The Pen Addict 181/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	181
Title:	Scribble Part XXXVIII
Release Date:	November 16th, 2015
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 181
Audio File:	Audio Episode 181
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 181
Length:	6767 min <br />1.117 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 181. Today's show is brought to you by lynda.com and Dudek Modern Goods. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: What's up, buddy?

Myke Hurley: Hey, buddy. How you doing?

Brad Dowdy: Good. So far, so good.

Field Notes Subscription

Myke Hurley: You know, it's going to be a good episode when, just as I say, the moment that I say, welcome to The Pen Addict, episode 181, I had a little tap on my Apple Watch and I looked down and it said, I had an email and the subject line was, field notes, colours, subscription shipment notification. Like, I'm not kidding. It was as I began speaking.

Brad Dowdy: Is it already time for that?

Myke Hurley: So, we're about to ship the fourth and final instalment of your field notes, colours, subscription. The address we are shipping it to is below. Contact us ASAP if you need to fix anything. Wow. And they've changed the way their emails look. They're really sweet.

Brad Dowdy: Okay, I'll have to go in and look. That's, uh... Maybe time's just flying and it seems like it was about a two-month... Maybe the... I don't know. Maybe... I know they want to get them out before Christmas, right? That's a big deal. So, they want to get them out in time for you to order more for Christmas, which I understand. And it seems like the Shenandoah was maybe like... I don't know. There's no official date when they come out, right? But it seemed like it was maybe like a week or two. It seemed like people were waiting like just a hair longer. So, maybe it was a short timeframe. Shorter turnaround between this one. So, I will check my email. I think my sub is up. I think this is my renewal. I think this is my renewal sub. So, I'll have to renew it up on... As soon as we're done with the show, I will check my email. But that's great.

Myke Hurley: So, Joe in the chat room just said that he got an email saying that it's coming in to check. And I got that email too. So, there was... I had an email over the weekend saying that it's nearly time. Make sure you check your address. And also reminding me that my subscription is also up for renewal. But this one is my shipment notification.

Myke Hurley: And that's what the subject line says anyway.

Myke Hurley: But yeah. So, it's saying my order should arrive in the mail within the next two to four weeks. My hope would be... I don't know if this is the case. But my hope would be that they're just getting ahead of international shipping. Yeah. And they're sending it out to UK and Europe and everywhere else first, maybe? That's what I'll do.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, maybe so. Plus, they also lose a little bit of time next week with the Thanksgiving holiday. You know, there's a couple days delayed where the post office is shut down, that kind of stuff.

Myke Hurley: Yep. We'll see. But that is good news. But yeah, I'm going to be renewing my subscription like next week or something. Yep. Just going to pay myself and then I'll be renewing it.

Brad Dowdy: Cool, cool, cool.

Myke Hurley: Talking about Field Notes.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So, this is what happens when we have a guest post. We were talking about this in the pre-show. We can't catch up on all the things we want to talk about sometimes when we have guests. And this one, you were dying to talk about. I was dying to talk about. So, what have you been holding on to for these past couple weeks?

Myke Hurley: Yes. So, I wanted to make sure we could give this the time to talk about it, which was why I didn't bring it up last week. But the incredible Ginny at Three Staples, she sent me some of the Nixon Field Notes. Do you remember that she was going to help me out and get me a couple of those packs sent over, right? Yes. So, I have those here, by the way. I'm burying the lead now. But yeah, I have those. Do you have

Brad Dowdy: a set of these? I do not have those. They look really nice, though. I love the colors.

Myke Hurley: The colors are really good. It's like a blue one and like a dark brown one and like a standard craft, basically. And it's grid, plain, and lined.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, I didn't realize that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And they've got like kind of some of Nixon's story on the back as a company. Gotcha. And they're a limited edition of 5,000.

Brad Dowdy: Cool.

Myke Hurley: That's the information on the inside. So, I like the blue one a lot. And I like the dark, like the chocolatey brown color one a lot as well. Yeah. That's great. Nice ones to fit in my collection. But what the real special thing I got, and anybody that follows me on Instagram will have seen this, and I'll put a link in the show notes to the Instagram picture. Ginny had customized two field notes craft for me. And one of them was one of the, what was the lecture set edition called?

Brad Dowdy: You know what I'm talking about, right? I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm blanking.

Myke Hurley: I had this problem the other day as well. I couldn't remember what this edition was. The chat room will tell us in a second. The one where you got the sheet and you could put your own words onto the blank notebooks. Right.

Myke Hurley: So, I got one of those, which says Myke was right.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Dry transfer edition.

Myke Hurley: Dry transfer edition. There we go. Who got that in the chat room? Cindy. Cindy plus one.

Brad Dowdy: Plus one.

Myke Hurley: This is why you should be in the chat room, by the way.

Myke Hurley: So, yeah, I got a Myke was right field notes and another craft with the Relay FM logo printed on the back. And I love these. These are my two favorite field notes books. I was just, I think I screamed when I opened the pack.

Brad Dowdy: I was about to ask, did you die when you opened these? Because I could see that. This is amazing.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I was just so thrilled. Maybe more than anything that she used one of her dry transfer editions for me. Like, that is a really, really nice thing to do. So, I mean, like, Ginny is the best. And she had a really nice note for me in the pack as well. And if you haven't been to Three Staples, if you don't follow Three Staples on Instagram, you're missing out. So, you should go to her site and all that great stuff. But, man, I was just so, so, so thrilled to get these. They are so fantastic. And they are my most liked photo on Instagram.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, really?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That happened very, very quickly.

Brad Dowdy: So, so now is the big question.

Brad Dowdy: Are you going to use them?

Myke Hurley: No, I don't think I will.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think that's the right choice. There's certain editions that, I mean, you don't have to use any of them if you don't want to, but, you know, we're big proponents of using them. And, you know, you know, I've used some of the older, rarer editions and things like that. But when someone takes the time out to make you something special like this, I think it's pretty cool to just like have it on display and, you know, show it off. You know, like when our friend, friend of the show, Ben Kwok made the Fiend notes for us. Yep. You remember those, the orange ones that he hand stitched and all that stuff. I mean, that's just too cool that we have listeners that do that kind of stuff for us. It's pretty amazing.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, exactly. Like it's the same, like with my rarer editions, I always keep one of them, just like one single. And like these are two completely single books. Yes.

Brad Dowdy: Yes.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And I have to say there was this little part of me that was like, man, that Relay FM logo looks good on a field notes.

Brad Dowdy: It's kind of perfect for that, isn't it?

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Well, maybe we can do, maybe we can work on some other things. You and I.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I think I would like that a lot.

Brad Dowdy: We'll work on some magic.

Landland Notebooks

Myke Hurley: We'll work on some things. You and I. So I mentioned the Nixons talking about rare field notes. Did you get any of the Landland?

