The Pen Addict 169/transcript
| The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript | |
|---|---|
| Episode: | 169 |
| Title: | Kissy Face Bear |
| Release Date: | August 24th, 2015 |
| Hosts: | Brad Dowdy |
| Guests: | No guests this episode |
| Additional Information | |
| Official page: | Episode 169 |
| Audio File: | Audio Episode 169 |
| Podcast page: | The Pen Addict 169 |
| Length: | 5757 min <br />0.95 h <br /> minutes |
| Previous Transcript | Next Transcript |
Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 169. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, Build It Beautiful, and Fracture. Photos printed in vivid colour, directly on glass. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by the one and only, the man with the plan, Mr. Brad Dowdy.
Brad Dowdy: What's up, buddy?
Myke Hurley: I'm good, how are you?
Brad Dowdy: I think pretty good. You know, I'm feeling back to normal this week after last week's in on a tear into the show. It was just a whirlwind of activity, so I've had a kind of week to come down from the DC Pen Show. And I'm not sure I'm all the way down yet. I think about it every day. But I mean, plus my recap post just went up today. So, you know, it's still fresh in the mind. But me personally, you know, I had a nice wind down weekend. And I got to futz with my pens a bunch over the weekend and just kind of get back to normal, get back to the show, get back to writing, all the stuff that we do every day. So it feels good to be back in the good flow of things.
Brad Dowdy: How about you? You had a birthday last week, too. You know, I had a birthday last week, but you had a birthday as well. And I wanted to congratulate you on one year of Relay FM. We didn't get to talk about it on last week's episode. I think it happened the next day or maybe it was the day of and we just didn't get to it. But congratulations to you and Stephen for a big time first year. Y'all had lots of great articles and praise out on the on the network.
Myke Hurley: Thanks, man. I didn't know it was your birthday.
Brad Dowdy: Mm hmm. Oh, I could tell by the mailbox.
Myke Hurley: I didn't know. Mm hmm. Oh, man. When is it? I need to write it down.
Brad Dowdy: It was the 21st. It was Friday.
Myke Hurley: Why don't you tell me these things? 21st of August is.
Relay Birthday
Brad Dowdy: So it's just consider it the same as the relay birthday. And that's all you need to remember.
Myke Hurley: Right. You are now in my calendar as a recurring event.
Brad Dowdy: Stephen sent Stephen sent me a birthday text.
Myke Hurley: I'm just saying if it's not in my calendar, man, like don't feel bad. Like members of my family, I don't know their birthdays. So it's all right.
Brad Dowdy: It's all right. But seriously, I want to I want to get back to the relay one year thing. How did you feel about last week? I mean, I'm just, you know, being kind of a fly on the wall to all the goings on. I'm just so proud of you guys and everything that you've accomplished in this first year. So I wanted to give you the the floor for a second. And since you've probably talked about it on other shows, I haven't caught up on my podcast. But, you know, tell us how awesome you are.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. So we I think probably the best places to find the conversation probably be the live Q&A B side that we did. I did listen to that. And also on analog that came out yesterday because we recorded it on Tuesday, which was our birthday. And it was fantastic. It was really, really great. We had a great day. We had lots of great well wishes. We had that fantastic profile written about us in TechCrunch.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that was pretty cool. The pen addict even warranted a mention, which is a shocker.
Myke Hurley: Well, I made a point of talking to Romain about it. Well, because he finds it interesting because it's a it's a it's a proof of something. Right. Yeah. Right. Like it makes a point, whatever that point is that you're trying to make. Like the pen addict can fit into it pretty well as like, look how peculiar podcasting can be and how successful something so.
Myke Hurley: So niche can be, you know, that was what he was trying to get at.
Myke Hurley: So, yeah, it was it was a great week, man. I have to say it was really fantastic. And it was nice to to kind of look at some of that stuff and look where we've been and where we come from and think about this show, as I always do in those scenarios, is the one that stuck around.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's pretty weird when you think about it. The the lineage of this show. I mean, recording it every week, we don't think about that. We just think, you know, how great we are and how much fun and how much fun we have. But when you sit down and think about the lineage is like, wow, we've we've gone through a lot, you know, in the three years we've been doing this. And it's kind of cool that like I've said it a thousand times before, I feel like we haven't even hit our stride yet. I mean, there's just so much more.
Myke Hurley: Which is always a good thing. I do, too. I feel like we can continue doing it forever as long as people keep releasing pens for us. That's right. Dig into.
Montblanc Pen
Brad Dowdy: I don't think that's going to be a problem. No. Let's talk about the one that was released last week. And I have a couple of corrections to make on the Montblanc M.
Myke Hurley: OK.
Brad Dowdy: The Mark Newsom Montblanc that we were all fawning over. So my most egregious error was I don't know my my lack of reading comprehension was pretty bad. I I'm going to I'm going to chalk up a pen show fatigue that I just didn't even read the sentence where I saw a you five eighty five in there. I just thought that was a UD five eighty five for Aussie dollars, but that's actually the 14 carat gold designation of the nib. A you five eighty five is essentially a 14 carat gold equivalent. So my apologies for crisscrossing those numbers and just not reading properly the documentation on the pen. But since then, you know, I got that corrected very quickly when people started listening to the podcast. And I appreciate that. I always appreciate the corrections when I make mistakes because they happen quite frequently. So to nail down the price point, the I think the MSRP is three eighty five pounds, which converts today to six hundred and twenty four U.S. dollars. I got a note on Instagram that someone picked it up for three forty one pounds, five twenty eight USD. So, you know, I guess there's there's some play off the MSRP and street price.
Brad Dowdy: So we'll see. It's pretty steep. Don't you think?
Myke Hurley: Mm hmm.
Brad Dowdy: I mean, for Mont Blanc, it's not steep. I don't.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, that's why I I hum because it's, you know, it's not when you look at it. Uh, the pen economist confirmed that the U.S. list price is five hundred and sixty five dollars.
