The Pen Addict 372/transcript
| The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript | |
|---|---|
| Episode: | 372 |
| Title: | We Used To Budget |
| Release Date: | August 14th, 2019 |
| Hosts: | Brad Dowdy |
| Guests: | Adina Hurley |
| Additional Information | |
| Official page: | Episode 372 |
| Audio File: | Audio Episode 372 |
| Podcast page: | The Pen Addict 372 |
| Length: | 8080 min <br />1.333 h <br /> minutes |
| Previous Transcript | Next Transcript |
Speaker 02: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 372. Today's show is brought to you by ExpressVPN, Pen Chalet, and Harry's. My name is Myke Hurley. I am joined by Brad Dowdy.
Brad Dowdy: Hello, Myke Hurley. How are you?
Speaker 02: I'm very well, Brad Dowdy. I'm very well, indeed.
Brad Dowdy: Are you alone in your room right now?
Guest Introduction
Speaker 02: So, why have you got to be such a creepster? I have my wife, Edina, with me today. Welcome to The Pen Addict, Edina.
Edina: Thank you. First time here. First time caller.
Speaker 02: Hey, Edina.
Edina: Hi.
Speaker 02: So, Edina's going to be coming with us to the San Francisco Pen Show. She's going to be attending her first real pen show, because London does not count. So, we thought as a way to kind of do a primer for San Francisco, because San Francisco Pen Show is next weekend. So, our next episode is going to be recorded live from the San Francisco Pen Show. We'll have some details about that a little later on in the episode. But we thought that it would be fun to bring Edina on, and we can answer her pen show questions, of which, looking at her notebook, she has many.
Brad Dowdy: I love it. I'm so excited to have Edina, not just on the show, but to see her again next week. It's been, I don't know, a year since I've gotten to be in her presence. And she's always just fun to hang out with and chat with. So, I am so excited you're here, Edina.
Edina: Thank you. I feel very welcome.
Brad Dowdy: We've got some news, though, right? Yeah, we've got some news, and I'm going to be getting into asking Edina about some of the things she uses before we even get to the San Francisco Pen Show stuff. So, we can kind of lay the groundwork here for that. But, yeah, the first thing, Myke, I want to get an Ask TPA done out of the gate, if you will let me, because I did a review of the Midori MD Lite notebooks last week, which is a super popular notebook, right? The Midori MD is just one of the top notebooks that people can buy. And it started coming up probably a couple weeks before I did my review of it, that Midori, the question was posed in the general sense, is Midori changing to an F-size notebook? So, here's the question from Warehouse 40. I heard Midori is switching to F-size notebooks. Could you explain those sizes? Are they no longer producing A-size notebooks? So, that's a stretch. Some of their notebook lineup is going to what's called an F-size, and we're going to get into that in a minute. F-size. But, as you can imagine, Myke, I have things to say about this.
Speaker 02: I don't even know what F-size is.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, you and the rest of the world. So, just to give the big picture, Midori MD does so many sizes you can't keep up with. And then, within those styles and sizes, they also do different paper types, specifically their standard paper, and then they have what's called a cotton paper. Okay? So, their standard lineup has all kinds of A-sizes, all kinds of B-sizes that fit in those international standards. And it's just, like, you look at the product offerings, and, like, the number of SKUs is just kind of crazy. And then, the cotton paper is something, like, a bunch of fountain pen lovers have really latched onto in our community. Like, it's a really quality, fun, cool paper to use. Because that's the lineup that is changing to the F-size. And they were formerly made in the A-size. Now, they're going to the F-size. So, your question is, what is the F-size?
Brad Dowdy: This frustrates me so much. Adina, I am a very well-known... I have a stance where I believe in standards, right? Paper, international paper sizes, A's, B's, C's. And I enjoy those standards. And I enjoy companies who live within those standards.
Speaker 02: Although, nobody really actually does.
Brad Dowdy: Right, right.
Speaker 02: So, this is the thing. We went on this kind of quest a while ago. There is... Even though there are standards... Yeah. No company makes them. But they say, like... Even me, right? Like, I've made, like, an A5 notebook. It's, like, kind of A5. It's, like, there's always, like, a little bit off. That nobody actually fits to those sizes.
Edina: I guess people always think, like, oh, what would fit between my keyboard and me? What would fit in my pocket? They don't think about standards.
Speaker 02: Like, what was it? Even if somebody says they have an A5 notebook, there's always some variance.
Notebook Size Discussion Shift
Edina: Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 02: But you standardize around a general size, which is what these companies do.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And what gets me so bent out of shape, Adina, is that I actually make products for the notebooks to fit in.
Edina: Oh, I see you right now.
Brad Dowdy: So, I have a little special place in the seventh circle for those who just don't do it right. And so, yeah. I linked Midori's MD Cotton page for those two who are interested to read on. And based on what they say, the sizes of MD notebook cotton have been optimized for drawing with the range now featuring FO size, F2 size, and an F3 variant. Incidentally, and this is all coming from Midori, the F stands for figure. This French standard is based on the golden ratio for portraits and other pictures. I think they're making this up completely.
Speaker 02: That does sound like a really convenient lie.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, it sounds like, okay, we're going to kind of direct the traffic to, this is our stance of what the F size is. I think that's made up. Because when you go look at paper standards, which I look at too much, you can get A, B, and C sizes pretty regularly from any paper vendor, right? Like any paper source is going to list like these international standards. Yeah. And none of them list F. But if you go to the Wikipedia page, which you know is true, Myke, you go to the Wikipedia page, they have all kinds of sizes outside of A, B, and C. They even have F0 through F10 sized. But they call that, there's a chart on there for the dimensions of F0 through F10. The header of that chart calls it a hypothetical. I've never heard this word before. But I'm guessing it has to do with hypothetical or pretend, not official sizes.
Speaker 02: It doesn't actually exist? Like, I don't understand. Right.
Brad Dowdy: So this whole thing, I... That word doesn't exist. Hypothetic is not a word. Yeah. Huh. So I have more fun with this type of stuff than I should. It's really not that big of a deal. It's just more of a fun annoyance. But the problem is, I get the emails and tweets saying, Midori's switching to F. I'm like, what are you talking about? And then, you know, people are thinking it's the entirety of the Midori lineup. In the end, it's just the MD Cotton lineup. And what this is, they're more of a square notebook, really, for drawing. They're not quite square, but they're less rectangular and more square, if you'll just think of a general shape. But it's just, you know, Midori has so many products. And that's something I didn't even cover in my review. And I meant to, it was like in my notes to cover that. It's really hard to decide. And they're making it harder with this. But I don't know. It's just one of those little hills that I'll die on unfairly. With paper standards and other standards like that. But just to answer the general question, just the Midori Cotton Notebook, which before I think was only offered in three sizes. But even that, I could be wrong. You could pull up a page and probably find 15 sizes all of a sudden on it. It's switching to F. The standard notebooks, like I reviewed the other day, those are staying in the A and B ranges. So hopefully that's it for now. But I just had to talk about this because it's just right up my alley, Myke, just to complain about.
Speaker 02: Relay FM membership. We did it. We did the thing. We built Lego. It took four and a half hours to build the San Francisco architectural Lego set. But this episode is now available for Relay FM members. There is a link at the very top of the show notes which says to click here to become a Relay FM member and support this show. You should do that. And you will get a bunch of amazing perks, monthly bonuses. There's a monthly host crossover show called Fusion, which is wonderful. There's a monthly behind-the-scenes newsletter. But you also get all of the Relay FM bonus specials. And this year's Pan Addict special is four and a half hours long. So you're definitely going to get your money's worth. If you would like to hear four and a half hours of me saying two by four flat piece, dark green to Brad, then we've got it for you. This one did not feature as many explosive moments as the previous one. But there is a general sense of frustration throughout about three hours of it. It was actually, we had a lot of fun building it together. It was not easy. This was a much more complex set than the London set was, I think. So yeah, please go and check it out. And if you decide to, which I think people should, I think it's fun, buy the set and try and build it along with my instructions themselves. Washing machines, pipe hole pieces, all that. The best thing about building Lego with Brad for four and a half hours is by the end of it, we have developed a new way of communicating, like just a brand new language. It's wonderful.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we'll put a hypothetical wiki page up with our new terminology.