Brad Dowdy: I did not.

Myke Hurley: No, I saw the sale go up, like I was going through Twitter, and I saw somebody post a tweet, and like 20 minutes later, they were all gone.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, did you get them?

Myke Hurley: No, I didn't get them.

Brad Dowdy: No. I might have a special friend that might be hooking me up, so we'll see. But I did not personally get that, you know, probably because I was asleep.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, because I guess they're on sale at the DDC pop-up, which is how I assume if you're going to get any, that's probably how you'll get yours.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I saw, I didn't save it. Someone did a Vine or an Instagram video from the shop yesterday, and they had a couple of shelves full of the, I guess they were, are we still calling these the Landland ones, or were they just the DDC pop-up shop version, but the same style covers, you know, with the same, the repurposed poster covers, which I think look fantastic. I love that style of cover.

Brad Dowdy: So we'll see. I might have a special mailbox visit from some Landland landfill notes, so we'll see. We will definitely talk about that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, that is a set that I really want, but I'm not going to go crazy for it, and I'm not going to pay hundreds of dollars for it because... Oh, gosh, no. That's not what I do.

Brad Dowdy: No way, no way.

Myke Hurley: I mean, I've done my massive field notes collecting, and I never went too expensive on those.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Yeah, I don't... I'm trying to think if I even paid much money for any of them at all, maybe 30, 40 bucks or something like that. I've definitely traded some high-end stuff for some high-end versions, but I've never, like, just outright paid a lot of money for any versions. It's not that important.

Myke Hurley: No.

Brad Dowdy: It's paper. It's paper, folks. Chill.

Myke Hurley: So the talk of the town this week is the Apple Pencil, right? Yeah, yeah. I haven't got one yet. I'm trying. I've tried over multiple days, and Apple seems to have some stock issues. So I will be wanting to devote some time to talk about that on this show as well when I do actually get one, as well as all my other shows. I have used one, Brad. I went to the store and used one, and it is the closest I've experienced for, like, pencil or pen on paper as I ever have of any other stylist. Like, I could write very small, and I was writing in the Apple Notes app, and it looked like a pencil on paper. It was very, very good. It's not one-to-one, right? There is nowhere near as lag as there has been before. It's way, way reduced. But you know, at least anybody that knows what it's like to write on paper frequently, you can feel that it's not instant. And anything that's not instant will feel not instant, right?

Brad Dowdy: Right.

Myke Hurley: But it's way better.

Brad Dowdy: But the output is still, like, legitimately good, and you can feel the, you can see the weight, line weight differences, and feel the line weight difference, those types of things. Is that what you mean?

Myke Hurley: But the biggest thing for me, though, is if you imagined a piece of paper, 12 inches, right? That size piece of paper, and you took a pencil and you wrote on it, the size that would be on an actual piece of paper is the same as the size on the iPad, which is obviously unlike anything that's been before, right? Yeah. It was always too big.

Brad Dowdy: Sure.

iPad Pro

Myke Hurley: But this is the whole thing about the iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil and, like, the pixel density and this new refresh rate and touch layer and all this craziness that built into it. It looks like it occupies the same amount of space as an actual pencil and actual paper.

Brad Dowdy: That's really interesting.

Myke Hurley: That's the, yeah, that's the really exciting thing about it, I think.

Brad Dowdy: I didn't expect that at all, because I'm not spun up on all that stuff like you. I'm actually not interested in the iPad Pro. And, you know, the pencil would be the one thing that would be kind of interesting to me.

Brad Dowdy: I didn't realize that it would have that fine of an output on the screen, like you're writing on a sheet of paper, like your handwriting style is not, like, you know, three times as large. I did listen to the new ATP podcast last night with our friends John Casey and Marco, and Marco was fawning over the pencil, which is not his thing at all. But just listening to him talk about it, I was like, wow, they might have done something pretty good here.

Myke Hurley: I think they have. And I'm really looking forward to putting it through its paces properly, because one of my big things is everybody that's testing it is testing it from an art perspective. Right. I want to test it from a writing perspective. And I don't think there are going to be any, I don't think there's going to be anyone else that does that. Maybe I could do a little thing for the site if you would let me.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, that would be, that would be wonderful.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we could talk about that. I could do one of the Brad Dowdy patented written down reviews.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that'd be cool, actually. I would like that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Whenever I get one in hand, we'll talk about that. That might be fun.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and then we can get Jake Weidman to do the, do the artwork. He's done all the artwork for the, the boxes. Like you see the box artwork, all the pencil work. He's the master penman that he, he has put the pencil to the real test. And it was, it was cool to see his artwork up on the, up on the, the packaging for the, the big iPad, the iPad pro.

Myke Hurley: Who was that?

Brad Dowdy: Jake Weidman, master penman. So did you look at the boxes? You went to the Apple store, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And they have the boxes that the iPad pros are in. I don't know if you got to see the boxes and on the exterior, like one of the shots is like, I don't know if it's the zebra or it's got this really intricate drawn pattern on it.

Myke Hurley: Oh yeah. That was in the, um, that's on all the promo stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a guy named Jake Weidman. He's a master penman.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. We've talked about him on the show. You should listen to it sometime.

Myke Hurley: I don't remember the name of everybody. That's not fair.

Brad Dowdy: That's not fair. I know. Uh, but Hey, so enough of your digital pencil nonsense.

Myke Hurley: Oh yeah. The reason I brought all this up is that we should talk about the pen addict edition of the Apple pencil. So Ginny, again, all over this episode.

Brad Dowdy: We just need, we just need to have her on. Ginny, you want to come on the show? We'd love to have you. Yes.

Myke Hurley: Standard invitation. Ginny, if you're interested, let us know. We'll, we'll hook it up. Um, she went to the Apple store, the Apple, Apple store, right? The one in Cupertino.

Brad Dowdy: Cupertino store. Yep.

Mechanical Pencils

Myke Hurley: And managed to find mechanical pencil versions of the hexamatic with the Apple logo on. Now I really want one of those.

Myke Hurley: And there was no pens. I think, I think we, uh, maybe cleared them out.

Brad Dowdy: No more pens, but they've replaced them with pencils.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I want one of the pencils more than the pens, to be honest.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, these barrels are great. You know that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And, and I don't like the refills, right? That you can put in the pen versions. So it's the pencil that I want now.

Brad Dowdy: So do you already have those on the way too?

Myke Hurley: No, I don't. Oh, I do not. I haven't asked anybody. You're slacking.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: But that's cool. I mean, gosh, they're, they're awesome. I love that. Hexamatic barrel is just a really legitimately good design by Retro 51. And I mean, they can put anything in there.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And, um, you know, I'd be all over it. So that's cool. Yeah. The pencil, you, you got to get the pencil now that you're, uh, you're the, you're the pencil nerd of the show.