Brad Dowdy: OK, so that's right between those two prices that I mentioned. So, yeah. Yeah. So we had some listeners, more than one listener reach out that they went and bought the bought the pen. Sure. At at what was it at? Herod's. Yeah, it was at Herod's. So let me let me talk about one in particular, a gentleman named Joseph. He's on Twitter at Nart one S Narts Nartles, whatever. So Joseph did a sent us a tweet storm in a good kind of way. So he says, so I picked up the Mont Blanc medium fountain pen inherits today. My wallet says thank you ever so much. You're welcome. He says it's lighter than expected. Um, less than the Meisterstück Classic even, which I don't have that to compare with. It only takes cartridges and doesn't post. Only available in an MNib from retail. They've sold about 50 cents launch, which is a pretty high rate, apparently. The fountain pen version, 385 pounds, comes with a complimentary soft grain leather pouch. And he says by only takes cartridges, I mean, it doesn't even work with Mont Blanc's usual converters for the traveler range, etc. So I told him, thanks, you know, let us know when you get a chance to, um, to play around with it. And he did. So today or this morning, he came back with, uh, another batch of tweets. And he says, it's bizarre. Feels like a Mont Blanc fine liner refill. Dry writer with an odd resistance. No scratchiness at all, but a definite drag on the page. Worse on smooth paper like Rodea than copier paper. No springiness or flex in the nib. Feels more like steel than the 14K it is. Had quite a few hard starts too. So it sounds like this is a very, very firm nib, which is actually something I like. The nib is incomparable to the smooth flow of the Meisterstuck 18K, Lamy 18K, or Omos 18K nibs. Also, the magnet doesn't always 100% line up the cap and plateau, which is just the bland, tasteless icing on the burnt cake. So Joseph doesn't seem happy with this pen. He concludes saying, overall, really disappointing. I guess it's a cheap Mont Blanc, and unfortunately it feels like it. Your mileage may vary. Mark Newsom may use a fountain pen, but I sincerely hope he's found something better than this.
Brad Dowdy: Damning by Joseph.
Brad Dowdy: So, you know, I think that's a good field report from someone who's, you know, paid a lot of money for a pen that they're actually not enjoying. So it's interesting. So I want to read one more comment. I did get another person who bought it who tagged me on Instagram, and this is a real short thing. Geranium Happy did a post on Tomoe River paper. Metal section gives good weight and ruthenium rib feels good on what is a thicker than usual section. Room in the barrel for a spare shark cartridge. No converter included. It's in Nakaya territory for me, so definitely a holiday souvenir buy I wouldn't have otherwise done. So not much other information there, but definitely a different opinion.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It didn't go as in-depth as Joseph, but I think he's not thrilled with it. You know, maybe I can get a good deal on it, you know, for the sake of research.
Myke Hurley: I'm not going to rush out and buy one now.
Brad Dowdy: Exactly. Yeah.
Myke Hurley: That's a shame.
Brad Dowdy: I think I would like to try it in hand first.
Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.
Brad Dowdy: And I don't know when or where we're going to have that opportunity to do that, right? I mean, it's not... I mean, we don't walk into many pen stores.
Myke Hurley: Yep.
Brad Dowdy: So, we'll see. But it's just a dang fine-looking pen, though, isn't it?
Myke Hurley: Yeah. That's the thing. It still looks amazing.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Some new pictures came out. We'll have them from Fast Co. Design. I read them every now and then and saw it pop up in there. So, check out the... We'll have some links in the show notes and you can read. You know, we'll put Joseph's tweets in there, links in there, too. I should have storified it. All right. So, we're going to talk about a topic real quick, follow-up, that we haven't talked about in a while and that's Field Notes, Myke.
Myke Hurley: Yep. They're getting ready for their release, I think.
Brad Dowdy: I know. I know. So, this is timely and have you looked at this pre-show?
Myke Hurley: Yeah, I did, yeah.
Field Notes Collection
Brad Dowdy: Okay. So, this cropped up a week or two ago. I guess about a week ago. On eBay, someone was selling a complete Field Notes colors collection from Butchers to Two Rivers sealed plus extras. So, there's some extra things in there like the coffee roasters. I see some of the... What's it? Loot Crate. A couple other extras. Some of the DDC, Factory Floor Editions.
Myke Hurley: Yep.
Brad Dowdy: So, they were asking $4,000 for the entire set. What did you think when you saw that price? And that's not what it went for. But just the set price. I'm putting this out there. Or someone's putting this out there for $4,000. What did you think?
Myke Hurley: It's a joke.
Brad Dowdy: It's a total joke. Yeah. It's a complete joke.
Myke Hurley: It's not worth that amount of money. Like, it's just not worth that amount of money. It's not. Like, it's a rip-off.
Brad Dowdy: Like... Yeah. It's terrible. Actually, I hated seeing this. Yeah. It's no good in any way, shape, or form.
Myke Hurley: You're just ruining everything. Right. You know?
Brad Dowdy: Like, why are you doing this? Right. Right. So, we don't know what it actually sold for. Because they took offers on it. So, they accepted a best offer. So, we'll never know the price.
Brad Dowdy: I mean, I would hate to fathom a guess. But I imagine it went from over half of that. Yeah.
Myke Hurley: It's definitely in the thousands. You wouldn't put it up for $4,000 and then take anything less than a couple of grand. Because otherwise, you just keep listing it.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, that's pretty nuts. So, I... You know... Still, to this day... I mean, we all have our field notes, you know, that we kind of hoard. And all these special editions that we love. And, you know, I've completed a set, which I'm super happy with. But I'm not going to sell them. You know? They're to use. You know? I'm going to use them. I'm going to keep using them. You know? So, I mean...
Myke Hurley: You can sell them, though.
Brad Dowdy: Like, you can sell them.
Myke Hurley: You just don't sell them for $4,000 because it's ridiculous.
Brad Dowdy: Right. If I ever do sell some duplicates, I will make sure people who are wanting those get, like, a good deal and, you know, a fair price so they can have something they enjoy. I don't think I've ever sold any set before, ever. I'm just saying if I, for some reason, you know, want to buy a Mark Newsome Montblanc or something and I want to sell a couple sets, you know, for a very, very fair price, I would search out people who are wanting those and, you know, try to hook them up.
