The Pen Addict 455/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	455
Title:	Thumbs Up for Fountain Pens
Release Date:	March 31st, 2021
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 455
Audio File:	Audio Episode 455
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 455
Length:	6060 min <br />1 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke:From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 455, and today's show is brought to you by Kenro Industries. My name is Myke Hurley, and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad.

Brad: I have a question for you, Myke.

Myke:Oh, wow. Okay.

Brad: Yeah, right out the gate. Is this the best hour of your week?

Myke:One of. I do very much enjoy, not only do I enjoy recording with you, because you do make my life so much easier with the amount of work that you do for every episode, which is always greatly appreciated, but rarely shared.

Myke:I like the time that we record. It's not too late. It's a good time. So it's three o'clock in the afternoon for me.

Brad: It's a good time. 10am for me is also a good time. Yeah, I'm just wondering, because this is one of my favourite hours of the week, maybe my best hour of the week, and I was just wondering if there was reciprocal feelings to that. You are a sweetheart. Because I do pen stuff 24-7, 365, right? You do not, right? So this allows me to do something different in a way that you doing something different is completely different. That makes sense?

Introduction

Myke:Yeah. So it is a very, this show, in many, many ways, is very different to the other shows that I make, and I do love it for that.

Brad: Good, good. I just wanted to hear you say it.

Myke:Which is why I'm still here, very happily, save as you, so many years into it, with seemingly no end in sight.

Brad: There's literally no end in sight. We talk about that. We talk about our episode numbers, and we talk about, I was listening to Tokyo Station, which we're going to talk about them later in the show. So my favourite, my favourite non-penatic podcast. I'm sorry, I probably just got in trouble for saying that.

Myke:Yeah, you just play favourites, which is something you definitely should do. But especially because you called it Tokyo Station as well, which probably... Yeah, it's Tokyo Inklings, sorry.

Brad: CY needs to work on the branding, I think, and coordinate the branding a little bit. But I'm the guy with the non-penatic Twitter name, so I can't really say much. Well, that's not your fault. Yeah, yeah. My point being that they say the thing that I say all the time is like, how did we not run out of topics after five episodes? Right? And then it just, like, we actually have more topics than ever now, which is just awesome. Five episodes? It feels great.

Myke:Suckers, what about nine years?

Brad: No, no, no, no, no, they're way longer than that. They were just saying in general, like, how did this not end after, like, five or ten episodes? No, I know. How do we... But what I'm saying is, you won't...

Myke:Right? It's impossible. You know, just you've got to put in the tenure that we've been going on over here and then...

Brad: Oh, yeah. They are well on the way. They were just talking about the Japanese specificity of the show, which is something we're going to get into later. Like, you know, what... How can we talk about pens for more than three shows? And here we are. So, with that wonderful intro, let me apologize, Myke. I have a huge mea culpa to drop right at the front of this episode. We are not cancelled. Oh, good. But I don't know. This was a big mistake on my part.

Myke:I should have done one of those, like, Apple Notes screenshots type thing, you know? I'm using this as a personal meme with friends recently, that, like, if I do something which is, like, not at all worthy of a serious apology, I write a little Apple Notes note and take a screenshot and send it to people. It's a good joke.

Brad: Yeah. I'm going to put this on Twitter after this episode. This is the perfect topic for that because I could not have been more wrong about the Pelican M205 replacement nib unit from one of our Ask TPA questions. You know, someone dropped their pen, bent their nib unit, and was concerned about the best route to go about fixing it. And you just told them to buy a new pen. That was your suggestion. I was like, there is no way that you can buy a Pelican replacement nib unit at any respectable price percentage-wise to what you could just go ahead and get a new pen for. That may be the wrongest I have ever been on this entire show. It's pretty embarrassing, really. It's bad, right? Like, so, needless to say, the feedback was fast and, dare I say, furious to my commentary on the nib unit. $9.83 for a Pelican M205 replacement nib unit.

Myke:Oh, my God. So, obviously, this is a steel nib, right? Yeah. Obviously.

Pen Specifications

Brad: Yeah, well, the 205 only comes with a steel nib.

Myke:Right. Like, obviously, you made an assumption, but what's this assumption based on? Like, what made you think that it was going to be a multiple hundred dollar purchase or whatever?

Brad: No, I thought it would be like $50 or $60 or $40 or something.

Myke:I think I don't know the price of the M205. That's what I'm realizing.

Brad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The M205 goes from like $80 to $120, depending on where you pick one up. Okay. Yeah. So, like $125, maybe a little more for the special editions, right? You know how they do like the annual editions? Those are more like $140 to $170. Mm-hmm. So, and it's Pelican, right? Like, these nibs don't fit into anything else, right? They're very specific. Yeah, they're proprietary. They're also designed to fit a piston filler. So, like, no one's buying these nibs to build pins around, right? Because they have to have a piston system to work with these nibs. $9.83 at CultPens right now. I am dying because I had no earthly idea. I'm looking at CultPens though.

Myke:Like, you can buy replacement nibs for every Pelican. It looks like all the major Pelican models here, including gold ones and stuff. Like, it's possible. Yeah.

Brad: Yeah, that's pretty unique. Like, I don't know that, I haven't shopped around, like, the U.S. retailers that stock Pelican to see if they have these replacement nib units. That's a pretty good deal if, you know, you want to swap around. Like, didn't you buy a gold nib for, like, your 205 or something like that?

Myke:Yeah, I have a gold nib on my 205. I really didn't like the steel nib. Sure. And I got a replacement gold nib on the only Pelican that I own, which I feel like is something I should rectify at some point.

Brad: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We could do a whole show on Pelican because, like, it's one of the most interesting brands, one of the most respected brands that I have the highest respect for, that I have very few of their products.

Brad: You know, that, like, I can't speak highly enough about the brand, and I own, like, two Pelicans, like, two big Pelicans, and I own a couple 205s. So, anyway, that's like an entire episode.