Myke Hurley: I am indeed. That is me. I love that fact, by the way. That I'm the pencil nerd. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I'm, I'm slacking though in the amount that I have, you know, I feel like I need to really like to burn up a little bit more on it, but.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, I love a good, I love a good drafting pencil, um, mechanical pencil. That's kind of your realm, but I, I am kind of, uh, drifting off into the, to the woodcase pencils a little bit more. So, uh, we, we've got our bases covered.

Myke Hurley: Good.

Brad Dowdy: So you saw the real version of the Apple pencil. I have, right. Did you see this before? I have seen. Yeah. Yeah. It's been like a month or two ago. Um, but I wanted to put that in the show notes. One of our listeners. And of course I forget the name cause I didn't put it in the show notes, sent me the wood case, Apple pencil. He said he found them when he was cleaning out his desk. Um, he had been to some event years and years ago and they gave him a, a batch of pencils, um, at the event from, um, from Apple. And it's, uh, just a, a nice red round barrel wood pencil with the Apple logo on it and a white eraser. They're really neat. Um, um, my kids keep trying to steal those, but I don't let them.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Somewhere I have a plastic ballpoint with an Apple logo on that Patrick Ryan sent to me. Nice. Yeah. He sent it to me one time. Um, you've put this real interesting link in our, uh, follow up this week. Um, and I took a look at these today and I'm very perplexed. So these are from Leica, right? The camera maker.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: Now they have some pens for sale.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So one of, uh, my followers on Twitter sent this to me, um, in, you know, around the conversation, I don't know if the conversation was around the Apple pen or around, um, maybe some Mont Blanc. I can't, I can't remember who it was. It was actually almost like a sub tweet to me that I got this link and, you know, I knew the, the Leica stuff is super beautiful, super high end, super expensive. Um, their design is our classic, you know, I think of like the Lamy 2000 and like some of the, and the Leica camera could be in the same, you know, museum side by side together, right there. That kind of thought about that kind of type of design. Um, I'm certainly not a camera aficionado.

Myke Hurley: Well, they're like held up as like the, the prime designs in their industries. Right. Like cause the Lamy Safari is, is. I meant the 2000. The 2000. Okay. Well, both then. Well, same, same. I actually do agree with the Safari to be honest. Yeah. I would say, I mean, the 2000 is more beautiful, but I think the Safari is more iconic a design. Sure. Um, it stands, it way more stands out. There's nothing else that looks like it and anything else that comes close to it just looks like a Lamy Safari. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so they have their own pen line now.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So it looks like they, they collaborated with ST DuPont, which, um, I've never used any of their products before any of their fountain pens. Um, but they make fountain pens, roller balls, lighters. You see them in, you see them. Um, I've seen them in like luggage stores before.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Um, like, uh, I can't think of that store. Um, that's in all the malls, but they have like these high end stuff, the, the places that carry like the to me luggage and things like that. You'll see these, these, these, uh, types of products next to them. And the prices are just stupid. I mean, for, I don't know enough about these ST DuPont pens, but for the, the fountain pen for the, the like a fountain pen is $840. I mean, the ballpoint is $540, which is just kind of berserk. I mean, I'm, I'm, you know, I guess they have a few customers that are just like the hardcore, um, will they, where they will be able to get this, you know, they'll sell a handful of these pens.

Myke Hurley: Um, they're trying to pivot the like a brand into selling extremely expensive things like Montblanc. That's what they're trying to do.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Into a lifestyle brand instead of a camera brand. Right.

Myke Hurley: Because there's only so many cameras you can sell.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And the like a name does have some pull. I mean, it's got some big time pull, right. When, uh, in a certain subset of people, but just from a pen perspective, it's like, it doesn't, it doesn't make sense. I mean, Montblanc pens wake make way more sense than looking at something like this from, uh, like an, an ST DuPont. So.

Myke Hurley: And this does not look like an $840 pen. I, for one, I'm not a big fan of the design in general. I don't think it looks that great, but the worst part of it is if you look at the image on the website and you blow it up and you see the ST DuPont stamp around the set around the grip section. It's like, no, I don't pay you $840 to put that brand all the way around the edge of this pen. Like no way.

Brad Dowdy: I think the worst part is the 0.95 on the, on the cap finial.

Myke Hurley: I, I let that go because that.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, that's part of the branding.

Myke Hurley: That's the Leica branding.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right.

Myke Hurley: But like, if I'm buying this, I'm not buying it for ST DuPont.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. Yes.

Myke Hurley: Don't put that around the edge of the pen. And in all honesty, like whilst they are a big brand, they, I don't think I can get away with that. Like their net, their brand name is so great that you'd stamp it around the outside of an $840 pen. Sure. Mont Blanc don't even do this, that like grotesquely. Right. Right. They're very understated with that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's fair. Yep. I completely buy that. And just the, the location and the size of the, the name, it, it, it's pretty, uh, obtrusive in, in what you're looking at. And if you're spending $840 on a pen, I mean, this isn't the style that I'm going for.

Myke Hurley: Yep. Completely.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. But I thought you would enjoy that. I thought it was worth a little, a little mention here. Um, just because of the, the branding, you know, the, the Leica's just so well-respected and thought of, I thought it was interesting that they're doing the pen, but then, you know, you look at what it actually is in the price and it's like, wow, you know, I'd rather just go ahead and overpay for one of their cameras than one of the pens.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting that they're doing it. Um, and I, and I hope that they do more in the future though, you know, cause you never know, they might really knock it out of the park, but I think potentially they need a different partner.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe so.

Myke Hurley: Because that's not, I mean, the design just in general isn't that great, but hey, yeah. Hey ho. Should we take a break? Let's do it. Because we've got something big on the other side.