Speaker 02: I think we could. We could standardize on this. So you click the link in the show notes or go to relay.fm slash penaddict or relay.fm slash membership. There's many ways to find out more and to sign up and become a Relay FM member. And you will get this along with all of the many other bonuses that we offer. Thank you so much to everyone that has signed up. Please keep signing up.
Brad Dowdy: So I have to ask Adina if, Adina, were you home when Myke finished this recording by chance last week?
Edina: Yeah. Yeah, I think I was.
Brad Dowdy: Did you want to be around him when he was done?
Edina: I think I had no.
Speaker 02: I only had like half an hour until I had to go do another show.
Edina: Yeah, so I didn't see much of Myke, but yeah. That day was a blowout. That was good. He seemed stressed. Yes, I was.
Edina: For various reasons.
Pen Feedback Discussion
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I lost many hours that day. Yeah, I'm glad Mary Beth wasn't home when I was done because I finished and I just like, I just had to like sit down and not talk to anyone and just like kind of recuperate and like recalibrate everything. And that night, Myke, I couldn't go to sleep because my shoulder and neck were like sore because I had hunched over in like a different position than I normally podcast in, right? You had a Lego injury. So I'm hunched over. Yeah, so that's like a real thing. It's like a Lego injury. Oh, yeah. It's like, you know.
Speaker 02: That's why I never build sets in full now because they hurt me.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. The feedback has been awesome. It continues to boggle my mind, the feedback we get on this episode. So thank you all for those who supported the Relay FM membership and have listened to this episode and reached out to us and have gone down the path of actually buying this set and are going to build it based on Myke's instructions. We've already seen that. We haven't seen any results yet, but we have people that are starting to work on them now. So I'm sure we'll see those soon, but just fantastic. I love it. It was worth every minute of it.
Speaker 02: Talking about something you love, a new Blackwing.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Speaking of worth every minute of it, I'll never forget when Blackwing decided to do this. I guess we're three years into it now. They did like this little montage video, like when they launched the Blackwing volume subscription and number 42 came up in it. And number 42 is very important to me, being the baseball fan that I am, and being hopefully the good citizen that I am, that it represents Jackie Robinson, who broke the race color barrier in baseball. It's like one of the biggest numbers, most important numbers in my life. I love Jackie Robinson. I love his story. When I do the Pen Addict members with the refill newsletter, every quarter I donate to a charity. I've donated to the Jackie Robinson Foundation several times over the years. It's just one of my favorite things, favorite charities to support. And so finally, we got the Jackie Robinson edition. And I was excited to finally see this come into existence. I've been waiting for this for a long time. I had to wait through the Yankees edition, the Joe DiMaggio edition, which actually I was a little bit concerned. I may not ever get my 42 edition, but it's here and it's awesome. Um, it's really simple for Blackwing and their design, which I kind of like for this edition. It's a white barrel. It has Dodger blue print. It has like a Dodger blue eraser and then a red 42, which makes the number really stand out, which that's their whole thing with these volumes editions, right? They're about numbers. And there's rarely a more important number in my life just on a day-to-day basis than 42. So I love it. The, you know, the only knock on it from a personal perspective is the core, is the balanced core, which is the pearl core, which is not my favorite. I like firm or extra firm, but hey, it's, I got my 42 pencil. I'll use it. It looks cool. I am, I'm all about it. So love it.
Speaker 02: 42 is a point to a lot of people, right?
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And 42, it means a lot of things to a lot of different people.
Speaker 02: The answer to life, the universe and everything, isn't it?
Brad Dowdy: Life, it's life, the universe and everything. It's also a prime number, which is very popular when people pick out their things, like retro 51 numbers. So 42 has a lot of different meanings. So a lot of different people and mine is definitely a baseball. And, you know, it's just cool. It was a, this was an about time edition. We knew it was coming. It had to come and they did a good job with it. So that's what I'm mostly happy, happy with. That said, Myke, before this even edition was announced, like we talked about kind of like subscription overload. I went in and like, and canceled my subscription, like to not renew. Like, I think I have two more. I have this one and two more to, oh, sorry. 42 is not a prime number. That was about to correct you. Yeah. The chat room is really upset right now. Sorry. I messed that up. I don't know what I was thinking. That's really bad. But yeah, so sorry, chat room. I upset at you and I upset at the whole internet. So I'll get more email about this.
Speaker 02: This is going to be a problem for you later on.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it will be. That's fine. I can deal with it. This is not my first problem.
Brad Dowdy: So yeah, my subscription, I've stopped it. I'm going to stop my field note subscription. It's just a lot. It's like, it's a lot of pencils. So, you know, it's cool. I'll keep finding them if I find them. Oh, I'm good. This one and like two more. Like, you know, it was already paid for. Like, you know, one or two editions ago. Right. So you pay like annually. So just when the annual thing is just not going to renew. So I'm cool with that. I'll just pick up the editions that I like. Like the 42, not a prime number edition.
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London Stationery Store Visit
Speaker 02: All right, I've got a story for you. All right, I'm ready. So, some weeks ago, Idina found a store in London, randomly, called Choosing Keeping. And she poked around it and was like really impressed with it, right? You liked it when you went there.
Edina: Oh, I loved it. I wanted to buy everything and I was worried a bit that I didn't understand what everything is for, so I wanted to get you in there.
Speaker 02: So, we were in London. I was buying a fancy suit for our big live show that we're doing in San Francisco and I wanted to go and take a look at Choosing Keeping. So, the store, it's in London. They recently moved into a larger, into a larger space. But, I was kind of poking around and very, I was very surprised at, pleasantly surprised at the products that they were carrying. So, I'm walking down this kind of line and I'm seeing, oh, okay, they have life notebooks. That's an interesting thing to see, right? Like, they're not everywhere. So, I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool. Oh, how cool. And I'm like, hang on a minute. Then they have Tomoe River paper notebooks and Midori notebooks. And I'm like, what is going on in this store? Right? Like, they have everything. And I was like, I was genuinely like, really surprised about it because the collection, even just of paper that they had, I feel like I have not seen in many shops, let alone a shop in London. Right? Like, it felt like this is a, this was a surprise to me because you typically don't see, oh, they also had Nemesine. Nemesine? Yeah. Yeah, they had Nemesine notebooks. They have all the stuff on their website, right? So you could see the brands that they carry. But I was like, I was super surprised by it because you just tend not to see this stuff very much. Then I turned around and saw their fountain pen cabinet and they had pilots, they had sailors, they had platinum pens. I was like, wow, this is, this is kind of wild. So I'm like, we were poking around in the store a little bit more and they had a bunch of like, really interesting knickknacks, like these beautiful brass tape dispensers, which I was like, kind of obsessed by, but it was 225 pounds. So like, I like it, but not that much. And so, yeah, we're like, we're poking around in the store. They had all these great inks. Like, again, it's like, they had like really great ink. I'm like, who, how is this happening? Right? Like, why is this little store, like, why does it have all of these, like it had some sailor inks in it. Um, I can't, and there were some other brands that I don't remember the name of, off the top of my head, but they were like Japanese brands that I've heard you mention before. Right? So I was like, I started talking to someone, one of the people in the store, because they could see that I was more interested and intrigued than the average person. Like they also, like they had like a really great, uh, Kaweco, um, ex, a kind of exhibit, I would call it. They had like every Kaweco pen you could ask for. They had a bunch of Lamy pens. They had all of the special editions and stuff like that. But they, even though they had those, they were not like put at the front, like a lot of pen stores would. Right? Like they were putting their Japanese pens at the front and then their German pens kind of towards the back. Um, as it should be,
Brad Dowdy: any good store.