Myke:You sent a link to Cult Pens for the replacement, and I just stumbled across the Pelican Maccae Fountain Pen Kingfisher on their website, which is 4,000 pounds. Yeah. That's not the one I'll be buying.

Brad: Mm-mm-mm-mm. Every year they do two or three high-end releases, and it's some of the best artwork you'll ever see. It is beautiful. They, like, when I think of Pelican, I just think of, like, product execution. Mm-mm-mm. They execute perfectly every time. Mm-mm-mm. You know? And so I didn't even consider the fact that you can get a steel replacement nib for less than $10. That was a failure on my part. I apologize to our Ask TPA listener last week, and therefore I would like to admit I was wrong, and I will be sending out an Apple Note tweet this afternoon to go on the full record with my apology for that.

Myke:Good.

Brad: The second item is actually a follow-up from two weeks ago, and it's not an apology, but it's more of a realization that happens over time, and this is referring to the Pilot Custom 823. Do you remember the custom edition that we discussed? Mm-mm-mm. That the, like, the high-end Japanese store got Pilot to make 100 of them in the dark blue, and it priced out to about $500 U.S.

Brad: And, like, I hemmed and hawed on it. I was like, you know, that's pretty expensive. Like, this is kind of crazy, you know? And then I was, I also said, you know, that said, if it was, like, a different color, like, I might consider doing it. And the more I think about it, the more things that I see in the market with the pricing of products, Sailor specifically, the more I think that $500 for a Pilot Custom 823 in an edition of 100 is a good deal. And I can't believe I'm actually saying those words. I actually have come, like, not full circle because I kind of liked it, I kind of got it, but I actually think that it's a good deal. And here's why.

Brad: The Sailor Pro Gear has made me realize that. The new pricing of the Sailor Pro Gear, we talked about a lot on stream yesterday on Twitch, the new stock prices are going to be close to $400 for the stock pens for your 1911s and your Pro Gears, the large sizes. The large size 1911 and then the regular Pro Gear.

Myke:Yeah.

Brad: That's way overpriced, I think. And then the one we've always talked about in those same words is the King of Pens, which is, like, one of the most overpriced pens in my book. I still love Sailors. I still love King of Pens. So then I look back at this 823, and I'm like, wow, that's actually comparatively a really great price for what this pen is. If you break it down that way, like, the Sailor, I mean, excuse me, the Platinum Shiyun was, like, $480, right? And we had, like, a, I just thought this was getting to a level that was just, like, unsustainable. So I just wanted to bring that up that I've had, like, these differing thoughts. Because the 823 is about a $300 pen on its own, and you look at something like the Lamy when they did the dark blue ones, well, those were also a $500 pen, but the base pen for that was, like, $150, $160. Right. So, like, I don't know that, like, we were saying that that was outrageous, and maybe it's not that outrageous. Like, I get it. But there was also a lot more units of that. I think there was, those were in the thousands, right? Was there 5,000? I could be wrong with that number. So 100 units of this Pilot 823 for $500, I'm, like, reversing course and saying that's actually a good deal when you put it in perspective of what the overall high-end limited edition market is doing right now. So I just wanted to kind of clear that up now that I've had some more time to think of it and kind of line it up with what I'm seeing from other brands, Sailor especially.

Myke:I guess it's one of those things where value a lot of the time is relative, and every now and then you have to adjust relative value. Like, you know, this is the kind of thing that I feel like I come across quite a lot when it comes to software, you know, on some of my other shows. What is software worth and what kind of amounts do we attribute it to? And people pay so little or want to pay nothing for apps, and that's just because that is the market. Like, the value has just driven down.

Brad: Yep. So there's, like, this always, there's this baseline reset, right, that happens frequently, and that was one of those pens that I wasn't really keen on in the beginning, and I'm still, like, I have no interest in ordering that. I have no interest in paying that money for that pen, but if the situation, like, hit perfectly, I, like, I think I would do it, right? Like, if it really spoke to me and I really wanted it, and, you know, maybe sold off some other pens to afford it and things like that, but, yeah, I just, it's just one of those things that kind of comes over time and kind of understanding the market as a whole, so I would like to see that pen in person one day. Hopefully I'll get to. I mean, only 100 of them exist, so I doubt I will, but it'll be cool. I just hope we see more of it.

Myke:Yeah, but there's clearly a, for multiple reasons, even if it's just an opportunity reason, a change in some of the economics in fountain pens. Maybe we're going to realize we were getting off easy for a while.

Brad: Yeah, we're going to talk about that later as part of a different conversation, the economics. Okay. You know, I don't have all the answers, but I have some commentary I'd like to share.

Myke:All right, let's take a break and thank Kenro Industries, who are introducing the new Otto Hut Design 04 Wave and are giving us a chance to talk about it while sponsoring the show today. This is something that Otto Hut Germany and Kenro Industries are super excited about, so we're pleased to be able to tell you about it. As you know, frequent listeners will remember, Brad recently got an Otto Hut Design 03, which he was a big fan of. So when we heard that they were back of a new design, this is something we wanted to get our hands on, something we wanted to check out. And I know Brad has one. I'm going to ask him about it in a minute. Otto Hut has been making pens for other brands for over 100 years. So while you may not be that familiar by name, although I expect most listeners of this show are by now, you would definitely know their pens from other places. If you've had a jewelry quality metal pen in your collection, there is a strong possibility that Otto Hut had a hand in making it. And while they're still making pens for other companies, they've also introduced their eponymous line, Otto Hut line. So now we get to have pens with their high standard of quality, but with their own design sensibilities. And that's why we're excited to tell you about the new Design 04 Wave. The Wave combines the classic stateliness of the 04 with an intricate, futuristic, three-dimensional wave pattern, which is made by coating the metal of the pen and then engraving it using the giloch method. Through many stages of varnishing and polishing, what emerges is a pattern adds movement and depth to the pen as you write with it. It comes in several different finishes of a choice of nib sizes. And like all other Otto Hut pens, the quality of how it writes is just as beautiful as it looks. Brad, I believe you have one of these, right?

