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The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode: 672
Title: What’s It Going to Take to Get You Into a Houdini?
Release Date: July 2nd, 2025
Hosts: Brad Dowdy

Myke Hurley

Guests: No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page: Episode 672
Audio File: Audio Episode 672
Podcast page: The Pen Addict 672
Length: 5353 min <br />0.883 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript Next Transcript


  • From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 672. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. Hello, Myke. Were you questioning your existence there for a minute? I was worried about you. Which, did I question my own name? Yeah, maybe, or just, you know, before the start. I don't know, it just seemed like a little... We've had some work already this morning. We have. We did it. Work in quotes. No, we finally did it. We finished the Lando build. It's done. Yes. The Lego Lando build has taken us three parts of the member special. It's available now in full for Relay members across three different parts. Congratulations to us. Yeah. It's like, wow. It's done. It's done. I look at it. It's really awesome. The outcome is fantastic. I love it. It's astonishing to try to put together is like what we built versus the amount of time that it took. Like that still does not add up to me whatsoever. Yeah. I think if you were building this on your own, it would maybe take like an hour or two. Yeah. Not the five hours it took us. It was great though. It was great. We had a good time. We had a good time. We had a good time. Yeah, we did. We did. It's lovely. Yeah. And part three is already published. So it's out there. I saw that populate. Speaking of good times, I had a good time on vacation last week. Love it. Did the Vegas vacation with the family. It was hot, but we spent a lot of time at the pool and ate a lot and drank a lot. So it was a great. And I wanted to thank my friend Blake from Blake's broadcast and the paper mind for joining me last week to allow me to take a vacation. That was a really fun episode. Got some good feedback on that. People like to hear about, you know, someone who makes things in this case. Blake makes paper goods at the paper mind, which, you know, they've, I've known Blake for a long time and I've used paper mind products for a long time. They've been a sponsor at Panatic for, you know, various, various occasions through the years and to get to talk to someone who builds stuff and uses something that's near and dear to my heart, which is Japanese paper and all the challenges that come along with that. Yeah, that was the part that I obviously found the most interesting. Like the whole conversation was great, but like hearing Blake talk through the challenges of being a paper producer and having to like change paper. It's genuinely something that I am terrified of that I might have to do one day. But I think like Blake, like the further you go into this, you start to find out that I know now that the main paper that we use for our products, if it went away, I actually know now what I would replace it with, which if you would have asked me six months ago, I would have been like, well, I guess we just go out of business. Right. Yeah. And like, I've never found when I mean, I'll admit that I haven't tried like super hard. I've never found a replacement for Knox index card paper, right? It went away just like all of this stuff goes away. And which is why I think you and I and a lot of other people who are involved in making things, especially when it's very similar things like paper goods and notebooks and things like that. I think with the Knox stuff, though, you were building something hyper-specific.
  • Yeah. And that makes it harder. Like I purposefully decided not to do that. Like I was going to go for general, kind of like just general use case paper rather than being specific in one way or another and just like a good all-rounder. Right. Where you were like, no, this has to be a stock which is thick enough that it can be an index card but also has to be exceptional for fountain pens. That is very hard. That's a very hard challenge you build for yourself. Yep. Yep. I haven't had the impetus to try to find that again. So it's great, great talk with Blake and I appreciate him coming on. And we went through some of the fun videos that he's done recently with the, with the tier, his tier rankings and his top 10 pens. It was, it was super fun conversation. So if you haven't checked that out, go give that a listen. Good times.

Vacation and walking in Vegas

  • While I was on vacation, Myke, I thought this might happen. I had it in the back of my head that we're going to have some downtown. We're going to have a lot of walking around. If you've ever been to Vegas, there's lots of walking, lots of things to see, lots of things to do and lots of shopping. Lots of shopping like out of my price range. If you've ever been to Vegas, you will know what I mean. A lot of boutiques. It's literally every, every high-end shop. But fortunately for me being the pen addict that I am, that includes the Mont Blanc shop. Um, so I made a visit to the Mont Blanc boutique in Las Vegas. Um, it's at the Grand Canal shops in the Venetian, I believe is the proper name of it. And it was great. I had, I didn't know what to expect. I've never been in anything but like the airport boutique. Like if I have a minute, you'll see some, you know, the little one unit size boutique. Well, they'll just have like some luggage and a few pens or things, but this had, this was all of it. Like this was a large store. The salesperson I was working with most of the time I was there, which ended up being like 30, 30 minutes at least, um, said this was the largest boutique. And she either said the US or North America. I can't remember. Um, so they had the full range of everything, right? Would you expect there to be a bigger store in Canada?
  • Yeah. Well, I mean, Toronto, I mean, Toronto. Yeah. But like, would you expect a store bigger than the store in Vegas anywhere? Yes. Cause it honestly, it wasn't like that big. No, but like it was big, but yeah. But my point is it, however big a store could be. Yeah. Vegas is probably the place where it's biggest. Yes. Right. I mean, there's yes. They're like, if you, you can think of a fancy brand, they have a shop there, like, which is not it. It's like, yeah. Uh, London, Tokyo, New York, you know, those types of things. Milan, Paris. Yeah. Yeah. That's where you got to find the big ones. It was, it was, it was big, but I could tell it was big by like the inventory that they carried. Right. They had like every special edition ever they had. Like I'm talking about fountain pens. Like you in the store was at least 50% stationery, which surprised me. Right. Because they've, Mont Blanc's gone into some of the more lifestyle stuff. They're new watches now. Like watches were in the front of the store. They had like their one display case. And then they had, you know, their briefcases, leather goods, all that stuff was like in the front of the store. And then like the entire back half of the store was just stationery case after stationery case, pens everywhere. It was all pens. They didn't, I really didn't see any notebooks out and they didn't have any ink out, which was interesting. We'll get to the, get to that in a minute. But all the display cases with all the limited editions were out. And once the lady that I was working with, she was outstanding. Like we've traded information now, which I'll get to that in a minute. That was also funny. Once she realized I knew what I was talking about, like I could talk the talk. She was, she wanted to show me everything. And I was like, yes, this rules. This was awesome. Well, it's because she thought, yes, this rules. Yeah, exactly. I have a great sale on my hands. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. She didn't, but like she could have, like, I was definitely thinking about the coral baby, which we've talked about here on before. When we were talking about the Wes Anderson pin, which let me get into that. So I asked her, like they had a huge display, like a image, not like a, they had zero of any of it in stock. Right. That's a shame. That's a real shame. I bet you were hoping you'd see it. Right. I was hoping I could see. Yeah. Yeah. I was hoping I'd see like the full, the full setup unit. Right. With the briefcase or the tin storage box, whatever it's in. But they just had like some of like the wall, wall posters and like some of the marketing material out. So I asked her, I said, hey, how did the Wes, the Wes Anderson stuff go? She's like, oh, like we pre-sold our allocation, you know, basically to our clients, like whoever was interested, like we've never basically laid hands on the stuff. This is exactly what I said. Right. It was like I knew this because I've, I know of this in watches and like the way that watches work. And it reminded me of that, that like essentially I would imagine one or two things happened and maybe both customers contacted their reps or the reps contacted customers and were like, do you want this? Yes. At this type of store, you, you basically have a relationship with the sales, salespeople and they, they have a book, right? They're like, hey, my client is into this. I'm going to call them, let them know if they're interested. And then we'll just, they basically pre-sold every, whatever their allocation was. I didn't get the number of what their allocation was.
  • But being the largest store in the world, you know, they probably had a lot. Oh, it's the world now. Sure. Why not? I mean, it's getting, it's getting more intense. Before you weren't sure if it was bigger than any store in Canada. And now you're like, it's the biggest store in the world. Definitely the biggest store in Las Vegas. We'll go with that. Yeah. Um, so the funny thing, which actually caught me off guard, caught me so off guard that I didn't do a follow-up question, which was bad journalism by me. She said, but if you're interested, we're going to have more in September.
  • And I just kind of like, I did like the dog head nod. It's like, huh? I was like, I'm that just, that just makes all this much more confusing to wherever we've been at in the confused in the first place. So it was, um, yeah, that's pretty much what I did. Like I couldn't even, I was so confused. I couldn't even ask, ask a follow-up question. She says, but I could put you on the list and let you know. And I was like, huh? No, I, I don't, I don't get it. So, but anyway. Brad, I'm happy to let you know, uh, you can currently buy it online.