Speaker 02: Exactly. I didn't want to say that, but that's 100% true. So I was like looking and I was like saying like, oh, so what is like, what is your, like, what kind of like, what is this all about? Like I was saying, you have like a very, very good stock of paper, especially, right? Like every brand that I would want to see represented from Japan is here. Even the same with pens, right? They didn't have a huge collection, but they had a few really interesting models of a, you know, of a bunch of like the best. And the woman was saying to me that basically their idea is they don't want to stock everything. They just want to stock the best of what they do. And I was like, well, you did it. Congratulations. Right? Like you, you 100% nailed it. Now there's part of the story that I missed out so far, which was when I was looking in the display case at the Platinums and I came across a pen that I've never seen before. The Platinum 3776 Arushi Raden Galaxy.
Brad Dowdy: Arushi Raden Galaxy.
Speaker 02: I'd have to look at it. I'd never seen this pen before, but I took one look at it and fell in love with it.
Brad Dowdy: All right. So I'm going to need a link to this.
Speaker 02: So I put it in the chat room. Okay. So you can take a look. It is stunning. It is an Arushi 3776 with Avalone Shell gold furniture. It was unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. And the price that they told me was in line with the price that I would get from someone like the Nibsmith, right? Which I was also really surprised about. They did. They were not charging MSRP. Interesting. At all. Like it was a very, very good price. It was a price so good that I kind of felt like maybe they didn't know what they had on hand. You know, it was basically in line of what I would pay from someone like Dan Smith if translated into pounds. It was about, I think about 650 pounds, which I was really very pleased with for a pen that I immediately fell in love with. Like I picked it up, took a look at it.
Speaker 02: Basically, I bought it, right? Is what I'm saying. Right?
Speaker 02: Adina's sitting right there, Myke. Yes. I have it in my hand right now. The funny thing is this is one week away from a pen show. Right?
Edina: He did the whole dance. Oh, I'll take another look around the store and then decide. He was telling that to the, yeah, it was bought in his heart already.
Speaker 02: Yeah, exactly. I immediately fell in love with it. Um, I'm being asked in the chat room what nib. Now, this is where the story continues. Oh boy, this is a story time. I love it. So, I was given a medium, they had a medium basically. And I was like, all right, I have a broad already in my 3776 nicely last. so I was like, great, I'll get a medium nib. So, get it home, open it up. I'm always like, frustrated at Platinum's boxes. I feel like they really kind of don't do a good job there compared to some other brands. Very like, boring. Um, but I, there is like a whole other question which I'm not sure about. It's like, I don't even know what to put, ink to put in a pen like this because there's so many colors going on, right? Like what, what ink do you put in a, uh, Raden pen? Right. I feel like I would want to put a shimmer ink in it but I'm too scared to put a shimmer ink in this Arushi pen that I just purchased. I think of this as my three quarters Nakaya by the way. Okay. That's where I am with this pen. It's like three quarters of the way in like quality and price I think to a Nakaya. So I fill it and I'm playing it around and I'm scribbling with it and the nib broke.
Brad Dowdy: Wait, you need to explain that further. I know, I'm going to. Okay.
Speaker 02: Um, the, uh, okay, so I need, I need the, the terminology from you a little bit because I struggle with it. The very tip of the nib, right? Okay, yeah. So on the tines of the nib, what is it called? That ball right at the very top, right? The tipping. The tipping. One half of the tipping just snapped off.
Brad Dowdy: Oh,
Speaker 02: wow. I am. I have literally never had this happen before. I cannot understand why it happened, but it did.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's very strange. Yes. That's, that's a flaw. Clearly, not something you did. Something, something happened to that pen
Speaker 02: at some point. Yeah. Right. I don't know if it got dropped, right? Like, I don't know what happened to it, but something happened to it. Um, so I was upset. Just a little bit. I was upset. Uh, I ended up, uh, just taking the nib from my nicely last and putting it on this. Um, so I now have a slightly rose gold nib on a pen with gold furniture, but let's pretend that that didn't happen. Uh, it's difficult to see just because I couldn't not use this pen, right? So I ended up sacrificing a nib for a nib. I found out subsequently that it is impossible to buy platinum nibs. Like, you cannot do it. You have to buy a platinum pen and then take the nib, right? They don't sell them. Um, so, uh, Edina, this is where you take over because you took over the story from here.
Edina: Oh, I got upset for you because you loved it so much. It's so gorgeous and basically you couldn't use it. I don't think it's right that you have to take the nib from a different pen. So I got angry for you and as I usually do, I contacted the manufacturer, um, at least their UK contact. Uh, I don't have any more updates on that apart from the fact that they are, the guy who's in charge of this is currently on holiday and he should get back to me on Thursday, hopefully, because he'll be back in the office then. But I really want to get it sorted out for you.
Speaker 02: So that's kind of where we are, right? Like, my feeling is taking it to the store is kind of pointless and taking it back to the store because they're probably only going to do what, what Idina has done which is to contact the distributor.
Edina: Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, unless the distributor is not going to go through with you directly and will take it back through the store
Speaker 02: then you have to jump through that. We'll find that out once they reply. But that, the, the, the warranty information I think had this.
Edina: It sent me to their manufacturer website and for their, to the distributor. It doesn't tell me to go for the retailer. So, we'll see. Gotcha, I'm confident
Speaker 02: that we will get a resolution to this. But it was just like this whole funny, this, I think it's a funny story really.
Pen Issue Described
Edina: Oh,
Speaker 02: but I'm not finding
Brad Dowdy: the humor.
Edina: But I don't know how you worked it out because you called me in to say that something's not right.
Speaker 02: I immediately knew.
Edina: Because something's not right with this and when I was in here I could hear a piece of metal dropping onto the paper and then we tried to find it. this,
Speaker 02: this piece of tipping is in my office somewhere.
Edina: But we couldn't find it.
Speaker 02: Oh. I felt it happen, right? Like, I felt like, so the piece is lost. That's, that's like a whole other problem. I don't know if that makes it more of a problem or whatever but the piece is lost. So, it was heartbreaking. It broke off somewhere.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so you need to get this taken care of primarily because this is a unique nib design for this model of pen, right? It's got extra like scroll work on the nib. It's not the same nib etching as your, that's the normal platinum nib so swapping out like a different gold nib into this is not going to give it the same, you know, effect. Yeah, so we, we will be expecting follow up. This is gonna be, I'm sure. This is gonna be a thing.
Speaker 02: A long standing story.
Brad Dowdy: But I'm upset for you. Exactly.
Speaker 02: I am trying to, or the other thing is that it's an 18 carat nib and I don't have an 18 carat nib now, right? Like it's, you know, it's not only that, it's also like a more expensive nib anyway, right? So, I don't know what the resolution to this is gonna be. I know what I want it to be. But I am trying to just like not worry about it for now. Like, cause I'm, I love the broad nib that was in my, nicely less. It's one of my favorite pens. So, giving it a home upgrade for a little bit is not the worst thing that's happened to me. But, I do expect, basically, I will be really annoyed if we do not come to some kind of resolution. Like where we are right now is like, okay, we're just gonna wait and see how the distributor is gonna fix this, not if, right? And then, then I'll start to get different types of feelings. But where I am right now is like, all right, this is where we are, right? Like the pen, the original nib is broken. I can still use the pen. So, we'll see.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, you weigh under sold the show notes. It just says, Myke has a story. And like, I'm about to like, come through the computer at them if they don't fix this. Like, I'm super upset for you. I'm on Adina's team on this one. Like, I'm starting to call people like, we're getting this fixed. Right, Adina?
Edina: Yep, yep. I love doing this sort of stuff. I don't know. It feels like I'm 70 in my heart, but I love complaining to companies and getting what's mine.
Speaker 02: Yeah, if anybody is going to fix it, she'll fix it. it's like,
Brad Dowdy: you know. And this is a, this is a technical flaw in the manufacture of that nib. So, hopefully, it'll be pretty straightforward, but you never know, right? You just, you just never know what you're going to get.
Edina: Yeah.
Speaker 02: Wow. So, yeah, that is where I am. I'm going to be bringing the pen with me so you can see it in its current state. Yeah, I need a drink. It is. Golly, that stressed me out. It's so beautiful, though. I love it so much.
Brad Dowdy: I don't think I've actually, I don't think I've seen that model in person, so yes, I would like to see it.
Speaker 02: This is it, right? I saw it and I was like, I have no idea this pen even existed. Like, and I feel like it's a pen that I should have known existed. Because it's so up my street. This, for me, like, genuinely, this excites me more than a lot of Nakayas that I've seen, which it should for the price. I mean, it's effectively the same in some instances, but, and like, you know, a lot of the technique is here, right? Like, it's an Arushi pen and it's got this beautiful, like, signature on it as well, which I love. And, yeah, I'm into it big time.
Topic Shift - Upcoming Event
Brad Dowdy: Cool, cool. Well, you buried the lead a little bit in that story, which we're going to get to in just a second, which you don't know about, but let's talk about how good I'm going to look next week.
Speaker 02: Okay, there's something happening. There's always, there's always a thing happening. We just keep surprising each other. Today's show is also brought to you by Harry's. Did you know that the average person can spend 3,000 hours of their life shaving? That's a lot of hours. Don't waste four total months of your own lifetime overpaying and using poor performing razors. Get Harry's blades. They are razors that are so sharp you can shave less often and you're going to save money as well. Harry's was founded by two guys that were tired of paying for overpriced gimmicks. Vibrating heads, flexible balls, handles that look like props from sci-fi movies. These are some of the weird and peculiar tactics that leading brands have used to overcharge people for years. Harry's makes quality durable blades at a fair price. Just $2 per blade. To keep prices low, they cut out the middle person and bought their own factory in Germany that makes some of the best razor blades in the world for like 100 years nearly. And now they can provide these great quality blades at factory direct prices. Harry's offers a 100% quality guarantee. If you don't love your shave, let them know and they will give you a full refund. Brad, tell me something.
Brad Dowdy: I'm going to pack all the Harry's things for next week, Myke. And guess what Harry's has now?
Speaker 02: What do they have now?
Brad Dowdy: Because I went to go order blades because the household I currently live in with the two other women who steal all my blades, I had to order blades, right? So I had to order blades and shave gel and, you know, restock all this stuff. They have the hair paste, Myke. You know, the little dab stuff that I put in my hair to make me look awesome. Oh! I ordered it from them. They have it now. I haven't tried it yet. I just got it in yesterday. Oh, so they're doing like hair products now too. Yeah, doing hair products now. So it's pretty awesome. So we'll see how that goes. We'll try that out for next week. I'll be fully, fully, you know, Harry's up for our event.
Speaker 02: I'm sure you will. I'm sure you will. I don't doubt that by any stretch of the imagination. As a listener of this show, you can get a free trial set that comes with everything you're going to need for a close and comfortable shave. Like weighted ergonomic handles for an easy grip, a five-blade razor with a lubricating strip and trimmer blade for a close shave, rich leathering shave gel to leave you smelling great, and a travel blade color to keep your razor dry and easy on the go. To redeem your trial set, just go to harrys.com slash penaddict. That's H-A-R-R-Y-S harrys.com slash penaddict to redeem your offer and help support this show. Our thanks to Harry's for the continued support of the penaddict. I'm Relay FM.
Brad Dowdy: So let me tell everyone, all our listeners, what you snuck in on me, that it really has me freaked out. All right. You went to buy a fancy suit. Oh.
Speaker 02: Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Like, I'm not wearing a fancy suit.
Speaker 02: No, I'm wearing it for the big show, not our show. Our show's cash.
Brad Dowdy: Trust me. I know. I know. Oh, but you're going to be a part of the big show. You don't have to wear a big suit. I'm going to be part of the big show. Yeah. Yeah. Like, what do I need to think about what I'm going to wear? I usually go in, you know, just regular Brad casual. Bradual.
Speaker 02: But you're always more fancy than the average person anyway.
Brad Dowdy: You wear button downs all the time. You're going to be fine.
Speaker 02: But look, it's a big day for me.
Brad Dowdy: Cash. I know, right? But now you have me stressing out even more. I was like, oh my God, there's only a few shopping days left. Do I need to go buy a fancy suit? You can if you want to,
Speaker 02: but I'm not going to force you.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's not going to happen.
Speaker 02: San Francisco Penn Show time.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, let's go. I'm ready. Almost. All right.
Speaker 02: So, we're going to be at the San Francisco Penn Show all of next weekend. Show opens Friday?
Brad Dowdy: Show opens Friday. Friday through Sunday. Friday through Sunday. In Redwood City. Sofitel Hotel, I believe is the name of it.
Speaker 02: Looks like a nice hotel. I'm intrigued about that. It's a cool hotel.
Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Newly renovated from like two years ago. So, yeah, it's all up to date. Very nice.
Speaker 02: Is there any preamble that you want to give before Adina dives into her questions?
Brad Dowdy: I don't think so. It's been two. I've missed the last two San Francisco Penn shows. So, it's been almost, I guess, three years since I've been. So, you haven't seen the new hotel then? No, it was under renovation the last time I attended. So, it'll be a little bit new for me. But, you know, same general size scope. I love the show hotel. The ballrooms are big and spacious. They have extra overflow rooms. And it's a good layout for a show.
Speaker 02: And the Hotel Pullman. Pullman.
Brad Dowdy: Pullman. Sorry. I think, yeah, I get the, I think they had a name change or I'm getting it confused with something else. Is it a prime number? I can't remember.
Brad Dowdy: I'm trying to beat that down now so I don't have to live through it later. Yeah. You gotta own it. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a, it's a cool hotel. It's in a business-y kind of location. Uh-huh. Yeah. But there is food and stuff around. Lovely. You know, like, you know, there's, you know, more corporate-y San Jose than, you know, San Francisco style. But it's a good location. The show promoters that put it on are fantastic. They've worked with us wonderfully to get our little event into the schedule and are hooking us up with rooms and space and chairs and all of that stuff. So we're pretty excited. I am.
Show Details
Speaker 02: Yeah. So the live show is going to be Friday at 9 p.m. So we're going to be a late night show Friday at 9 p.m. If you want to come by, please come and see us on Friday at the Penn Show and grab a ticket. It's just so we can make sure that we're keeping an eye on how many people we're going to have and make sure we can have enough chairs and stuff. So if you're going to be at the live show, you want to come and see us on Friday at 9 p.m. at the San Francisco Penn Show, then please do come by and grab a ticket at some point during the day.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So just a clarification on that. These tickets are free. Like, it's no relation to the Relay FM show the night before that's in downtown San Francisco. I know a lot of people are still confused on that. Hey, can I get a ticket or can you hold me a ticket? How much are tickets? It's really a non-ticketed event, right? You just come to the show, show up at 9 o'clock Friday, grab a seat. But we do it for two reasons. One, we kind of want to have a headcount idea, right? In case all of a sudden we're running really big for the room. And two, we do giveaways during the show so these little tickets will be your little door price thing. So if you're coming to the show and you're there, you're going to get into the show. Like, in case, unless there's some fire hazard issue we run into. But the space is pretty large from what I remember. And I've seen the floor plan and we'll put a lot of chairs, we'll have standing room only, things like that. So, you know, don't worry about am I going to get a ticket for the show? If you're there, we're going to get you in. We'll do our best. So, you know, don't worry about those things too much.
Speaker 02: All right, Adina, give us new questions.
First Pen Show Experience
Edina: Woo-hoo! Okay.
Brad Dowdy: First real pen show, right? You've been to the London pen show. Yeah. But this is the first kind of big, big one.
Speaker 02: This is the first pen show that we would class a pen show. Like, the London show. I mean, I'm not trying to be mean, but like, the London show doesn't have any of the brands.
Edina: It's very vintage pen focused.
Speaker 02: Gotcha.
Edina: So I didn't get the full experience. I think we went there twice. And, but I keep seeing the photos from the other pen shows you guys go to. And I'm very excited about that because it looks like there's a whole lot more to do. There's more modern brands. There's more, I guess, like indie pen makers, inks, paper. So I'm very excited about all of that. But, well, I'm also a bit worried about buying too much because I've never been in this sort of setting either. But I'm excited.
Speaker 02: You're going to buy too much. Everybody does.
Edina: Everybody does. Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's a pretty safe bet that at the San Francisco pen show are where budgets go awry. Between Washington, D.C. and San Francisco because you get such a huge list of kind of what you mentioned. You get a lot more independent makers and you get a lot of vendors who travel from the Far East to attend that you won't, you know, you're not going to get in London and I'm not going to get like on D.C. on the East Coast. Right. It's just a longer trip a lot of times. So, it's hard to make a budget for San Francisco because there's just so much cool stuff you're going to run into.
Edina: What budget do you two have in mind? Don't. No, we're not going in there. It's going to go over anyway. You see,
Speaker 02: the thing is, we used to budget. We don't budget.
Brad Dowdy: I think I've ever, yeah, it's been years since I've gone in with a hard number to a pin show but I've also never gone like completely dumb at a pin show so I'm not overly concerned about it. Like, I know mentally where, like, what my breaking point is and, like, I have no intention of going there this year. Like, I'll find something that I didn't expect to buy and buy it but in general, I'm just not going to go crazy just because I don't need, like, all the things but I'm sure I'll find definitely some things that I wasn't planning on getting.
Speaker 02: Yeah, like, one of the reasons that, like, me and Brad don't budget anymore is because our collections are so large we don't see as many things to fill them as we used to. So, like, that's one of the big things for me that over time is I spend, I either spend less or I spend about the same but I come home with less things. The things that I buy now is, like, here is that king of pen that you've wanted for the last six months and now you bought it at this pen show, right? So, like, it's a different, it's kind of different now.
Edina: It's more about limited editions, I think, for you.
Speaker 02: things that are harder to get or things that are so expensive that really you want to see them in person. Things that, like, I would have bought before but I needed to see it and hold it and feel it before I would make the purchase.
Edina: I see.
Speaker 02: But you should budget and you should set the budget comfortably for yourself, like, set it within your own means and then stick to it and don't go over it.
Edina: Well, I've thought about it and I think that I have about $250 for a pen or multiple pens but we'll see. I have no doubt that I'll end up buying a lot of things around and a lot of ink.
Speaker 02: $250 is a good, like, I want to buy a new pen.
Edina: Or a few. Yep. I don't know.
Speaker 02: Or a few. Or a few and then that's a good budget for that. We can talk about, I mean, honestly, I think that you will be best served like using that on maybe one because of where you are in your pen journey right now. We're going to get to that in a little bit but I think that maybe like one or like the majority of that money on one pen is probably going to be the best bet for you.
Edina: Interesting.
Brad Dowdy: And that's more than a good enough budget number. Absolutely. To be like super happy with like your pen show experience.
Edina: Good, good, good. Just talking as we were talking about the pen show, I think what I'm very excited about this year because we're going to a big pen show is to have Myke and maybe you, Brad, take me around and tell me all of the backstories about all of these pens and everything because I really love we went to the store choosing keeping the other week and I absolutely loved how excited Myke was getting about everything and telling me stories about why certain pens are more special than others. I think you were telling me about this Kaweco that's blowtorched by the CEO and that's why it's more expensive and it's like I want to hear all of that and explore what's out there not always see it through Myke's eyes because I guess I see his collection and I see how he looks at the pen world and I want to explore what's out there to see what I like and in preparation of this show I have been following more Instagram accounts and funny enough in following more Instagram accounts I fell in love with a pen and bought a pen even though I was only doing the prep to know what to look for at San Francisco but I just did it I gave in and bought one.
Brad Dowdy: yeah so what you just said is now going to make a lot of sense to our listeners because I have asked for help working this show at the knock table so I'll be bringing knock there and we'll be selling our pen cases but this is one of those shows where I don't want to be tied up behind the table all the time because I have other friends coming to this show like you who I want to take around and show and share you know my love for all of these products and meet these really interesting people who are making like really cool stuff and you know that you don't always get to see or you get to see it like on Instagram you get to check it out in person and you get to you know maybe learn the stories behind someone like Bung Box who Myke and I have been a fan of for years and I've gotten to meet them you know in different shows and get to talk to Daryl who makes Misubi Notebooks and why he you know he makes these notebooks and all these different stories and I want to have that opportunity to spend some time with you and our other friends who might be attending this show to kind of give you like that full experience of what the show is about especially since you're going to be there multiple days right you're not just you know going to be like an attendee who's just going to have to come Saturday afternoon and kind of you know not rush through it but you know the pace will be a little bit faster for them where you can take it a little bit slower and we can do these other things and yeah so that totally totally is right up my alley and I can't wait to be able to walk around the show with you
Edina: can't wait everyone's going
Brad Dowdy: to know what
Speaker 02: the pen you spoke about you have to you can't like just be like oh I bought a pen and then move on like you have to talk about what that pen was
Edina: yeah that's not yeah that's not how this show works
Speaker 02: you can't just be like oh I bought something and then never talk about it
Edina: so just because just to understand what an amazing purchase this is for me and the fact that I fell in love so hard that I let myself buy it I have to put it in the context of the rest of my collection so my other pens are a Pilot Metropolitan that I've replaced like five times because I constantly ruin them but that's one that I found and loved I found through this show and absolutely loved that's why I keep replacing it and the other one was the Twisby Eco again also through this show at the same time absolutely loved it then Myke also got me a few pens from other pen shows that he knew I would love like the Pilot Kakuno and the Caran d'Ache 849 fountain pen so considering I only had beginner fountain pens under $50 it was amazing that I fell in love with this Sailor Pro gear Sailor because I keep seeing Myke buying Sailor so I thought that should be good also it was in ivory so it was absolutely gorgeous with rose gold accents and when I saw it in the picture I was like I must have it and I was a bit like Myke should I get it should I wait to see if I can find it in San Francisco and actually try it it's it's I think it was about $250 anyway which is why I probably have this budget for the show still but I just went in and bought it and then I went through the fun experience of matching an ink with it which
Speaker 02: everybody wants to know what nib size you're using now
Edina: generally I love medium but that one it wasn't fine so I just bought it I do like to have the variety I think I would have preferred it in medium but I love the pen either way it's beautiful it's gorgeous and the ink what I put in it was Robert Oster's rose gilt tint which is absolutely gorgeous and it works perfectly
Brad Dowdy: yeah you're gonna have a problem at the San Francisco pen show
Edina: no don't tell me
Brad Dowdy: that that's why
Edina: I'm worried I said I'm worried
Brad's Enthusiasm
Brad Dowdy: hearing the way you talk about purchasing that pen is like everything to me like I love hearing people find things that they love like that's that's my jam like that's what I do that's what I enjoy the most and yeah we're gonna have to do a lot of walking and
Edina: talking in on
Brad Dowdy: the in the early days of the show and just exploring because there's gonna be so much there's gonna be it's gonna be very very overwhelming which is always one of the challenges for a first pen show especially of this size this is a large show it'll be very busy but you know with that downside comes the benefits of seeing things you've never seen before in your life and and going oh my gosh I must have this and then going to the next table going oh my gosh I must have this that's what I'm
Edina: worried about because I generally like to buy things for myself that I fall in love with and it's very difficult to describe what what it is that makes me fall in love with it and in a pen world it's so easy to fall in love with a lot of stuff so I don't know how I'll manage that but okay let me get into my questions so now that you know all of the pens that I have what my pen collection is I spent last night cleaning flushing my pens inking them because I always see Myke doing that before pen shows and while I was doing that I was thinking and then I asked Myke and now I'm asking you as well because he didn't answer to me he wanted to keep it for the show why do you guys do that especially if you don't go there to sell them
Brad Dowdy: so I guess it's a couple reasons for me one I bring pens to a pen show for other people to try so I want to make sure they're just like ready to go right so that they've been clean that I know they're going to be in great condition and you know they'll be able to take them out and write with them right away and they might have some cool ink that you know really goes with the pen and you know they'll you know comment on the ink or something like that so like my perspective is a little bit a little bit different but I think that's a lot of people that go to pen shows do that because it is such a sharing and caring community to where like if you're going around shopping like if me and you are going around shopping on Friday afternoon right and you see a pen you really like but you're not sure and you test it at the table and you're still not sure I can like go through the mental rolodex in my head my head and say oh I know Anna has this pen let's go borrow hers for like 20 minutes and let you borrow it and write it so I guess from that perspective like the people who are bringing these pens you know we're doing it to help you know maybe educate someone who's you know never had this experience before so you want them to have the most accurate experience with testing out one of those pens right because then in the eventually you might be spending your money based on you know what I've let you borrow so you want it to be right you know you want it to be good and you know so you kind of get a good feel because that's the other good thing about a show like this is there's almost an endless amount of pens for you to try outside of the show floor right and I'm not talking about like what's on the short the floor being sold is like we can find something like you have a question about and I can go here try this and then you go oh I love it oh I hate it and then now you have that information right so that's like hugely beneficial especially you know if you're going to spend multiple days at a show to just take the time to try things you never have even seen in your life before to just kind of build on oh I like this I don't like this this is how I would use this I can't use this for that those kind of things so back to the original question that's why I kind of clean and bring like I'll bring like a fresh set of pens to to the show just whether they're just freshly cleaned or newly inked or sometimes I'll even bring a few empty pens and maybe you know buy an ink there just to to fill them up with and have something to do so that's that's why I do
Speaker 02: it yeah I like to I do kind of a couple of things I'll bring like a small selection inked with what I use at home of like the stuff that I think is my favorite or the best stuff like things I know people will actually want to try and then I'll bring a bunch of pens I think people might want to see but I empty them all out and clean them and put them in my suitcase I just don't like having inked pens in my suitcase and I'm also hiding my crimes so I don't clean my pens very often and people yeah I was gonna me so I clean them before pen shows to kind of hide my crimes a little bit
Brad Dowdy: yeah I was gonna call you out a little bit here and you know it's like I was like wow is she really telling the truth I'm which I believe she is telling the truth but it's like does she know Myke doesn't really clean his pens I do
Speaker 02: before a show I clean them before a show so like I just spent yesterday cleaning them all yeah but that's the only time so a couple of times a year my the jewels in my collection get polished oh boy that's yeah
Brad Dowdy: yeah we're not gonna have that conversation
Edina: so that's very helpful and I get that it's a bit of a sharing and caring and now I know that you both definitely have a very impressive collection that other people would want to borrow but what I'm curious about is whether I should actually bring my pens to the show and whether anyone will be interested in mine because it feels a bit intimidating like everyone has expensive fancy pens with good stories and I have pens under $50 and the sailor the sailor that propels me into a bit more of a cool
Brad Dowdy: group right well I I think you don't worry about that right they're your pens these are the things that you love that work well for you and you're also thinking about you know what I have these things what can my future experience is be like so I totally bring them if nothing else for your own experience to compare things to you can say here's why this is different also to like talk to other people who might be in the same situation that you were in before you bought those pens because there is going to be people there who are buying their first fountain pen ever and you can say hey I've I've tried this pilot metropolitan and I've tried this twisbee eco and here's how they work for me and here's why I like them like one of my favorite pens all time is the twisbee eco like I like hand that pen out to share with people all the time because like I'm like hey check this out here's what you're missing it's really crazy so it doesn't really you know matter if you think like these are basic pens or everyone's got all these pens because there's always someone else who is looking for the answers that you were looking for at one time and it never ceases to amaze me how many first time pen show attendees show up and how many people are coming to buy their first fountain pen and then we have get to have these conversations about okay what makes a good fountain pen and how you know what do you want to spend on a fountain pen if you're spending if you have twenty five dollars to spend instead of two hundred fifty dollars to spend and what's the best choices there so it's it's endless the opportunity to like share your love for pens with other people in an environment like this and it doesn't matter like what level you think you're on or anything like that so don't let that intimidate you and
Speaker 02: also like somebody who's planning to take classes you should have the equipment with you that you would then want to do that stuff with at home I think it's really
Edina: important good point good point um so yeah that makes me feel way better about it you should just
Speaker 02: bring yeah for sure like bring all the especially I mean you know I know you called it out but like people will want to see your sailor program I had never seen it before when you showed me the picture of it like I'd never seen that program before and it's a really cool one so people will want to see that plus it's famous
Edina: now oh yeah it's now the
Speaker 02: famous program all right do you have you have more questions right a few more all right great let's take a final break and then we can answer those as well okay I want to thank pen chalet for their support of this week's show if you can't make it to a pen show go to pen chalet because they have everything they have it all pen chalet is like a permanent internet pen show they sell all of your favorite brands pelican lami pilot namiki sailor kaweko many more they're adding new brands new pens new styles all the time and they sell everything you're going to need as well as fountain pens and ballpoints and moldables and mechanical pencils they have ink and pen holders and refills and carrying cases everything they have it all and they do it with great prices pen chalet try their best to keep everything at prices that they think are awesome and they always are and they're always running special discounts you can always check that out but as a pen addict listener you know you can get a 10% off which I'll tell you about in a minute as well they do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the United States they sell internationally as well and have great shipping rates pen chalet has low prices on high quality products and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee go to pen chalet.com click the podcast link at the top of the website and use the password pen addict to get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at pen chalet at any time and also to see what is available for pen addict listeners this week and I was told by Ron that he will have various items is what he told me various items available for pen listeners this time
Brad Dowdy: yeah this is a range and it's it starts off with two retro 51s that are prices well below what any normal price should be he's got the endless recorder pen chalet notebooks which are really cool really neat products he has an oldie but a goodie here it's the Montegrappa copper mule which has always been one of my favorite pens pens that I've never actually owned I like the shape and I like the feel and I have other pens that kind of fill that need but I've always liked that pen every time I've picked it up it's at a crazy good price so yeah there's all kinds of things in here so definitely go check out pen chalet.com
Speaker 02: do at some great prices as well so yep go to pen chalet.com hit the podcast link at the top of the website and use the password pen addict to get your hands on these offers a thanks to pen chalet for their continued support of this show and relay FM all right you know what else have you
Pen Recommendations Begin
Edina: got for us I only have a few more questions but what would the pen show be pen like a pen addict episode without some pen recommendations right so I was wondering based on what I have what I seem to like which is mostly pilot sailor as well TWSBI what other pens you could you recommend me to look at or brand in between $50 and $250 do you have anything off top of
Brad Dowdy: your mind yeah I think platinum's the clear answer here and Myke's got a few you could probably test out but what they have done like one and a half true true true bodies one nib what they have done over the past couple years in that price point has been has kind of put all the other companies you know has got their their eyes open and ears perked up because they're doing such a good job with their styles and the features that they offer and the quality of their nibs except the one that Myke bought are normally like they their nibs are genuinely exquisite despite Myke's the nibs are amazing they really are there was
Speaker 02: this one that I know that had a problem but when they don't snap off they are like just absolutely unbelievable like there's there's just like a comfort level with the with some of the platinum pens like that is unmatched like they're just
Brad Dowdy: they're one of my favorite writers and they come in cool styles that fit my personality right like I'll generally you know want something a little bit wilder you know or bright or something like that and you know that's kind of my favorite in there and then second I'd probably take a look at what Franklin Kristoff does because you can get a lot of like really wild colors you can get a lot of very normal colors and they offer so many shapes and sizes and the ability to actually try all those things to see how they fit your hand
Speaker 02: yeah I want you to have the the Franklin Kristoff pen show experience because I think it's something that everyone should go through at some point where you basically it's like a production line they're gonna be at San Francisco I assume right I
Brad Dowdy: assume you know I didn't even look I they gotta be there yeah you're gonna start I'm just gonna tell them we're
Speaker 02: gonna be there there's a bunch of different shapes you pick that you pick the color that you want and then you pick the nib that you want and then you try it all out and it's all tuned up for you at the end to make sure it works your handwriting style it's like a whole thing it's like but it's like a really fun experience to go through that's good
Edina: because both of these brands like as I've been following Instagram accounts of various pen stores bench online shops I've I think I what I keep coming back to is Franklin Kristoff I I think that I kept sharing with Myke a few quite cool cool models I think platinum as well if funnily enough this Monte Grappa Fortuna copper mule is it the one that was in the end oh I had it on my list yeah I think that it was a bit interesting what are the recommendations do you have I'm very happy with them so far good I was gonna
Brad Dowdy: say Monte Grappa has been doing stuff that's very interesting to me personally for like my personal style recently I haven't what's the I have I struggle I
Speaker 02: struggle with Monte Grappa I do yeah I really like their pen shapes and designs but they typically do something on a pen
Brad Dowdy: that's like oh why did you do that the one thing yeah and it's a lot of the time
Speaker 02: it's it's the the logo yeah but recently
Brad Dowdy: to me it's been working better and they're definitely in that price range for their steel nib models so I just really enjoy the shape of that pen and I like the direction that they're going with the product so it'll be that's that's one you'll just want to want to look at and make sure you test a bunch just kind of get a feel it's a little bit different feels generally more heavy pen especially the copper obviously yeah but just you know does it have a piston filling mechanism you know which increases the cost a little bit and just how kind of how the pens feel you know does their general overall shape work with your hand but yeah that's one I would I would look at and there will be a lot of them there outside of that gosh there's gonna be so many we'll discover while we're there you know so I think those are probably the main ones like that's that's the starting point and then we kind of branch out from there like Leonardo is another brand that I have looked at who has beautiful materials and falls in that price range and the quality has been great that's a pen you might enjoy as well so we'll look at some of those
Edina: that's great I've written all of these down thank you
Show Attendee Experience
Speaker 02: you're also gonna walk past tables and see colors and swells you've never seen before and it's gonna blow your mind like that's that's another thing that you can't prepare for
Edina: it's it's good to have a list to go back to like I'm getting distracted back to the list so let's say that I have these four brands to look at I'll get distracted by other pens I will settle on one pen and I will want to buy it but a lot of the times I find in these stores that especially when you're buying a new one you can't really give it the full writing test because they're never inked so and you might try a tester I imagine or someone else's but it's tuned to someone else so how how do you what do you do in those situations especially when you're spending a lot of money on one pen
Brad Dowdy: that's such a good question and it really ends up just being a discussion about what your current experiences are with pens you already haven't like compared to what this new pen is writing like what it offers what the nibs going to be like how it's going to behave and that's a hard thing for someone who's like brand new coming into a show to get that experience like you're you know you're in good hands because you have you know you can come ask me or Myke and we can like we can talk about why this pen is writing this way and does that meet your expectations in general a lot of it is just you're just gonna have to go with like that base information you get kind of quickly in testing out the pen or if you're lucky enough to find it from someone else but like I think that's a very hard thing for someone who is new and inexperienced with fountain pens to commit to spending boy that kind of money and I've spent you know two minutes scribbling you know Brad is number one you know on a piece of paper with a random ink right yeah
Edina: random paper random ink everything yeah
Speaker 02: yeah there is it's like any purchase there is always like a little leap of faith that you have to make but you were at least in an environment a pen the pen show is the best place to buy these pens because you at least get to hold them where if you're buying them online it can be a bit trickier so like you're in the best possible place to make that kind of
Brad Dowdy: decision that's true yeah and the timing works like that's why I always implore people if they can to at least try to stay overnight so you have the time to absorb like the education that you don't know you're getting but is actually taking place every time you pick up a pen right it's hard to do that if you're rushing through with three hours to spare on a Saturday afternoon your your leap of faith is is much much larger than if you were there Friday got to test some things out got to talk to some people went back Saturday tried it out tried something out again ask some more questions and built that knowledge base to where you're comfortable doing that so that's what one of the things I recommend to first timers and understand that that's not always the case where they have the ability to spend more than a few hours at a pen show but it is a very valuable experience if you're if you're able to
Edina: yep good thing we're there all weekend
Brad Dowdy: yes we are then I think that the
Independent Pen Makers Trend
Edina: significant trend that's been happening in the past years or at least I've seen it through the pens that Myke has been purchasing were these independent pen makers that really experiment and have fun with acrylic casings for pens but they don't they aren't the brands that I would know about necessarily the huge ones the pilot and all of those guys so what do you if you guys aren't around you you and Myke do you have a mental checklist that you could share with me in terms of what to look out for when buying a pen that doesn't come from an amazing big company with a big warranty system or even when buying a vintage pen that's been used by someone else yeah golly
Brad Dowdy: that's a good question she's a thinker yeah but I love it though it's super smart because so there's there's two parts to this there's the modern acrylic makers let's just categorize that even though that's not fully accurate and there's vintage so let's just take let's just take these two things separately so with the modern vintage makers for example there was one at the Raleigh pen show that I was at that I had never seen before never seen his work before never seen pictures of it much less never had the chance to test any of their pens so the one of the things that I look for at first is just how that pen feels in my hand like does it feel finished like is everything I don't know even though like coming at it from the perspective of someone new you can still tell if like a manufacturing process is done well at least 90% of the manufacturing process is done
Speaker 02: well just by picking up a pen the seams match up like does it yeah does it feel like the cap like Brad was gonna say it's like does it feel like the cap screws on and off easily right like does it thread easily exactly it's from somebody who polished evenly some someone's experience this is how you can kind of like get to understand if they've done a good job and you want to know that because you want the pen to hold
Brad Dowdy: up yeah yeah one of the one of the good parameters that I look for as well is how much effort they put into their nib offerings that is not like a cut and dry thing these days because there's lots of different options but I want to know are they taking the time to make sure I get a great writing experience with the nib as in if I make a purchase are they going to make sure the nib is smooth and that it flows well and that it's adjusted correctly or or am I just getting stock nib X in there you know what is their level of care with my eventual writing experience not just their craftsmanship with the barrel part right because they're not making the nib so are how are they ensuring that I don't just get their wonderful artwork that I'm actually going to get a great writing experience too and you kind of see you know if they believe in that level of experience well I feel more comfortable knowing that they put that much work into the pin barrel on the front end right because it's like this one cohesive unit so again those are things that are super tough like for very very beginners you got to go a little bit by feel yeah make sure that you're having a good conversation with you know whoever you're purchasing from that they like believe in their product right you have to have some faith in them as a maker that they're going to stand behind their product even though they're not going to come out directly and say that but you can tell by the conversation you you have and say oh do you do you make all these pins where do you get your blanks from you know and just kind of the natural flow of conversation you start to paint you know you start to get comfortable or maybe uncomfortable and say you know maybe this pin's not for me you know I'm not real you know you know totally content with how this is going with vintage it's for me it's a lot more about restoration because I'm not a vintage collector I'm a vintage user so I want if I buy a vintage pin I need to take it home ink it up and have it work flawlessly like right out the gate and that's always your hang-up with vintage like it's a scary thing to buy a vintage pin that you don't know is going to work so most vintage vendors and I won't say most but you can find a ton of vintage vendors like I will introduce you to our friend Jesse who restores Esther Brooke pens who I have a feeling you might fall in love with her pens and we know that she does really good work and you know that if you buy a pin from her it's going to work flawlessly for you and if it doesn't she'll stand behind it so restoration is always key for someone new getting into the vintage market so you have to have that you have to be comfortable having that conversation with
Speaker 02: a vintage pin vendor vintage pen buying is very intimidating yeah yeah yeah and
Brad Dowdy: that's not that's not something where you see price and hand over money right there's a much discussion to have yeah because I
Edina: have seen even on the Instagram accounts I've been following a really beautiful vintage pilot pen and that was in a right price range and everything but it's like you you can't order that online if you don't know where it's coming from who's been owning it how it writes it's really
Brad Dowdy: difficult yeah unfortunately for you this is gonna be a really good vintage Japanese pen show hopefully unfortunately for me too like this is this is my weakness right is the vintage Japanese stuff so we'll see if we can get in trouble together maybe I might get in
Speaker 02: some trouble too I think yeah this is
Edina: gonna be bad yes yep and yeah it's yeah my final question shimmery inks do they really ruin pens or is it a myth or do they just require a different kind of attention because I've just put shimmery ink in my sailor and I'm wondering about that whether I should clean it more often
Brad Dowdy: it's a myth oh good and I'll probably get some emails and I used to be on the other I'm scared I'm I used to be scared of shimmer inks but the true answer like most answers in life are it depends right so there are some that are harsher on your pens most of the general shimmer inks you buy these days from the main brands that you'd use you know diamine robert oster you know jay herban any of that stuff it's generally gonna be okay the problem is it's it's common sense that if there's particles in the ink it's gonna clog up your tiny parts in your pen eventually right it's just gonna happen so you have to be willing at you know we're not talking like every few days you have to clean your pen or worry about your pen but if it's sitting there for three months unused and you go to use it with the expectation that it's gonna that you're gonna write well you're gonna have a bad time right so there is additional overhead with cleaning on some sort of regular schedule whatever that is but in general they're not going to damage or affect your pens in any way but you just have to anytime I ink up a shimmer ink into a pen I commit to using that pen on a regular basis it's not a pen that gets set aside and used just willy-nilly you know once or twice every two or three weeks that's not gonna do your pen any favors and the ink performance is not gonna be not gonna perform well so in general I'm not scared of putting shimmer inks and almost any pens I probably wouldn't put them in vintage pens but they clean out of modern pens really easy all the shimmer inks I've used recently have been fantastic for that I really enjoy using shimmer inks which is not something I ever thought I would say personally but they're kind of cool and they do some cool stuff you're just a big fancy boy that's all I am I like my big fancy pens Myke and my big fancy inks and like I I had to make sure like I had it was just one of those thresholds that in this long journey that we have hey here's this new thing seems kind of scary I'm gonna put particles in my pen and then hope it works and not ruin anything well it really doesn't and they've been shockingly easy to clean for the most part and I've never seen any none have ever damaged any of my pens I'm also very meticulous about cleaning them not in like a crazy manner like I'll have it inked up for four six eight weeks and clean it out without any issue and use it regularly so don't be scared of the shimmer inks do put a little more thought into maintaining it than you would a regular pen perfect I'll set up
Edina: pre-mind those every two months I can't
Speaker 02: trust myself don't trust Myke either don't trust me that's why I don't use shimmer inks that often because I just don't clean my pens so I clean themselves if you leave
Edina: it for long enough so yeah thank you so much that's been incredibly educational and I really look forward to the show I
Brad Dowdy: really oh I cannot I cannot wait this is gonna be awesome do we have anything else want to go to today no I think that's probably a wrap you know we we have a couple a couple of questions I will I will allude to them one of them in just our little recap here as we as we extra outro the pod the podcast that's another non-word that was a good word but yeah I'm very extra today but there was a there was a question about any after party meetup anything like that we're there the whole weekend Friday through Sunday we're gonna have plenty of hangout time you'll find me and Myke at the knock table a lot you'll find us wandering the show a lot if you see me talking to someone singularly in or in a group stop and interrupt me to say hi I'm telling you right now that that's okay like I want like we're there for a few days I know you may only be there for a few hours and if you want to come say hi I agree with us please I am saying that completely honestly interrupt what I'm doing to tell me hi because I want to say hi to you too
Speaker 02: so nice if you see me run away I don't want anything no I agree with Brad completely Brad sets the great standard for us all understand especially if you see me on Saturday I'll be very tired because I am doing something I've never done before I mean guess you're doing it too Brad two live shows it's gonna be back-to-back that is gonna be a real experience I hope that we see you at the Relay FM live show if you're if you're coming out for that but I definitely if you're gonna be in San Francisco for the pen show we hope that we'll see you at the pen addict live show on Friday night very excited about that thank you again and we'll do this again next week to all of our Kickstarter backers who helped make this possible for us to get out oh I should say something about that can I real quick yes this actually is an
Brad Dowdy: update yeah I've started shipping the Burton cases a lot of people already have them in hand it's gonna be a slow process I've got about 300 cases in I think I've shipped about 180 to 200 of them so I'll probably ship one more day this week and then it's gonna be like a couple weeks like it'll be after San Francisco before the next batch goes in so I'm shipping in backer order so just hang tight if you backed us and help supported our wonderful adventures this year your case will be coming as soon as I can get them out to you I want to thank
Speaker 02: you Dino for joining us do you have anywhere that you want to push people to like you can you now have the floor you have what is it they say on hot ones this camera this camera this camera tell the people you've got going on in your
Edina: life I have an Instagram account oh good
Speaker 02: that's excellent that's a good start would you want to do you want to tell people how to find that Instagram
Edina: account you can find me at Adina Hurley
Speaker 02: there you go nice to nice and easy to remember Adina Hurley on Instagram Brad is pen addict on Instagram and I am I Myke I M Y K E you can find Brad's work over at knock.co no and pen addict calm there you go I got those in the wrong order and spoke pen what's the spoke pen URL spoke design calm there you go so you can go and find that there thanks so much to our sponsors this week to find people over at Express VPN pen chalet and Harry's we're going to be back next time we're going to be the episode will come out on Friday or Saturday next week because it will be the live episode so we can't publish it before we've recorded it so it's going to be out on Friday night or Saturday morning we're hoping for Friday night but this is a later time than we usually record so I don't know what that one's gonna how that's going to end up going but so you can look out for it then and so you'll hear from us then we'll be back next time until then say goodbye everybody goodbye everybody
Edina: everybody you you