Product Review

Brad: I do. I do. I've actually had it for a while, about a month or so. And when I get a new pen like this, especially from a new brand, to me, this is a very old established brand, very classic, well-respected German brand, but has, like you said in the ad, like they're branching out now and like really focusing on their own lineup. So I had the Design 03, which I loved. And then Kenro did send me the Design 04. And I wanted to spend some time with it before I reviewed it. And I really, really like this pen. The model I chose was, has, it's like the blue wave lacquered, right? Where you see these, I don't know, it's almost like strips of metal going through there. It's shiny, but it's like got this polished lacquering over it. It's a really beautiful, stunning pen to look at. And the fit and feel and finish of it is top notch. It's what you'd expect. When you say like German engineered fountain pen, this would be like right there with the best of them as far as like design, construction, fit, feel, finish. Like it's perfectly made. It's well designed. It works flawlessly. I don't have enough like positive things to say about it because it's, it's just good across the board. Like I can say like everything about it, you know, the nib is great. You know, it's a steel, steel nib, fine steel nib. It's, it flows well. It's smooth. The grip section's awesome, right? It's tapered. It's a little narrow. Like if you have big hands, this might not be the grip section for you, but they probably have other model pens that have a wider grip section. This is exactly the grip section size that I like. You know, everything about the pen is just, it's perfectly done. I, I am working on doing my official pen addict review of it. And that will probably come up in the next week or two, because I do like to spend time with these products if I can. And it's been inked up since I received it. It's been in use and I'm, I'm thoroughly enjoying it. And I know in the review, it's going to review really well.

Myke:The, there's a version of it that I absolutely adore. Color wise, which is the white and rose gold model. Actually, but there's a black and rose gold model as well. It's absolutely stunning. Like just a really beautiful looking pen. Giyosh, by the way, is ornamentation resembling braided or interlaced ribbons. In case you're interested, but you should go and take a look at it yourself. Cause these really are quite stunning pens. Giyosh. I, I did, I Googled this today. Cause you knew it was coming. Google has a little speaker button where it will pronounce it. And that was how it was pronounced. So that's how I've always said it is. Giyosh. Giyosh. Giyosh. So go to pen chalet right now, P E N C H A L E T.com. And you can see the O4 and the entire range of Otto Hut pens. Stay tuned for the new design. O8, a totally fantastic, beautiful pen that pays homage to the complexity of watch mechanics. I was actually looking into this one today earlier, and I am super interested in this one. So our thanks to camera industries for the support of this show and relay FM. You can find out more about these pens over at pen chalet.

Brad: One more comment on the O4. When I was doing my research for the review, like this is long before the ad or anything like that. And when I'm just trying to decide on the O4, I couldn't believe the depth of the product offering of that model. Does that make sense? Right. It's not like two pens. No, there was like just, there was a load of colors. It's actually hard to decide like, which is your favorite out of there. Just like you were saying. So yeah, really good looking. I'd like,

Brad: I hate saying I like this new auto hut that I'm seeing just because they're new to me, but this is a, you know, a hundred year old company. I hate saying like, you know, this is their transition, but they're new to me. And I like what I'm seeing from them. And I like how they're approaching design and storytelling. And, um, luckily the, the quality of the product matches up with everything else. So yeah, it's, uh, been very cool to watch.

Myke:Very cool. All right. So the Cosmo air light, this is a product that we spoke about last week.

Brad: Yeah. So I was anxious to get this in. So Misubi notebooks sent me a couple of their new Cosmo air light notebooks. Number one, Misubi notebooks are the best, like Daryl and like the construction style and the feel of these notebooks. You get it and you're like, yeah, this is a notebook. I just really love them. But the goal with this one was to test the paper, right? So I knew I'm going to love Misubi as a product, but what does this paper do? Why is it popular right now for people looking forward to Moe river replacement?

Brad: And how does it work? Like what are the actual, you know, ins and outs of this paper in, in short, it's weird, right? This is a strange paper. If you are a fountain pen fan, you will love this paper. But I think that's the only thing you're going to be thrilled with about this notebook. Like you can end it right there. Like you can say, this is awesome for fountain pens. And like, that could be the end of the review, but it's a little more complex than that because the way this page handled, ink is interesting from a line width perspective. And Daryl even says that in the copy on the product page, the way the ink dries spread is the wrong term. Because when I say spread, it makes me think that like, it's going to be bleeding, right? That you see feathering and bleeding in the page. It does none of that. There's no feathering, no bleed. But what happens is I don't have a better term than spread. When you put the ink on the page, the line width looks wider than you're used to on a different page. So for example, I took a Lamy Safari with an F nib. And in my day-to-day writing, like if I was writing on my bank paper notebook or in my William Hannah notebook, I know what the line width is. Okay. Like just out of nature. It's habit. The line from the Lamy Fine nib looks like this. If I'm using a paper I'm familiar with. Switch over to the Cosmo Air Light. It is a tiny bit wider. And a tiny bit in a fountain pen is essentially an entire nib size, right? Like the line then goes from fine to medium. That's a really, really tiny amount. But when you're used to line width being X, and then all of a sudden you do it in line width is Y, and it's wider, not narrower, you go, huh, that's interesting. And that's consistent across all nibs, all inks. With fine, medium, broad, and stub nibs, that's great. Like if you like fountain pens with fine and up nibs that put down a lot of ink and you want to see the character and you're just want to, you know, throw a bunch of ink and you're awesome fountain pen at this page, you're going to love it. What I didn't like was my extra fine and my ultra extra fine nibs on this performed far worse because they're not built to have that line spread when you're putting down a line from the tip of say my platinum, 3776 UEF. That is an untipped nib, right? It's made to write like the tip of a nail, right? There's no roundness to the nib. Well, it affects the ink differently on the Cosmo Air light paper. I did not enjoy writing with a needle on Cosmo Air light paper. So that's something good to consider. Every other larger nib fountain pen, you know, the paper's completely smooth. It's allows the ink to be bright. The dry time is much shorter than something like Tomoe River. The colors pop. There's good shading. There's good sheen because the dry time is moderate, right? It's not drying too fast to where you're not, the character of the ink's not coming out. So you get to see all that character. There's no feathering. There's no bleed. There's no ghosting to speak of on the back of the page. So if you're a fountain pen fan and you don't have like an obsession with like the ultra extra fine nibs like I do, you're going to completely love this paper. For any other pen, I almost don't want to use it because it feels so weird. The best comparison I can tell, which is strange because the fountain pens don't feel like this on this page, but take a ballpoint pen. And it's literally like if you picked up a magazine, like a thick glossy magazine, not like a super thin paper magazine. And you know how if you write with a ballpoint on there, it's just like a, it's just like a solid flat circle, no character, no feel or, or anything. It's, there's no texture to it at all. And it's almost uncomfortable feeling. It's very like plasticky feeling. And what's funny.