Myke Hurley: This week's episode is brought to you by lynda.com, the online learning platform of over 3000 on-demand video courses to help you strengthen your business, technology, and creative skills. For a free 10 day trial, visit lynda.com slash pen addict. That's l-y-n-d-a dot com slash pen addict. lynda.com is for people that want to solve problems. People that are curious or people who want to make things happen. And you can do this by going to lynda.com, feeding your curious mind and learning fantastic things. You will be able to watch beautifully produced courses that are taught by top experts who have a real passion about the things they're teaching you about. And this is just so many, it's just so much stuff. Like if you want to learn Illustrator, if you want to learn Photoshop, if you want to learn Excel, if you want to learn Lightroom or Logic Pro or Adobe Audition, no matter what type of software you want to learn, you can learn it at lynda.com. Maybe you want to learn about marketing or business tactics, negotiation tactics, body language, getting things done. Maybe you want to learn about bootstrapping your business. Maybe you want to learn about going paperless. Because whilst we love paper at The Pen Addict, I don't think any of us like bills. And that's what being paperless is all about. This is the type of stuff that you'll be able to learn at lynda.com. There is just so much great stuff. And the best way for you to understand exactly what is there is to go and sign up for that 10-day free trial. You'll be able to stream thousands of courses on demand, allowing you to learn at your own schedule and at your own pace. All of their courses are broken down into bite-sized pieces. So you can watch them in any order you like or just jump in and out and get that piece of information that you need. You can also search their transcripts that they have so you're able to jump straight to that point in a video that you want. You can watch and download courses to your Android and iOS device to learn on the go. And you can create and save playlists of all the courses that you want to watch. And you can also share those playlists with friends. Your lynda.com membership is going to give you unlimited access to training on hundreds of topics for one flat rate. Whether you're looking to become an industry expert, you're passionate about a hobby, or you just want to learn something new, go ahead and visit lynda.com slash penaddict and sign up for your free 10-day trial. Thank you so much to lynda.com for their support of this show.

Scribble Pen

Brad Dowdy: So one of the most amazing topics we've ever covered on this show, nearly 200 episodes into it, is a product called the Scribble Pen. And a lot of our long-time listeners are very familiar with this product. And I wanted to be sure to bring this back up again because we've had a lot of new listeners probably since we've... It's been, I don't know, many episodes since we've talked about it. But it's the pen project that won't go away, right? You know, it fails to die. So I was on Reddit the other day, and I'm a Reddit browser. I'm not like a hardcore user. I don't, you know, like reply and upvote and do all those things. But I like to read some of the things. And one of the subreddits I subscribe to is... I'm not going to say the word so you don't have to beat me, but it's blank Kickstarters. And you can assume the word.

Myke Hurley: S blank, blank, blank, blank, blank, blank, Y.

Brad Dowdy: Blanky Kickstarters.

Brad Dowdy: Where people track... You know, there's all kinds of Kickstarter drama going on. So there's this subreddit where people talk about basically crappy Kickstarters. And the Scribble Pen, a link came up in that saying the Scribble Pen relaunches with new design and new video. Is it real now? So the Scribble Pen site itself updated. And I didn't even go to the site because the very first post that's gotten the most upvotes is someone who did go to the site and looked into it and opened up their terms of service, which is a genius thing to do. And let me read to you this snippet from the terms of service that is in this post. You agree that the company has a right to limit, refuse, suspend, modify, or discontinue the provision of the services or products to any user at any time without assigning any reason to that effect. Since the payment is processed to be spent on the development and manufacture of the product immediately upon submission of the pre-order by you, Therefore, it is practically not possible for us to refund the payment you make. By submitting the pre-order, you agree that the pre-orders are final and non-refundable, even in extremely rare cases that the development fails and consequently the delivery of the product is not made. Are we clear on what's going on here?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what happens if you try and do some sort of crowdfunding thing that's not through Kickstarter. Like if you decide you want to back something like that, right? This is the type of stuff you're going to end up bumping into.

Brad Dowdy: So, by hiding this wording, Scribble is saying, we are allowed to steal your money and not provide you a product.

Brad Dowdy: That's it in a nutshell.

Myke Hurley: Now, to play devil's advocate, as I am wont to do, especially in these types of scenarios, any type of terms of service, when you look into it, will always have this kind of stuff in it, right? Where basically the result is company can do whatever company likes, you will always lose. And this is the same for any terms of service you see, any type of serious terms of service, because they have to protect themselves. I agree. That's fair.

Brad Dowdy: Okay, go ahead.

Myke Hurley: This is not a company you should trust. So, the fact that this is in there tells you you definitely shouldn't be trusting them. You shouldn't be trusting them to start with. And you see stuff like this means you can't take any kind of legal action against them.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And that's definitely true about almost every terms of service out there. And I agree with you, except they add the part on this money is being used for development.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. They're being clear what they're doing here. Right. And that should tell you what you need to know.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So, you're giving them money and you're probably never going to see a pen. And so, that's where we're currently at with the Scribble. Well, this is like round four. They failed on Kickstarter, failed on Indiegogo, failed on their own launch, and now they're trying to relaunch again. For everyone who is not familiar with Scribble, and you're just coming into this podcast now, we're going to have some links into the show notes. Because this is like 1% of the story.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: You know, the backstory of the Scribble itself is long and dirty and awful. And there's a real, basically, just a scammer running this Kickstarter. Um, we have someone not related to the Pen Addict show at all, has gone and put together, did this massive amount of research about the guy behind the Scribble, and all the shady products that he's tried to launch, and all these scams he's tried to pull. Um, so there's a few articles we'll have in the show notes for your reading. Um, pleasure, I guess. I don't know if it's a real pleasure, uh, to read this stuff. But, it's awful. I mean, the guy behind this, you know, I'm going to say, allegedly, right? I mean, you know, it, who knows? But, there is so much evidence on the background of who's putting this project together, that, you know, I would not recommend anybody to spend a dime on the Scribble. I mean, aside from the fact that it's just complete vaporware, this product cannot actually function the way they want it to function. Um, the person behind it is, is awfully shady, and so consider...

Myke Hurley: The person who is believed to be behind it.

Brad Dowdy: Considered a warning. Believed to be behind it, yes. I don't want to say anything that'll get us in trouble. But, the person believed to be behind it is involved in several other similar type, um, failures across different crowdfunding platforms. And, we'll have all that documentation in the, uh, in the show notes for you to check out. I don't want to get too deep into it, because that's just a, a hideous rabbit hole. Um, to go down.

Myke Hurley: But, if there's anybody that does just want a very quick audio backstory, this is a product that is believed, or that the selling point is, you can, like, touch the end of the pen against any surface, press a button, and it will scan the colour of that surface, and allow you to write and draw in that exact colour. And, apparently, it has, like, this magical ink well cartridge thing in it, that can mix the colours on the fly, and allow you to draw in it. And, there's a ink version, and there is a stylus version, so you can do it digitally instead. Um, which is potentially more real, if one of them was going to be real. Sure. Um, that, that product makes way more sense to actually exist via the laws of physics. Yes. Um, and they were on Kickstarter, and they had a very successful Kickstarter campaign.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, a couple hundred thousand, right? At least.

Myke Hurley: But the, uh, partly, I believe, I believe, and to this day believe, partly due to this show, uh, we, we really started talking about it a lot, and, and, and I think were, not completely, but, but part of the reason that lots of people started talking about it, and looking into it, and asking lots of questions. Um, the, uh, the video that they showed, that, that, that the Scribble people made, didn't actually really show the pen in action. Um, yeah. So Kickstarter basically said to them, give us a video of this thing in action, and your project comes down. They made a video, which, again, didn't really show anything, and was super badly edited, which would suggest that there was something, a little bit under the wall going on, and then Kickstarter shut them down. Then they went to...

