The Pen Addict 201/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	201
Title:	Sky at Night
Release Date:	April 20th, 2016
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 201
Audio File:	Audio Episode 201
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 201
Length:	5050 min <br />0.833 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Pen Addict Podcast

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 201. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Mr. Brad Dowdy. We're back again already, it's just been a couple of days.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's the quick turnaround episode of The Pen Addict podcast, 200 to 201 in the span of, what, three days? That could be totally bad at math because I haven't recovered from the show, so don't even fault me for what comes out of my mouth today.

Myke Hurley: I don't know if I said this, yeah, I'm completely lost as well. This show's brought to you by Harry's, and I think I said that, so now you know.

Brad Dowdy: So that's pretty much how this show's gonna go. Me and Myke are gonna bumble through it. I've got a case of the conference crud, which hit me like, I was totally fine until the minute I walked in the door at home. Like four o'clock Monday afternoon, I got home, sat on the couch, I was good for about an hour, and then I pretty much just passed out for like an hour, right there on the couch, and then I haven't been able to speak hardly at all since.

Brad Dowdy: And then how was your flight home? You went right back into it yesterday recording, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I actually was recording a show like an hour after I got home.

Brad Dowdy: Wow. Were you able to sleep on the flight? We had talked about that. We haven't talked since you got back. You were going to try to accomplish a little bit of that, get ahead of the game. Did that work out for you or me?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, no, I slept for most of it. It was like an eight-hour flight, and I think I slept for like five or six hours. So that was the only way that I could record yesterday, was that I slept. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

Brad Dowdy: So do you feel like you're at least sleep-wise you're normal, or you're just still working on that?

Myke Hurley: No, no, I'm pretty good. Like it's just, you know, when your brain is kind of just like, where are you? Like are you in England or are you in America? Like where does your brain think you are? That's the kind of thing that I'm feeling right now. It's like I don't 100% know completely where I am. I've just got that kind of disoriented feeling. Also, like not just because of the time and stuff, but also from just the general feeling of amazingness. Like the disorientation of going through something like the pen show, you know, it kind of can just throw you off balance for a bit, I think.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I mean, we were gone for quite a bit of time. So it was, it's good. I think this marks the marks the getting back into the routine day today. So let's, let's get into it and talk about the wrap up of the show. Pretty good show, I'm going to say, huh?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, no doubt. It was fantastic.

Hyperbole

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I mean, we could be as hyperbolic, hyper, yeah, that word. That's not going to work for me today. Hyperbolic as possible. And it's just the truth. I mean, it was a great show. The people were awesome. The podcast was killer. That was more fun than I even thought it could be. I knew it was going to be awesome. But that didn't mean I was like a nervous wreck for, I don't know, probably the first five or 10 minutes and then I settled into it. How about you?

Myke Hurley: Uh, I was more nervous before like this. Basically, it was kind of the same feeling for me as a, as a like a talk conference talk, where like just before and just as it's beginning. It's quite nerve wracking. I tell you, it's a lot better than we were in a better situation in a talk because we were already sitting down as people were coming in, as opposed to everybody being sitting down and you taking a stage or something. You know, that, that is like a whole different feeling. So we were in a better position there. Um, but in the same way for a talk, as soon as I get like the first laugh to a joke. Yeah. I'm, I'm fine. I'm totally fine. Because at that point, I know the audience is on my side. Right, right. You know? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. You had, you, you were a little tense before, um, uh, Tiffany was in there and I was walking out to go do something. I looked over at Tiffany. I said, will you go calm him down, please?

Myke Hurley: Yes. It gets a bit, uh, it can get a bit clogged up in my brain.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: You know, because I kind of have to think about a lot, like I don't just have to be on the show. Like I kind of have to run it and then I have all the technology stuff that I have to try and keep my eye on. Um, it, it can just get a bit like, ah, feeling.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I guess. Yeah. So what was your favorite part?

Myke Hurley: The end.

Brad Dowdy: But not because it was over, but because.

Myke Hurley: We got a standing ovation right at the end. And you don't, you know, you could, maybe it doesn't really come through in the audio if you weren't there. Like you just hear clapping. Um, and I think at one point you hear me say, like, if you listen all the way through, like, all right, like, you know, stop. Right. Like this is fine, but you should stop. And then you, and then you can hear some sniffing, which is Anna and Brad, they both start crying. Uh, I was able to keep it together for some reason.

Brad Dowdy: You totally did. Well, you were probably looking at all the, uh, the equipment in front of you. You had your iPad in front of you, you had all the digital, some of the recording devices in front of you. So you were able to get a little bit more distracted into that. Yeah. Yeah. While Anna and I were just looking at each other and just go.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it was, uh, that, that it was kind of awesome.

Brad Dowdy: It was kind of awesome.

Myke Hurley: And, uh, thank you so much to everyone was there. We will have the video soon. I cannot wait to see the video. Um, so that will be coming soon. We don't have a date on that, but, but won't be, won't be too long. Um, we mentioned backer giveaways. We're still going to be doing those. We just need to iron out some details. We're going to be doing something a little bit different. Um, and we're also going to be giving away some of those posters, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I think we have three more of the Joey Feldman prints to give away to our backers who were not able to make the show. So all of you that were backers of the Kickstarter. Um, and then instead of, um, doing the individual, like, um, Myke picks a pin on a picks a pin, Brad picks a pin giveaway. Um, we're probably going to do some gift certificates, but I'll, I'll wait for the full details on that, uh, for our backers. Um, but there's, there's definitely more to come. And the shipping update on the notebooks, we're probably going to work on those Monday. Um, when I get into the knock office and just bang out as much as we can on Monday. I don't know if we'll get them all the way done, but, uh, definitely next week you'll start seeing shipping notifications or shipments flying, uh, around the world for the, the awesomest orange notebooks ever.

Myke Hurley: Do you know something funny that I realized this morning? Hmm. You gave me a pack, but I didn't pick up the ones that I bought. Nah. I was giving them out to people all weekend, but not at any point did I think to take my two. So I think, you know, a guy. Yeah. Well, you're shipping me stuff anyway, right? So maybe just throw them in the package. I left those inks with Jeff. Okay, good, good. Yeah. So the, the inks that I bought, I'll talk about one of them too in a little bit. Um, I didn't want to put them in my case. So I was happier with UPS or whoever exploding in their hands rather than mine. Yeah. So I decided that we'd just get that shipped. I can't remember who suggested it to me. Somebody suggested it to me and I was like, that's a great idea. So that's what I'm doing. Yep. Um, I just wanted to put a link, uh, to a really fantastic article that was written. Um, it's on sketchbookb.com and that's Bob Wurtz's blog. Uh, and Bob wrote about, his experience of being at the pen show and he came with his wife and it was just awesome to read because, uh, as well as a pen addict fan, uh, Bob is just a general relay FM fan and it was nice to see all of that stuff written in, uh, especially as relay FM is getting ready for another one of these in a few months, right? We're doing WWDC now as well. Um, we announced tickets for that yesterday. They're all sold out already. Yeah. That's more like a few weeks, buddy. Not a few months. Oh, please don't. Uh, so yeah. So it was nice to know that like the event was enjoyed so much. Um, so I'm, you know, I'm chuffed and I'm already very excited for what we're going to pull off Atlanta next year. Cause we're going to go big or go home. Right. Right. Yeah. But Bob's post was awesome because he listens

Brad Dowdy: to so many relay shows. He was, it was cool to hear him talk about it. He had this little, uh, footnote that as soon as I read it, I ran over to the relay Slack room and posted it to Jason Snell that he had to go check this out because it was a hilarious comment. So y'all make sure y'all go check that out. It was, it was worth it at, uh, Jason Snell's expense. And Jason went and replied

Myke Hurley: to Bob on Twitter. It was kind of funny. Yeah. It's like, I can't help you, man. Pens mean nothing to me. Jason did ask me yesterday. Like he said, they use G2s a lot in the house and, uh, he'd, they'd run out and they needed to get a box and I told him to go for Zebra Sarasa.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. As long as he gets the Sarasa clip. Yeah. There's a difference.

Myke Hurley: That's the ticket. That is it. All right. We had some follow-up that was actually sent to us via Ana from a comment on her blog, uh, about the Moleskine smart writing set.

Brad Dowdy: Still not used to that name. I have no clue what that product's called, even though that's the name

Myke Hurley: of it. I can't remember that. It's the worst. It's the absolute worst name. I only knew when I was writing it down. I also wrote down to put it on our notes. I only knew because I looked at our

Brad Dowdy: show notes from the previous week. Yeah. I had to go look it up. So anyway, continue. Absolutely no idea.

Neo Smart Pen

Myke Hurley: So apparently, um, they're using technology from a company called Neo Labs. So they're basically repackaging the Neo, Neo smart pen. Is it right? And they are repackaging it and using that exact technology to create their smart writing set. It seems very peculiar to me that like the company, the Moleskine company or the company that owns Moleskine didn't just buy this company.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. My thought it was like, I don't know why they, they went this route instead of just either flat out purchasing the software. I mean, I guess it's just a license and, um, but I get it as best as I could read yesterday in the little time I had to read up on it. Um, the Neo labs has been doing this. I don't know if like, it's not been that long, but it's, it's basically just a repackaging of what Neo labs is doing. And then, um, you pay a premium for Moleskine branding basically is what it boils down to. And Neo, Neo labs even offers more options for a paper products.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So they're, they're like, they reskinned the application. They basically rebranded the pen and they have their own notebooks, but with the paper that's inside the Neo lab stuff. But, uh, what the Neo smart pen, as you say, there are a bunch of different paper products that they have, um, that you can use. And apparently the, the paper quality is, is better in some of their products, but more than that, they have just a wider range, like spiral bound, small pocket notebooks. I am interested in looking at this more now than the Moleskine set, to be honest with you. Um, so yeah, I'm, I'm, this is good. This is good to know. It's good to know that there are other options out there for this. Um, and it, but it, again, this just adds more intrigue to the whole scenario than anything else. Right. It's very weird

Brad Dowdy: that Moleskine did it this way. I did find one article when I was looking for it. Was there any, any mention of it when Moleskine came out and I could come up with one article where it's just kind of mentioned in passing, you know, that they use this technology that wasn't that, that wasn't their original technology. Um, so yeah, I mean, if you're, you're interested in this, uh, kind of thing, I'd definitely be looking at maybe the Neo labs and I don't know where all you can get it, but you can order direct from their website. If that's,

Myke Hurley: that's something you're interested in. Cool. Now you, uh, you didn't buy a pen at the, this pen at the pen show, but you had this pen given to you at the pen show.

Sailor Fountain Pen

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I bought a, uh, a bung box, love pink sailor fountain pen, um, from bung box. Hmm. I was like a week prior to the show and they were able to ship it. It showed up on Friday. So I told my family, knowing that they were coming on Sunday, I was like, you have to bring this pen. I can't wait to come home for it. I need this pen in my hand. It's this, it's this great pink with this rhodium trim, uh, clip, you know, great cherry blossom on the finial. Um, it has a medium stub nib and I'm in love with this pen. So even though it wasn't a show purchase, I had, I brought it to the show on Sunday just because I had to have it. And plus I had to buy some, uh, some cooling for it.

Myke Hurley: So this is one of the most beautiful pens I've ever seen.

Brad Dowdy: That's pretty much my exact quote.

Myke Hurley: Is it gone?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. It was a limited thing. I don't, I don't know how many they made, but it's not a stock item. They just, they had a made, they announced when they were going to put them up for sale and then they sold out immediately. And then they probably had people yell at them kind of like I experienced on Monday.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. People are mad that you own this thing.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, that's part of the deal, but it, uh, it's really cool. It, it comes off as good in person as it does in pictures.

Myke Hurley: It's so beautiful. It's like pink and sparkly and it has a little clover pattern on the top and the nib is black and yeah, that trim sets it off completely. I watched you, uh, going through, was it with Anna and you were trying to find an ink pairing?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, um, Anna, I was talking about wanting to get a pink ink. So we went and over looked at the Anderson, uh, pink ink samples and, um, couldn't really come up with some stuff. And she had written down a bunch of samples from the ink testing station that Vanessa pens, uh, um, ink testing station. And she said, well, I've got the cherry blossom, the bung box cherry blossom ink. I said, Oh, well that has to be perfect. And it wasn't, it was a little bit orangey for a pink. Uh, but right under it, she had this example of, uh, califolio andrinople, which Lisa Van Ness told me when she saw this pin, she texted me. Um, she's like, you can't promote that ink because I sold out of it. I was like, well, I'm sorry because there's a big picture out there that says califolio andrinople on it, but you'll have some, um, you know, like a week or two. So, uh, it, it could not be a more perfect match. It's a super hot pink, uh, for a super hot pen that it deserves. So it's killer.

Pen Size

Myke Hurley: Very jealous of this one. Very, very jealous. Everyone should be jealous of this pen. There's

Brad Dowdy: not many pens you should be that I own that you should be jealous of. This is one of them just because I love it so much. So I'll, I'll brag on this pen a lot. This is, uh, one of my favorite, this jumps to the so high near the top of the list, uh, right out the gate.

Myke Hurley: So it's so nice of you to talk about it this way, you know, just make everybody else feel so much better about it. Right, right, right. Hey, I'm good at that. Let's not forget. What is the Kaweco Supra?

Brad Dowdy: So I caught a image of this, I think, I think it was on Vaness Pen's Instagram a couple of weeks ago. They're coming out with like a gigantic lily put. It's, it's a full brass sized Kaweco in the shape of the lily put, but in a full size pen. So just, it's like a blown up lily put, if you will, which kind of sounds funny because the lily put is so tiny, but I guess they're calling this Supra for a reason.

Myke Hurley: I actually saw lily put for the first time at the Atlanta show and I was really surprised how small they are.

Brad Dowdy: Oh yeah.

Myke Hurley: They're tiny. They're tiny, tiny. So a bigger one of these may be, I don't know, around like sport, sport size.

Brad Dowdy: Might be bigger. So I haven't, haven't had the chance to use one yet.

Myke Hurley: Hmm. Yeah. I'm interested in this. I'm interested in this, but you think it might be the same size, just in brass.

Brad Dowdy: As the AL sport.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I think it's going to be longer. I honestly do. And then they have the, like the sleeve trimmed down so you can kind of post it deeply like the AL sports. So we'll see. I think Venice might have them in Chicago. Lisa wasn't sure when I was talking to her. So if she does, I'll get to try one out there. And if not, they're going to, they're going to start popping up at all your favorite Kaweco dealers here online, probably in the next few weeks. I'm guessing. I really don't know when they're coming out, but I thought it was a really interesting pin.

Brad Dowdy: It, that's going to be one I'm interested in for sure.

Field Notes

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I look forward to a review on that then. Yep. Field Notes. Yes, sir.

Brad Dowdy: Did you get yours? I did. And I was actually surprised from the pictures. I didn't realize that it was a two pack of one of each color.

Myke Hurley: Did you think it was two threes?

Brad Dowdy: No, I thought maybe it was two twos or something like that. I didn't think it was two threes, but I didn't think it was two, one of each in the same package. Right. If that makes sense.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. No, I kind of got that. Like, I didn't see anybody posting it, but it kind of just made sense to me. Like when I saw pictures of the front and pictures of the back and it was orange on one side, blue on the other. Yeah. That was kind of how I saw, I figured I was one of each.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I didn't, I didn't really pick up that nuance.

Myke Hurley: As someone that owns orange and blue, do these, are these a good representation of them?

Brad Dowdy: Oh yeah.

Myke Hurley: Like they fuse the same material.

Brad Dowdy: Butcher Boar, Butcher Orange and Butcher Blue are stock cover stock. Um, that, uh, French paper has, I think it's French paper. I mean, you can go today and get, I could get a notebook date made today in Butcher Blue or Butcher Orange. I have a pile of notebooks, excuse me, a pile of envelopes made from Butcher Orange.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Like just letter writing envelopes. That's, that's a normal cover stock. Like if you go to any printer that has a paper account with somebody, you can order those covers, those colors. So to say they're an exact representation is wrong. They are the literal same cover.

Myke Hurley: So they have just basically reprinted it. Like it is effectively a reprint. It's not a reproduction. They, so they said it was a reprint and I just wondered how much of that it was, right? Like it's a commemorative reprint. And I wondered if they just replicated it, but no, they've just done it again. Right. I think this is fantastic, right? Yeah. They look great. It's so nice to have them. And they were tweeting on the Field Notes account. They did what we expected that they did. They did some incredible logistics work to try and get them to drop the same day in Europe and Europe and the UK. Of course, it's not perfect. Like I have a friend in Ireland who hasn't got his yet, but it was a stroke of genius to make that happen. Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: They've always been concerned with that from years ago. I mean, they always tried to get those to land at the same time.

Myke Hurley: I'm just going to say, I wish that they would do this every time because this isn't the case. I mean, you know, whatever. Like don't bust a gut every time you post them, but there's a way they can get them to be a bit closer because sometimes I'm waiting over like a week or two to get mine, but whatever. Like complaints, complaints. But this is such a fantastic thing to do. I love that they've even considered people that might get upset and they're like, well, if anybody that subscribes now will get one of these for as long as Sweet Tooth is available, which I think is also really great, right? Because people that like yourself, you know, did your subscription, you thought it might have lapsed, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It turns out that Sweet Tooth was the first of a new sub. Exactly.

Myke Hurley: So like, you know, for the people that had lapsed and they've maybe had them always, it would suck if they missed out. So they're like, well, just subscribe again and you'll get one. I think that's a really great way to deal with this. I am just so thrilled with this. I think as a fan of Field Notes, this is a brilliant thing to do. And I'm very shortly, once I've finished my unpacking, which is not completed yet, I'll be popping off my Michael Hurley belly band and putting it on my customized Field Notes. Cool. Because it's just luckily I have two of them and this is a two pack belly band. And then I'll put a lovely one of the rubber bands that I have around these two and keep them forever. In regards to the paper inside, it feels like it's just the same paper that would have been in there. So like not the really good stuff, the kind of the craft stuff, right?

Brad Dowdy: Right. Yeah. Just the stock paper.

Myke Hurley: And they haven't said how many of these have been made. Like it's not in there on the inside because maybe they don't know yet. Like they might be making more than they first expected, right?

Brad Dowdy: Right. Which is a great thing for them to do because that's got to be a huge logistic challenge for them. Good job by them.

Myke Hurley: I would love to know the insides of this logistical work that they had to do to get this to work out. Because it's not even just the printing work needed to get everybody's name printed. I mean, because that's digital printing. Like it's a pain, but it's not impossible. It's then the work that would have been needed to package the correct names to the right people. Yeah. Now, if you're using, so I, you know, my background is a little bit in paper marketing. So I've been to the plants where they do this type of stuff. I have been involved in doing this. Like I used to put very specific letters with very specific like offers and stuff to specific people. Right. So like I've done a lot of the work and the checking work that's required to do something like this. And it's usually fulfilled by massive printing houses because this stuff can be very difficult to do. So I would love to know. And I hope that they do. Or maybe we can get Brian back on the show so he can tell us.

Brad Dowdy: Or maybe someone might be visiting close by there next week. I hate you so much. I don't have anything. I don't. Nothing. Nothing planned yet, but just it's it's efforting.

Myke Hurley: Why does Chicago have to be so close to Atlanta? I don't know. A couple of months and I'll make it because I want to go there so bad, you know? Right. But yeah, so I think this is fantastic. I would love to know more about how it was done. Hats off to DDC. If we can just happen. Yep.

Myke Hurley: Take a break.

Brad Dowdy: Yes.

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Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I used my Harry's travel kit this weekend. You did. It's the way to go.

Myke Hurley: We were unpacking and Brad excitedly came over to me. He's like, feel the great material on my dop kit. I was like, very nice, Brad. Very nice indeed. So yes, I can attest to the excitement that Brad Dowdy has over Harry's products.

Brad Dowdy: We're so lame. That's awesome.

Myke Hurley: In the best possible way, of course.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So we talked about what we bought at the PEN show on the podcast Saturday night, but there was still a full day left at the PEN show and a bunch of my buying power was waiting until Sunday until I was able to make a certain purchase that we'll talk about in a moment. But so, you know, I talked about my Jonathan Brooks PEN on Saturday, but I ended up with two more PENs on Sunday. One of them was a PEN that wasn't on my radar before the show. I mean, it was on my radar, but I wasn't going to the show looking for it. But being so close to the Anderson PENs table, I had opportunity to handle it several times during the show. And my big purchase of the show, which I think very few people know I actually purchased this PEN.

Myke Hurley: You did it super secretly and super fast. I saw it happening and people were like, what is he doing?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, well, it was like at three o'clock on Sunday before I finally made the decision to pull the trigger. But I bought a Sailor Pro Gear Sky King of PEN, which if you're familiar with the Sailor product lineup, the King of PEN is their big daddy pin. It's the biggest of the bunch, widest, longest. It uses a giant size nib. I don't even know what size nib this is, but it's a 21K nib.

Myke Hurley: You could kill someone with a King of PEN.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, this pin is so good. I'm not going to lie. It costs a lot, but it is so good. I'm really, really happy with this purchase, even though it cost me a fortune. But that's kind of what I was saving for. You know, one big purchase. It was either probably going to be like the Mont Blanc Rouge Noir, which we had talked about. And that one just didn't didn't speak to me. Like it didn't jump on the had to have it list. But I look at several of the King of PENs that the Anderson has. And of course, I came away with the translucent blue blue barrel. And I've been using the heck out of this pin. It's really, really great. Super happy with it. Why did you buy this? Because I love sailor pins and I wanted one of their top line models. You know, I've used pretty much everything else. All the pro gears, all the 1911s, the black lusters. I don't have a Rialo, which is a piston filling 1911. But that one didn't really speak to me. But I wanted I always wanted one of the big daddies. And the King of PEN is the way to go if you're going to go for a big sailor. And the way this one's styled, it looks like a Brad pen. You know, it's not a it's not a black and gold trim pen. It's not a solid hard ebonite pen. You know, it's a it's a clear blue demonstrator pen. And it's big and bad and all kinds of awesome.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I am. I was very surprised. I have to say when I saw you buy this, because you've never spoken about this before. Yeah, you never talk. I'm just because it's expensive as well.

King of Pen

Brad Dowdy: Mostly, mostly because they've never really branched out in the King of PEN lineup. It's always just been black. Then they did like a demonstrator model, but it might even had gold trim. They might have done one with rhodium plating.

Brad Dowdy: But they've never they've never done one in this color. Now they're starting to come out with some more. And then that's that's when it really started speaking to me.

Myke Hurley: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's very impressive.

Myke Hurley: I'm but just maybe because I didn't really get to use it very much or I don't really know a lot about it. It seems just like a very expensive pen. And I don't I don't really get it.

Brad Dowdy: You're thinking you're thinking is it is it really worth what you paid for kind of thing.

Myke Hurley: That's kind of what I'm trying to ask you about saying that. Sure. That's understandable. I mean, how does it differ from a pro gear? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It's just bigger in every way. It's got a little bit different built in internals to hold the cartridge in it. So it's got like more mechanism in it, if you will. The nib is probably twice the size. So there's a lot of materials there. The cap band has a lot more engraving and detail on it. So it's just lots of little things adding up into like one hugely awesome pen.

Myke Hurley: OK, I'm struggling with this one. Yeah, I understand that. It's very impressive to see. I just I'm just wondering, is it like four times as good as a pro gear?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's a personal decision, I guess. Right. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I mean, but look, we we all spend crazy amounts on these things. I'm not trying to criticize you. I'm just trying to ask, you know, I'm just trying to wonder. I mean, I thoroughly recommend the pro gear. I don't know if I I don't know if I glossed over this or whatever, but there are some you can get some pro gears on pen chalet. And there are one hundred and fifty six dollars right now. And you can use our coupon. They're not sponsored today, but you know all about it. So I'm just just mentioning this. I'm going to put that in the show notes. I was just looking to see if they had anything. And, you know, I thoroughly recommend the pro gear. So you should go get it. And then maybe if you really love your pro gear, you can buy King of Pen, which is the funniest name to me. I love it so much. King of Pen. It's like so matter of fact, because I would say King of Pens. Right. Or something like that. But I just love that it's just King of Pen. Like, apparently I found out that is it Sailor or Bung Box have an ink called Tears of Clown?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, right.

Myke Hurley: Which is, you know, again, just another just beautiful name that when I guess it's when they are translated, they just lose a little bit. Right. And then, but it makes them sound so much cooler. Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Tears of Clown. Yeah, so the chat room is asking, the King of Pen is one of Sailor's options where you can get all their fancy nibs, like all the names I can't pronounce that do all these great things. And I didn't want any of that. I don't like those. Those nibs end up being, number one, they would add a great amount of cost to an already very expensive pen. And number two, they don't really fit my writing style because they're all very wide, very wet, and I don't like that at all. So I got a stock medium nib on this pen.

Myke Hurley: So here's my now thinking about this. Really, really, this is like Anakaya.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah.

Myke Hurley: Because you can buy a platinum pen for like $200. Mm-hmm. And the nibs are, you know, in some instances the same as what you'll get spending $800 or $900 for Anakaya. Right? I'm right in saying that.

Brad Dowdy: Correct. You're correct in saying that.

Myke Hurley: So this is kind of like Anakaya. So now, because I'm just trying to work it through in my head, right? Mm-hmm. And I feel like I can kind of see why you've done it now. Because it's like in the same reason that you'd buy a Anakaya, right? You buy them for everything about them. Right. And I guess, because I have to say that when I looked at that King of Pen, I was kind of astounded by it. It's a very impressive thing because it is so large. It's like larger than life. Mm-hmm. Because it looks just like a pro gear in the photos. Right. But when you see it, you could club someone with it. It's massive.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's definitely been to like the Russian sports complex to get its dose of steroids. That's for sure.

Myke Hurley: Man, that's a beautiful metaphor.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, it is. It's just like a pumped up on roids pro gear.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: And you got an ink for it as well? Yeah. So I had the, I don't know how to pronounce the Sutin, S-O-U-T-E-N, Sutin Salton. There's probably neither. But it's a nice blue ink. This was theoretically the replacement for Sky High that didn't live up to the Sky High hype. So I've just been holding off on it. But I thought this was kind of a perfect match for this pen. So I went ahead and bought a bottle of it. And it's a really, really nice blue. So it was kind of the perfect match.

Myke Hurley: So do you usually do this? Do you usually buy, you usually buy inks that match a big pen purchase?

Brad Dowdy: Kind of. Like I bought the pink ink for my pink pen, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That's what I mean. Like, cause you got a pink and then you bought a blue ink for the blue pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I do that a lot. So like my G10, my orange G10, I've only ever inked it with orange inks. It's not the same orange ink, but it's always orange inks. It's just, it's a mental thing. You know, I, it's hard for me to use my orange pen with a green ink and nothing against green inks, which I use plenty, but it just doesn't work for me mentally.

Myke Hurley: I think I might start doing stuff like that.

Pilot Orange

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's just a vibe thing for me. Although the next, the next pen we're going to talk about, I'll probably never have an orange ink in it, which is just, doesn't make any sense based on what I just said.

Myke Hurley: But it's a feeling. All right. So the next pen then, uh, this was one I knew was coming. Yeah. You'd kind of kept this on a down low for a bit though.

Brad Dowdy: Cause I wasn't ever a hundred percent sure it's coming, but I was pretty sure I was 99% sure it was coming, but it's the, uh, the pilot vanishing point orange, the limited edition they released back in 2007. Right. Um, which was before I was into fountain pens, but this is just the orange with a chrome trim, um, limited model.

Myke Hurley: And the difference here is this orange is matte. It's not the metallic-y shiny one, right? That they have now.

Brad Dowdy: It's not matte and it's not metallic-y shiny. It's kind of in between.

Myke Hurley: When I say matte, it's like, I mean more like it's not metallic looking. Like it's, it's gloss, got a glossy feel to it, but it, it just looks like paint as opposed to metal or whatever.

Brad Dowdy: So I'm going to break out the light box today and get some pictures of these pens. It actually does have a little bit of a shine in it, which you will see, which it actually, it's very subtle. It looks very nice. Yep.

Myke Hurley: I only had it for a minute or two, but it's definitely different looking and it comes in a wicked cool box. You've got to get some pictures of.

Brad Dowdy: That was crazy. I totally forgot about the box until they, until I purchased it and I was like, oh yeah, I forgot it came in this box. It's really neat.

Myke Hurley: So, so this one, I mean, so at the show, I saw some nineties finishing points, which have a far superior nib and resting place for the hand. Yeah. Clip. Clip. Clip. Sorry. I mean clip, not nib. The clip is, has a much lower profile and there's more of a place to grip at the tip of the pen. Like I, I feel like I could comfortably use a nineties vanishing point. This isn't like that, is it? Or is it? Does it have the newer style or the older style?

Brad Dowdy: It's got the newer style. This is like the, you know, like the, the black matte vanishing points. Sure. Many of us own. It's exactly like that. So it's definitely in the new style clip and shape. It's not the old style.

Myke Hurley: Sure. But you like those though anyway.

Brad Dowdy: So, Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, I think that, I mean, I only have one old style, even though I really enjoy that pen. They're just hard to come by. Um, I, I, I, I have zero issues with, with this style. So, and what I was saying about never using orange ink, I get really fine nibs for my vanishing points. Like this came with a medium. Um, I just took it out and used a, another nib unit that I had a fine nib unit ground down into like a Japanese extra fine. And when I do that. And when I do that, and especially with the vanishing points, I'm real happy with pilots, a blue black ink. I just like to use cartridges in these. So I just popped a blue black pilot, blue black ink cartridge in this. And, uh, I love it. So I almost never use, um, orange inks in like my super, super fine pens.

Myke Hurley: Okay. So, I mean, I'll put orange in anything, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I mean, I bought a superior orange anyway. I mean, I bought an orange ink, so I just didn't use it for this. I used it for my, um, Jonathan Brooks pen. I brought the Ackerman number 16, uh, orange boven, orange boven. I don't, we'll, we'll go with something along that line. Um, I held off on this ink for a long time because it's one of the few Ackermans that doesn't shade at all. I mean, it's just a straight up orange line, like a saturated orange ink, but it's a really striking. Um, so I, I've wanted to add that, um, to the orange ink collection and, uh, it's, it's really good.

Myke Hurley: And then obviously you also bought the Califoglio Andronopol.

Lamy Dark Lilac

Brad Dowdy: Yep. But the Andronopol, the pink, I did pick up a bottle of the, the Lamy dark lilac pens showed up like Friday afternoon to one of the vendors there. Um, and he had the, the full ink and cartridge lineup. So I just bought, I didn't buy the pen. I bought the Lamy dark lilac bottled ink because the inks, the bottled inks tend to go faster than the pens will. Um, once the inks are gone, they're gone. The pens seem to hang around a little bit longer. And then I love the sailor nano blue black ink cartridge I have. So I keep, I keep going to my, my ink shelf looking for the bottle to fill one of my pens with. And I keep forgetting, I don't have a bottle of that. So I just picked up a bottle since I was there. And then I grabbed, um, a bunch of fountain pen day swag from our good buddy, Kerry. He had these, um, notebook holders to fit over his, um, his hand stitched notebooks that he's, he makes. So I had, I got, uh, four notebooks and the notebook cover. It's really cool. It's like a little mini Midori thing. It's a really nice. Very happy with that.

Myke Hurley: Oh, that's cool. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It's very cool. I'll take some pictures of that. Uh, but, uh, uh, gentleman, gentleman, Joe, Joe Grace from the gentleman stationer got the exact same one as me. He's posted some pictures of it. They're really cool.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Uh, it was nice to have all that stuff. I was just looking over at great buttons. Oh yeah. Little buttons. We have. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And I picked up a lot more stuff. I picked, I bought a t-shirt from Kerry. I bought some random paper from a few places. I know I bought the Atlanta, the Atlanta pen show, um, back pocket journals from Van Es that they had made for the show. So stuff like that, you know, lots of, lots of little stuff. So it was good. I want to talk about this pen that you got though, because I didn't get to spend enough time with it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I haven't yet either, but I'm working on that. Um, so I decided that I wanted to make a purchase on Sunday, um, of something at the show because all I'd really got at that point was one retro 51 and the pilot M90. So I decided that I wanted to have something that I would have bought at the show that I'll be leaving with. And I was playing around with some stuff and I convinced, uh, Tiff Arment to buy a music nib on a Franklin Kristoff that she was looking at. And I thought to myself, I was playing around with that too. And I was like, I really liked the music nib. Um, I want to have a music nib. So I was thinking that I'd probably walk away with a Franklin Kristoff, uh, because they have the music nibs there. Right. So I was like, I'll probably get one of those, but I went to take a look around in the, in the, the, the extra room that had been opened up and it had Sean Newton in there. And I was kind of poking around with some of his amazing stuff, but decided I didn't want to buy anything from Sean. Uh, I want to get a Newton pen, but I want to go the custom route. Um, sure. That's on my, my, uh, to do list at some point. Uh, but, um, all of the, you know, I was saying to people like all of the amazing pens that you'll see at a pen show, uh, uh, there's a vast majority of them. They come from him. Like the stuff that makes you go like, what is that? Right. Tends to be a Newton pen. Um, so I, I still want to go down that, um, route at some point, but I want to, I want to kind of do the whole process with him. Um, and pick me, I pick it all out myself. Uh, but the Carolina pen company were also there and I know that you'd ordered a pen from them in advance, right? It's what we spoke about on last week's show. Right. Uh, but I went and took a look around and I saw a pen in the morning that I couldn't get out of my head all day. Um, I actually don't know what it's called.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. The material that it's made from. Yeah. Or the shape actually. I don't know what the shape's called.

Myke Hurley: Uh, exactly. I don't know what it's called. I think Jonathan's working on his website right now. Um, so I've taken a picture of it. Um, I'll put it on Instagram. I'll put it in the show notes. I just couldn't stop thinking about this pen all day. And I went back to buy it from Jonathan and I was just going to go buy a music nib to put in it, but he actually had Frank and Kristoff music nibs. I just put one in there and I also bought a matching stand for it as well, which I've never done before, but I just, I just couldn't stop thinking about this pen. Just could not stop thinking about it all day.

Brad Dowdy: When you brought it over to me, I was like, Whoa, this is really cool. I mean, I'm really impressed with this pen, not just the shape, but the color. Jonathan makes his own blanks. So this is one of his, his colors that he makes. Um, it's, it's so good looking.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Like on, on, uh, Jonathan's Instagram, there are actually some pictures and videos of him making the pen that I assume I bought from him.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, not. Yeah, that's right. It's got like a little video. Oh yeah. Cool. That's awesome.

Myke Hurley: So, I mean, it was, this was a couple of weeks ago. Maybe this was the one that I ended up buying. Maybe it is. Maybe it is.

Brad Dowdy: Or at least it's one that, you know, it's one from this rod or whatever. So is that the one now that's, that's, that's what's inked up and on the desk. That's what we're using.

Myke Hurley: I got it in my hand right now. Nice. I had to, I'm saying, I sold some tickets to something. Like I had bought, I bought some extra tickets that I was selling. You know, like when you go to an event and I bought some resale tickets and then on the next day I was able to actually get better tickets. So I'm selling some, um, and I'm using one of these services in the UK. It's called Seat Wave where you can just put your tickets up and someone will buy them from you. Um, and I wrote out the envelope today, uh, in Fuyugaki with this music nib. It's like, so the person's going to get it. Like, what is this insanity? Uh, but I, I just, I love this pen. I love, I'm so happy with the, with the two pens that I walked away with, uh, this and the, and the M90. Like, I feel like I had a very successful show. Did you say what ink you put in this one? In this, in the, in the, the Carolina pen company. Yeah. I've just got Fuyugaki in there. He had it on the table. That's what you said. Yeah. Like he had a bunch of Hiroshisuku inks on the table and he was like, do you want me to fill it? And I was like, you got Fuyugaki, fill it up. Nice. I'm probably going to put, so, um, I was going to buy Ackerman 28. Um, and it turned out that the wonderful Glenn HK, who for some reason feels like he can never do enough. The guy is so incredible. He had pre-purchased Ackerman 28 from Van S for me at the show. So thank you, Glenn, again, uh, for doing something else incredible. I think I'm going to put that ink in this pen. I feel like they might be quite an interesting pairing, like the bright blue and the bright green. Um, so when, when that gets shipped over from the lovely people at Nock, I will probably be inking it up with that. Cool. I love this pen, man. Uh, I need to get the stand out and I think I'm just going to keep it on my desk like a piece of art.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. That's how we're in mind. It's inked up and ready, ready to use though.

Franklin Kristoff

Myke Hurley: At a moment's notice. Mm-hmm. With the badass black Franklin Kristoff music nib. Like I was showing off the stuff that I bought to Idina last night and I was like, I gave her the pen and I was like, look at that and tell me what's weird about it. And she's like, there's two nibs. Like what is happening? Cause I guess that's what it's kind of the way to describe it, right? Like it's just two nibs pushed together.

Brad Dowdy: That's hilarious.

Myke Hurley: Yep. Love it. Absolutely love it. I also bought another retro 51.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Shocking. Just one.

Myke Hurley: Just one more. I already had one.

Brad Dowdy: Oh yeah. So right. There was two total for the show.

Myke Hurley: Two total. So this was just a brown one, but it has like a rose gold finish.

Brad Dowdy: That's really pretty.

Myke Hurley: So I was like, yep, I'll take you please. So I picked that one up from the Anderson's as well. And then also a bunch of pen addict swag.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Did I give that to you? Yeah. I got that.

Myke Hurley: You gave me that straight away. Okay. I feel like I have so many pen addict coasters now. I could start my own competing store. Nice. Cause she threw those in there too.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: And those awesome Sharpies that you have.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, those are so good. I love those things.

Myke Hurley: So great. So yeah, that's my, that is my haul, man. I'm, I'm really happy. I think we had a real successful show.

Brad Dowdy: Very successful show.

Myke Hurley: I feel like I got more for my money this time than last time.

Brad Dowdy: Well, you know, I like, uh, the King of pens for me was super expensive, but I'd sold, you know, three or four pens before I'd come. So, you know, I basically turned those three pens into one pen, you know, it was kind of the same, same money that was already spent. So I just turned it into something, uh, even bigger. And, uh, I, I really enjoy, you know, what I got. I ended up, I purchased two pens at the show. That was really all I purchased was the King of pens and the vanishing point because the, the Brooks pin was pre-ordered and, uh, the Bung Box pink pin that I keep wielding around was ordered online before the show. So I only purchased two pens at the show.

Myke Hurley: I feel real good.

Brad Dowdy: Which feels right. It feels good.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I feel real good about this time. I, last time I kind of gave myself a pass because it was my first show. I spent, I spent more money last time than this time. Um, but I know that the pens that I've bought now, they're gonna, I basically, I've bought two pens this time that have kind of taken slots two and three in my favorite pens.

Brad Dowdy: I know that's the hard part. Yeah. All these pens are, so I, in the end, I have four new pens from the weekend and already had like six pens that I love inked up. So I'm going to have to, I'm gonna have to do some rearranging here in the next couple of days. Maybe there'll be some more hot sales.

Brad Dowdy: I don't need that.

Myke Hurley: So like I, uh, I have my, uh, lookout here. I know the names now, by the way. So a bit of follow up, uh, from working Sunday morning for a few hours on my own, I ended up learning a bunch of the names and prices. What I was so terrified of, I, when, when like put in the fire, I just kind of just dealt with it. Nice. Right. So I've got my lookout here, which is the three pen holster, as it said on the piece of paper that I had and I have in it my orange pro gear, my Carolina pen company pen. I need to, it needs a name. Maybe I name it.

Brad Dowdy: You'll find it. Jonathan. I'll tell you. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Jonathan, please tell me what this pen is called or I'll come up with a name. I think I would call it night sky or something. Sky at night. That's what it looks like. The, uh, Picasso paintings that sky at night. Is it even Picasso? It's Monet, right? It's Monet. Oh my God. What's happening here? What is, what is the name of that painting? Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. The starry night. Is that it?

Brad Dowdy: Starry night. Starry night's the one. It's starry night. It's not that starry night. It's not as bright.

Myke Hurley: And it's Van Gogh. Wow. That was horrific. Look at me and my, my knowledge. It reminds me of that basically.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Dear me. Sorry, everyone. Sorry. There's like, everyone's going crazy in the chat room with me right now. So it reminds me of that. So maybe if, you know, maybe I'll call it starry night, but anyway, I've got that. And then the M90 all sitting in my lookout and I'm like, these three pens, this, this is my top three. It's kind of the ticket, right? Yeah. This. Yeah. I'm very, very happy with, with my purchases this year. I'm excited for next year already. I can't wait for next year.

DC Pen Show

Brad Dowdy: I know. I need to start saving now. I've got the itch for DC, you know? Yeah. Like I'm going to Chicago next week and I was like, I'm not buying anything. Like I'm working the whole weekend and I'm thankful for that to keep me away from buying stuff. Although I'm not going to lie. My, my good buddy, style of arts are going to be at the Chicago pen show who I met in DC. You sold me that beautiful wooden pen. They're going to be there. So that could be an issue.

Myke Hurley: I love how quickly you changed. Not buying anything. Oh, except for this one thing that I might buy.

Brad Dowdy: I forgot they were going to be there. So, so until I said that, but yeah, hopefully Lisa will keep me busy all weekend. So I can, can not go into, into Hawk. Good.

Myke Hurley: Good. All right. All right. Let's wrap this one up so we can both kind of come back to reality. You want to find our show notes this week? Head on over to relay.fm slash pen addict slash two Oh one. We were mentioning at the show a few times and I mentioned it here. Now our next big project is this trying to turn the pen addict into more of a resource. And we'll be talking about that later. You know, like the idea of trying to get the wiki set up, the new starting point. I know we've been talking about it a bunch, but I think we were both really focused on the pen show. Oh yeah. Now that's over. We, this is, this is our next kind of little thing that we're thinking about. We, me and you were talking about it quite a bit. So look out for that. That's we're working on that. We're trying to make that happen. We have some great suggestions from some listeners to, um, of trying to get the community involved and helping us make it too. So I'm really excited about that. So that's something we're working on. But of course you've got another big project on your plate, which we'll be talking about too, which is like knock 2.0. Good grief. Yeah. That's coming. It's coming. And I'm very excited about that. Stressing me out, man. It's busy times. It's good stuff, but it's going to be okay. I know. I know. So yeah. Michael. The next few months, man, it's got some great stuff coming. So we're up to episode 200, but we've got at least another 200 in us.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, easily.

Myke Hurley: Go to penaddict.com and knock.co for Brad's amazing work. You can find him on Twitter. He is at dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. You can also find him on Instagram. He is penaddict. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E on Twitter and Instagram. Thanks again to Harry's for sponsoring this week's show. And we'll be back next time. Until then, I didn't do this last episode. Say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.