Myke:Like writing on a banana of a biro.

Brad: Yeah. Yeah. So there's no feel to that, which is funny because I don't experience that with the fountain pens, the fountain pens. I feel like there's like a good texture there. Like they feel different.

Brad: So like pencils and ballpoints are very prone to feeling terrible on this paper. Right. It's a not expected feel. I think you can get away with like roller ball and gel pens, but I think there's better options.

Myke:Okay. Yeah.

Brad: So in the end, everything I'm describing is exactly how I would describe Tomoe river paper for the most part. Right. People don't like to use standard pens on Tomoe river paper. They don't like to use pencils, but they do. I feel like, like a ballpoint and a pencil does work a little better on Tomoe river paper. It's just not great. I actually think ballpoints and pencils are worse on Cosmo or light than Tomoe, but in general, the idea is still the same. The idea is the same, right? People don't buy Tomoe river paper to show off their Schmidt P8127 refill, right? That's not the point of what Tomoe river paper does. That's also not going to be the point for Cosmo air light. It's strictly a fountain pen ink notebook for me. And with the caveat that your extra fine and finer nibs are not going to be enjoyable on that page, at least by, by my feel of, of what this, this test was like and what this review was like. So thumbs up for fountain pens. And then that's about it, which honestly, that's pretty much what I'd tell you about Tomoe river paper too.

Myke:But it does have this added difference that the line width variation is there. This is a new thing.

Brad: I will say I love Tomoe river paper on my ultra extra fine nibs. Like I had never had an issue with that fineness on Tomoe. I think the Cosmo air light does not handle that level of fineness as well. So yes, good point.

Myke:So it's intriguing. It's good.

Brad: Yeah. I just basically short version. I don't want this for my all day, every day notebook because I use more than wide nib fountain pens.

Myke:Would you have used to Moe in an all day, every day? I guess so, right?

Brad: Never have. No, I never have.

Myke:Okay. But at least it wasn't an everyday. Cause it like journaling, but not your main.

Brad: So Midori has filled that need. Okay. Life paper has filled that need. And right now the Misubi bank paper is currently filling that need. Right. Those are my all day, every day writing notebooks. Okay. No, it's never been Tomoe.

Myke:Well, I think it's cool. At least there's something that can give some of that experience because we're obviously losing the Tomoe of old. Yes. So at least it's cool that there's something that can step into the shoes that that type of paper left behind.

Brad: Yep. Just don't expect a one-to-one replacement. Yep. It's not that close of a match. Fair enough. It does. It does. Some of the great things that Tomoe did exceptionally well and similar, but there's some downsides to it. As there was with Tomoe. Yeah.

Brad: Oh, Myke. Oh, Brad. Oh, Myke. Mm-hmm. Is it happening?

Myke:I don't know. Maybe.

Brad: Is it, are we going to one day be able to walk into a store or go to a store's website and build our own sailor pro gear fountain pen?

Concept Store Discussion

Myke:Well, I mean, in theory, but it might just be one corner of one store.

Brad: And one set of pens, right? So what I'm referring to is Tokyo Inklings podcast, episode number 28. CY and Jacob visited a brand new store. And actually, this is kind of what I want to talk about almost more than the sailor pro gear, what this store means. And found, so the store is called Ankora in the Ginza region of Tokyo, which is kind of the high end shopping district or one of the high end shopping districts. The store is called Ankora. Do you know what Ankora means, Myke?

Myke:I do not.

Brad: It is Italian for anchor.

Myke:Okay.

Brad: So this store is a collaboration between plus and sailor, which I find it like collaborations, probably the wrong term because plus own sailor, but it's considered to be a working together type of store, at least the way CY and Jacob were describing it. Right? So it's carries a lot of sailor products, but it's staffed by plus employees. So that's a whole conversation. You really should listen to this episode. If you're interested in this topic at all, because honestly, I think the sailor pro gear was almost the least interesting thing that came out of this. And we're going to talk about this a little bit more, but the sailor pro gear, the build your own is what, you know, brings in the eyeballs. So if you go to their show notes and you look at the Instagram page, there's, I mean, excuse me, the show notes had linked to a page where they show like five barrel colors of pro gear that you can mix and match to build your own. Now, CY and I were talking about this before they recorded. And I was like, you know, those colors fall a little flat, you know, for me, but I get it. Right. It's like a brown barrel, a white barrel, a Navy barrel, a red barrel. And what's the fifth one? I'm not looking at the picture. Um, and then you can swap around the finial, the top, you know, the top anchor finial, the bottom finial, the barrel, and the cap.

Myke:It's blue, brown,

Brad: black, red, and white. Black. Okay. So black is what I missed. Some have gold trim. Some don't. I think one or two of them had rhodium plated trim.

Myke:The blue and black have rhodium, the brown, red, and white have gold.