Brad Dowdy: Indiegogo.

Myke Hurley: Did they go to Indiegogo, or did they go to that self-hosted thing?

Brad Dowdy: I think they did Indiegogo for, like, a week.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, and I think Indiegogo shut them down. Yeah. Which is very rare. Like, if Indiegogo's shutting you down, like, because they...

Brad Dowdy: Because you get paid, you get the money immediately from Indiegogo. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: So, then Indiegogo shut them down, then they did this, like, self-hosted crowdfunding thing, and it didn't really go anywhere, and now they're back.

Brad Dowdy: And then they did a prototype mail list, like a pre-order prototype, you want to get on the beta team, or kind of thing. Yep. Just trying to get money from people. You know, pay us basically full freight for the prototype of this, which, you know, they sent out emails to people who had signed up for Kickstarter. You know, they have all their email addresses and things like that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And then now we're back again. So, it's a nightmare.

Myke Hurley: But have you watched the video?

Brad Dowdy: The new one?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: No.

Myke Hurley: Oh, you've really missed out, man. Oh, it's amazing. Right. So, the new version, the new version, okay, it can do a bunch of things that the old version can't do. Oh, Lord. So, for example, they show one part where, like, there's a couple in a room, and they, like, it's an empty room, and they're getting ready to decorate it. And they have some colors in the room, and they scan the colors. And it shows them, like, a catalog of furniture that matches those colors, right? So, it does that, for one.

Myke Hurley: It does, you can kind of search for colors now in, like, a kind of a weird way. Like, you search for the color, and then it does, like, what would look like a Google image search and shows you things that are in that color. So, let's say, like, you search a red, like, oh, this vase is in that red. It does, you can scan colors of the clothing in your wardrobe and use the app that they make to create, like, a virtual wardrobe thing. So, you can plan your outfits. And also, you can scan the colors of your skin, and it will make makeup recommendations for you.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, you totally need this.

Myke Hurley: It's everything I need in life.

Myke Hurley: As well as, you know, being the best pen. The only pen you'll ever need, I think, is the, or the last pen you'll ever need, is the thing that they say. Because, obviously, it can match to any color in the world.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, what a mess.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. The video is really, really nicely produced now, though. And the product design, the prototype design, looks way better.

Brad Dowdy: Sure. I mean, it's always looked good. It's just never going to work. Yeah. Well, I'll watch the video tonight. I was avoiding it. You've got to watch it, man.

Myke Hurley: It's kind of a marvel.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's amazing.

Myke Hurley: But with this video, they still would have run into the same problems. Because the way that they show the product working, they actually show what looks like the product working. But, basically, you could very easily make it look this way of editing. So, they still would have run into the same problems.

Brad Dowdy: Sure, sure. So, just to put a bow on it, the reason why we don't believe this scribble will work, because, like Myke was saying, you point at the object to get the color, and the ink mixes, right? That's great. But now, the theory is, you can point to the next color, and it mixes, and then it writes in that color, and that's not physically possible. There's no way that transition can happen. And that's been the hang-up. A lot of people have tried, and I think there are some products where you can do this digitally, with the stylus, point at the color, and have an app on a tablet.

Myke Hurley: And that's part of their product.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So, that's part of the product. But the actual marker is just, I don't see any way that it can physically happen. So, there's the scribble story, and there'll be more reading in the show notes, if you are so inclined, especially for new listeners to the show. You should check it out, just because it's just one of the most asinine things we've ever dealt with here on the show. I think it's even crazier than the Visionaire. The Visionaire was just bad.

Myke Hurley: The Visionaire wasn't a scam.

Brad Dowdy: Right.

Myke Hurley: Right. The Visionaire was... What would you call the Visionaire?

Brad Dowdy: An obfuscation?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, or it was just like a product of extremely high markup.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. It was a flea market resale.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. The problem with the Visionaire was that they were not being forthcoming with details. Right. Right, about where the product was made and manufactured. Right. But this is... I mean, we don't know it's a scam. Like, we don't know. Like, we really don't know. Like, we can only assume. They might believe they can make this. Sure. They might not be setting out to scam people. But this is more likely a scam than anything else that we've seen before.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Yeah. The way... The lineage of the product. Yeah. It's pretty sketchy. Stay far away.

Myke Hurley: Just in case we don't pick it, but Greg82 in the chat room has suggested maybe one of the best titles in Pen Island history. The problem with the Visionaire was... Dot, dot, dot.

Brad Dowdy: How many hours do we have left to record?

Myke Hurley: I was going through some stuff today in my kind of my big box where I throw like random pen related things. And I found the ink cartridges in the Visionaire box. I threw them away. I decided not to keep them for my birth certificate of my child.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, right. Remember the time I was texting him live on the show? Oh, yeah. I remember that. Because I actually had an open dialogue with him in the beginning and then he realized it was not going to go well for him and he stopped replying to me.

Myke Hurley: At first I thought he was... He thought it was awesome that he could potentially be getting this press and then realized where it was going and decided to pull away, which is probably the smartest move that he made throughout his whole campaign. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Awesome Products

Myke Hurley: He made out like a bandit. All right. We've been talking about crappy, useless products. Let's talk about an awesome one.

Brad Dowdy: Let's do it.

Myke Hurley: This week's episode is brought to you once again by Dudek Modern Goods. Dudek Modern Goods was created by the lovely Myke Dudek of the Clicky Post. And these products were created because Myke wanted somewhere that he could store his fantastic pens that he started to amass. So as Myke was diving deeper and deeper into the pen addict rabbit hole, he decided that he needed somewhere and he knew that he wanted somewhere that he could store his stuff that was beautiful and elegant and would also give him all of the features that he wanted. But he couldn't find anything. So the awesome guy that he is, instead of giving up, Myke decided to make his own. And products like the Cube, the Block, and the Groove were born. Mr. Dudek is super passionate about crafting beautiful yet functional products that should last you a lifetime. All of the products that you'll find in the store at DudekModernGoods.com are all handmade in Arizona, USA from solid walnut and have a distinct modern and minimal design. Mixed with the rich grain and color of the walnut, these pieces will earn their place on your desk a day and still will look fantastic in 30 years from now. There are nine different designs to choose from with several options to fit your needs, whether you have larger pens in your collection or you need a space to hold your pocket notebooks or journal in addition to your writing instruments. Mr. Dowdy, you have some Dudek Modern Goods, do you not?