Mont Blanc webpage and expensive pens

  • Okay. I don't know how this is happening, but I've just gone back to the Mont Blanc webpage and I can buy it. If I want to buy it, I can buy it. Okay. It just cost me 2000 pounds. Yeah. But there you go. I don't know what's, I don't know what's happening here. Maybe they've got more of them and like, maybe this is popular enough. They're just doing more, but on the Mont Blanc website where it previously had said like, Oh, contact your dealer or whatever. It now says add to bag. Hmm. This is in the British website. Can it put, can you put it in your cart? Yes. It says add to bag. I added it to my bag and now I can go to proceed to order and I can just buy it. It's just letting me buy it. A buy with Apple pay. Sure. No. Oh, I want it so bad. Close the window. 2,110 pounds. All right. I'm going to look at the picture of my baby that's sitting on the desk. Yes. And I'm going to remove that from my clothes. Yes. Remove from card. I just bought so many diapers. You wouldn't even believe. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so it was a cool display. They had literally everything. Um, I got to see all kinds of limited editions. I got to see some of the new, like the writers limited edition, uh, Goethe. Uh, I don't know if I'm going to pronounce that last name. Right. Um, she was more than happy to show me this. Like she was, um, I'm asked, uh, when I asked for ink, I said, Oh, do you have the Enzo Ferrari? Cause I did want to buy that. It's this great purplish, uh, ink. And I asked, she said, Oh, let me go check again. Like none of the inks are out. Uh, she said, let me go check. And she said, yeah, I've got two bottles left. And I said, okay, I'll, I'll take those. And, and then I, someone on Slack had shared a picture of the new, uh, Northern Lights, I believe is the collection.
  • And I said, well, do you have this ink? And I showed her the picture and it's this bright, vibrant, crazy green ink. And she's like, she's like, yes, but we're not allowed to sell anything from this collection until July 1st, but it's here. Do you want to see the pens? And so she, she was like way into this. Like she, you know, it's like, I can show you all this stuff, but like, I can't sell it to you yet. So I got a good look at those pens, which are really, really sweet. So anyway, it was a great experience. Like I didn't know what to expect. I thought I might just be in and out, see all the things I wanted to see. But, um, you know, now. Have you got a peek of the experience where you go in the book?
  • Yeah. Actually, Brad, you're in her book now. I am now in the, I am in her book. She asked. She's going to call you. She's going to call you all the time. Yeah. And I was good with that. The only thing I haven't been good with this experience is so I gave them my email information. I got an email every day, just like on the marketing list. I just, I'm, I'm already out. Like I'm out.
  • Yeah. Like one email a day trying to sell me like Mont Blanc stuff. I have. It's one email a day too much. I'm on email newsletters. Email me every day. Like, cause they are brands that I care about. And like, I just know they're going to come. Like Paul Smith. I'm getting a Paul, I'm getting an email from Paul Smith every single day. Five days, five to seven days a week. Every week. And, and you know what? Sometimes I buy. And like, that's that. You know what I mean? Yeah. I know. I know. I feel it, but like, I don't need that. I don't think if I need anything. And Paul Smith's not in my email inbox. Something's wrong. Yep. Like what's wrong, Paul? Are you okay?
  • If for some reason I need something from Mont Blanc down the line, you know, I have, I have her contact information. She has mine. She was, it was funny. Like she did at the end, we were wrapping up the transaction and she was like, basically, you know, you want to go in the book. And I'm like, yeah, sure. So I gave her my pen addict email address and she, and she goes, oh, no way. She goes, and she started yelling at the other people. You won't believe this guy's email.
  • It's pen addict. Oh, okay. I wonder where that was going. They didn't know who it was. Yeah. No, no, no. They didn't know who it was. They just thought it was funny.
  • So, oh, this is funny. So anyway, honestly, legitimate. Oh my gosh. I just saw your images. Sorry. I just pasted it. You took me out of the podcast. It's not really that important, but it shows that I received an email on the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 15th, 17th, 18th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th, 29th, and 30th of July from Paul Smith.
  • That's what these brands do. Like they would just email you every day. Yeah. That's how this was going. So I was out. I think after about the fifth one, I was like, I'm out. Yeah. So we're good there. But anyway, it was a fun experience. My wife enjoyed it. The kids did not. They went walking around the rest of the mall. My wife was actually, oh, look at this one. This one's pretty good. Oh, I'm pleased to shoot that Mary Beth wasn't like pulling the hair out. No. And I was like, look, I showed her the coral baby. I was like, if there was any pen I would get, I was like, this is the one I like, I really like. It's probably like literally the cheapest pen in here outside of like maybe some of the like 146 ballpoints or something.
  • And she's like, oh, I like that. You know, but she got to hold it and use it and like, you know, has a snap cap. And she's like, oh, yeah, that one's nice. She's like, I love that color. And I was like, yeah, that's kind of like when they bring out that when they mix in that OG color into some of this stuff, it like really, really goes great. So anyway, great experience. I would recommend it just to go look around, especially when you go to the largest Mont Blanc shop in the universe, like this one, you can just see everything. And it was great. So I had a good time. So yeah, I had a good time, bought some ink and I'm happy. So there you go.
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  • All right, Myke, we have our shout out of the week. Shout out of the week.
  • She Designs Nepal. We have given them a shout out before. They make wonderful pen cases literally in Nepal. And it's a great group of people who are, you know, uplifting some of the workers in the region and making cool products and, you know, giving back to their community. And they've really branched out into like stationery pouches. So I want to give them a shout out. I've used some of their cases. I have some of their cases. They've sent me some of their cases and they just launched a new model. So I wanted to be sure to give them a shout out. These new cases, these new six pin sleeves are just beautiful. We're going to have a review up on the blog, but you don't need to review to see how cool these cases are. Handmade, beautiful fabrics.
  • And the money goes back to support the communities there that they work with in Nepal. And I just couldn't be happier to have a good relationship with them. They're always texting me or they're messaging me and saying, hey, we got a new thing coming up. Can we send it to you? Or, you know, here's a product launch. They're just been wonderful to work with. And they've been really enjoying like seeing some of their cases in some of the makers, makers pens. Like if you buy a maker's pens, like for some of the makers in our communities, like at a pen show, they're using their sleeves. So it's just a really cool, really cool business, really great story. So definitely go check them out. If you're not giving them a follow, check out the products. So they're wonderful. So in what could have been a second shout out of the week, because I know I've shouted out Chronodex many times are my good friend Patrick Ng's planner system. The new, the latest, the latest 2025 second half of the year. So he does them every six months, you know, in January and July, the July to December Chronodex is out. And we, this one comes with a lot of changes, Myke. So I put this in the, the, the note I put in with the Chronodex. And I think this is maybe a tagline that, that Patrick should think about uses using. He can quote me on this, the coolest stationery product. I have no intention of ever using. So I love this. I would like to just rephrase that to just, you know, Patrick wants to use it. Maybe like the coolest stationery product I haven't used yet. You know, fair enough. It might be nicer for Patrick rather than just like, I love this, but I ain't ever going near it. Well, he might've got me because, um, he's escalating Chronodex. So number one, let me put this out there. He's never charged for this. It's always been free. He's deciding to charge for this, which I think is great. Like I'm all aboard. Like he's been doing this for 14 years, building these files, building these PDFs, putting them out there for free. He just decided to create Scription Studio. So you can go to ScriptionStudio.com. We'll have a link in there. I'm, I'm all for it. Like I'm all for it. So where, where he almost got me is there is an edition called the Chronodex nuclear power inspector edition. Yeah. What's going on there, Brad? He basically got customer feedback from Jared, the nuclear power quality inspector that he needed some different things on his Chronodex page. So he built it for him. Do you know what the important factor of this edition is, Myke? Tell me. It's in us letter size 11 by eight and a half, which is just a horrible format. But Jared probably has requirements in his job and he's probably carrying around a lot of us letter size paper or notebook fittings. And Patrick has made, I don't know why this makes me laugh so hard. Thankfully, this is a digital product. It is a digital product. I was terrified that he had made physical versions of this. No, this is, this is all, Chronodex is all digital. I don't know if Patrick might make his own made, you know, hand bound notebooks. So do people just print, people tend to just print it on paper they like. They've always been this way. So Chronodex has always been this way. It's always just been a PDF. I knew there was that, but I always thought that there was a product too. You know what? Like sometimes in my mind, I get Chronodex and Travelers notebook like completely intertwined.
  • Because I know a lot of people put them in their Travelers, right? Yes, exactly. So yeah, like the normal, the normal format would be good too. How do people do that though, Brad? I don't know. How do you put it in your Travelers notebook? I don't know. There's formats, Myke. No, but like how do you print onto the Travelers notebook?
  • Oh, no, no. So they, they would, there's a, I've seen a stamp in the past. Oh, okay. And I've seen, you could just get printer size. You could get like an A4 size and, and print two sides of it to fold it and make it A5 size. Or make A5 slim. So a lot of people will adjust the printer aspect if they want to print this out. Apparently, according to Jackie, there is a nuclear power inspector that frequents the pen addict slack. So I guess I'll be happy. I wonder if it's Jared. We got to find out. I'm not familiar with this. So this is, it would seem likely. Yeah. You know, but you never know. Yeah. So the stock Chronodex download is A4 size, which makes sense, right? So you fold it into A5. So you have, basically, you'll end up, if you print both sides, that's four pages, right? So front, back, front, back on a folded A4. So it works out like that. But anyway, shout out Patrick. He's got his new home for Chronodex at ScriptionStudio.com. So you'll go check that out. So I'm going to wipe the tears from my eyes. I don't know why I enjoyed that so much. I was like, I got to put this in. This is amazing.

Lamy Japan and Scarlet lineup

  • I saw a link. I guess I was tagged in this link from Lamy Japan on Instagram, where they are promoting the new Scarlet lineup, Myke, which we talked about earlier this year. The purple Scarlet lineup, where it's not really Scarlet. But there, Lamy Japan has put up a post. And the Scarlet lineup, just for those who don't know, it's a Safari lineup. And it's a main lineup item. It's not a limited edition. So this is a stock core lineup model. And it has all the pens and pencils. So Safari fountain pen, ballpoint, rollerball, and pencil. The Safari in Japan in the Scarlet series is now shipping with the stock Jetstream M17 refill, which is good news. So when they launched the refill, they just had the refill, right? Like I got some of the refills, put it in one of my ballpoints.
  • Now you can actually buy a ballpoint with the refill already included. And that's in the Scarlet lineup. Only in Japan, as best as I can tell right now. I went and bounced around some of the Lamy sites, some of the Lamy global sites. I couldn't find it anywhere outside of Japan. But again, if they're putting this refill in a standard issue ballpoint, it has to be coming out worldwide, right? Is there any possibility that maybe just the other distributors just don't know this yet? Like that it's coming for them? I don't know. I don't know.
  • This has to be a worldwide thing, right? It's just, it's such a good selling point. Even if they have to charge more for the ballpoint.
  • It's just such, but again, maybe like, again, I'm thinking very like insular to this community. Like outwardly, someone buying the Lamy ballpoint may not know or care what's on the inside.
  • But I just find it interesting. Like we're slowly moving into like this refill propagating the rest of the lineup, I think. We started with just the refill. Now the refill is coming in a pen. Yes, allegedly it's only in Japan right now. But again, this is a stock item. And I have faith that we're going to keep seeing the rollout expand a little bit more. And I don't know. I just hope to see it. I think this pen deserves that refill because this pen is one that I've always stood up for. And I think it just, it's kind of very underrated. And what's held it back in the past is the refill.
  • You know, you might not be interested in the pen to begin with because of the molded grip section. And that's fine. But I do think the refill has held it back a little bit. So, yeah. Hopefully it continues to roll out there. And I don't know, Myke. Maybe we can get one in King Charles' hands. What do you think? It would be fascinating. That's the thing to a teller. It would be fascinating because that would not fit his style at all. But what would fit his style, Myke, is this latest video from Fig Boot on pens, which is out now. It's called The Pen of King Charles III.
  • So, do you want to talk about this real quick? Yeah. You've watched the video. Yep. I thought David did a really great job on the video. I enjoyed it. I appreciate David dressing up. He did. He did. I appreciate the respect. That was proper.

David's video review of a special pen

  • David always does it proper. He will theme accordingly. So, he put on a suit for this review of a very special pen. A one of two pen, Myke. So, I'll give a little background here. So, at the coronation, this is post- Pen disasters. Challenges. I went with challenges. But this is why. So, you know, long-time listeners of the show will remember that there was two separate pen disasters for King Charles before he became the king. Yeah. Within a day. Yeah. It was incredible. And so, then this company, which goes by the name of Cleve, they got in touch with the royal apparatus and offered to make a pen to his specification, essentially, for the coronation. Right. And they made two of them. Now, you can see, so like, there was something that I was, that David didn't touch on. I don't know if he knows the answer, which is why maybe he didn't touch on it. So, there were two pens made and he got one of them to review. The backup pen, essentially. Yeah. Cleve wanted to promote their goods, essentially. Yes. They are a company that exists. They are very much a luxury. You go to them and make your own pen, kind of thing. Yeah. Custom type of stuff. It costs a lot of money. But, you'll see it. David included a shot of the king signing the documents upon the coronation. That nib was not the same nib as the one that David did. Exactly. That was one of my main talking points. Yeah. So, the way the king signs his signature, number one, is very aggressive. Like, he pushes really hard. And it's basically like, gosh, how would you describe this grip? It's like an over-the-top grip where it's almost like a brush. It's almost like he's holding a brush. Yeah. He's not even holding on the grip section. Yeah. And then he, like, but he, like, jams it into the page and it is dark and white. Like, it worked. Like, whatever they built for that worked. That nib was expecting him to do this, right? Yes. Because my expectation is, with this kind of document, you can't have, like, a piddly little signature, right? Yes. This thing's got to be significant. It's basically, yeah, like a marker. Yeah. Like, the way he was pushing on that nib. So, yes. So, I wonder what the actual, the real unit of. But it's very clear to see it is the same pen. But, yes, it is using a modified nib. But they gave David what was essentially seen to be, like, a medium Joe O nib. Yeah. But the nib looks similar. I mean, it's hard to tell. But, like, something was going on there. Because, like, there's no medium nib in a world that's doing that. That just ain't happening.
  • Instantly. Yeah. I was like, you just watch him write. And you kind of, like, for us writers, you kind of, like, sit back in your seat. And you're like, whoa.
  • It's like, that is aggressive. Like, I don't know what pen. I want that nib. That looks like a great time. I want that nib. It looks. Yeah. You could just go to town. Like, that's. That's a. Wow. That was. I was like, I'm thinking. It's like, I don't think I have a nib where I can mimic that handwriting. It was something else. So, yeah. That was fun. I'm going to make the obvious. It looks like the way that your president signs. Right? Oh, 100%. But I believe your president signs of an actual Sharpie. Yes. Yeah. This is. This is a more proper Sharpie situation for the king. Yes. So, it was great. The pen itself looked great.
  • It's. It's fancy without being, like, over the top. Right? You could do it really, like, aggressively over the top. It's ostentatious, not gaudy, is the way I would describe it. Yeah. Which is exactly how it should be for the king. Yeah. I feel like. I thought the clip was one of the most aggressive clips I've ever seen in my life. As soon as David put that pen out, I was like, holy cow. Like, you're never going to be able to bend that clip to get it on anything. And David actually mentioned that in the review. That clip is a roll stop, is what that is. Yeah. Yeah. The clip is a roll stop. It's not, like, a functional clip. The logo marking on the back, I forget what the proper term is for. I think insignia is the term, but that little source of. Yeah. So that insignia was great. It did, and David did call this out, it wasn't aligned. Yeah. And I think, actually, I think the insignia was in line, but the guilloche pattern was not centered based on, like, the defined lines of the, the defined design lines of the pen, what the design line should be. The guilloche pattern was, like, rotated. That's kind of unacceptable in my mind. Yeah, for this pen, for, like, a $10,000 pen, which is, like, what this was. Because it just kind of makes it seem like nobody even thought. I was like, what are you doing? Yeah, and it wasn't close. It was, like, two millimeters off. It was, like, I was, like, like, you, yeah, like, there's defined spots that would line up, like, when you're putting this guilloche pattern on. Here's what I'm going to, I'm going to suggest. I have to see if it's relative. Here's what I'm going to suggest what happened here, which is an interesting thing, but, is that I could imagine a world, Brad, in where a computer was not involved in this process at all. Sure. Right? And so, like, you know, but that's kind of how we imagine it. Like, how could you not have noticed this? But there may not have been that much of a design in advance. Like, it was given to someone, and they were, like, do this, do this, and, like, because that's how they work kind of thing. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it looks very, very handmade, which, like, I would actually kind of get over that if, like, all of that work is hand done. But, like, also. It definitely is hand done. It's a pretty, like, that's a pretty, like, you handle that on the, like, before you've made a mark on it. I agree with you. Yeah. Here's the thing. I believe it's hand done, which is why it happened, but I still feel like they could do, they could do better with that. Yeah, like, they could do better with that.
  • It's almost 100 grams, which is insane for a pen. So, I did a review, the Colotino, like, a couple months ago. It's a brass pocket pen, so, like, it's a full brass sleeve, and that was 68 grams, and that was heavy. I've had a yard of lead silver pen be probably close to that heavy. It really was an enjoyable rider. Like, if you can balance that weight well, it can be a really good rider, so I don't deny that. Yeah, heavy's not the problem. It's the balance.
  • I've forgotten now. What was it made from? Silver. Silver. Pretty much completely silver with a gold nib. And the nib, like, the nib, like, I'm cool with everything that they did for the nib. Like, that would be, like, double the cost. Well, not double, in this case, the cost of the pen. But that'd be, like, if you got a custom nib made for that, that's probably another couple thousand. Maybe for the king they do that. But it was, I'm pretty sure, and David was pretty sure, it's just your stock Yobo gold nib with different engravings and etchings on there. What David has was.
  • Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay. To your point about the logo alignment, this was probably done, like, pretty quickly, right? This was probably, like, almost like an after-the-fact thing by the time they coordinated it. Yeah. And then got it in the hands. Like, yeah. But still. You know? But still. It was a pretty cool, it's a cool story. Y'all should go watch the video. We'll have a link in the show notes. Really worth watching. It was a great video. David does a really good job. And Ian, it's just really fun. It was fun. And, yeah, and cool pen.
  • You know, if you want your own, you can head over to Cleve and, you know, get your own $10,000 custom pen. I'm going to spoil one more part of the video. I'm going to spoil just how I enjoy David, where he's like, I wrote to the king to ask to interview him. I forgot about that. I was going to ask you that. Incredible. Just like, yes, of course you did. You know what I mean? He always does that. What's the worst that could happen? Amazing. Just amazing. Yeah. And he got a letter back and, like, we were checking out the stationery that they wrote. That was cool. That was cool. That's one of the best parts of the video. I was like, well, you know, I figured I should see what he likes. It's like, okay.
  • Cool. Let's see if I can get a sit down with the king. I was like, David's just like, why not? He's like, I'm wearing a suit for this. You know, at least I can do is ask. Here's the thing. I think why not is great. And I think life would be more fun if everybody just said, why not? Just did things, you know? Exactly. Exactly. And, Myke, if you're looking to buy pens online, why not go to Pen Chalet? Oh, Brad, you're such a professional. Now you have the ability to read the ad copy on your own. You know, you're just throwing to ads left, right, and center. Go to our friends at Pen Chalet because they have the products that you're looking for. Whether you want a new fountain pen, a new rollerball, a mechanical pencil, a bottle of ink, a carrying case, maybe you're looking for a converter. Maybe you're looking for a pen holder. It doesn't matter what you want because Pen Chalet have got it. And they have stock products from your favorite brands. And they're always adding new brands and new products to the site. So every time you go back, you're going to see some fun, exciting, and new things. They do the best deals around. They run special discounts twice a month. They have closeout specials every two weeks as well. And Pen Chalet ship internationally with great shipping rates. But if you're in the U.S., they do free shipping on orders over $75, which, come on, not that hard to get over that, right? Nope. We could do that. Even with Pen Chalet's great prices, you could just keep adding incredible things. Get loads of stuff, you know, put your cart together, a hundred bucks, you'll get free shipping. Wonderful. But I do it for orders over $75, free shipping in the U.S. Pen Chalet has low prices on high-quality pens and offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Now, I want you to go to penchalet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com slash penaddict. You will get there a code to save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet and to see some exclusive offers for listeners of this show. What have we got this week, Bradley? So, one thing I want to shout out real quick when you go to penchalet.com, they have, like, the – what do you call, like, the banner slideshow thing on the front of webpages? I don't know. There's probably, like, an official – Yeah, like the Carousel. There is so much cool new stuff that I haven't even seen on their Carousel right now. Leonardo Supanova. Whoa. Yeah, that's one. Narwhal Horizon, which was a popular release. They keep expanding, like, the colors on. There's a new Soleil color. There is a – oh, a Visconti Tesla. Where's – where'd you go? There's a new Benu Van Demen's collaboration pen, Fairy Dust Potion box set. I'm guessing that comes with an ink. So, I'm just clicking through all this stuff now. That's a pretty amazing – pretty amazing pen.
  • And listeners get a discount on this stuff. Yeah, listeners get a discount on this stuff. Like, this is no joke. So, we have our own page, which I'm going to get to in a second. But every – you know, sometimes you see, like, the Carousels. You're like, oh, I've seen that. Oh, I've seen that. This is, like, I don't know, 10 pages of, like, brand new stuff. Like, this is really cool. I'm having a hard time getting off that page. But I will, Myke, because over on our page, we have the Magna Carta Mag 600 Land of the Free Fountain Pen, Myke. It's that time where you're looking at the Magna Carta and getting the big Flex nib over there on one of their new fun pens. And they also have several ballpoints this week. Tabalde Perfecta ballpoint and the Peniner Avatar rollerball, along with the D. Charles pen cases, which I have used in the past. They're really, really good quality leather pen cases. It's a two-pin sleeve, which looks fantastic. And then a ton of ink samples if you're looking to expand on your ink collection. This is one great way to do it. You can sample inks from Van Demons, Wearing Oil, Colorverse, and even Pilot Orochizuku. So go check all this stuff out over at penchalet.com.
  • So that's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com slash penaddict. Our continued thanks to our friends at Penchalet for their support of this show, Every Lay. All right. I was in Vegas last week, the home of Magic Shows. Did you do any gambling, Brad? I did a little bit. Lost a few hundred bucks. You'd love to see it. You'd love to see it. Why not? You know what I mean? Let's do it. My donation. So, yeah. I'm not a big gambler, but a few hours here, that'll cover me. So, yeah. I held an L. I didn't make enough to buy the Harry Houdini from Montegrappa, Myke, but I imagine this would go over well in Las Vegas.

Montegrappa's storytelling pens

  • You know, Montegrappa is one of our favorite custom pen makers, I guess, the storytelling pen makers. When they get an idea or a collaboration or a license to make interesting pens, like in the past, you know, we've talked about Frankenstein. We've talked about the James Bond pen. We've covered many, many pens, including the one that started us all off was the Chaos pen.
  • They continue to delight me in making this stuff because it is so specifically weird. Truly incredible. In, like, every way. So, this pen, you just, you literally, like, our words aren't going to handle this, but it's basically, they've taken Harry Houdini.
  • Some of the concepts of him basically tied up in chains in a straight jacket. So, this pen could be for other reasons. But it has leather and it has chains in it, Myke. And it also has a mirror box for him to, you know, disappear into, unlock himself from the chains and somehow make it out unscathed. So, it's kind of a riot. The best part about these pens from Montegrappa is the more you look at them, the more little details you see. Yeah. And this is one of those, for sure. Like, I have no interest in Houdini whatsoever. But this pen is just rad. And then they go as far as making the little, like, disappearing box. I don't even know what you call this thing. Yeah. It's hilarious. It's incredible. Yeah. But, again, it's like, I don't know when I made this. Like, I love it. Like, what is the mark? Like, I get the Lord of the Rings stuff or the Game of Thrones stuff or even, like, some of the general.
  • Yeah. Frankenstein. General. Like, that's, the Houdini is very specific. Very specific.
  • So, one of the things I was looking at when I looked at the Houdini, I was like, have we missed some of these? Like, I feel like this is the first one I've seen in a while. And it turns out we have. We're not going to go through all this. But I put in a link to their current limited editions page. I couldn't believe how many were on here. There's, like, an entire Michelangelo pin on here, which looks more extreme than the Houdini pin. The Year of the Snake pin, I'm surprised, hasn't popped up before. That's actually pretty cool. Like, I'm into the Year of the Snake pin. Like, it's like a Chaos Light type of design.
  • It's not as extreme. It looks pretty cool. The Flash pin looks horrible. Yeah, that one's straight up just a branded one. Like, it's not really that. Because, like, because then when you look at the Lord of the Rings pin, that is sick. So, this is, like, the number one one. And I'm not even a Lord of the Rings fan. But they make one called, what's the name of this? Ode to Bag End.
  • Unbelievable pin. Like, this is worth going to see outside of the Houdini pin. Like, you should go look at this pin. This is my expectation. They have set the expectation and the bar so high, and they just keep, like, raising it. This pin is unreal. Like, if you're into Lord of the Rings and have, who knows? I'm not even going to click through to see how much this is. I'm sure it's several thousand dollars. It is unreal. It is unreal.
  • Okay. That's not... Because it doesn't have all the... Like, it's the pen in a nice box. It hasn't got, like, something else going on. It's a simpler barrel, but executed just perfectly. That, yeah. It's unbelievable. So, anyway, there's a bunch more. I'm not going to go read them all. You did want to shout out the Goldfinger. The Goldfinger pen is unbelievable. It's not as cool as the original one. Like, again, this is, like, 1300 because it's just the pen in a box. Like, you haven't got, like, the bullet refill system. But it's made of brass. Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to make it out of solid gold. But it's, like, this... Yeah, I just think this pen looks fantastic, too. It's, like... Yeah. And they're just... I tell you, Brad, it feels like a good job to work at Montegrappa. But, like, to design... They really... Like, the pen designers at Montegrappa, they have a great job. Because it genuinely feels like they could literally do whatever they want. They could do anything. Like, anything. Right. Like, oh, we're going to make... Not only are we going to make a Harry Houdini celebration pen, we're going to make a box to put it in.
  • And we're going to let you do a magic trick with it. Like, you can put the pen in the box and do the magic trick. Just incredible stuff. It took me probably, like, 10 or 12 pens to scroll down to find the last one we talked about, which is the Scrabble. Scrabble, yeah. Yeah, Scarabio, the Italian Scrabble game. So, that was a neat pen. But that's the last one we talked about. That only feels like a year ago at the most. And they've done, like, what, 10 or 12 more that are on this limited edition list? It's outrageous. They are an outrageous brand, and I love them for it. Completely on the opposite end of the spectrum. I got advertised the Montegrappa Armonia. And I don't know if this is a new or old pen. This one, there's, like, an orange. It's called the Dueto Orange. It's, like, a silver barrel with some, like, orange trim. Orange looks like a resin grip section and a resin cap. This one, I keep looking at this one pen. I want to see this when I go to a pen show this summer, either in D.C. or at the Atlas Stationery sidewalk sale. This is, it's very, it looks kind of expensive for, like, what it is. I've seen pens that look like this for much cheaper. But I'm curious if this has any. You said it looks expensive. What do you mean it is expensive? No, it looks, it looks, it doesn't look that expensive. Yes. It looks like it should be, you know, like, half the price. I get the impression this is a very slim pen. Because, they say, greatness starts small, classic design, balanced proportions. Like, this feels like a very thin pen. Yeah. And they even have this model in a mini size. So, they're taking, this is the, I put the link to the standard one. There's actually one that's even smaller, but it's only, like, $10 cheaper. Okay. So, I'm curious if this is a newer or older release. I've never seen it before. But it actually has me compelled because I like Montegrappa pens. I just don't know if I like this for the price. And that's what I want to decide. Like, I want to get one of these in hand and see, oh, is this worth, you know, $250 or whatever it would cost me. But it's, it's, it's, looks like they're entry-level pen. And Montegrappa's always had a very high entry-level point.
  • You know, consistently. They don't really have many, like, $100 pens, right? They're mostly started, like, back in the day. When I was buying, like, the Elmo, they were, like, $180 to $200. And that was their entry-level pen. And now the Elmo's closer to $300, I believe. So, now this is, like, maybe, like, a newer entry-level pen. So, anyway, they got to get you in the Houdini pen somehow, Myke. And it, greatness starts small, as they say, for the Armonia. What's it going to take to get you in a Houdini today?
  • That was, like, at the Montblanc start. What's it going to take you to get into this Van Gogh today? Yeah. I mean, yes, that is, that's the scenario you were in.
  • It's like, yeah, I'm going to go back over here to the Coral Baby. Yeah, we're going to keep it under four digits, under four figures here, allegedly.

Uniball Zento signature pen

  • Way, way, way under four figures, Myke, is the Uniball Zento signature pen. We've talked about the Uniball Zento on here a lot. Well, I have. I've reviewed the standard Zento. But this is the model, this is the Kuretoga Dive model of the Zento, Myke. This is the one that sold out immediately and you couldn't get it. Now they're starting to come, become available again. But I've had one en route from Japan for months from my friend Jacob at Fude Fan. We'll have a link in the show notes. Y'all should all be following Jacob's work on YouTube. He has a video on this pen as well. But this is the one that, when they product launched the Zento, this was the high-end barrel. So it's an aluminum barrel.
  • It's, in the U.S., price is like $27, $28.
  • And this was the, like, the hype pen for the Zento that sold out so quickly. Probably because they didn't make as many, right? Because it's a more expensive pen. The barrel of this pen is a 10 out of 10. This is so good. Like, I get, like, the feel of this barrel. Like, it's a magnet clip. I didn't realize any of it. So it's a magnet cap and a magnet closure and a magnetic posting. It's really, really nice. It's not overly big. It is ultra light for aluminum. It's balanced perfectly. The grip feels great. I adore this barrel.
  • Now we've got to figure out, do I adore the refill? And I still say that's a maybe. Like, I wish I could wrap my head around the Zento more. And people are probably tired of me, like, being wishy-washy about the Zento refill. But I think that it comes from Uniball's marketing is giving me a problem. So on the Zento box of the signature pen, which Jacob sent me from Japan, it says Rollerball on it. Right? It doesn't ever call it a gel. But, like, in... We've talked in other shows, like, some of the marketing shows listed as gel. When I use it, it reminds me of a gel pen. But maybe that's what the Zento is. I've done a whole show and review on this. I'm not going to relitigate all of that. It's a good refill. I really like it. But what I really like about this is the barrel. And it should be swappable if you like the RT refills or something like that. Like the Signal RT refills. You could swap it into this barrel. But I...
  • This is going to make me like the Zento even more because I have this fancy barrel. And again, it's $27. That sounds expensive. I mean, relative to people shopping in the $3 gel pen aisle, it is expensive. But for what it is and the quality it is, it's probably a deal. I'd pay twice as much for this pen barrel. It's that well done. It's just super clean, really well made. It looks nice. Functions perfectly. Yeah. One of the interesting things about the design, and if you're going to swap refills in this, there is no...
  • How would you describe this? Because it is specifically fit to the exact refill size, meaning there's no spring in it or no back end to the refill, right? It fits exactly into the size, which is difficult to do because there is variance, which we learned at SpokePen. There's variance in the refill itself, right? That's going to be... You know, there could be very, very fractional changes in the plastic end of a refill. And changing the length. But this one goes right into the end of the pen. So there's no extra, you know, springs or anything on the internal to make this work. And it's just really well done. I'm a fan of it. So I'm going to keep using it. I'm going to keep using this refill. I'm going to play around with it a little bit more. I really enjoy it. So I think it's going to be good.
  • Jacob also sent me the Kuro Togo wood, which we talked about a couple weeks ago. Um, this is the wood grip section Kuro Togo. And it's really nice. Um, I'm going to start using this. I'm a little bit curious about the balance of this, if I'm going to like it as much, because it's weird when you pick up this aluminum Zento right next to this Kuro Togo. The Kuro Togo is heavier, uh, at least it, you know, in the way it's balanced, right? It might not be heavier overall, but it's a little bit more back balanced. And I'm trying to see if that's a, if that's a thing as I use it. Sometimes you can't tell until you really use a pen. I can, it feels one way when I'm just holding it, but it feels differently when you write with it. So I want to spend some time with it. Um, but it's, it's beautiful. Um, it looks like it's almost looks like a matching set. Uh, the colors I have with the Zento. Um, he also sent me one of the Uniball Jetstream light touch 0.5 blue black refills. And I got to find a pen to put this in, but I just been dabbling with the refill. This is going to be one of my favorite refills out there better than the Zento. Uh, it doesn't fit in this Zento barrel, by the way, we tested that out. And then the last penny sent me, I had never seen, but apparently has been out for a while. Uh, maybe a year or two, maybe if not more, it's called the platinum meteor. And I'll have to, I could not even find like a really good link, like outside of like eBay or AliExpress or something. It must be a pen that really has never made it out of Japan, but it's basically a pilot Kakuno looking platinum preppy, if you will. It's like a $6 pen, $6 fountain pen, supposedly like in that preppy, the base preppy price range, but without a clip, it has a little bit more style than the preppy. It's like if they turn the preppy into what the Kakuno looks like with like a transparent barrel and then like a color transparent cap, a super lightweight. It feels almost like a water brush, like that type of weight. Like it's an ultra light plastic fountain pen. Um, that's about $6 and I haven't inked it up yet. I haven't tried it, but it looks like a decent preppy option if you want, uh, just a little bit different style. So good stuff from Jacob. I always appreciate getting a surprise package from Japan. Uh, even if this one took a world tour to get to me.
  • All right. If you would like to send in some feedback or follow up about this week's episode, or maybe even a question for us to answer and ask TPA in the future, just go to penaddictfeedback.com where you can leave us your feedback. If you want to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com. He is penaddict on Instagram and social media. Uh, you can find him at twitch.tv slash penaddict. Um, you can find this show here on relay. Go to relay.fm. You can find this show and more. If you want to find show notes for this episode, they'll be in your podcast app or relay.fm slash penaddict slash 671. Two. 672. 672. So close. 672. That's where we are. Uh, if you want to find me online, you can go to theenthusiast.net. You can also find me on social media too and at cortexbrown.com. Uh, thanks to Penn Chalet and Squarespace for their support of this week's episode. Most of all, thank you for listening. Until next time, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.
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