Myke Hurley: So, if you're going to sell Field Notes and you're going to sell them, sell them at a premium, right? Because they're collector's items and you can't get them anymore and so you don't sell them at, like, the MSRP anymore. Sure.
Myke Hurley: Even if, right? Because I expect you could probably break this set up and maybe make back more than that, but... Yeah, I don't know. Just don't do it.
Brad Dowdy: I mean, it's super top-heavy with prices, right? I mean, the first five or six, you know, make up the majority of the pricing in this.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, but if you're willing to wait it out, you know... Yeah.
Raven's Wing
Brad Dowdy: Punky in the chat room says, dang, $150 for a sealed Raven's Wing. That's actually pretty cheap. I think those usually go for a little bit more. It's at least a normal price.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I'm getting blamed that my eBay name is this seller's name.
Brad Dowdy: So, yeah, I took $2,900 for this. No, I'm just kidding. I'm also not in Honolulu, Hawaii as much as I would like to be, so...
Myke Hurley: You don't have a complete sealed set, though, do you? Yeah, I do. Do you?
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Like, everything? When I got the... Everything. Well, you know, all the Colors releases, yeah.
Myke Hurley: I didn't know they were all sealed.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, when I got the Butcher Orange from Mark Backus in Atlanta, that was it. That was the last one.
Myke Hurley: For some reason, I thought that you didn't have Grass Dane Green sealed.
Brad Dowdy: No, Grass Dane Green is the one I've had the longest, because I bought a bunch of those when they came out. I just didn't buy the first two editions, and I just happened to buy several Grass Dane Green, because I loved them. So, I still had a sealed one left. I don't have any extras of that one, though.
Myke Hurley: No.
Myke Hurley: Man.
Brad Dowdy: I actually... Well, I bought so many of those, I used to send them out to people. Yeah, you gave me one. Cool. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I know. I gave several people one.
Field Notes
Brad Dowdy: Yep. So, no, I have the full set. The whole shooting match. You ever need to buy a new car?
Brad Dowdy: Well, wait till I put my kids through college. No. I'll still write in them. I mean, or, you know, I'm not worried about selling field notes. I just find this...
Myke Hurley: Don't write in them.
Brad Dowdy: Egregious.
Myke Hurley: Don't write in them. The early packs. Don't break them open.
Brad Dowdy: No, no, no, no. I won't. I'm not breaking open the seed ones that I have, but I have duplicates of some that I've written in. You know I've written in Butcher Orange. I need to... I think I have an extra Butcher Blue. I need to start using. Things like that. And it doesn't faze me in the least. I get huge enjoyment out of using them. They're still one of the coolest products on the market. They evoke a feeling that you don't get when you get a lot of products. There's just... Whatever they did, whatever special sauce... They had a good recipe and mixed it up right. So we love those guys. So we need to get Brian and or Jim on soon. We will do that. We've had Brian on a long time ago. Probably 100 episodes by this point. And Jim's been on with you on Inquisitive, I think. Yeah. So we'll get them on here one day soon. All right. I got a few other things I want to follow up on. But why don't you want to talk about one of our good friends? Because I need to get on this bandwagon quickly.
Myke Hurley: This episode is brought to you by Fracture. Fracture is a company that will put your photos onto glass. Now, when you think about having an image that you love and you want to put it on the wall or put it on your desk for the world to see and for you to take in, you're usually used to seeing a picture which is printed onto a piece of paper, slipped inside of a frame. You know, you've got a piece of glass and that's mounted with some wood or some metal around the outside. But what if you just took all of that away? And what if you ended up with just putting the picture on your desk, right? But you don't just lay the piece of paper down. You actually have it standing up because the picture is printed onto a piece of glass. This is what Fracture will give you. You go to FractureMe.com. You upload the photo that you want. You choose the size and you choose the shape. You can choose from five different rectangle sizes or three different square sizes. You choose what you want and you get it printed out. And what happens is the lovely people at Fracture over in Gainesville, Florida, they will print your photo directly onto that piece of glass for you. They check it for quality. They ship it up real great and they send it right out. And the stuff that they ship these things in is nigh on indestructible. I've had seven fractures shipped to me from Florida to the United Kingdom and I have not had a ding on any of them. And when you receive this print, it's going to look like nothing you've ever seen before because there is no frame. It's just the picture. All you're putting on the wall is the picture. Nothing is distracting from it. It just hangs there so beautifully or sits there on your desk. You can get little stands to the square sizes and even some of the smaller sizes too. And you can basically just drink the photo in and they look incredible. They have found ways to make your colors really pop and it looks really bright, really vibrant. I've seen some pictures of some pen addicts who've already jumped in and got some fracture prints and people have been sending me those and I love it. So please keep doing that. If you've got a fracture print, send me a picture of it. I want to see how well it came out for you. And this is something you should really be doing. It is a way to get your photos to shine in a way that they never have before. And they start at just $15. They're not going to break the bank. And they also make super gifts for family and friends as well. So you can get your own fracture print. You can free your own photos from Instagram timelines or from your phone or from wherever and display them beautifully and proudly at home at your office, wherever you want. You just go to fractureme.com to get started. And you can support this show and get 15% off your first order with the code pen addict, all one word. So go to fractureme.com. Thank you so much to fracture for the support of this show.
Brad Dowdy: So I keep saying I'm going to go order them and I keep forgetting. So while you were talking, I just put that in my calendar list to go order, especially now that I'm back from DC. I think I have some good pictures that I'd like to get. You know, there's some good ones of me and Jeff. And, you know, want to want to test that out.
Myke Hurley: You could fit the office.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we're good for the office. And I've seen the results of these and they look pretty amazing. So, yeah, I will have one ordered this week, one or more. All right. There's a link I wanted to share that I retweeted a couple weeks ago, but I thought it was cool enough to bring back up in the podcast because it's not often you get someone who has the time to, you know, to put into like an ink test like Brian did here for us on Twitter. So he did a one month ink test. Paper is 108 bright, 28 pound, one month and three to four hours direct and six hours indirect sun each day. So the left side of the image is the original after writing test. And then the right side of the images after the one month in the direct and indirect sunlight. And I thought this was pretty cool. So, you know, there's some it's a smaller picture and he says he'll send me some a larger one if I need it. But it's some cool results. You see like.