Brad Dowdy: Some's an understatement. So, yeah, you know, Myke has sent me some out of the kindness of his heart, but I love the products so much. I just buy the ones that I feel like are going to fit my needs as well. So I've bought as many products as he sent me in the past. And I just love everything about them. I have probably four or five of them on my desk here at home. I have another one that I keep at work just because they're so functional, so useful. So, you know, if you're listening to this show and you're obviously into pens, pencils and those types of things, and you don't have something like a little small display to keep some of your favorite pens handy, this is the way to go. There's nothing better. There's nothing that looks better. There's nothing manufactured better than what Myke is doing at Dudek Modern Goods. I love these products. I will always support Myke's work because he does it right. And it's just a great story, too, behind what he's done and how, you know, seeing this business grow. And, you know, I love all the products. And you have to have one. There's just no two ways about it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, you should go check it out. These are great little all-in-one solutions that can not only store pens but can also store notebooks. They can store ink bottles. He's really kind of – and you can tell when you look at this stuff how Myke is one of us, right? Like he thinks in that way. Like I remember like the first stuff, the first Dudek Modern Goods stuff, whilst awesome, it was completely different, right? They all like one pen size holes and they were like mainly just like nine holes for pens, right? That was all it was. But now like the stuff that he does, like the cube, which has like the nine holes, the holes are huge, right? So they can fit all sizes of pens. Like you can see as time has gone on, he has learned. And as his knowledge continues to grow in this stuff, his products just get better and better and better over time. It's just awesome to watch. Myke ships internationally. He has reasonable shipping rates. You have to remember Walnut is heavy and has shipped to more than 20 countries so far. As the holiday months are generally the busiest of people like Myke who make things, he wanted to get the word out to all of you guys and girls. If you're thinking of buying a piece for yourself or you're thinking of buying it for a gift for somebody else or you're thinking of asking for one of the Dudek Modern Goods products for Christmas or for the holidays this year, it might be the time now to start letting people know or to start buying one of these yourself because every piece is handmade. It's important to get that order in early so it can arrive in time for your gift exchanges this holiday season. And as a special promotion for listeners, the pen addict podcast is going to give 10% off any Dudek Modern Goods products. Just go to DudekModernGoods.com. There'll be a link in the show notes for that and use the code pen addict to check out for 10% off as pen addict or one word. This month, this offer, this offer code is only available through to the end of November 2015. So make sure you get in there fast and get your order placed. Thank you so much to Myke Dudek and Dudek Modern Goods for sponsoring this show.

Brad Dowdy: So I wanted to highlight, I haven't been highlighting many blog posts on the show recently. We need to do that more often. That's on me because I enjoy doing that type of thing. And Drees at the Pencil Case blog did a post recently where he visited the manufacturer. And you may, I don't even know if you're familiar with this manufacturer, but they're called Conid. Yeah, I know. Yeah, so they make this bulk filling fountain pen I first learned about from our good friend Thomas Hall. And he raved about this pen and the filling system and how much ink capacity it can have, how well the pen was built. They use titanium nibs, things like that. A lot of it came, a lot of the story behind the pen, the Conid brand happened on Fountain Pen Network years and years ago. So there's lots of stories and lots of, you know, build up and lots of, you know, that's how they basically became a business. They became, they started taking orders on Fountain Pen Network. And now they're just a full-fledged fountain pen manufacturer. And Drees went to the, went to the factory where they make the pens. And it blows my mind, you know, when I look, try to compare like what we do at Knock, you know, and, you know, the challenges we have and the things we're trying to build. And then looking at someone like Conid who has this, who basically just went all in on this fountain pen design and the mechanics and machinery and manufacturing that they have to put into this is just so impressive. To see these stories and these behind the scenes stories. And especially from like a self-made company like this, you know, Werner, the owner, just, I mean, it basically did this on his own, you know. And I just thought it was a really fun article to point out and to see the behind the scenes of like a real small manufacturer like this. And how cool their designs are if you're not familiar with Conid at all and how well engineered and super functional they are. I do own one Conid so far. It's in my friend Susan's hands who writes for the Pen Addict. She's actually going to review it for me because she loves the pen so much she doesn't want to send it back to me.

Myke Hurley: Conid's famous for this really unique filling mechanism that they developed, right? Which is like a vacuum filling mechanism that basically fills up the majority of the barrel.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's like a power vac filling system and it's unique to their pens. It's basically the whole reason for their company to exist is this filling system.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So it's something they did. So Drees goes into it a little bit on the blog. But it's well worth your time to spend a few minutes reading about this. Drees did a wonderful post.

Brad Dowdy: And it's just cool to see. I like this behind the scenes stuff. We all like the behind the scenes stuff to kind of see. But especially when you see something like Conid, it's different than going to just a major manufacturer. Like I don't know you'd get this behind the scenes at like the Lamy factory tour, right? You're just going to get the show version. This is like the pure behind the scenes stuff here. And I think it's great. So I just wanted to shine a little bit of a light on this post and y'all should go check it out for sure.

Lamy Dialogue 3

Brad Dowdy: All right. So it's kind of in relation to that. There's two pens I wanted to talk about today before we wrap up. And I was thinking about them together a little bit. It's the Pilot 823, the Pilot Custom 823, which I review went up today on the blog. And the Lamy Dialogue 3, which I just received this weekend from JetPens.

Myke Hurley: Huh. Huh. I didn't know you were getting one of those. Yeah, so that just happened. Because that was a secret. That is a, the Lamy Dialogue 3 is a, I guess we could maybe start putting this into practice now. It is like a mythical pen of the Pen Addict Podcast. It is. We've been talking about this for as long as we've been talking about the Vanishing Point, which has been since the beginning of the show.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. So it is a mythical pen of the Pen Addict. And the reason why I finally went ahead and did it is because they tweaked the design a little bit. They have a little bit, it definitely has a different paint job finish on it. I have one of the piano lacquered ones. And the kicker with the dialogue, we'll go ahead and talk about the Dialogue 3 first. First, the kicker is, so people who are new to fountain pens are a little bit fascinated with retractable fountain pens. And that's kind of not really a thing in fountain pens. There's the Vanishing Point. And that's pretty much it. You know, the Dialogue 3 is actually the second choice. But it's so far down the list in market share, if you will, from the retractable aspect of it that it doesn't really get a lot of run. But it's had some difficulties in the past. It's unlike the Vanishing Point. The Vanishing Point is a knock. You know, it's a clicky fountain pen. So you press the plunger. Nib comes out the front. The Lamy Dialogue is a twist, which there are a few other twist model fountain pens. Montblanc makes one, which we, Myke and I, we handled one at the Atlanta Pen Show. And it was like 800 bucks. And we put it down pretty quick. But it was beautiful, though. It was stunning. It was a wonderful pen.

Myke Hurley: That was one of those scenarios. We were like, we ought to walk away. Yeah. We just got to walk away, because otherwise this is going to be horrific.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right. So you can get a few different pens with a retractable nib. But if you're not going with the Vanishing Point, the Dialogue is kind of the next stop. Right? But it's had some issues in the past with the nib drying out. You know, more so than like the Vanishing Point. Like the Vanishing Point has a little trap door in the front.

Brad Dowdy: You know, that keeps the nib from drying out. And the Dialogue 3, now that I have this one, it has a door as well. And I'm going to try to take a video of this mechanism. It works really neat. You can probably hear me playing with it as I'm talking to you. Sorry about that. The clicking. You know what I'd really like to see?

Myke Hurley: Because I was just thinking, I was going to ask you to take a video. You should make some animated GIFs.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Yeah, I'll work on that. That would be cool. I should. That way we could share them easier and put them in the show notes and kind of describe them. So you'll have to tell me what app I want to use for that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I'll help you out with that.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So the Lamy Dialogue is a large pen. And it's not too heavy, but it's a little bit heavy, but it's more the diameter.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, see, this is the first time I'm looking at the JetPens page right now. This is the first time I've ever looked at these images in detail. And I've noticed, as you're explaining it, this is fat.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. It's kind of a fat pen in relation to most fountain pens. It looks like a marker. Yeah, I'd say it's about marker width. Yeah. And so what happens when you have a marker width pen, your fine writing does not do as well, right? Your detailed writing, like I write small, it's harder to write small when my thumb and forefinger are further apart from each other. You know, it's a very small measurement, but it's noticeable.

Myke Hurley: Your movements are more exaggerated, aren't they?

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So when you have that spacing that's wider, you can't help but write a larger letter or a line. And that's something I'm trying to get used to. Last night was the first night I really took it out and put it to the test. It's enjoyable to write with, but it's very marker feeling. This is not going to be a pen for everybody for sure. And that's kind of the reason why I wanted to talk about it in conjunction with the Pilot 823 is because both of these pens are at a price point where they're at the top of the line for standard production for both Pilot and Lamy. Right. This is like the top of the pricing chart. The Dialog 3 runs around $300. The Pilot 823 is like $290. So both right there in the same. But they're both made as standard production pens. So there's a big gap from, and I guess you probably see this in any type of manufacturer's product lineup. You know, they start at the low end. You know, there's a few entry models.

Brad Dowdy: The majority, the bulk of the product lines are somewhere in the middle. You know, that's where you're going to have the most popular styles, colors, quantities, things like that. And then you hit the end, the upper end of the product line where there's maybe one or two models. And they're very expensive in relation to the rest of the product line. But they also have features added to where, well, if you've enjoyed these middle tier products, here's these features that really ramp up, you know, what a Pilot can do or what a Lamy can do. And I just thought it was interesting. I've never, I haven't used either of these pens before, the 823 or the Dialog 3. And I'm going to end up having to compare them to what else is available in the product line. And how is, you know, the Pilot 823 going to compare with the 92 or how is the Lamy Dialog 3 going to compare with the Lamy 2000? And as great as these pens may be, actually the Pilot 823, we'll talk about this a little more in a second, is one of the best pens I've ever reviewed. It is an amazing pen. But it's very expensive. And how do you justify, you know, spending almost $300 on a pen when you can get pretty darn close to that for less than half of that price, right? So you're paying a premium in the case of the 823 for the filling system. It's a vacuum filler. And it's an awesome vacuum filler. You pop that thing in the ink bottle and that ink just shoots into there. It's almost full in one shot. I had a lot of fun actually playing with that pen. It's a bigger pen than like some of the Pilot Custom 91s, the 92s, the 74, and even the 912. The 912 was the largest Pilot that I'd used before. The 823 is larger. So these are the big writers of like Pilot's and Lamy's product lineup. The 823 I could see, I wrote in the review today that if someone was looking for a fountain pen to be their last fountain pen and the only fountain pen they used, I could see the 823 being that pen. It's that well made. It feels that nice to write with. It holds a ton of ink so you're not going to be constantly refilling it all the time, right?

Brad Dowdy: Pilot's gold nibs are the best in the business in my opinion. I think they're the number one nib, gold nib, especially from the Japanese makers. I'm not taking into account someone like Pelican who makes wonderful gold nibs. I just, I mean, I really, really was impressed with the 823. But in the end, if I'm looking at spending that kind of money, it didn't like fit my aesthetic style with the colors of the pen. So the 823 generally is only widely available in the amber barrel with the gold furniture. It looks amazing, right? I mean, it's a beautiful, beautiful pen, but it's not my aesthetic, the gold and the brown. Now, I wanted to like latch on to that color and say, this color is awesome. And, you know, end up keeping the pen and, you know, buying it from Goldspot, who was nice enough to loan me the pen for review. But I couldn't do it, Myke. I wanted, it's such a good pen, but I knew the color was going to keep me from inking it up as much as some of my other pens, some of my other pilots. Even just the basic black and rhodium pilot 912, I would end up using more than the 823. And I don't want to spend that kind of money and have the pen sitting around. So there's been some 823 models that have been done in the past that have been like clear and silver. So I'm going to have, I might try to hunt one of those down.

Brad Dowdy: Just because the experience of using the 823 was exceptional. This is a, it, there's nothing wrong. There was, it's a flawless pen. And in my opinion, it's literally one of the best pens I've ever reviewed, except I'm not going to own it because, because of the colors. So I don't know what you think about the 823 as far as style goes.

Brad Dowdy: It's beautiful looking, but there, there's a breaking point where.

Brad Dowdy: If the pen doesn't like get into your soul for that price, you know, you don't need to end up taking it at home with you. And that's where I ended up being with the 823.

Myke Hurley: I feel like I'm going to be, I feel so bad to say this, but it looks boring and cheap. Hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It doesn't feel boring or cheap. Um, and when you have it in hand, it doesn't look boring.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Um, it's really impressive to hold.

Myke Hurley: The images, like it looks, I mean, when you look at the, all the pilot customs, I mean, what price ranges did it go for? Those four that you've got there?

Brad Dowdy: Uh, low to mid one hundreds. Yeah. The, the nine 12, the black nine 12, the biggest one is like one 80. Everything else is cheaper than that.

Myke Hurley: Right. But see, when you look at the four of them together, you look at a picture of them all, they all look like they could be the same price.

Brad Dowdy: I agreed. Agreed. So like, yeah. And that's, I was just gonna say, that's where the vacuum filling system like really ramps up the price and things like that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, I totally get that. Right. Like I totally understand all of that. Um, and they're good looking, but it doesn't look, it doesn't look like a $300 pen. Right. For me personally, if I'm spending that amount of money, I want spectacle. Right. At $300, I don't just want a good pen. A good pen is expected. Right. Right. At that price point. I want something that is going to wow me, which is why I thoroughly want one of these piano white dialogue threes. Right. That thing is stunning.

Brad Dowdy: It's beautiful, but.

Brad Dowdy: I don't see where I'm going to be recommending this pen as a purchase. I'm also not buying one. Right.

Myke Hurley: Because the thing is, if I want spectacle and a great pen, I'll go buy a Nikaya. Right. Right. Right. That's what I'm going to do. Right. They're more expensive, but they're also more beautiful and they write better than these. Right. So it's like, what are you going to do? Like, that's what, that's where I'll go for.

Brad Dowdy: So just in relation to the 823 and comparing the Lamy Dialog 3, they're obviously very different pens, different style, but I'm comparing them as far as the price point goes within those product lines. And I'm actually would not as high on the Dialog 3 as the 823 using them side by side. There's just a little bit of finicky-ness with the Dialog that I'll go, you know, as I spend some more time with it, you know, I'm going to spend a few weeks with it in, before I do my review. But I can already tell there's a couple things that I keep fidgeting with that are driving me crazy. And, you know, the width of the barrel, this is going to be, this is an absolutely drive before you buy situation with the Dialog 3. If you're buying this pen blindly, you're very, very brave. You really need to see, which we've said about the vanishing point too, because of the clip location, right? You know, you need to try that type of pen to see if it's going to fit your handwriting style and your grip. But the Dialog 3 has a couple little oddities, but I don't know. It's a really, really cool pen. And it's, both of these pens are just going to be hard to recommend at that price point when they have, when the Lamy 2000's $150, right? Which is, I said the other week is probably the best fountain pen that's ever been made. So how can I justify spending $300 on the Dialog 3? So this is the kind of things I'm looking at with these two pens and comparing them, where they are in their respective product lineups and where those price points hit. So, but you want this Lamy, right? Yeah. You got to have it. I want you to try it. So you can try mine in Atlanta when you come next year.

Myke Hurley: I want to try it. I'm probably never going to buy it because I just don't want to spend $300 on a pen I'm most likely not going to use. But like, it's just when I look at both of these next to each other, I want Spectacle from it. Yes. Because that's what I feel like I'm paying it for. And maybe the vacuum filling system is Spectacle enough. But I also think that a pen at that price point has also got to show something to the world when you use it. That's just my feeling on these, right? When you get to that type of level, I mean, is it twice as good as a Sailor Pro Gear?

Brad Dowdy: Right.

Myke Hurley: Right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's where I'm at.

Fountain Pen Comparison

Myke Hurley: And my feeling is probably not twice as good. Yeah. You know? Or like, is it like four times as good as a Franklin Kristoff? Like, is it, you know, it kind of gets to a point where you have to start asking those questions. So it's like, for example, my custom Edison, the Menlo, is, I would expect, not twice as good as the 823. Sure. But I think it looks twice as expensive. Yeah. I think it looks twice as nice. Right? Yeah. So it's like, the reason I spent as much money on that as I did is because I wanted something that was, like, so fantastic to look at and work well. And that's what I got. Right. So I just feel like sometimes, sometimes you just need to think about what your intentions are for the pen. And I think that that needs to sometimes, well, at least it does for me, like, inform purchasing decisions.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. I think that's very well said. And, you know, that's how I'm trying to come at these reviews. You know, I hate to say, like, just a straight up value perspective, but, you know, there's things you need to consider, you know, why you're making these purchases and, you know, what your other options are and, you know, why you're looking at spending this kind of money on a pen. And can you get a better experience for, you know, a better price? But, you know, there's lots of things to consider. And that's what we're trying to help with as we talk about these things. Yep.

Myke Hurley: Yep. And, you know, if you're looking for a fun looking, interesting, like, retractable fountain pen, there are always crazy, crazy vanishing points on sale.

Brad Dowdy: Every year they come out with new models every year and they're always, you know, they're always great to look at and they're very well designed. The one they did this year, the Twilight Purple one, sold out, like, super fast. Did I want one of those? Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I took one look at that bad boy and I was like, oh, wow, am I sad that I missed you. Yeah. I'm going to put a link to that in the show notes. It was a Goulet special edition, right?

Brad Dowdy: No, no, no. But it was a limited pilot edition period. So just a few people got them and they're gone.

Myke Hurley: Ah, okay.

Brad Dowdy: And in the chat room, they're talking about the Cherrywood ones they did last year, which are just really spectacular looking.

Myke Hurley: Goulet says that they are going to be getting more of these.

Brad Dowdy: Nice. So you better be... Mid-November. If you want that pen, you better be on the notification list because I would wager they'll be gone the same day.

Myke Hurley: Yep. I'm going to put a link to the Cherrywood Vanishing Point in the show notes as well. But I did just put myself on the list.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. See, I still love my Stormtrooper one. That's been my favorite one so far. So I'm sticking with that one for a while until I get my socks knocked off. Although I will buy one of the vintage orange ones if I ever see one for sale. They run about $400.

Brad Dowdy: But they're pretty nice.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, but see, this is the thing, right? I probably wouldn't use this Vanishing Point. But look how good it looks, though.

Brad Dowdy: Look how good it looks. That's $200 of looks good, right? That's right. That's right. Sexy. I like it. No, it's a beautiful pen. It's the same as this.

Myke Hurley: So this Vanishing Point here, this Cherrywood one, is $288. Yes, it's a very expensive model. Maybe that's a touch expensive, but it's still got that interesting look about it, right? Yeah. And I always say this, and I don't know if... I think a lot of people maybe don't like it when I say this kind of thing. But will it look good on the desk of the CEO? Mm-hmm. Sometimes I think that at that price, that's what you need to consider, because that is the market that Mont Blanc own, and they own it for a reason. Right. Because their stuff is expensive. But heck, do they all look good? Right. Right. They sure do. There you go. I mean, they don't write as good. We know that. But that's not what it's about.

Brad Dowdy: Well, the fountain pens do. The rollerballs, no.

Myke Hurley: They're all good. I don't know if they're, in my opinion, at least some of the stuff that I've used, you can get way better stuff for cheaper.

Brad Dowdy: I'm with you. I'm with you. Yeah. Like, they're all great. Agreed.

Myke Hurley: They're all great fountain pens, but they're not necessarily the $500 good.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. $800 great versus $300 great, you know? Yeah. So, yeah. I'm with you.

Myke Hurley: All right. That about wraps up this week. If you want to find our show notes, head on over to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 181. If you want to find Brad online, you can find his stuff over at penaddict.com and knock.co. And he is at dowdyism on Twitter, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M, and at penaddict on Instagram. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E, on penaddict. There you go. On Twitter and Instagram. And thank you so much for listening. Thanks again to lynda.com and Dudek Modern Goods for sponsoring this week's show. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye.