it and test it out. So, as we go into this conversation, this is one of those conversations where you have to have in your mind that I'm thinking about this pen in two different ways, and both of those ways are equally valid.
One, does this pen work for me personally? And two, is this a good product for Blackwing? Like, how did they do, right, as a product designer and fitting their lineup? So, the big thing that, no pun intended, is that this is a big pen. And that's the initial reaction that I've seen. Oh, wow. Okay, I'm watching the video. Mm-hmm. It is a big old pen in, like, every dimension. It looks like a marker. Yeah. It's very large. What's going on there? I'm not quite sure. It's a little bit oversized, and that's really my only hang-up with the whole thing for me personally.
Like, it's chunky and long, right? Correct, yes. So, yeah, it's longer than most pens, and the diameter is wider than most pens, right? It's like a big, chunky piece of chalk or like a marker. I called it, like, the fuselage, right? It just feels like an airplane hull to me when I'm using it. It's big. The one saving grace is the flat side to where you do have, you are getting into the barrel diameter a little bit, you know, if that makes sense, by having that type of shape there, which I like. I don't mind flat sides on pens or pencils.
My handwriting style works for that. You know, in the past, Moleskine, which I'm going to talk about a few other brands in this as well for, you know, having pen products. Moleskine made us just a straight-up rectangular pencil, a pen in the past, and it was, like, I loved it because it just works for me. So, yeah, this is, it's a big pen, and it's using the Schmidt P8127 refill, which you and I both love. Yeah. That's a correct choice on this. It's better to have this size of a pen have a big, wet rollerball ink in it as opposed to, like, a ballpoint ink, right?
That would be a mismatch if the size of this pen then had, like, a ballpoint ink. It's not, you lose some expressiveness, right, which is whatever I think they're getting at with the size of this pen, right? It's a big pen with a big, bold refill, and that allows for expression in writing. I'm just trying to put myself in their head. But, like, for me, like, it doesn't work because I'm not looking for that, right? So it depends on what you're looking for in a product. I want control and refinement and definition in my writing, and this is, like, the antithesis of that.
This is for bold and expressiveness. Like, and if that's your, like, design mantra, then, yeah, like, you've done well with it. Big knock on it. It's interesting how they designed it. You can hear me clicking it. Very, very solid knock. So that gray piece that you see on the back, that's just magnetized to the back of the knock. So you literally just grab it and pull it off. And then you see, like, the knock itself, and you untwist that, and then that's how you get out the refill. And then you put the magnet back on.
And I don't know if that's going to allow them to play with color differently in the future, right, to have more two-tone looking pens. There is a technical flaw with this, which I've actually let Blackwing know. If you kind of side-click, you know, accidentally, not everyone's doing, like, a full click every time. Like, if you pick it up and just kind of click it out, you can actually fire the magnet piece off a little bit. I did let Blackwing know that their magnet's not strong enough. What do you mean?
So, like, if you have a retractable pen, right? Yeah. Sometimes when you're retracting it, your thumb might slide off the side, right? You're just not paying attention to it. Yeah. Like, it's a 1% type of issue, right? But sometimes you're just not paying attention, and you go click, and, like, I can shoot it across my desk. I think I wasn't fully perceiving the build of it. If you don't have this in hand, yes. The way that you refill this pen, you take out the knock, but the knock is magnetically attached?
It's two steps. Yes. So, the visual knock that you see right now is just a cap. You just remove it. Just go, boop, and it's off. Then the under thing has a magnet on the top of that, and that cap has a magnet on the inside of it. Now the cap's off, the click's off, and then you just twist the actual magnetism out. Yeah. I don't think that's a good idea, honestly. It's separate. It's two separate pieces. I don't... Outside of having... You know, like, you do that with mechanical pencils so you can hide the eraser, right?
And it's like, you know, the fact that you're eventually going to lose the top cap of the knock is like you just get by because you want the eraser. I don't know if this is a good way to do what they're trying. This doesn't sound like the ideal way to solve their solution. That's all the problem. I think it's fine. I think they just need a stronger magnet. Like, literally, someone said, hey, can you... Like, because we were looking at this live. I did a live unboxing of this on Twitch. And someone said, you know, that looks like it's not magnetized very strongly.
They said, can you click it and then, like, click off the side and will it come loose? I was like, no, I bet it stays in, like, my very first try. I just shot it across the desk. So, yeah. So, if you, if you, yeah, if you, like, click it and let go, kind of like, it's just good. The force of it is going to fly. But the problem is you put the stronger magnet in there and then how are you ever going to get it off? Nah, it'll be easy. It's so light right now. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. I deal with magnets enough.
I know you do. They can handle that. All right. Anyway, again, that's a minor fraction, you know, maybe even roll your eyes at it. But, like, that's a thing, like, literally be thought of in the first, like, few minutes of testing. And it's like, oh, this is not attached very strongly. It's $75. It's an aluminum barrel, anodized, two-tone, Blackwing name. I think the price is fine. I think people were kind of balking on the price a little bit. What is it? $75. $75. I think it's fine. I think it's good.
It's expensive. And I just put it in the context of, like, this is, like, Blackwing's pencils are expensive. Like, this is their price point. Also, they're a wholesaler. So, they have retail customers that have to sell it for that price, too. Assuming this is going to go to retail. Like, all of their other products have gone to retail. So, that has to be priced in. So, this is the price is what it is. I think the price is correct. The price is fair. It feels like, okay, like, yes, I see why they're selling this for $75.
I had zero issue with the price. It's just too big of a pin for me. So, I think some of their customers are going to like it. You know, I think it's probably a good product for them to have. I would like to go ahead and see the V2 iteration of this. To be honest, I do think, given the size of it, I do think they left some space on the table to adjust that. I don't know that they're going to want to do that, like, from a size perspective, dimensions, length, and diameter. But the way it's designed, there is, like, a buffer to be able to adjust that.
So, yeah, it's okay. Like, I don't see myself using it regularly, right? It's just too big. I will choose, you know, the retro. I compared it on my unboxing to a Retro 51 and a Mark 1. Like, those are probably, like, the two most common comparisons. They use the same refill. Like, in the case of the Mark 1, it's a very similar shape and design. And both of those pens are just way more my style. They're more proportionally sized correctly for what I'm looking for in a pen. Between weight, balance, feel, size, diameter, everything.
This is a product that will do well for Blackwing's customers. I don't know if it's going to, like, transition into being, like, a pen addict type of pen, right? Unless there's some change to the scale of all of it. So, pretty good. I have a question for you, and then I have a statement. All right. So, my question is, on the scale from, like, standard Schmidt mechanism to Mark 1, where is the click? It's better. The classic Schmidt mechanism is so bad. Because it's wobbly and soft. And it's gritty and grinding.
This mechanism's totally fine. Okay. Like, the Mark 1's better, but, like, this is a good mechanism. I have no issue. It's not, like, amazingly better. Like, it's better, but it's not, like, mind-blowing.
There's not a lot of clicks that are mind-blowing. Well, I think, to me, the Mark 1's click is perfect. It's a good click. Yes. It's not that good. Okay. But it's really good. Like, as long as it's not the Schmidt mechanism, you win. Put it that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's not the Schmidt mechanism. It's not the Schmidt mechanism. So, yes, it's good. Okay. Yeah. Which, that would not have worked on this pen. Again, like, metal on aluminum. Like, it would not. That Schmidt mechanism. The Schmidt mechanism, the other issue with that, and this is rewinding back years to where
people finally stop using that. That thing just adds length to the pen anyway. Yeah. And this is not, that's not how this pen is designed. So, yeah. If you want an example of that, I don't know if it's still the case, but Baron Fig, they turn their Squire into a retractable. And they at least used to use the Schmidt. And you can see it. Like, it makes the pen look ugly. Right. And adds a large knock to the end of the pen. Right. To the point that it kind of doesn't make sense anymore. Yeah. It's like a double stage knock.
Yeah. It's not great. It's visually so big. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, this knock is fine. I have no issue with the mechanism. Okay. Because it was the quality of that knock in the history is what made Studio and the make their own. Yeah. It's sticky and grindy. Yeah. It's not a good knock. For all the good Schmidt does, their knock is bad. So, my statement is, you said Blackwing should make a pen. Mm-hmm. My argument would be, I don't think they should. I mean. It's nothing about this pen's quality. I think it's fair.
I just, like, why? Why? You know what I mean? Okay. So, yeah. So, I look at them in the context. So, I'm looking at Blackwing in the context of a Moleskine or a Leuchtturm. Even though those are notebook companies and they're making products for people using their notebooks. Yeah. Moleskine didn't make pens forever. Right? Well, this is like, why a Mont Blanc? I don't want making a smart pen. True. This feels like that to me. Like, why are you doing this? Like, it makes sense to me. Moleskine are a notebook company.
They should have pen products. Yes. Right? Yeah. And similar. I know this sounds super weird, but I hope people are going to go on this journey with me. Blackwing, as a pencil company, should make a notebook. But it doesn't mean that they should then make a pen. No. So, I agree. They should make notebooks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think, you know, it's like you work kind of inside out as a business. Right? Yeah. And I just, I think that a pen is an extra step. And this product looks nice and sounds fine.
But to me, the fact that it's fine tells me I shouldn't do it. Fair. Fair. I don't disagree with any of that. Like, if you're saying Blackwing should not make a pen. I don't disagree with that argument. Because I think the best, for me, one of the best executions of we're expanding our product line is the Moleskine pen. The one that clipped on, the square one. That's so good. It's like that. It's just genius. Like, a genius idea for extending the brand. Right? Like, and the pen was great. They used a wonderful refill.
I think it was a, oh, not Moleskine. It was a, no, the Moleskine pen used a gel ink refill. And we didn't ever figure out the brand of it. Okay. It was excellent. And we used to be able to buy, because they were a Parker style gel ink refill. And we used to be able to buy those separately. Didn't know where they came from. Okay. And we never knew where they came from. And all of a sudden, they just stopped doing it. And I was like, oh, that was a really good five millimeter gel ink Parker style refill.
But that was, you know, it was like a very good. It's like this. Here, I'm going to make your point for you. Okay, please. Moleskine selling pens helps them sell more notebooks, which is their core business. Blackwing making a pen does not help them sell more pencils, which is their core business. That's perfectly put. Yeah. I think, yes, you've absolutely summed that up better than me. Like, I just had a feeling, and I couldn't articulate it clearly enough. And you have done that. It's like, it's just not core to your business.
And there are ways to do it, I'm sure. But I'm just not sure that this was it. Yeah. Yeah. Where I think they were like, hey, our pencils are flat. What if we just made flat pen? Yeah. To my point, I think Blackwing sees themselves in the market as in the Moleskine-Leuchtturm area. They do. So, therefore. And I understand that. I absolutely understand that. Why not? You know? Yeah. Yeah. But we're but mere observers. Yes. Good luck to them. We get to talk about this, and they get to put their money where their mouth is.
And they decided it was a pen. And I think it'll do fine. It's not going to be a world beater type of thing. All right. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Factor. You may be thinking about eating better, but feel like you don't have the time or the energy to cook. Factor makes it easy. We're fully prepared meals that are designed by dieticians and crafted by chefs so you can eat well without the shopping or cooking. It takes just two minutes to get real food done. You're not failing at healthy eating.
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smart, Mediterranean diet, GOP-1 support, and ready-to-eat salads. Plus, the new Muscle Pro collection supports strength and recovery. Factor meals are always fresh, never frozen, and ready in about two minutes. No prep, no cleanup, no mental load. Brad, can you talk to me a little bit about one of the favorite things that you ate with Factor recently? Well, I was going to comment on the variety just as a whole. So if you're getting like six meals a week, you can have such a huge variety of flavors,
of protein or vegetarian. I can go from having, I can literally have steak for lunch, and then I can have various, like a chicken and pasta dish, or I can have a vegan chili dish, which I've had all that like three days in a row sometimes. And you never make, I never make a bad choice because of that variety. I can pick and choose. And so if I have a stash of Factor in the fridge, in the fridge waiting to eat, I don't have to like decide which one I'm going to eat today because they're all good. So it's just like a fun little randomizer I'll play.
I'll just grab one and unpackage it and throw it in the microwave and be surprised when I open it up because it's always going to be good. But they've done a shrimp one recently that was outstanding, which, you know, you think about that. Like they have to like really source and control all these things to retain a high level of quality of product. And it was just out of the park good. Go and take yourself over to factormeals.com slash penaddict50off and use the code penaddict50off to get 50% off your first Factor box plus free breakfast for one year.
Offers only valid for new Factor customers with the code and qualifying auto renewing subscription purchase. Make healthier eating easy with Factor at factormeals.com slash penaddict50off with the code penaddict50off. Our thanks to Factor, better support of this show and Relay. All right, Mike, we got our shout out of the week. Shout out of the week. Deliberate Objects. Our friend Anthony Newman, who has been a longtime pen blogger off and on, has kicked off a new writing outlet called Deliberate Objects where he talks about being deliberate about objects.
It's great. And I figured you would like this one. And I can't, I don't think I'd ever shared it with you or maybe you, I don't know if you'd seen it yet or not. The recent post is the, the Codid Maximalistica, which was a popular pen in the, in the penannic world this past week or two. Again, huge chunky pen. Like that's all I see. And I love that they just own it with the name Maximalistica. Like this is not a pen for me. You're going to do it. Do it. So big, so chunky. But yeah, they, they're just going in on it.
Like, yes, this is what we're doing. So yeah, go check out Deliberate Objects if you're not. Anthony has always been a great writer, great friend. And yeah, go, go check out, go check that out. Something else for you to check out, Mike. My episode of Creative Refills with April from Plotter has posted as of last night. But I'm actually going to go back and listen to this because it was interesting recording this with April. I was noticing that I was just talking a lot, which I can talk a lot. You asked me about pens.
I can talk, right? That's what you're for. Yeah. But I was, even, even I felt, I was like, I feel like I'm just rambling. So, so my, I said my apologies to Job who had to edit it. I was like, oh man, they're in trouble. They're in trouble with me. But no, it's good because it's like. Less than an hour. Less than an hour. Less than an hour. It couldn't have been too bad. It is. It is. It's, you know, it's. And when you're, when I go onto new platforms, like a lot of it is like, hey, how did you get started doing this?
Right? So there's a lot of conversation around that, which I always enjoy talking about. Well, 55 minutes is fine as long as there was more than one question. There's at least two. Okay, good, good, good. Half an hour for hours is fine. There's a few questions. A few questions in there. So yeah, that's good. I did a blog post. And this is, I wanted to, I did this post before the Blackwing pen I looked at. It's called In Praise of the Pentel Sharp. And when I talk about design for me and the things I like to use, that's what I tried
to explain about this. Like I've talked about the Pentel Sharp incessantly for years, but I felt like I had to get some words out on not just like a product review, but why it technically works for me. And just kind of put that down and just kind of like a train of thought, you know, about why I love this product so much. And so if y'all haven't checked that out, I got some good feedback on that post and yes, you should go check it out. I like the way you structured it. Yeah. It's a very, yeah. It's a very, very specific thing to me, right?
And trying to understand all of the aspects that make a product important to me and usable and a product that I love and a product that lasts for decades, you know, that I've continued to use over decades. Um, and the Pentel Sharp kind of checks all of those boxes more than almost any product you can think of in, in the way that it's designed and the way that they Pentel, uh, continue to, you know, market it and make new things like just make simply making colors of this pencil, which used to just be like an office supply cabinet staple.
Um, it's, it's been cool that it's been able to stay in the test of time and honestly continue to just get even, even better, even though nothing changes. Does that make sense? Yeah. Like, yeah, it's, it's hard to say that. So you appreciate it more over time. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, literally hasn't changed in 50 years, like almost nothing about it has changed in 50 years, but it's somehow better. Right. So I, I think that that was a fun thing to kind of look at and try to, you know, understand
for myself a little bit better as opposed to like doing a review for like a, a recommendation type of situation. So, and I think that's good context to have about, you know, learning about the people who are reviewing your products, like what kind of things like check their boxes and the Pentel sharp checks all of them for me. Like I, there's like nothing bad about that for me, which is also good to put down because there's, this is a product that some people definitely cannot use. Right. It's small and tiny and lightweight.
Right. So it's good to have all this context around it. Finally, not today, not, we're not ending the show, but last little product note. I wanted to mention Mike, which SD bestie are we? What's going on? What is this? That's why I wanted to do it is to get your confusion about this. What is happening here? What is going on now? Esther Brooks leaning into their influencer error is what's going on. They've been doing this. They're, they, they've gone like basically the Instagram route for a lot of products.
Like they don't, not all of them. Right. But they're very much in the influencer category of brands. Right. They lean into that. And I think this is kind of the culmination of deciding to go all the way in just absolutely headfirst diving in to their influencer era. Um, the pins actually came out pretty good. So the bestie collection is two pins. Uh, one is pink, bubblegum pink and sugar plum purple are the two colors. And they've marketed as a product that you can buy the one pin, whichever color you like.
And you can also go in with a friend and get the second color. And then if you do that, you get all the fun accessories to go with it that you can show off on Instagram, I guess. Oh, so that's what these pencil cases are. Yeah. So the product comes in a box, like a fur line box, right? Right. Fur line box. But if you get two pins, you get all the extras, the pencil cases, um, the key chains, the, and the charms, the washi tape, all that stuff. So you can buy the one pin or you can pick out your bestie mic and y'all can go in together
and then you can get all the, the extras. So I, I'm, again, I'm curious, which, which SD bestie are you? Are you bubblegum pink or are you sugar plum purple? I think I'd be bubblegum pink. Yeah. I think you knew that about me. So bubblegum pink, a playful marbled pink and cream fountain pen that feels instantly upbeat. It's like a fresh page in a good mood. Oh, oh, wow. So that, so that makes me sugar plum purple, which I'm actually okay with. A rich inky plum mixed with soft white marbling for a fountain pen with more dramatic night
out energy. Still sweet, just with edge. That is correct, actually. So, yeah. I know you're thrilled about this whole thing. No, no, no. I like it. It's just, it's, it's a lot to take in. It is. Look, they did a good job. Yeah. Doing exactly what they intended to do. Does that make sense? Like, they intended to just go full influencer mode and just have this just be talked about incessantly. Yeah. And I think they actually delivered on that. I think they've made it a little bit more complicated than it needs to be, though.
Because like everywhere I'm looking, like I can't find an option where you just be like, yes, give me everything. Right. Like you have to do a little bit more work than I think you should. Yes. You have to read the instructions. Which is, that's not a great way to buy. Fair. Fair.
I do think, like, in looking at some of this, I did see a lot of questions in posts. Like, how do I X? How do I Y? Like, when, I do see your point in that. When I was looking at someone like the Instagram comments and things like that. It's like, let me buy them singularly. And if you're encouraging me to buy the whole set, then give me a button to buy the whole set. You know? Yes. Just go ahead and have that done. Even on the Estabrook website, you can't do that. And the Estabrook website is even less clear about what you get.
That's why I actually didn't lead with that link because I thought it explained it worse. Yeah. Than, like, the Penn Chalet link has, like, all the details and how you have to do it. So, I actually had the Estabrook link in there first and switched it. Yeah. So, anyway, I, you know, it's not for me. Actually, I do like the pens, you know, but, like, the concept. Like, that's not something I need. But I see what, exactly what they were doing. And I think they did it exactly right. Whether it's for you or not.
Like, right. That doesn't matter. Like, you know, most of the things we talk about, like, aren't necessarily for us. But, like, I think they executed it pretty well. Besides, I do think there was some ordering confusion that could have been handled differently. I applaud what they're trying to do. Mm-hmm. And I see the scenario that, for whatever reason, they don't have the technological set up to allow them to do it that way. Right? Like, these things happen. Like, you're kind of, you get over your skis a little bit and your idea.
Yeah. But I think it is, I applaud the ingenuity of it. Mm-hmm. Right? That, like, this is an idea that they've had. It's a weird idea, but it seems to be working. I respect that. I think that's a good idea. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Very good. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Enigma Stationery. Enigma Stationery offers unique items made from in-house designs along with top brands and hard-to-find imports. And this is our favorite thing about Enigma is you can get a ton of stuff from them, which you love, but just a bunch of stuff.
You're just not going to find it anywhere else. Isn't that right, Brad? They've got loads of things going on here. Yeah. So I'm going to go into, like, one of the most basic things that, honestly, I think everyone should have. And you think it's almost ridiculous to talk about, but you need to have a tape runner, which they have the Tombow Mono Air Recycled Adhesive Runners, right? So I always keep one or two of these at hand. And what it is is basically your dual-sided tape runner that is in a little self-contained roller.
And for someone like myself who uses a lot of stickers, stamps, you know, receipts, pictures, imagery, this goes, this belongs in my kit. It lives in my kit. So I can attach things into notebooks easily, right? Is this the Tombow Mono Air 5 Correction Tape Applicator? Yeah. I'm looking at one that's, like, a different recycled one, and it's got, like, a dolphin on the side of the case. So it's the same concept, though. So this is a more fancy one. This is a cooler-looking one. But they have stock ones.
Like, the basic one I have is just, like, a pink translucent one, right? But, yeah, same type of thing. You need to have one of these in your kit, if you will, right? There's some things, like, you're not buying. Like, we buy a lot of pens. We buy a lot of pencils. And I'll rotate through these. But, like, one staple in my kit are these type of things. So. And then they have a bunch of other great, like, stickers and washi. I have two things that I want to recommend, Brad. Yeah. They're both enamel pins.
Okay. One says pen hoarder. I just saw that. And the other says professional journal collector. Nice. They're really good. I like these a lot. So, like, I'm a huge accessories and ephemera person. Like, and Enigma Stationery does that as good or better than anybody. Yeah. You know, it's got these little tins. You can keep some of the things in. It's got really unique washi tape that I haven't seen from a lot of places. It's got wonderful stickers. So, like, I don't know. I just love browsing through Enigma Stationery because, like, it's just fun.
It's good. It's good. Stationery. They're doing a lot of the work so you don't have to, right? Yeah. So, they're doing, like, a good, I can't think of the word. But, like, they're going through and they're, like, selecting a bunch of stuff. And they're finding some really great things for you. I mean, from last week, a business frog washi tape. Yeah. You know, if the frog's got something to say to you, get back to work. I know. Froggo. Froggo's. Yeah. Froggo's gone at this point. But I kind of need Froggo in my life.
But anyway. So, yeah. Go check out Enigma Stationery. I just love everything that they do over there. Thank you to Lisa and Discord who has given me the word that I was looking for. Curation. That was what I was looking for. They do a good curation of great products. But if you want $10 off on orders of $50 or more, take yourself to enigmastationery.com slash penaddict and use the code TPA26 at checkout now. That is enigmastationery.com slash penaddict to get $10 off on orders of $50 or more with
the code TPA26. A thanks to Enigma Stationery for their support of this show. All right. You want to hit some ask TPA? Absolutely, I do. This one comes from B who asks, following up on the 2025 Hobonichi issues with the Tomoe River paper, has anyone reported issues with the 2026 Hobonichis? I got a bad batch of paper in my 2026 Sterling Ink planner, which also uses Tomoe River, but I'm wondering if they're still trying to use up old stock. Based on what I found from some cursory Reddit searches, it looks like I'm not the only person
who's had paper issues with Sterling Ink planner this year. Yeah. Yeah. So to answer the first part, I haven't heard much of anything about the 2026 Hobonichi. Now that we're like fully into everyone starting to use it, it seems like it's better this year. Well, I think if you haven't heard anything. Yeah. Would indicate that it's at least acceptable. Yeah. And I know people were testing them when they first got them like in the fall, just like immediately testing it. And it's like, okay, yeah, it seems to have been resolved this year as opposed to last year.
But yeah, the batching stuff I think is hard because that's a lot of unknown. Like I don't, I can't speak to anything Sterling Ink does. I don't know how they manage things, but you know, I don't know how the source controls the batching and then those batches get sent out into the world. And are those batches being acquired directly from the source? Basically, how are you tracking the batches? And I wouldn't be surprised basically that there's still some bad paper out there. Right. But do you know?
I guess what I'm saying is I don't know if there's still bad batches out there or not. I would assume that there is. And how are people going to be able to tell? I guess they need to test it before they're printing and selling it. But yeah, I don't know the answer to like the second part. If they're what any other company is trying to do. I think the 2026 Hobonichis have been generally good as best as I've heard. Like the chatter is definitely pretty quiet on the paper quality this year as opposed to
last year is pretty rampantly poor. So I don't know if that's a great answer for me. But yeah, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if there's still stuff out there that's not going to perform well. But I think just from a Hobonichi perspective, it seems to be pretty good this year. Chris asks, I don't know if it's I don't know if it's a bit of a fringe player, but I wanted to see why the Kokuyo ME gel pen doesn't get any love. I don't know what refill it uses, but it's awesome. And the grip with the one flat side for your finger sets it apart.
Love these pens. Any thoughts? Yeah, I've reviewed them before. They're good. I think the issue is just availability, right? They're not broadly, widely accepted. But like Kokuyo themselves are like a massive company in the Japanese market. So I bet this is actually a very popular pen in Japan. It's just you're going to have to buy it from, you know, import retailers over here, like a Jetpens or something like that. But yeah, like I've got one laying around. Every time I pick it up, it seems fine.
Like I do think kind of like the flat side on the black wing pen, having a singular flat side is probably a challenge for some people. So like with the Kokuyo, it's basically where my thumb would rest is where the singular flat side is. And it's like, it seems like it's doing something unnecessary for the purpose of doing something at all. Right? Right? It's just if you just had a traditional grip, would it be a better choice for people? I don't know. But yeah, it's just like, it's kind of unnecessary to me, I felt.
Even though it's like, it works totally fine for me. Also, I'm looking at this review. We got it from Jeff Jetpens and Jeff did this review. It was $4.50, right, for this pen. So that's also a pretty pricey single gelling pen price. That's pretty steep. So I think it's just an availability thing. And probably in the Japanese market, I would wager that these are pretty popular. So it's just, yeah, it's just something we don't have worldwide accessibility to. So it doesn't get a lot of praise or a lot of action.
But I do agree that it is a good pen. Josh says, I would love to put an Energel refill into my Mark 1. Has anyone figured out how? Do you have any ideas? So it doesn't fit naturally because the Energel refill is much longer. I haven't done it myself. There's two things you would have to do. It looks like the front end, so like the nose cone area, fits through on these Mark 1. The Energel refill does look like it fits through. So that was the first test that I did. You would have to cut off about a half inch of the back of the barrel, which is fine.
So you would have to trim down the Energel. The kicker is you would have to put some kind of stopper on the open end of the barrel. Because the way the Mark 1 mechanism is, is that it has a post that pushes against the back end of the P8126 refill that they use. So those two things are actually working together. And with the Energel having an open cylinder, you have to find a way to block it off. So that post can actually engage with the refill to push it out through the hole. Does that make sense?
Yes, it does. So if you put the Energel refill in there, it doesn't push it down because the mechanism of the Mark 1 just goes inside the back of the refill. Yeah. So I think you can make it work, but you're going to have to fidget with it a bunch to do that. Which is why you don't really hear about people doing that that much. I think it's technically possible, though. I think you can make it work, but you're going to have to put some fidgeting into it to do that. And Erica says, do you have any idea when the spoke pen Model 2, specifically the blackout version, will be back in stock?
Oof. No. Oh, no. Unfortunately, no. I don't know. You're supposed to be the guy. I know. I know. We do so many different colors and colorways that when something gets popular, we don't always have a repeat of it, right? So that one, I don't know. We're going to do some more Model 2s this year. I don't think we're going to do any blackout versions, though. So don't hold me to that. But unfortunately, that's not the answer Erica was looking for. But we do hope to have some more Model 2s. We've been out of stock there for a while just because we do so many other things, right?
We had our pencil launch is still, you know, from November. It's still just cranking. Like, we're just, you know, got a lot of assembly and production to do for that. So we do get a little bit behind on some models. But, yeah. Hopefully, hang in there, Erica. And, you know, we'll have some more Model 2s soon.
If you would like to find those products, you can go to spokedesign.com. You can see them for yourself. But you can also go to see Brad's work over at penaddict.com. And he is on twitch.tv slash penaddict three times a week. You can also send in your RSTPA questions for us to answer in a future episode. Just go to penaddictfeedback.com. You can send them there along with any follow-up that you may have as well. If you'd like to find me online, go to cortexbrown.com, theenthusiast.net. And you can find me and this show over at relay.fm.
Thank you to Enigma Stationery and Factor for their support of this episode. But most of all, thank you for listening. Until next time, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.