Brad Dowdy: Gosh, I don't know, like the pilot juices did well and inner gels, the gels did pretty well. So the ballpoints pretty much vanished in the sun. A couple of very tame fountain pen inks vanished. Waterman blue being one of them. And like pilots, the pilot standard inks, blue and red, they faded a lot. But then there's some really good things like Noodler's Heart of Darkness, like everyone talks about how good of an ink that is and how.
Brad Dowdy: I don't know if that is Heart of Darkness, a bulletproof ink. I can't remember, but it held up extremely well. You know, some of the obviously Sharpie is going to hold up really well with the permanent marker, but it's a good it's a good link to check out. This is one of those links that I save like I'm a pinboard guy, so I can go back. This is something I want to hunt down, you know, like six months from now, if I had a question, see how it went. One of the interesting ones is one of my favorite inks, the Roaring Clingner Scabiosa Iron Gaul. It almost vanished in the sunlight, which is kind of neat or not neat. I shouldn't say neat. It's not neat. I don't want that one to vanish.
Myke Hurley: The thing is, though, with this, how often is your ink like indirect sunlight?
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's not. But, you know, this is only a one month test. And, you know, over, you know, several years, you know, you may have it exposed, you know, more than normal. You know, I think about students a lot when I when I save posts like this, because I always get asked about, you know, what's the great student pen? And, you know, they're oftentimes writing a lot and moving and shuffling in their car in and about. So there's a little bit more chance for exposure than others. It's just a good to see, you know, the properties that these inks have, you know, even if you're not you're not sitting there and you're in your on your back porch in the sun. I mean, I know this would never be an issue over in England because there is no sunlight. Right. So all the inks would work well over there.
Myke Hurley: And they should do a darkness and overcast test.
Brad Dowdy: Dark, overcast and rain test. I can put Brian on that. He's he's done some posts for me years ago. He does lab work. So he's he's into this kind of into this kind of stuff. So he did a bunch of chemical tests on inks. So it's cool. He's always sending me these kind of inks. But I thought this is more of a good reference than, you know, necessarily a great talking point for the blog. It's this is something I save so I can refer back to later. And I thought other people might be interested in it.
Lamy Safari
Brad Dowdy: Now, Michael, this is something that people are really interested in. Did you see this next link?
Myke Hurley: Let me take a look. Yeah, I did look.
Brad Dowdy: So Lamy. Oh, yeah, I did see this. Yeah. So they've worked with line, which is it's basically a chat app, right? Like WhatsApp. Yeah.
Myke Hurley: Well, that's what it was. Now it's like an everything. Like they do games. They have like so they are. Line is just taken over. It's massive.
Brad Dowdy: Gotcha. Well, they're taking over the pin world, too, because the line brown bear Lamy Safari special edition that came out earlier this year was like a huge hit. I never ordered one. I just, you know, I got to say no. Sometimes as much as I love that brown Safari with the little bear with the little bear guy on it. I don't know if their characters have names on it. And then I saw last night in my Twitter feed, they've come out with a new white and yellow. The white has a rabbit face attachment and the yellow has a duck attachment on there. Or is that a chick? I don't know if that's a chick or a duck. I think it's a chick.
Brad Dowdy: They're just cool. I mean, you know, you don't get this kind of stuff in the US. And, you know, seeing this stuff on Instagram, I just get a huge, huge kick out of it. You know, I'll probably never own one of these pins unless I just randomly come across one and say, okay, here, take my money. I'm not going to search them out and order them. But I just think they're hilarious. And, you know, Lamy, it's pretty interesting. I think this is a pretty interesting collaboration because it's really out of the norm, I think, for them. Even though they do special editions and do different things. But to work with a company like Line, who is essentially a digital-only company, right? I mean, they're not a traditional, you know, brick-and-mortar store. They're not a traditional paper company. They're not, you know, it's a whole new type of concept.
Myke Hurley: The thing that I find the most interesting about this partnership is the geographic and cultural differences that these two companies must have. And that they're able to work together on this.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's certainly a hard thing to jive. You know, why isn't Line working with Platinum?
Myke Hurley: Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: Or whoever. You know, one of the Japanese makers or someone local. Or, you know, who knows? It could be anyone. You know, the Lamy influence is... I think it's kind of cool that Lamy actually sees something in this market and is making cool things for this market. And, you know, it just makes me drool. And it makes me jealous of all the cool stuff that is happening overseas in the pen market that we don't get over here. But I just want to throw this out there because a lot of people really loved it when they saw it out there. And everyone loved the brown bear when it came out. And to see two more colors, it obviously was a success for them. Right? So, we'll see. And they actually have more faces that you can put on there. So, each pen now has like two different... Like the bunny has two different faces. And the chick has two different faces.
Myke Hurley: And you choose what one you want to put on there.
Brad Dowdy: I guess. I don't know if you get both of them in your package. Like the bear has the standard looking bear. Then he has like one with like a kissy face bear. Like he's got lips smacked all over his face kind of thing. You know, just cutesy stuff. So, it's kind of cool. I'll be interested to see if anyone picks some of those up. The brown ones, when they came in, they were... I saw a lot of my friends online had grabbed the brown ones. So, that's pretty cool. So, I'll probably be seeing more of these.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, I would like to pick one up because they look like fun. But where would they sell? Like Japans or something?
Brad Dowdy: No, not even. I mean, I think... I forget where people were ordering the first batch from. I'd have to go back and search my notes from everyone who ordered them. They all ordered them at the same time. And they all received them around the same time. I just don't remember where. It was from somewhere overseas. It wasn't somewhere in the U.S. or in the U.K. It was someone, you know, in the Asian market. Okay. So, I can probably figure out who it was. I just have a couple people I can ask. So, anyway. Those are cool. I would like one, maybe, one of these days. But we'll see. All right. Hide your wallets on the pin blog of the week, Myke. I met Gerald at the D.C. Fountain Pen Show. He's known online as MyCoffeePot. I've known him, or not known him personally, but I've known his pin collection for years in various places, YouTube, Fountain Pen Network. I just see him pop up all over the place. And he only started a blog, I think, in the past year. But he has a wonderful pin collection. And he actually, he caught me in the bar in D.C. and said, hey, Brad, do me a favor.
Brad Dowdy: Give me a plug on the podcast. And I was like, I haven't done that yet? And I was actually kind of surprised I have it. So, Gerald at MyCoffeePot.org. Here's your plug, buddy. He was a wonderful guy to hang out with during the show. His pin collection is just out of bounds. If you want someone to talk about Montblancs, here's your guy. So, maybe we'll ask him about the Mark Newsome Montblanc and see what he says. But most people, a lot of people in the Fountain Pen community know Gerald, love Gerald, and love his work, and admire his pin collection. So, go check him out. The pin blog of the week, MyCoffeePot.org.
Brad Dowdy: So, you were talking about, I don't even know when it was, past few episodes. It was probably when Gerald, not Gerald, was on. When Dr. Deans was on, we were talking about the Twisby Eco.
Myke Hurley: It was the week after. I did need to issue a slight correction, which I have yet to do. I believe that Adina had ordered the pen. She has not ordered the pen as of yet. I thought that she had. You know, I said, oh, we'll have one in by now. Yeah. No, she didn't actually go ahead and order it just yet. Okay. I don't know why she's waiting, but she is.
Brad Dowdy: That's what I was leading up to, to ask you if she had gotten her pen in yet. So, that actually makes it very clear. I picked up two of these, two of the Ecos at the DC show. Why two of them? Well, one, that made it so I didn't have to choose between white and black, because they both look equally good. And two, they're not that expensive, all things considering. And three, I wanted one of them that I felt comfortable breaking. Oh. If, well, I want to see what manipulations I can do.
Myke Hurley: Huh.
Brad Dowdy: Nice idea. I want to, so I wanted to have a backup, essentially, that in case something went wrong. Oh, well, I still have one that I enjoy. But, you know, I want to, the nibs are, the nib units are different. You know, it's, it's more of a, I guess it's a friction fit nib in here. I haven't even pulled them out yet. I've just been inking them up and playing with them. But, the first impressions of the pen is super positive. It's a rock solid pen. It's lighter than the 580, but you can tell just from a durability perspective and, in Twisby's manufacturing process. They do that, they do that pretty well. You know, it's always, you know, a good sturdy feeling pen. The piston mechanism works wonderfully. A lot of people don't like the, the hex cap style on the end of the piston knob. I actually like it. I mean, it's, it's a pretty cool look to me. And it matches the, matches the cap. So, both ends of the pens are similar. The nibs are fantastic. You know, they're a smaller nib there. I guess this is a number five size nib. So, it's smaller than what's on the 580s. They still write extraordinarily well. I love Twisby's nibs. I guess these are Jowo nibs that they use. And, all the Twisby nibs I have are fantastic. And they, they're like nails. And that's how I like them. You know, that's not a very soft nib, right? No Twisby I have has a soft nib. But they're all very smooth. Very fine. You hear me making some chicken scratch over here. I got a, I ordered, I bought from the Anderson pens. I bought a, an extra fine. And I bought a medium nib. Just to, you know, kind of see the differences. I love Twisby's extra fine nibs. And I wanted a stub nib, but they were out. So, I went with the medium. And it's actually pretty good too. The section on the pen is slight, ever so slightly narrower than the 580s. It's still got a little bit of a taper like the 580 does. But I think it tapers a little bit narrower just because the, uh, nib and feed are a little bit more narrow than the nib units that they use in the 580s. It's not very noticeable, but I, I did pick up on that pretty quickly. Um, it is a rounded section though. So, you know, it does have a couple little flares at the very bottom of the section. If you grip really, really low, you can feel these little flares, but I don't grip. I am a low gripper and I haven't even come close to hitting these things. Um, you know, I, I don't know if they're in there for grip purposes or aesthetic purposes or some kind of functional purpose. Um, but they don't come into play when I'm using them. Um, I have one of them. I have the extra fine inked up with, um, Franklin Kristoff's new black cherry ink, which I think is one you might like, Myke. Um, it's kind of a brownish red. It's really nice. It's like a cherry diet Coke looking, looking ink. It's kind of neat. Um, I've been using that a lot. And the other one with the medium nib is inked up with Mont Blanc Irish green, which Dr. Jonathan Deans, Mr. Um, Mr. Penn economics, uh, snuck that in for me at the DC Penn show at the Anderson Penns table. He bought me a bottle and had them give it to me. So I picked that up when I got these, got these TWSBs. I'm real happy with the eco. It's going to do really well. And we have a follow-up question that we're going to get to. Uh, we're going to wrap this show up with some ass, ass TPA. And in that follow-up, um, we have a question about the TWSB eco and how's it going to, you know, what's my opinion of it in the market. So we will get to that. But my initial impressions, Myke, I mean, it's what you expect from TWSB and that's a hugely varying answer from different people, right? Some people, well, what I expect from TWSB is for it to break. That's their expectation. My expectation is a dead solid, great writing pen. And that's what I've got. And it's under 30 bucks. And I don't know. I don't know what else to say about it. I, I expected to like it and I do like it. There's, I don't have any, I don't have a negative thing to say about it, to be quite honest. Um, you know, I, I'm anxious to get in there. I wanted to test them up with ink first before I started taking them apart, um, and trying a few different things with them. But, uh, yeah, they're really great. I think Adina will like it. I think you would like it. And it's, uh, it's a really good pen. And, uh, yeah, good job by TWSB.
Myke Hurley: All right. I just went on Colt pens and they're out of stock. So I've got, I've just set up an email. Hold up. Okay, cool. And they come back in. Cause it's not expensive. So I'll give it a go. I'll buy it and I'll play around with it and then I'll give it to Adina. Okay.