Brad: So my issue with like seeing this number one, okay, cool. Yeah, this is great. But what out of this matches with anything else in this list? Right? Like that was my initial thought is like, I'm glad we can mix and match these pins, but none of them go together. Right? These colors do not work well for a wide variety of mix. Yes. You can get a cool white and Navy pin, which I actually, I think there's a, there's a build of a white Navy pin, Navy pin that actually looks pretty sharp. Right? That looks like the classic say that looks like something sailor would do. Yeah. To like really push.

Myke:It helps that the white is like a lesson too.

Brad: Yeah. But like, what else are you going to make out of this that you love? Maybe the red and black. I don't know. Like there's your, you've limited, you've made a custom offering where people are going to build like three different pin colors. Right. But at the same time, it exists. Like it's a thing. They're going to have someone there to help you pick your parts of a sailor pro gear, like a full size pro gear. This is not the slim. This is the regular.

Myke:And so this has come from sailor, right? Cause like when I, cause I haven't yet listened to the episode. It's in my queue. But when I first saw it, I wondered if someone had just gone rogue and just bought a bunch of parts.

Brad: So consider, so this is the more of what I want to talk about. This is essentially a company run store, like a Lamy boutique, right? This is essentially plus has come in now with sailor. And since they bought sailor, this is now the boutique type of store. And Cora is the plus boutique. And in this plus boutique, we're going to carry sailor because we own sailor. And we're going to carry all this other stationary that plus already sells. And we're going to do all these special high end stuff at this store, because this is, you know, like the high rent district. And, you know, you want to like really show like your best where it's, it's like a flagship type store, even though there's, it's the store right now is only singular. But what I compare it to in my head is, you know, how like Nike has flagship stores. Like in Chicago, you go to the Nike flagship store and it's big. It's got all the Nike stuff. But within that store, they have a place called Nike labs where they can do cool stuff because they're directly tied in with Nike. It's a Nike owned store. And they're going to do, let you do, they're going to show off their new experimental products in this one corner of the store. That's what I see happening here, right? They're going to have the draw in to the store. Like, um, CY and Jacob were saying that immediately when you walk in, you get to see the build your own realos, not realos station, the, um, profit. No, the profit, the, the low end, like the $50 pin. So that's front and center. When you walk in that gets the people in the door, but then you have this whole experimental section in the back. Say, Hey, look at these pro gears. These are like $400, but you know, you can pick your finial color. Like it's, it's interesting in how they've positioned this store as a plus store with a sailor focus. That's going to allow them to do experimental things like say, Hey, does custom do custom pro gears work as a business model? Right? So that's my thought on what this store is going to be.

Myke:It's like a concept store. Yeah. That's a great word. Right.

Brad: So they're going to have the standards,

Myke:right?

Brad: To get you in the door. And then they're going to have the concepts and the experimentals everywhere. For example, they have an ink bar there. And in Japan, an ink bar is literally a mixing station where they have, you know, a bartender who will, you will sit with and mix your inks. See why I had to make an appointment to go to the bar, right? That's how you access the bar, the ink bar. So like in a week, he'll have his appointment. Him and three people have an appointment at the ink bar to go and get inks made. And there's some pictures in the episode. There's literally like, Oh my God, this is a shaker. There's a, there's a shaker on the table, Myke, like an alcohol shake, you know?

Myke:Oh my God. I love it.

Brad: So like the idea that this is a concept store just really seems what it's going to be. And the most interesting thing was CY's conversation with the store manager. And like, you'll have to go listen to this episode. I implore y'all to go listen to this episode. If you're interested in Japanese stationery,

Myke:especially because we're just play drives in it so heavily, you really should go listen to it. So we'll feel better.

Brad: Yeah. And I'm not telling anything like I am. This is like the top level stuff. They really get into it. But his conversation with the store manager was like, well, if this goes well, then we can, we're already looking at, you know, worldwide. Like, can we do this worldwide? But the interesting thing, and the thing why you want to go listen to the show is CY asked or got the store manager to say, essentially, that how did they feel about the market as a whole?

Brad: And coming from a plus employee, they were alluding to the fact that they felt the market was flat, almost peaked, but they see a change in the market, right? From the traditional fountain pen, you know, things that drove the business in the past to this new modern style of individualism and personal stationary and journaling and this type of direction. So definitely go listen to this. I don't want to, I don't want to say too much more. I've said enough, but what I'm explaining about this conversation that CY and Jacob had about this Ankora shop, I got way more out of this conversation than just the building of Progears. I think that's almost like a secondary or tertiary topic in this. Like, that didn't excite me as much as just hearing the general idea of the store and what it could possibly hold for future, for the future of these two brands that we obviously love sailor and we want them to do well. And this will be interesting to watch. Yeah,

Myke:I really hope that this is a model that they can roll out to some big cities, you know, I think that would be super cool. Like how I went, we went to that Lamy boutique in San Francisco and they had all kinds of weird stuff. Remember, I got like the balloon pen thing and left added nibs and like, you could just go in there and just get things that were more unique, I guess. But this is like a whole other level and going in and mixing your own ink and building your own pen. Like it's, it's like a theme park for fountain pen nerds.

Brad: But this, yeah, totally struck me as like experimental concept type of store, which I would be all about making and seeing if this is successful. That's way more interesting to me overall than the specific of the custom sailor pro gears. It's just the idea of the store as a whole. So I thoroughly enjoyed that conversation. Thank you to CY and Jacob for, you know, making this show and giving us all the, the details that, you know, we certainly would be like, I didn't even know and core existed till they talked about this store and, you know, they were able to like physically go in there. So y'all definitely got to check them out. If you're, as you can tell, I'm highly interested in this stuff. So, uh, I am going to like, uh, talk about it as much as possible because it fascinates me on a lot of levels, a lot of levels. So kind of like the black wing volume two, two, three, Myke fascinates me on a lot of levels.

Myke:So this is wild. Like I hadn't seen this cause I don't follow the black wing stuff. I kind of just wait for you to show it to me. And I click the link in the show notes. And I was like, Oh, okay. It was very surprising to me.

Brad: I had almost the same reaction. So I clicked the link. Someone shared the link. I don't pay attention that much to it anymore until like after the fact with someone shows it to me and I see it, I clicked the link and I'm like, Whoa, but not necessarily like in a positive way, but more in a, like, did I click the right link type of way? This is so weird. Like what is happening on my screen? And then I actually took the five seconds to read what this is. I'm like, Oh, I get it. This is kind of cool. So I like what they did. This is basically the Woody Guthrie edition, um, based around his song. Uh, this land is your land. And you know, this is, this is the full on Americana thing, Myke, that I know you don't like if you're like ranking products, like those things don't really speak to you. This doesn't really speak to me either. Like I'm not like a Woody Guthrie fan or like, I couldn't sing that song off the top of my head right now, but I like what they did here. This is an outlier product for them for probably the person that I think a lot of Black Wings fans thought would get the very first pencil in the volumes edition because of the way that Black Wing is into music. The owners of Black Wing are into music, um, into, you know, the Americana thing and into like that. I think they were already doing some, like, I don't know if they were doing Woody Guthrie foundation stuff way back in the day, but like when they said they were going to do volumes, I think pretty much everyone thought, Oh, well, Black Wing volume one will be something Woody Guthrie and it's taking this long to get there. So I know a lot of people have been waiting for it. I think there's a lot of discussion around the design, right? It's a very, it's not abstract by definition, but compared to other Black Wing pencils, it is, uh, more of an abstract design, but it tells a story. It tells it well, I think it looks great. What else can I say? I thought they did pretty good. So I wanted to point this out, you know, like again, like the way I rank things is, will I buy the thing for me personally? No, I'm not going to buy this, but that doesn't mean it's not an awesome addition on its own. And I think this will do pretty well. This kind of fits the Black Wing aesthetic. They also did a composition book add on modeled after some of Woody Guthrie's original composition books. Like I would buy that if like, if it wasn't lined, you know, more than I'd buy the pencil, but I thought they did a good job. I really liked the design.

Myke:I like how you can line up the pencils in a certain way and see the full design. That's cute. I like that.

Brad: Yep. So, you know, I didn't have too much to say about that, but this one kind of caught me off guard. Yeah.

Myke:It caught me off guard. It doesn't look like what I would have expected. I think Black Wing have done a really good job of making things look really like polished and refined. And this one by design is a little bit more unfinished in like the paint strokes and stuff. So I think it's cute. I think it's very cute, but not for me.

Brad: They also, um, bonus points. They launched it on national pencil day, Myke.

Myke:Brad, if they didn't, it would be disappointing. Right. Like if they, if Black Wing launched their product like three days before or after, you know, it's like that stupid Volkswagen thing.

Brad: I found out about that yesterday and read the, the verge article where they basically rewrote the entire article. And I was like, Oh my God, I would be enraged.

Myke:It's so stupid. Like, Oh, it was in the spirit of April 4th. No, you just published it early. That's what you did.

Brad: Mistakes all around Myke, but no mistake on Black Wing volume two, two, three, um, winner in my book. I, I appreciate the design. I like it. So next up another, I didn't see that coming, Myke from our friend, Ian shown at shown design. Do you even know what Ultim is? Do you recall our previous discussions?

Myke:I don't remember this material. No.

Brad: So I have a pen from a company called Kasama and they make Ultim fountain pens. They were the first one that I was aware of to make these Ultim barrel fountain pens and Ultim. You can, you notice it by the color. It's like this translucent amber, almost orange color. And what it is, is it's like a high end plastic, right? Used in the medical field. And it's known for like, it's a strength and durability and heat resistant type of product. Right. And people started making fountain pen barrels out of this. And Ian is making his own Ultim fountain pen, which I say, I didn't see this coming because it's a full length pen.

Myke:I wouldn't have known this until I saw it written down because I saw it and there's no context of size in the image. So I just assumed it was a pocket pen because it's a shown design pen. So, you know, I was just like, oh, that's a nice pocket pen, but no, it's full size.

Brad: Yeah. So that's actually what caught me off guard was, Hey, not that Ian's using Ultim because Ian's an experimenter, right? He likes to like manage and manipulate and do kind of crazy things and see if they work. And that's why I'm always continually surprised by him. Like I didn't see that coming right with other pens. And this is more on the length of the pen, you know, first and then the material second, where the material, like some people aren't going to like the material for the color, but that's like the kind of the only color it comes in. But what it's going to allow, what it's allowed Ian to do is to make a really durable eyedropper focused, even though he like pictures them with a converter, you can see in the pictures, which we'll share in the show notes. He's got O-rings in different locations that you wouldn't normally see because he's going to, he's designed this to be an eyedropper pen without the use of silicone.

Myke:That's so cool. Like as a design element that took to think it through to that level, because you know, it's, it can be a little bit intimidating if you've not done that before. So I really liked that he's designed it in such a way.

Brad: Yeah. So like, this is a pen that like speaks to me. Like, I like this pen. I like this design. I like the ultimate material. I think the eyedropper aspect of it is interesting. The thing, the other benefit of Ultum is that it doesn't stain. Right. So he's been testing it with Noodler's Baystate blue in the barrel and leaving it for, he's up, he's his, his like four day experiment. Like it's just a short experiment so far. It cleaned out flawlessly. He's doing a two week, he's doing a two week stage right now. And other people that have used other fountain pens say they use like the most strong and severe inks and it's never left a mark from eyedropping their pen, which is a very interesting property of Ultum. So it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. So I love it. You know, this is one I would love to pick up at a pen show one day. You know, if we ever get back to those one of these years, uh, we will, which looks like maybe a topic for next week. Pen show schedules are ramping up for the summertime. So maybe we'll save that for next week. But yeah, I think this is going to do very well. Um, I'm mostly interested to ask Ian about the machining of Ultum. I don't have a good grasp on the difficulty of that yet. So my, my guess is that would be a challenge. So I will, I will, uh, asking about that. So anyway, I thought that was cool. I wanted to point it out because this is definitely an outlier product for Ian and I love it.

Myke:Um, and how is he releasing this? Is it just going to be like a available to buy product or is he doing? Yeah.

Brad: Yeah. No, no Kickstarter straight to the website. I forget if the number was 100 units or 200 units. I think it might be a hundred units at first and then we'll see how it goes and get some feedback. A hundred. And then continue.

Myke:You're on number six nibs. Uh,

Brad: yes. So the big nib.

Myke:Yep. And I think he said he's working on block number eight nib sections for some. Yeah. So he,

Brad: yeah. So he'll change the, the fittings on the front end to fit a different nib unit, uh, down the line. So yeah, there you go. All right. Last topic this week. What do we got, Myke?

Myke:We have some new inks from Applebaum, which look like they ship in a decanter.

Myke:This is very interesting. It is a collection of 14 inks. All, uh, new to Applebaum in the Applebaum ink collection. Uh, it is created quote in collaboration with a well-known ink manufacturer. So it's not stated who, uh, the 14 inks, the names of each ink, the beginning letters of each name, spell out the founder's name, just Applebaum. And there are 41 bottles of each ink. I'm assuming that the bottle in the image is the bottle that you get. The ink in, I guess. Right. I haven't, why is, I don't know why they would, uh, why they would ship them. We have, should I read the names? Jazzy yellow, organized orange, oily olive of a silver sheen, shiny silver of a rainbow shimmer. I don't know what that means, but it's interesting. Tempting taupe, taupe, is it taupe? T-A-U-P-E? Taupe, yes. Absolutely azure, pretentious purple of a green sheen, perplexing pink of a gold and silver shimmer, eclectic ebony, luscious lime, basic blue, AKA bic blue, ostentatious okra, gold of a red sheen, oblivious oak, majestic mauve.

Brad: Mm-hmm. Great names. Yeah, so let me ask you a couple questions. How many inks are in this?

Myke:Well, they said there's 14.

April Fool's Joke Analysis

Brad: Okay. And how many are going to be available on launch day? 41. And what day are they going to launch?

Brad: Dunno.

Brad: Is that on there? Four. Yeah, on, on Thursday, which is tomorrow. What day is tomorrow? April 1st.

Myke:Don't even. I won't accept this.

Brad: It's got to be a joke. I'm on full April Fool's joke.

Myke:I'll be really annoyed, Brad. I'm not going to lie.

Brad: I just am. The numerology, the launch date, the bottle design, Myke.

Myke:Yeah, one, four, four, one. Okay. This angers me.

Brad: Yoast being hilarious.

Myke:No. This isn't funny. I'll tell you why this annoys me.

Brad: I am so glad. I am so glad that I let you lead this because. Yeah, go ahead.

Myke:I thought it was legit because the reason it annoys me, Brad, is because do you know what the date is? When they, when they shared this, it was three days ago. It was like 28th or 29th of March, right? April Fool's is a one day thing. You don't get to spend a week hyping your April Fool's joke.

Brad: That's not how this works. I think it's fair to prep. I mean, just ask Volkswagen. I'm so glad you brought that up.

Myke:Cause the Volkswagen thing is so stupid. You don't get to do April Fool's jokes at the end of March.

Brad: It's not how it works. So listen, I am not an April Fool's guy. I generally don't do, I don't find enjoyment because brands generally execute these ideas very poorly, especially in modern times.

Myke:Brands ruined it. Repeated. April Fool's, like if you're playing like a little prank on a friend or family member, I think it's fine as long as it's harmless, right? Like that, that's, you know, it's like whatever, like, ha ha, April Fool's. And I don't know about you, but like here, or at least where I grew up, you couldn't do it afternoon.

Myke:Okay. I've never heard of that. And if you're playing an April Fool's joke on someone that day, you have to admit it past that point. I just, this is so stupid. And honestly, I get more annoyed when I see smaller companies doing this. It annoys me more.

Brad: The only reason I'm laughing is because I think they executed it well. I think they did a good job.

Myke:I would have agreed. Like, okay, because like we have done, RelayFM has done April Fool's jokes in the past, where we have pretended to be launching shows and that we just come up with these ridiculous, stupid artworks and stuff. But you know, when we post it on April 1st, right? This joke is great, but it should have been posted on April 1st, not on March 28th.

Brad: So are you saying this is an April Fool's joke? Are you, are you willing to go down? I'm going down saying this is. Oh, it definitely is.

Myke:Now it's been posted pointed out to me. It's the 14 and 41. That's the, that's the, that's the giveaway. That's the real giveaway.

Brad: Mm-hmm.

Myke:And I'm angry now about this.

Brad: I just want to congratulate Yost. This is what brands, when they do it well, this is what they want. They want people talking about it. Right. Yeah. It doesn't matter that you're mad. Yeah. But like, as long as they didn't hurt anybody.

Myke:Otherwise, just do this all the time. In June. This is fair lead up.

Brad: No, I think this is fair lead up. No, to know the law. How? I mean, how do you just, are you just going to drop this on and say, buy these inks today? I, I, I'm okay with the lead up like the brands, you know, the lead up a product. I mean, if he did this for a month and said, psych, we're not going to do this.

Myke:Post it on April 1st. Just say they're coming soon.

Brad: I think it's fair play.

Myke:No, I disagree with you.

Brad: Hmm. Well, maybe, maybe the Dutch April Fool rules are different than your British April Fool rules.

Myke:What? What? Did the Dutch have a different calendar?

Brad: I don't know. But maybe like you said before noon, but you had to do it before noon. Oh,

Myke:so the Dutch rule is we can do it anytime we want. Yeah. Five days prior.

Brad: Yeah. Five days prior, we can begin the setup. I look forward to drop the hammer.

Myke:Our Dutch listeners of which I know one. I know there is one. I know several. Uh, contacting me to let me know.

Myke:I hate this.

Brad: I am so glad that you didn't catch this beforehand. I wasn't going to tell you. You,

Myke:you are, uh, what is the phrase? Like you're in cahoots here. You are, I'm extending my anger now to you. Cause you, you, you prank me now. With this.

Brad: I want to give a shout out to Susan who writes for the pen addict. She's the first one in the comment section that I saw. It's like, you know, this launches on April fools, right? And like very few people are like read that comment. And like, I, I honestly, I think some people might be mad. Like, this might've worked too well.

Myke:I was hoping that the 2020 April fours amnesty was going to continue. This one is. Yeah.

Brad: I would be down. Yeah.

Myke:I'd be fine with that. And it has, it clearly hasn't. Cause all the brands can't wait. Oh, I can't wait.

Brad: Ah, April fools. I hate it. I'm over it. Good job. Yes. I'm proud of you. This was, this is well done.

Myke:Here's what I'll say. Good job in that you tricked me,

Brad: right? So you,

Myke:you did what you were hoping to do. So like,

Brad: so you're on the record that this is an April fools joke. That's what you don't think this is going to happen.

Myke:This is a hundred percent. April. It's either.

Brad: We did a, we did a poll. It was like 98% April fools.

Myke:It is either an April fools joke or a product that is a joke, but real, which I've also seen. You know what I mean? So like, here is our April fools, but you can actually buy it.

Brad: Yeah. Right. I could also see that, but I doubt it. Like a $200 bottle of ink.

Myke:Yeah. Or it's just like, you know, just for the bottle. We did this as a joke, but it is actually a thing you can come by. We're doing it as a one-off thing, but I am completely on the line. Now that this is an April fours. It isn't the date. It's got to be. You could not realize it is the 14 inks, 41 of each color.

Brad: Yeah. So I thought that was weird. I've launched things on April 1st and not worried about them being considered joke. Like I don't count that as like, I can't, I don't count April 1st as a day that I can't do things.

Myke:No. And also if you do actually have a product to release in April, release in April 1st is kind of good. Cause you do get that like, hang on, is this real? Which can, you know,

Brad: extra eyes, extra thought. Yeah.

Myke:But like, I originally thought that 41, like 14 and 41 was weird because like you were just bleeding money trying to make something like that. Right.

Brad: Right. Yeah. That's when I first started to think was the 40, the 41 bottles is what threw me. And then I looked at like the brand names, like who's going to call something oily olive? You know, like, like a fountain pen ink, like oily olive, like that makes sense. But like, I know, no, it's a great name. That's why I wanted to read them. Oh,

Myke:I'm so mad about this.

Brad: Like, what if Yost's name wasn't 14 letters long?

Myke:I don't know.

Brad: I love it. I, I am so happy to see what happens tomorrow. He's probably going to get some dirty emails. I'm not going to lie, but I think he did a good job. I love it. And I'm just not an April fool's person, but like, like I was all in until like, I started putting it together. I'm like, Oh no, this is not real. So we'll see. We need to get Yost on. I don't know. You might be, we might have a moratorium. I keep saying I'm going to have him on because I think it'd be a fun interview. I'm gonna have to let you cool down a little bit though. Yeah.

Myke:You're going to have to give me some space. You're going to have to hope I forget.

Brad: That's all right. I'm on, I'm on his side on this one. So let's wrap it up. Let's, let's bite our time until tomorrow, Myke, and then we'll check in. And then maybe Yost will have an Apple notes, Apple notes, tweet or Instagram, Instagram post of Apple notes saying, Hey, sorry about that. So there you go. That's what we're looking for now.

Myke:If you want to find the links for this week's episode, go to relay.fm slash pen addict slash four five five, or you can find them in your podcast app of choice. I would like to thank again, Kenro industries for their support of this show. You should go check out the new Otto hot design. Oh, four wave. Are they calling them? Oh, four or just four?

Brad: Like, that's a great question. I always call them with the O in front, but I don't know why.

Myke:But this is one of those things where you see it written down is, it can be different to the way that you would say it because when I see it written down, it's just four, right? But I'd say it. Oh, four.

Naming Conventions

Brad: Yeah. Cause I've had the O three and I've never called it anything, but the O three. I don't call it the three. We were calling it O three. It doesn't mean it's correct. It doesn't mean it's correct.

Myke:And they didn't tell me to say it in a specific way. So, but you can go check that out at pen chalet. I like that. We got pen chalet and on the episode again.

Brad: Nice.

Myke:The best. Uh, you can find Brad online in a few different places. You go to pen addict.com spoke design. Why do I, I trip on that one.

Brad: Cause you want to call it spoke pen. I do, but it's started as a pencil company. So it's just spoke design.

Myke:Do you have that domain though? Spoke pen.com. That's a good question. You should, if you spoke pen and spoke pens, I'm doing that thing again where I tell you to buy domains. So, uh, do you, have you got anything going on over at spoke? I kind of see you've been releasing little special batches here and there, which has been cool.

Brad: Yeah. We've been catching up on some of the roadie builds, um, some of the pencil builds, and then we should have some nibs rolling in here very shortly to get, uh, caught up on the icon and axle order. So it's great.

Myke:Can confirm that both that, that spoke pen goes to spoke design.com spoke pens. Uh, I don't know if you have that. It just goes to nowhere for me. So good luck trying to register that, uh, within the next little one. Thank you. Uh, twitch.tv slash pen addict on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 a.m. Eastern. You can find Brad always unboxing and showing off great stuff. I like popping in, hanging out for a bit. It's always fun time. Uh, you can find Brad on Instagram. He is pen addict and dowdyism on Twitter. I am. I'm like, I M Y K E go buy yourself a theme system journal, go to, uh, cortex, merge.com. You can pick one of those up. So at the mid stock, they're selling very well. Thank you so much. We have a new product, which should be shipping by the end of this week, which I think, uh, will excite many pen addict listeners. I'm excited about that. I have more on that soon. Um, and we'll be back next time until then say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.