Brad Dowdy: One more thing. And just, you know, I I'll do a full writeup eventually on the blog, which I, once I have some more time to spend with them, but just for, um, anyone wondering, it's a one piece barrel. Like it doesn't screw apart at the section and the barrel, like the five eighties do, you know what I'm talking about, Myke? Mm hmm. So it's a, it's a, it is a one piece, uh, as far as that goes, you can't, uh, unscrew the section separately from the remainder of the barrel, which is probably just something I wanted to point out. Yeah. It's, you know, maybe, uh, less, uh, stress points in the pen. So maybe it works out a better design, but, um, we'll, we'll talk about them more here in a minute as we go through some ask TPA. But, uh, why don't you tell us about another one of our good friends real quick.
Squarespace Sponsorship
Myke Hurley: This week's episode of the pen addict is brought to you by Squarespace. You can start building your website today at squarespace.com. You can use the offer code ink at checkout and you'll get yourself 10% off. Now, Brad, I'm going to want your help in a minute. Whilst I tell people how Squarespace helped them build it beautiful. When you want to give yourself a place on the internet, no matter what your skill level, Squarespace should be a place that you should be going to. It doesn't matter if you know how to build websites, you've been doing them for years or it doesn't matter if it's your first time. Because what Squarespace do is they take away all the stuff that you don't have to worry about. They set you up with great hosting. They set you up with great caching. So if your site gets popular, you're not going to have problems. They give you fantastic templates that you can build your site on that look amazing, really customizable, and that you can also tinker around with if you do know the code. And they all feature responsive web design as well. They have, their tools are so intuitive. They're easy to use. You can make your website look and feel exactly how you want. And Squarespace has state-of-the-art technology to help you power your site and to ensure security and stability. Squarespace are trusted by millions of people around the world and by some big companies as well. Squarespace have 24-7 support through live chat and email. They have teams located in New York, Dublin, and Portland who are there to help you in case you have any problems. It doesn't matter, as I say, if you've been building websites for years but you just can't be bothered to have to keep maintaining it constantly over and over again, doing new security patches and going in there and, oh, now there's this new trend that I need to get on board with, like, you know, when responsive web design came around. Because Squarespace do all of that for you. Or if you just get to the point where, you know, you just want to help somebody else out but you don't want to have to do the support for them, you know, just say, oh, hey, go to Squarespace and sign up. Or maybe it's your first site or maybe it's, you know, you've been doing this stuff before with providers and you want to get serious and then it's time for Squarespace. Now, Brad uses Squarespace for both PenAddict and for Nock. And I just want to get a few thoughts from you, Brad, about why you love Squarespace.
Brad Dowdy: So the recurring theme for me with Squarespace is the ease of use. I don't want to maintain the blog infrastructure on the back end and have, you know, different upgrades and, you know, database consistency and all these different things on the back end. And I just don't want to fool with all that. And Squarespace allows me to just write, just take the pictures, upload everything and not worry about any of the back end, you know, things that can take you, you know, 30 minutes to upgrade or when it goes south, take you all weekend to fix. Um, anyone who's done any of that type of thing knows, you know, exactly what I'm talking about. And you never have those type of issues with Squarespace. So, you know, they, they handle the upgrades, they handle any security fixes and they allow you to just write, just publish, just post your photos, whatever you want to do. Just open a shop. Our good friend, Chad Doan, Michael, he just redid his whole, uh, big cartel site is no more. It is now a Squarespace site. Um, so I'm, it looks super cool and you can do some cool things with the whole Squarespace shopping as we do on knock. Um, it's just easy. I mean, it's, it's like beating a dead horse, but it's the truth. I mean, it's just simple to use straightforward. Anyone can use it. Um, the support's great. You know, whenever I have had an issue, you know, like if, you know, some comment is hanging or something like that and I've needed to reach out to them, they always get back to me quickly, you know, like, and by quickly, I mean like usually. Within 30 minutes or an hour, um, you know, um, oftentimes quicker than that. So, you know, it's, uh, I'm obviously a fan. We're a fan at not go. It, uh, it makes our lives easier. And, uh, that's pretty much all you can ask for.
Myke Hurley: You can sign up for a free trial today at squarespace.com. And if you sign up for one of their plans, you need to make sure that you use the code ink at checkout. Not only is this going to get you 10% off your first purchase. It will also show your support for this show. Squarespace plans start at just $8 a month and you'll get a free domain name if you sign up for a year. Thank you so much to Squarespace for their support of this show. Squarespace. Build it beautiful.
Brad Dowdy: So I'm going to bring up the, the TWSBI eco question we have, and that's from our good friend, Tim Wassum at, uh, writing arsenal and also of the erasable podcast. He's one of the, uh, out of the three that do the, uh, do the erasable podcast. He is the one that does dabble in pens and gets a lot of grief from his, uh, from his podcast mates over there. So we appreciate him reaching out, um, you know, and, uh, slumming it with us, you know, in the, in the world of inky hands and fingers. So he says the TWSBI eco performs just as well as the 580. It even feels more durable, fewer moving parts. Are they shooting themselves in the foot? So this is a question, uh, Dr. Deans would love. So are they shooting themselves in the foot by making a really high quality, basically entry level price point pin. And I think the answer looking at all the other brands out there and how they've managed their product lines, the answer is no. Um, this is, I don't want to say it's a gateway pin, but it could be a lot of people's first pin, you know, Lamy doesn't only make the Safari, you know, that's what a lot of people are comparing this pin to. It's nearly the exact same price. It's the same type of construction. Um, this has a, um, this has a better piston, you know, this is a piston filling, which is a huge benefit for me. Um, a lot of people with beginners, you know, they want to use a cartridge filling pin, so they might use a Lamy, but that hasn't stopped Lamy from making other awesome products that are in the $50 price range, the $80 price range, the $140 price range, the $300 price range. So clearly Lamy hasn't shot themselves in the foot by giving a people, people a choice on the lower end of the pricing spectrum. Um, if anything, you know, maybe it helps them. You know, I certainly don't have proof of that, but it seems like, you know, just the same story goes for the Pilot Metropolitan, right? Even though that was the Pilot Metropolitan is probably closer to the Eco and it was done backwards, like Pilot made all their super nice pins, then they made a killer entry level pin. TWSBI made a lot of nicer pins, and I say nicer, I'm just, I should say more expensive price point wise, more features, things like that. Then they made an entry level pin. And it's certainly not hurting Pilot to have the Metropolitan out there. How many people have told us that, you know, the Metropolitan was their first pin and number one, they've been amazed by it. And number two, they're going to, they're going to buy a second fountain pin of some other kind. I mean, that happens to us all the time. Yep.
Myke Hurley: And it's, you know, when people say to me as well, like, what shall I get? I mean, I, I can't make a decision because I'm biased, but like, I have my own feeling about what people should buy, but which I think is the Lamy Safari. I think it should be everybody's startup pin. But so many people tell me that the Pilot is what they love. I always suggest them both. Sure. So then my thinking on that is people will go and buy the one that they think looks the nicest, which for most people I expect ends up being the Lamy because it can, you can get it in more variation and the variation of the Pilot Metropolitan is a little bit tacky. You know, like the animal print stuff.
Brad Dowdy: Have you seen the new ones?
Myke Hurley: I don't know. I don't think so.
Brad Dowdy: Okay. We'll, we'll talk about them next week. That's one, one link that missed the show notes this week. They've come out with some bright colors now. Oh, sweet. Yellows, pinks, purples, things like that. They, they look really nice. Yeah. They needed that. You know, they're not, they're not for me, but they look really nice.
Myke Hurley: They definitely needed that.
Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. So yeah. Yeah. You know, the, where TWSBI, and this has come up in the chat room, if TWSBI can get their QA problems on lock and just, you know, run a real tight ship. What I see happening is, you know, you're going to have the Eco will be their entry level pin. I don't know what's going to happen to the Classic. That might be the one that falls by the wayside. I don't know. I don't know what, no, the Classic doesn't get near as much run as even the Eco is getting in its short time frame.
Myke Hurley: Is that the one that doesn't post?
Brad Dowdy: Um, I don't know. It's the one with the solid barrel colors, blue, black, burgundy. Yeah.
Myke Hurley: I think that doesn't post.
Brad Dowdy: Okay. It may not. Um, I, I gave mine to someone, so I don't have one laying around. And what I think is the 580 lineup will end up being aluminum sections and pistons only. Right. I can see them eliminating the 580 plastic parts pin. Yep. And leaving that to the Eco line. And then the 580 line being an AL only line. Right. Cause they still have that price point pretty well. It's like 65 ish. I think with the aluminum section and piston. So that's kind of what I, if I see anything happening, I think the Eco could eliminate the plastic parts 580 just because they've done a really nice job in the Eco and then let the 580 be the upgrade with the aluminum parts.
TWSBI Lineup Discussion
Myke Hurley: So I think that makes sense. If they don't do that, they need to get their head jacked.
Brad Dowdy: Well, it eliminates a lot of issues by, uh, it's an addition by subtraction kind of thing. Yep. Um, even though they've added a whole new product line in the Eco, um, eliminating the plastic, uh, 580 would eliminate a lot of the QA right there.
Myke Hurley: So it just eliminates confusion. Sure. As well. So as a buyer.
Brad Dowdy: So yeah, the buyer asks, okay, should I get the Eco for 30 or the 580 for 60? And to have that discussion, um, if they continue with the plastic parts 580, it's not a huge discussion, right? It's the Eco is pretty much going to win every time just from price. You're not really benefiting. I mean, you're going to get a larger nib and what else? Not much, you know, maybe some colors you can't get if they, you know, keep doing colors. But anyway, I thought that was a good question. And, um, something interesting to talk about is something to be interesting from to watch from TWSBI because I mean, they'll just, they'll pull products left and right. You know, they're pretty aggressive in what they decide to make and what they decide to discontinue. So, um, if the Eco continues to be a success, I think we will see some changes in TWSBI's lineup, but it's certainly not a cannibalization thing. You know, it's certainly, I think it would only be a good thing, um, introducing this pen. So that's my spiel on that. All right. I want to hit a couple other small questions, Myke, and then we'll wrap. And a lot of them are questions that get over and over again. So they're, they're worth repeating. Um, one of them is with converters on, uh, fountain pens and filling converter converters. Uh, Samantha asked, do you fill a Lamy? Do you fill a Lamy with converter with the nib on the pen or just put the converter straight in the bottle? So if you have a converter pen, Myke, do you have the converter attached to the pen, dip the nib and suck up the ink through the nib? Or do you just dip the converter in and in the ink bottle and suck up the ink?
Myke Hurley: Oh, I feel like this is a trick question. Uh, I, I keep the converter attached to the pen and I suck through the nib.
Brad Dowdy: Um, so it's not a trick question at all. You can do it either way.
Myke Hurley: I just feel like, I feel like though, that you, where you may believe that, right?
Brad Dowdy: We're going to get people say, oh, you're ruining the nib section. No, no. It, it just, you know, it's whatever you, I feel. So I wanted to ink up my vanishing point. I got the new stub nib on the vanishing point. I said, I'd talk about this and I haven't inked it up since the pen show. So I left the pen sitting on my desk, went into the closet where I keep all my ink and accessories and I grabbed a pilot converter, grabbed a bottle of ink, stuck the converter in the bottle of ink, pulled up the ink, walked it back in the other room and jammed it in the nib unit. It doesn't matter. You know, it just, there's no difference there. So whatever you feel comfortable with, Samantha. Honestly, I think most fountain pen people probably do it like Myke just said, you know, they have the converter attached to the nib. I think you get a better fill probably that way. Um, I tend to get some air gaps if I'm just filling it, um, the converter into the bottle. So there's no wrong answer to that question, Samantha. Um, but let me get back to the vanishing point nib. I had to do that. Um, so it's the stub nib and pilot just introduced it, um, for the vanishing point this year. They have it in the steel and the black finish. Um, I don't love it yet. So I just inked it up right before the show. It's really, the line variation's good. The smoothness is good. One of the issues, Samantha, um, going back to your question, you're going to get less ink flow right out the gate when you just fill the converter only. You're not going to get the feed saturated. Um, so this may be one of my issues. It's writing a little dry for me. So I just have to, uh, get this pen going a little bit more, which I'm okay to do with, um, for convenience sake. I'll go ahead and pop the converter in, um, in the ink, but I don't know something about this nib. I need to inspect it more closely or at least just use it and, and wear the, wear the newness off of it. Sometimes, you know, a nib takes a, takes a day or two of writing to just kind of, okay, this is what it's going to feel like to see. Um, it doesn't look like there's anything wrong with it as far as misalignment or anything going on with the tines. Um, at least that I can see. So I think I just need to use it a little bit more, get that, uh, get the nib, uh, more, more ink flowing to the nib and we'll see how it is. So I'll do a follow-up on that nib unit. It's good. It's not wow. So we'll see. We'll see on that. All right. So there was another question about nibs that we had here. And this is, uh, Vicky, Vicky D 303. She's been a listener, I think since day one, um, she says is the stub nib, the same thing as an italic nib. And it's not, it's generally big picture idea, the same in where you get a wide down stroke and a thin cross stroke, but the stub has a more rounded edge on the nib itself. It's more forgiving. And so your lines are a little bit softer, even though they will, they will have that line variation from the North, South and East and West. They'll have a softer edge where the italic nibs are made to have a crisp edge on. They'll stay still have the same wide, uh, up and down line and thin, uh, horizontal line, but the edges on those lines will be sharper. And they're actually a little bit harder to write with. You really have to nail the sweet spot on the nib because you'll catch an edge with the italic nibs if you're goofing around, um, because they do have that sharp edge. And the link, um, we always link to Myke is the one at Franklin Kristoff, uh, where Myke Masayama has done the sketches of the nibs. We've shared this many a time. Um, but I do get a lot of questions about this. So I thought it was good sharing again. Um, and he does a sketch showing what the different grinds look like. And you can kind of extrapolate that into an idea of how they'll feel on the page. You get the same type of line variation, but you're going to have a little more, um, uh, I got, what's the word I'm looking for? You're going to have a little more, more flexibility with the stub in that it's not going to be as sharp and as hard to write with as the italic. I prefer the italics because I, it works with my style of handwriting. And I don't want to say that, you know, they're like a razor cutting through the page, but you can feel that I can feel the difference between an italic nib and a stub nib. So it's just not as forgiving. I think that's the word I was looking for earlier. All right. Did you know my, Myke, did you know that fountain pen ink could mold?
Myke Hurley: I did not know that.
Brad Dowdy: You did not know that. I did know that. I've never had one mold on me, but we did get a picture, um, the other day. And, uh, so yeah, fountain pen inks can mold. It's not a common thing in most modern inks, but you do want to keep your inks in a, you know, you know, it doesn't have to be a cool dark place, but essentially you want to keep them out of the sunlight and out of crazy temperature changes. You know, that's, that's the kicker here with, with inks to prevent any kind of weirdness happening, happening in it. So, um, they will mold from time to time, but it, all the, all the bottle of inks I have, all the ink samples I have, I don't have any with mold in them. And, um, I'm, you know, I don't know. I probably have 40 or 50 bottles. I don't think I've ever seen mold in any of my, any of my pens. Or any of my inks, I should say.
Brad Dowdy: So last thing, and this is another nib question, which we should, we've done a show on nibs before. We should probably, uh, revisit that and maybe do it again, or at least, you know, have a kind of a, a one-on-one recap on nibs. So Damien Lalibert says, for someone who's never actually used a good pen and there's no stores that carry them, how do I tell what a nib should feel like? That's a super good question. How do you, if you've never used a fountain pen, how do you explain to someone what a nib should feel like? And then he says, also, can you explain terms like wet and dry, buttery, glassy, et cetera. So as far as what the nib should feel like, it should feel very smooth, almost rounded. Um, there should be no resistance. There should be no grabbing of the paper. Um, you know, as long as it's inked up properly, you know, if you're trying to test or pen, um, you want that feeling like there's almost a barrier between the ink and the nib and the paper. So you should feel like that ink is making that barrier in between those things. If you're, if there's something wrong with the nib, you'll feel it digging into the paper. Um, and it shouldn't feel like that. Um, you know, now when you get into like extreme nibs, some of the ones that I have, they're designed to feel the paper more, you know, if you're getting some extra, extra, extra fine, or even the cursive italics, you can feel the paper on those, but a standard fine medium nib, it should feel almost like it's rolling across the paper. There should be no resistance at all. And, you know, the line should be clean. Ink shouldn't be kind of, uh, you know, your line should be kind of sharp and clean on the edges. There shouldn't be a lot of ragged edges in the ink line. So if the nib is performing well, that's what it's going to feel like. And that's what the line's going to look on the page. You should have, be able to use a very light hand, uh, not a lot of pressure to get the ink out. Um, and you know, it, it's, it's actually a hard thing to describe. Um, so that's, that's why like Myke and I talk about, you know, when we're recommending fountain pens for beginners, that's why we always talk about, you know, some of the more inexpensive pens like the pilot metropolitan and the Lamy Safari. And now the TWSBI Eco, where you can try a couple of different things, see what you like, see what's works for you. And just because your friend uses a medium nib fountain pen, you might not find that that works for you. So it is a little bit of a trial and error thing, but just be conscious. You know, when you are trying it, you shouldn't feel anything, grab it on the page. That's probably the biggest key. You know, it shouldn't feel scratchy at all ever. Um, especially on the, the normal nibs that you get. So I think that's about it for the ask TPA Myke. And I want to put a shout out to all the listeners for these ask TPA questions. I appreciate it and definitely keep them coming. Just use the hashtag ask TPA on Twitter and we will get these questions lined up for a next episode and onward. Myke.
Myke Hurley: Sounds like a great idea to me, my friend. If you want to find the show notes for this week, head on over to relay.fm slash penaddict slash one six nine. If you want to find Brad online, he is at dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M on Twitter. And I am at iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. And Brad writes over at penaddict.com. Thanks so much to our sponsors this week, Squarespace and Fracture. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.
Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad.