The Pen Addict 668/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	668
Title:	Sans Remorse
Release Date:	June 4th, 2025
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 668
Audio File:	Audio Episode 668
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 668
Length:	6262 min <br />1.033 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

• From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 668. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. Hello, Myke Hurley. How are you today? Oh, I'm good. I'm real good. Are you? I'm doing fine. So it's that time of year again. Today, Brad and I spent a couple of hours working on a Lego build. It is that time. It is member special time. A bunch of shows here over at Relay are publishing some extra specials for all Relay members over the next few weeks. So if you are a member supporting any show, you will get access to this. You will get part one on Friday. We decided to save our sanity and cut it off at a certain point today. And then next week, we're going to record the next part, which I hope is the final part, but we'll see how it goes when we get there.
• Yeah, it's been fine. It was fine today. It was fine because we cut it off. If we would have continued and we would have gotten into some tough territory, I think. It gets progressively more tense the longer we go. So we only had like one little hiccup today, which was on me. And then, but like those things like tend to pile up as you go and then you just get tired and then we don't love each other anymore, but we do. Oh, no, I'd never say that. I would never say that. No, it's all good. It's been fun so far. Yeah. So go to relay.fm.com. You can learn more and you can support any show. You can support this show and you'll get the first part of that on Friday. Yay.

Follow-up and feedback from last week's episode

• All right. You want to hit a little bit of follow up? Yes. Not much from last week. Our presidential platform. We only got one person submitting a vote to the feedback form and they voted for me. I just want you to know.
• So I had some, you know, the I was looking at the voting machine records, you know, the audit, and I definitely saw some other votes for me. Stop the steal, Brad. I get it. I get it. Stop the steal, please. I get it. So the one email I got said they had a bone to pick with me. This is from AY. But I don't think it was a bone to pick other than just like, hey, this would be a good addition. And I actually agree with AY saying, I have a bone to pick with your campaign as president of Stationery. Can we please get some ink other than boring blue and basic black as the included cartridge with every pin? And I thought that was good. And like, yeah, I would sign up for that. If you didn't, if you could pick one of the boring colors, like I think you send two cartridges in this case. If you're going to send a blue or a black as one choice, what second color would you send?
• I would do maybe black and green. Okay. I think the answer is probably green, but I would pick purple. Like I wouldn't do red because that just falls into the more basic stuff. I think purple is enough of a stretch.
• Like it would not be red. Without going too far out there, I think that's important, right? Yeah. Like I wouldn't do orange. Orange or pink or anything like that. Probably. Brown is actually a choice, but that would maybe fall in the boring, even though it's never done. No one ever does that. I think people don't do that for pretty good reason. I don't think anyone would choose it. Pretty good reason. Yeah. No way, but you know. Fair. Yeah. Yeah. I called myself a name in the refill this weekend, a brown influencer name because I'm such a fan of brown ink, but I think it's purple. That would be my choice. Okay. Yeah. So, but I think green, I think purple and green are one and two, and I think nothing else actually would qualify in my opinion. All right, next up we got, this was a couple weeks ago in Ask TPA, trying to discover really good paper notebooks that have a ton of pages in them. No, I think this was last time. This was, we had someone write in who wanted some thin notebooks for the Rotterfaden Tachenberg Leiter. Oh, that's what it was. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we have a suggestion for thin notebooks with great paper.

Discussion of Good Ink Pressions notebooks and Tomoe River paper

• Let's see here. This is a brand called Good Ink Pressions, and it's Tomoe River paper in thin notebooks. And also, Tom says that these are stocked at Barnes & Noble in the US as well, so you could buy them there if you wanted to. Interesting. So, I'm clicking through their website. I'm not familiar with this. I'm sure some listeners have. If you have used these Good Ink Pressions notebooks, I'd be curious on what you feel about the quality. But they look good, and if they're like, even the modern Tomoe, that's still good. The design is good, and they use Tomoe and, they've made Tomoe River Filofax inserts. Yeah. So, they have, I'm looking at a 60-page notebook, which is what you want for the Tachenberg Leiter, right? You want a thin, and it comes in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 different sizes.
• This is kind of crazy. That's a lot. That's a lot. So, you can get, I'm just, I'm only looking at the 60-page version. There's 120-page, 160-page, 80-page notebooks, including the 60. And then there's Traveler's Notebook Shape, which they have. So, A5 regular, Cahier, Cahier, I don't know how to spell that. I always say Cahier, but I don't think it is right, to be honest. It's Cahier. Like, Moleskine's the only one I know that uses that description for a notebook. I think it's... I've always said just Cahier. I think it might be French.
• Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it's the Moleskine. They do it for the softcover style of notebook. You just don't see those as often anymore. The reason I... See, I didn't know this. I just thought it was like a brand name that they created. But I'm learning Romanian on Duolingo very, very slowly. And, like, notebook is Cahier. And I was like, oh, that's like Cahier. Yeah. And there's a lot of influence of other languages in Romanian, so. Yep, yep. I always learned it from French. But Moleskine is the only one who would actually call... I really only use that name for, like, a product. And here on the Good Impression site, they're actually using it as a size measurement. Yep. Which I think is funny. Except that in their imagery to display the sizes, they call it Cahier. Like, literally, like the person who checks you out at the window.
• That is an autocorrect if I've ever seen one.
• So, anyway, a billion different sizes here. I'm actually compelled. Like, this is a good link. Like, I'm... I don't know if I'm going to order it, but I want to know who has ordered these and used these because you can get them to fit pretty much any common notebook product that we use these days that uses refillable type of notebooks. So, pretty interesting. This is made by... This company is run by a person.
• Naria Enriquez from Spain. Okay. Fascinating. Yeah. Graphic designer. Yeah. It seems like I've heard this name in passing, but I've never looked at anything from them before. But I'm actually... Let me go follow them on Instagram right now. So, yeah. Good rec-o. Yep. Good rec. Good rec. I like it. So, there we go. All right. Another good rec that I have is one I've been talking about for a while. The Lamy M17. This is the Jetstream refill for Lamy's Ballpoint Pens, which uses an ostensibly proprietary refill called the M16 shape. Now, Monteverde makes a copy of that, but they're the only one. So, it's pretty much a proprietary refill. And since the purchase by Mitsubishi, they have integrated some Jetstream ink into these refills, and I got one from Japan. This is, again, one of those things that starts in the Japanese market. But hopefully, it's eventually going to propagate over here. Right now, it's at Jetpens, which isn't always a direct U.S. distributor route, if that makes sense. So, Jetstream's a store based in the U.S., but they have Japanese sources where they can source a lot of product directly from Japan. And later on, when or if this product comes in the U.S., they'll source it from the U.S. distributor. But $11 a pop, Myke.
• Thoughts? It's quite expensive for a refill. It is. So, several things at play here. For just one? Just one. Yes. Single. One pack. So, there's a lot to think about when we're talking about this product and the current price. So, I was trying to sort out, could I go to some Japanese websites and find what the standard retail price is over there? And you still kind of can't. So, as I was researching this, I found a link, a travel link that I'd shared before from Pete Denison. And he talked about buying the refill in Japan, but didn't list the price.
• But this was only like a couple of months ago he made this post. But in the post, he said the store was only allowing you to buy one at a time.
• So, and then I see these refills like on eBay for like $25 and just like stupid prices and things like that. And then like Joe from the Gentleman Stationer, he got some, he thinks maybe on accident that he was able to access these. And he was charging $10 for them. So, this is like the secondhand import market. And we're not even talking about like tariffs and that kind of stuff. But this fits a pen that's only $16.50, right? I'm just looking at the JetPen site right now. So, the Lamy ballpoint. This other, it fits other Lamy's like the All-Star ballpoint, which is what I use it in right now, which is more expensive. The Ion. A few other Lamy's take the M16, M17 shape. But this is basically an $11 refill and a $16 pen. It's kind of crazy when you think about it this way. But I don't know what the real price is going to be. I would be shocked if they brought it to market like this. But I think that's just the new realm that we're in right now. When a product launches on a small scale, it's hard to get. This is what happens. And we've actually seen this happen with Uniball before with the Kuretoga dive and things like that. So, I'm a little bit concerned. No, I think it's fine in this specific scenario, right? Right. It's popped up on one retailer. It's not anywhere else. Okay.
• Everyone's taking a hit on this one. If you really want it, you can pay the $11. Yeah. It's actually cheaper than some other places I found it. I thought I was going to see it. Honestly, I thought, I was like, okay, well, if this is what they're having to import it and sell it for, I bet it's probably still like a $7 or $8 refill. I could never find that. But I sure did find a lot more that were more expensive. So, it's a one-off thing if you're an obsessive like me. I would buy one of these. If I didn't have one already, someone sent one to me from Japan. If I did not have one, I would go buy one and make sure I liked it. And then I would just kind of hold off and see six months from now, 12 months from now, if we get the full propagation of this product. Because it's crazy to see a refill priced at $11. But I'm the same person that bought the Parker-style Jetstream refills. Those were like $7.58, which is outrageous. But I really like them and I use them constantly. So, I don't know. It's something to watch. Don't panic over the price. It seems ridiculous. Because honestly, it is. But I think it'll be better. And I linked this together. So, the Light Touch. I got a bunch of emails about this. The Jetstream Light Touch, which is the new ink formulation for the Jetstream that I enjoy a lot. And it comes in the base level, like the $3.50 Jetstream. $3.50 Jetstream. It's available in blue-black ink now, which a bunch of people sent me the link, which is awesome. I can't wait to try that. I don't have it yet. I haven't ordered it yet.
• That's a good kind of like marker to watch. This is a completely new ink formulation introduced.
• Over a year ago at this point. Knowing that it's going to start in Japan and it'll eventually become common in the U.S. in a year or two.
• You know, a lot of us, I'm talking to myself here, will go and find ways to get these from Japan because we love this stuff and that's what we do. But now we're starting to see, you know, enough inventory and enough volume of these being produced where, hey, it's $2.95, you know, with the pen, right? And I don't know that the M17 refill is ever going to get down to. So like this refill, just the refill alone is $1.75. I don't know that that M17 refill is ever going to get that cheap, but I would hope it gets down to like $5, right? Like I would pay $5 for that refill like pretty regularly and keep a stock of them. So just be patient. You know, this is just kind of how the product cycle is working these days, which I think is a little bit weird, honestly. Like it's, you know, heavy release in Japan for obvious reasons, but I think it's just taking too long to get to the rest of the world. And I don't know, it's a little bit frustrating, but, you know, whatever. It gives us something to talk about. I think at the moment trying to compare this to the Kuro Toga dive might not be a fair comparison considering how strange moving things around the world is right now. I agree. I agree. But even in Japan, they were limiting your purchase amount for this. You could buy one. And I think they were like at a Toya or something. It wasn't like some random one-off corner shop. It was like at a major retailer. I don't have that. I'll pull up the article when Pete went, but I'm almost certain it was a Toya. If not them, it was like Morazon or some other big store.
• Yeah. I mean, there's always a supply-demand thing. That's the thing, right? Sure. And I think there can always be like even big companies of like not trying to put the cart before the horse. Right? Like you are not sure if this product is going to work or if it's going to be that successful. So don't overorder it maybe. I don't know. We're going to talk about that later. Okay. Yeah, for sure. Like I have a topic on that exact thing. And it is very gray. None of this is black and white. So yeah. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just getting started or scaling your business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings of a professional website, grow your brand, and get paid all in one place. When you set up a Squarespace website, you'll be able to make smarter business decisions thanks to their analytics platform. You can keep track of the stats that matter with intuitive built-in analytics tools. It makes it super easy for you to review website traffic, learn where to focus engagement, and track revenue from bookings, invoices, or product sales. Because it's really lovely if you can get a great-looking website, which is so easy to do with Squarespace's wonderful tools. But you want to know how people are using it. Are they coming to it? Actually, also, you want to make sure people can find it. And that's why you want to use their integrated SEO tools. Because every Squarespace website is optimized to be indexed to meta descriptions and auto-generated sitemap and more. So people will find your site through search engine results. These are examples of why I have used Squarespace for so many projects over the last decade and a half. Because I don't want to have to think about all of the little components that I should have to try and get a website running effectively and well. They do it for you. And as the web changes, as needs change, as businesses change, they offer new functionality. And I really love that about them. You don't have to bother looking elsewhere to try and work out something and see if it will integrate. Squarespace just takes care of it so you don't have to worry. Go to squarespace.com slash penaddict and you can sign up for a free trial today. You can build your entire website and see how it works for you. Then when you're ready to launch, use the offer code penaddict. You'll save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash penaddict. With the offer code penaddict to get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of Relay. Little SEO thing with Squarespace. I have a lot of images on my blog post. I don't have to do anything with the images before. I edit them if I want to edit color or size and anything like that. And then I upload them when I'm uploading the post. And then you have all the opportunity to put in the descriptions, which are automatically SEO focused. It's nothing I have to worry about. Exactly. And I don't have to change anything in there, but I can. And so I always like writing the little descriptions like, ooh, I'm a little SEO person here. I get to write the little image descriptions. And then sometimes I've written enough mommy safari fountain pen images. I'll write something funny in there just in case anyone ever sees it. No one ever does. Now people can know to go look. So we'll see how that affects my SEO.

Shout out of the week and Pride Month celebration

• All right. We got our shout out of the week, Myke. Shout out of the week.
• Rachel's Reflections. Rachel De La Fuente. I believe we've done a lot of these before, but I like bringing up my friends who are doing fun stuff. And recently, it is Pride Month, Myke, which we also love celebrating around here. And we celebrate all our LGBTQ plus friends year round. Here at the Pen Addict all day, every day. We're blessed to have, I think, in the pen community, like an over-indexing of people in the LGBTQ community. And I think that's really lovely because it indicates the thing that we care about, which is that this community remains inclusive for people. And I think it does. And I think that's wonderful. Yeah. It just makes me so happy every day to be just an open, inclusive community like this. It really means everything to me. So yesterday, I was messing around trying to make my own fountain pen rainbow, Myke, out of my top 100 pens or my Pen Addict 100. It was so difficult. I got frustrated. I was like, I don't have the right color. Yellow. I do not have a good yellow pen. Yeah. So I can find – there's a spoke Delrin yellow pen that I actually have in the shipping department that would be – it's ideal.
• But what made me mad is I thought I kind of solved it because I have a yellow and green Ebonite Studio Aga Khan pen that I thought would fit. And I was like, well, I'll just – that's going to be my one and it's going to kind of make the transition from yellow into green. It's just going to be like a combo meal. I was so unhappy. Even chat was trying to help me because I was frustrated because like I really wanted to make an awesome one. And I felt let down with my own collection that I didn't rainbow well enough. I was so mad. I was like, all right. You should be disappointed in yourself. We got to stop. I know. Yeah. Yeah. So as someone who doesn't own like a lot of black pens, apparently I need like a wider range of color pens. Green was pretty tough. Like I could get there with green. Like I had different ranges of green. I didn't have like a bright like a Kelly green, like just like a straightforward green. Everything else was fine. You have some great purples and some great reds. And I mean orange. That was the easiest. Duh. No way. But yeah, I was getting frustrated at my lack of ability to do a good rainbow.
• So at the end, I think my result is like I'm just going to buy a bunch of Pilot Prayers or a bunch of TWSBI Ecos or a bunch of Kaweco Sports and just have a one brand rainbow just so I can be satisfied with a rainbow of pens because my randomness was not working. So I also wanted to shout out. I put in two post links. So that was Rachel's latest post. She also did one called an instant burst of happiness.
• And this is a real thing that I wrote about just as my frustrations with not being able to make a good rainbow. So I do get happy. Like there's stationery that just makes me happy to pick up, right? The tactile feel of something before I even write with it. And that's a real thing for me. And that's hard to express in words. But like the Lamy Safari is one that I talk about when I pick it up and uncap it and grip it. I'm just like, oh, man, this is just so freaking good. Like before it even touches the page. And there's products like that. And so Rachel posted their post about what products give them that instant burst. Like, do you have anything like before you even use it? It could be a notebook. It could be a pen. It could be whatever. Like, do you pick something up and go just like, yes, this just makes me smile. And I'm not even using it as it's intended, right? Like I haven't even started writing with the Safari yet. But I'm so happy right now just by how it feels. And the Pilot M90. Oh, yeah. That's a good one. Because I'm just always in awe of the beauty of it, you know? Mm-hmm. Yep. That's a really good one, which makes me think like the Murex is probably one that would fall in that category for me, too. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. All right. So, yeah. There we go. Thanks, Rachel. I will be seeing them in D.C. later this year. Did I talk about my pen show travels here recently? I booked everything. No, but I think I read about it in the newsletter.

Upcoming D.C. Pen Show and related classes

• We'll do that next week because I have booked classes. So, I think that'll be good to kind of go through what my schedule's like and then like what classes I'm looking at. Because there's actually for this for the D.C. pen show, there'll be still time for people to book classes. So, one of the things you might see at D.C. D.C. I'm guessing you will see at D.C. is the new Retro 51 Pan Am's Airlines Strato Cruiser. Myke, I was not familiar with this model, but we are very familiar with the Pan Am series here on this show. Because I think, and I think you're in pretty much the same category. This is one of the best series that they've ever done. They bring out like one pen a year, it seems like. I don't know if they've done like two a year. But they're using like the historic Pan Am Airlines marketing for part of the series. Like some of the posters, some of the artwork from the series. And then now, like this is the second actual plane shape that they've done. I'm not familiar with the Strato Cruiser. I'm not like a super airline head. But this is, again, what's the thing that Retro 51 does best, Myke? It's like airplane pens, like travel pens. Anything in motion pens. Yep. Trains, you know, flying saucers probably.
• Airplanes, tanks. Any vehicle, they do a great job. It's just a perfect platform for this. I love this pen. I will never own this pen. Because I like, I prefer the poster ones, right? I have the Hawaii poster. I don't know if you ever got London. I think the London is the least satisfying of the three posters. Sorry. I agree. Yeah, the other one, I think it's Tokyo. Or is it just Japan? I can't remember exactly what it is. But it's an Asian themed one. Yeah, Japan.
• There's, there, this is why we love Retro 51. And yeah, I have a Retro 51 coming out later this year. And I just got my first prototype. So I've been using Retro 51s a lot. And I just, again, it's another pen that makes me smile. And even though, generally speaking, the tactile feel of them is the same. Some have more texture on the barrels. Mine I've been using recently. If you know, if you've seen my pen, has a zip tie on it. Like I keep my zip tie on there. Because that's part of the, the aesthetic. And I, I don't know. I just love it. They make me smile. That's why we talk about them a lot. You know, we're going to, we're going to repeat ourselves sometimes because we really like talking about what we like. Shocker to no one. So I like the Strata Cruiser. Like it's going to like sell super well. I couldn't have any less interest in owning one. But I love the entire Pan Am concept that they continue to build on each year. So we'll see. We'll see if they continue doing it. The Strata Cruiser looked like it frigging ruled. Right? So. Oh wait, are there beds in it? Yes, there are beds in it. You could sleep in the overhead compartments. So it's like a train. It's almost like a train. Yeah. And it had like a lounge that could seat 15 people. It looks like what like Air Force One looks like. You just like hang out. Like what I know from, from TV shows like the West Wing or whatever. Yeah. Or from your, from your campaign. You got to. From my campaign. You got to, you got to round a little bit in Air Force One. So yeah, this thing looked amazing. They had a bridal suite. I don't really know what that means, but there was one.
• Man, flying was different. You know what I mean? Like flying was just different. Not now. You just like. Yeah. Like cow. Now I just hope people. Shoved into the flight. And you hope that you can land and the wings stay on. Yeah. Now I just hope people keep their shoes on at this point. Yeah. That's my, that's my barrier. That's my bar, right? It's a pretty low bar these days. I don't ask for a lot.
• Bridal suite. I don't need that, but I would like you to keep your shoes on, please. If that's okay. That's okay with you.
• All right. Let's transition into, I don't know. This, this pin could be kind of a Strata Cruiser on its own. I would, this one caught me very off guard and I didn't even know it existed until yesterday. And someone shared with me that they bought it. The Leonardo, aficiana, aficina, italiana, memento zero. So I just call them the memento zero, Leonardo memento zero. Alumina, Myke, an aluminum barrel, Leonardo. Leonardo. Um, I don't know what to say. I was so caught off guard. I like it. I'm here. I'm here for it. Like, again, like I have zero desire to own one of these, right? Like I love my colorful, bright Leonardo's. I love metal pins. I don't need this combination per se, but I like what they've done here. And I like that they're doing something different, right? This is what I want to see from makers. And we're going to talk about this again in a little mini topic. I have later in this episode. I want this from Leonardo, even if they do or don't deem this a success. I don't know how it wouldn't be. It's $225. It's a full aluminum Leonardo and it looks sick. Um, this is what I want to see from companies. What are your thoughts on this pen? Do you own, let me, let me preface this. Do you own any Leonardo's? I can't recall. I don't, I tend not to like the, the overall design of a Leonardo pen. Sure. Fair enough. You know, no, that's wrong. I have one. I have one. It was gifted to me at the New York meetup that we did. Okay. Right. The fountain pen hospital gave us Leonardo's. No, those were Auroras. Auroras. No, I don't know any Leonardo's. Not too different of a shape. Just like much different pen. Yeah, no, I've never, I don't, they're always interesting ones. There were the like, uh, I've, I got very close to one of the primary manipulation ones once. Sure. Um, but in general, they don't really do anything for me. This one specifically, I don't like the look at this pen. Yeah. It looks, it looks cheap to me. It does. It looks like pretty generic. Um, like it's a pen that could be $225 or also $40 to me, at least. That's a tough thing to do with aluminum, especially with this is just aluminum and gold trim, right? There's no embellishment or anything like that. So you're, I think you're right in this. And I actually, someone sent me a picture. So the Dutch pen show was this past weekend and we, I didn't put that in the show notes, but I actually had some notes to talk about that. Um, and I'll follow up on that after I finished this bit. But the, they, someone sent me a picture of their, Hey, here's my haul from the Dutch pen show. And, you know, they were showing me the different things that they bought. And in there was a Leonardo Memento Zero. And I was like, Oh, that looks cool. I could tell it's a Leonardo, right? Because I like the peak caps on the finials and right. The end of the pens, like your peak, you could, I can tell a Leonardo what it looks like. And in, in their picture, I just thought it was one of the white acrylic Leonardo's. Like it did not show aluminum as an aluminum pen in this picture. They actually went back and actually said something to me.
• What do you think about that Leonardo aluminum? And I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. I just see a Leonardo there that looks like the acrylic. So the picture matters. And like in these, in these images, it looks like a brushed aluminum. You can actually tell they're aluminum. Um, I want to get this in hand. I think it actually might. I'm interested to the feel of this as a Leonardo acrylic pen user. How this one feels. Does it come in lighter or heavier? I didn't look at them, the weight measurements to compare. I'm like, it's got the weight measurements on here. I'm sure. Uh, yeah. Um, 45 grams. Ah, that's pretty stout. That's, that's, that's not light. So I don't know. I will check this one out in person. Um, it's not something like I'm going to like run out and get, but I honestly, I think this is going to do pretty well for them. Um, and might even have like new Leonardo fans, like Leonardo fans who don't like this worldly acrylics, uh, might actually pick this one up. So I, yes, that's true. That's my stance on this one. Like I think in, while it may not be for me or you, I actually think this is going to do well. And this is what I want to see from companies, which we'll talk more on later. Um, follow up to, um, my Dutch pen show comment. This was their first year, um, going to two days. So they were a Friday, Saturday show, I believe not a set or no, they were Saturday, Sunday show. And the pictures I saw, it looked absolutely packed, which I thought was awesome to see. So, you know, I've talked to just in passing to a couple of people said they had a great time. It was super full. Um, one of the cool things that the Dutch pen show did, and I'll share this, um, uh, in, in the show notes is they posted on, on Instagram, they posted the door, uh, the door tally. So they had 1930 visitors through the two days of the event, 105 vendors, 154 tables. Just for comparison for you, Myke Atlanta on a busy year. Like when we were doing like peak Atlanta, like when we were doing the podcast and knock and all that stuff, they do maybe like a thousand 1200 over Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And that would be just, you would feel just overwhelmed. Like that is absolutely packed. So this was 1900 over two days, 105 vendors, 154 tables, spectacular turnout. I feel, um, so it seems like it went really, really well. And, you know, if you have any feedback and we're there, I'd love to hear about it. But all things that I've heard so far have just been just outrageously good. Like I, like I'm, I'm excited to, to continue to see them grow. I'm so glad they decided to go to that second day instead of just a one day event. Um, and it looks like it was a rousing success. You'd love to see it. All right.

Reflections on personal preferences and the future of the pen industry

• So I guess what I wanted to talk about today, uh, just in general, and this, I've been kind of alluding to it in these topics before I've alluded to some of it in my recent writing for Panatic members. And I just titled this topic, what do we want to see from fountain pen companies? And I, the premise recently I've had was like, okay, where do we see stationery in five years from now? And I genuinely don't think there's an answer to that because I don't think a lot's going to change.
• I think we'll have minor changes. I think we'll have small changes and there's going to be growth and change and all that good stuff. And just for the record, there'll be a lot of caveats during this little section. Um, I think things are going to continue to grow. Right. Interesting. But I'm looking at, I'm looking at it from the, what are the expectations of someone like myself who is like way deep into this? Right. So this is a perspective thing, not a general, you know, new to the hobby perspective, not a just getting their feet wet in the hobby perspective, but from a someone who has everything perspective, what does that person want to see? I will just say before you jump into it, if that's okay. Sure. You know, you mentioned growth. I think one of the things that we will see is more consolidation.
• Yeah. Like brands. No, I think that's fair. Brands buying brands because that's been happening more and more. Um, and I think that, I think we might see a bit more of that, but yeah, when I say growth, I don't necessarily mean that there's going to be another like pilot corporation out there, but I think we're going to continue to see the customer remain interested in what stationery companies are doing. Yep. Now that doesn't mean that sailors not losing money every year. Right.
• Those are two different things, right? All of that. Like this is actually a very complex topic that like, I don't have all the answers for or things like that. But there's like interesting things that I think about from a very experienced user. And again, I'm taking this from my perspective, someone who has a lot of things. What do I want to see? What's going to make me buy a pen, right? That's kind of the impetus. That's kind of the real question. What is going to make me buy a pen tomorrow, Myke? And that's something I think about these days. Not that I'm less interested or less bored or bored about what companies are making. I actually enjoy and like a lot, but it's reasonably similar or I'm mostly covered by what I have. And, you know, I'm lucky to have a lot of things and very fortunate over the years to amass quite the collection. So what is going to make me buy something for myself that is going to be different enough as someone who's not a collector of pens. Like if a series started, like the Pan Am series, right? I'm not a collector of the Pan Am series. I bought one of them. I'm very content with that. I don't have something to look forward to for each release. So heading into like DC and like other pen shows, like this summer is always a big time for pen shows. That's like my general thoughts is what is going to make me buy a pen? And the answer, I guess, is pretty much as unclear as this whole topic. It's I want to see someone do something different, something innovative, something experimental. But when I say that at the same time, you know who's not going to do that? Pilot. You know who's not going to do that? Well, Sailor is actually, I want to give Sailor credit here. They have actually experimented on the lower end with the Tuzu last year. And I think they crushed it, right? That's a huge like, you know, check and check mark in the positive direction for Sailor. You know, does it impact their bottom line? I have no idea. I'll get Jacob to read their next annual report and see, see how it, how the, the writing instrument lineup is doing. But Sailor, I actually think is taking some chances, doing some different things, right? They made recently made like a kind of a magnet cap pen, like that. I don't think it's going to really land in the market. It's too expensive for what it is relative to other products. I'll find the name of it in just a second.
• And it's like a $600 pen that doesn't really offer more than like a Pro Gear or a 1911. But I still want them to do it, even if it's like not for me, like I want to see them try.
• But at the same time, understanding they might lose money on this. What I don't see is someone like Pilot.
• Again, caveat.
• Outside of Japan, right? They do some pretty interesting things in Japan.
• Really, like what are they doing different, right? For the rest of the world. It's the same product lineup. They did the nibs, which I thought was spectacular, right? So they're leaning into, we're going to sell you the same pen. You know, it's black and it has gold trim. Or in some cases, Myke, it might be black with silver trim. One of the two. But you can choose from one of 15 nibs. Like that's cool.
• How many of those nibs do I need? Well, I might need a third one if I could get it in a different barrel, right? Or some, you know, what's the 2025 barrel? They made such a great pen in the 723 Vertigree like two years ago. It was a huge hit. And then they just don't follow it up with anything. And like I want to see like the big companies, like maybe give me one of those a year. Like I still might not buy it, but it's interesting and it gives me something to talk about. Um, but again, they know better than me. They have a bottom line to manage. Like I'm wish casting, you know, if all these companies have infinite money and time and resources to do all these things, right? But is it really, could we do every second year another color of the 743?
• Or an artist series 912? And I just don't think that they think that way, like from a corporate perspective, like someone like Pilot based in Japan and what their normal client's clientele is and what they're ordering, right? Again, they know better than me. They're looking at the numbers. They can decide. Boy, we sure do sell a lot of these gold and black pens. Let's do some more nibs for those. Cool. Like that's what they're going to get. But at the end of the day, I, it doesn't give me anything to want to buy or to want to talk about. So I want to see some of these big companies do something weird. I don't know, make me think differently that they have their, that they have their head wrapped around like the modern stationery landscape, but they seem content in like the classic fountain pen landscape, which again, that's fine too. So this is a lot of rambling and just a lot of thoughts, but it's, it's what I'm thinking about right now because like people ask me, what am I going to buy? What am I looking for at DC at the DC pen show? Like literally nothing. Like I don't have one thing on my list. Guess what I'm doing? I'm taking three classes instead of shopping for pens. Right. So like I'm in this transition stage right now. Like I'm really, really good on pens.
• I don't know what make me buy a pen now. I still love the small makers. Like I'm still very interested because they have that flexibility, Myke. A lot of them, it's not their main job. They can try something for a lower barrier of entry. Well, also smaller companies have to, like you have to set yourself apart, right? So you will try things that are maybe a little bit more inherently risky than a more established business would. I think anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Like Pelican is a great example for me. That's a company that I think is like at the top of their game as far as product goes. Like product offering, I should say. Like value proposition, style, quality. Literally everything is like 10 out of 10 perfect.
• But are they going into the meeting tomorrow? It's like, all right, what color M200 are we going to do for August? I was like, all right, purple. Yes. Everyone votes for purple. Cool. We're going to do purple. It's like, that's great. I love, I would love a new purple pen. But like, can we, can we do an, who's got some new ideas? And it's like, I feel like it's crickets or like, you know, that's again, the money thing. They were bought by a different company. They probably have different processes now and different expenditures. I'm just saying we're getting a lot of the same from the big companies and all the experimentation from the small companies, which to your point is historically how it's going to be, right?
• I don't know. I guess I'm, I guess I'm, I'm not floundering. Like I'm very content, but what am I looking for? And I don't know that I have an answer, but I'm really thinking a lot about it right now. Right. Really thinking about that a lot. Um, you know, Leonardo can keep pumping out great new colors and I'll look at every one of them and go, wow, that is awesome. And like, I'm good. Like I've gotten the ones that I like. And like, if I buy a new one, I'm just going to basically be trading it out for one of the old ones. You know, I'm not going to continue to add. Um, so I'm looking for a company to, to make me add something into my collection, not just replace something in my collection. And, and I don't know that I have any answers. I clearly don't have any answers. Um, but yeah, like, I don't know. I think we're in an interesting spot in like some of the discussions I've been having and especially the discussions in my head is I've really kind of enjoyed more of the accessory side of the stationery landscape. Like these days, the paper, the ink, the journaling, the accessories, the carrying, um, you know, the smaller stuff, the smaller stuff's really hitting it for me. Um, so it'll be interesting to watch. Um, I love this stuff and I like, I'm just trying to figure it out. And like, it's just a personal journey that I'm on is like, Oh yeah, I don't have to buy any fountain pens right now because nothing's really speaking to me. You know, I'm going to spend my money wisely. Right. That's another, that's another topic we didn't even, you know, approach, but like is, is overall this, like, you know, just the global market is tough right now. Now everyone's, everyone's getting squeezed and pinched and for a, uh, an, a non-essential hobby like this, like, you know, it doesn't matter. Right. Like people don't need to spend money here, but, uh, you know, it is, it is. I was gonna say for people like us that enjoy it, just like, you know, I like buying new fountain pens and, and, and being inspired and maybe, you know, one of these fountain pens that I buy in the future will be the one that makes me have these like crazy feelings when I pick them up and enjoy them like I do. So yeah, I don't know. It's just a, just a ramble. It's just a thought I'm having right now. And I guess I'm just, I'm a highly interested observer, uh, for, and I'm looking for change right now where before I'm a, I've been a highly interested observer of every single release that every single company has done. And now I want to see some change in those releases. And I don't know what that is and if they can execute on that, or are we just going to keep getting the same, which is also fine. Like, I don't hate that either, but I'm curious, like, I'm very curious right now where, where we're going to be in a few years, what we're going to see from the big names in the, in our space. I think one of the issues with that, the, the big name problem is like a lot of people that work at the larger companies, they're not incentivized maybe to come up with the new ideas. Like you don't want to be the person taking the risk. Yeah. But that's why it's good that this, this community, this business can support and does support small independent makers because they, not, not every business can, I feel like, or like every kind of niche or hobby, they can't all, they cannot all support people making the actual thing that the hobby is interested in. I think. And so I think that's good. I think we have that good. Yeah. We have, we do have a good, I just realized, and I didn't think of this beforehand. This is a whole hire me Lamy diatribe. I just went on.
• Again, unknowingly, unknowingly hire me Lamy and we'll make some purple vistas and everyone will be happy. Who wouldn't be happy with that? This episode is brought to you by Pen Chalet. They sell authentic, amazing roller balls, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and more. They have your favorite brands and are an authorized dealer of them with fast and reliable customer service. Pen Chalet is running special discounts every couple of weeks that you're going to be able to go there and find new and incredible deals. And they're also adding new styles of product. Every single month, you're going to find new stuff, whether it's a new fountain pen or carrying cases, inks, refills, accessories, so much more. Pen Chalet sell internationally with great shipping rates. And if you're in the US and spend over $75, you'll get free shipping. Pen Chalet has low prices on high quality pens and offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So take yourself to PenChalet.com slash PenAddict and you'll be able to get 10% off anything and you'll be able to see some special offers just because you listen to this show. What have we got, Brad?
• We have Brad not being prepared because he's still running this entire topic through his head. Okay. I am completely. So I'm going to PenChalet.com. I'm typing PenAddict. Yeah. Yeah. Slash PenAddict. And I'm typing PenAddict into the code. And I'm typoing it as we speak. That's good. That's really good. Let's see what we got. That's some great stuff here, actually. This is, I'm a professional podcaster. This is PenLux pen. Okay. So they have been promoting this for a while. I have not used this pen or a PenLux model. I think Kimberly might have. These have been, these have been enjoyable to read about. I like the acrylics. I like the swirly acrylics. I like the large cigar type shapes that they use. So that is something that I'm interested in following up on and checking out. They also have one of the Heinz exclusive pens in here, which is one of the piston fill models. Um, it's basically looks like an old fashioned, which I'm kind of into. Um, that looks awesome. And with the piston fill mechanism, I think that's a pretty interesting, interesting pen. And for that price is pretty crazy good. Like if I saw, got to see that pen in person, like I would be very, very compelled at the price they're offering at. On top of that, Myke, they have inks from Colorverse and Ferris Wheel Press, like a lot of them. Um, so go check out all of this, uh, all this good stuff over at penchalet.com. The amount of ink they have along with the Ferris Wheel Press pens on our deals page is spectacular. So go check them out. P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com slash penaddict is where you got to go to find those exclusive deals. Our thanks to our friends over at the penchalet for the continued support of this show. Yeah, I got myself all wrapped up, Myke, because we're about to talk about your topic and we both have problems without solutions. Yeah. So I was thinking about that instead of doing my job and clicking over to penchalet. I was like, oh, this is funny. Like here, let's complain and not offer any solutions. So what you got for us? It's really a complaint that you referenced journaling earlier and this is like a thing. It's just been really bugging me. Like my life is very different now to what it was three months ago with the baby. And I'm not in the studio as much. And when I'm here, I'm really trying to like cram as much as I can into the time that I'm here. And this has just resulted in me just being very bad at journaling since she arrived, which I'm really annoyed about because it's important to me. And I've been going through a lot and feeling a lot of stuff and it would be helpful for me to sit and write it down. But I'm just really struggling to keep a regular journal habit. It was like so easy for me to do it when my journal was on my desk at the office and I would just write something down in it. But now I keep it in my bag in case I want to write at home. But then I never write at home. And then what it means is it's not on my desk. So it's not as easy for me to grab anymore.
• It's just complicated. I think I need to go easy on myself. Like I'm still trying to establish a pattern in my life. But I'm just a bit disappointed because I wanted to have a journal of this time to keep. And now I feel kind of like guilty about that because I'd always thought that I'd have this journal and I could share it with her when she grew up or something. But now I don't have that. And I feel kind of guilty about that.
• But there's just so much happening. And I want to write some of it down. But also because there's so much happening, I don't have any time to write any of it down. Exactly.
• So you hit on it. You have to give yourself grace, right? You're doing the correct things IRL, right? You're taking care of you and the baby and your family. And that's the most important thing. So you know that I'm not telling anything you don't know. And you've already said as much. So the one thing that I have done, and actually Katie in the chat is alluding to this a little bit, what I'm about to say, is what I would do when I'm in these situations where I want to write more in my journal, I put the fastest digital capturing app on the front screen of my lock screen, either the lock screen of my phone or on the home screen when I open the phone, to where I can type in five words of what's in my head right now and keep a running list. Like I've mentioned in the past where I've used Apple Journaling's app for this. I would have today's page, like whatever today is, June the 4th. And then on that page, if I didn't have my notebook and I had an idea, it went there until I got to such a time where I could transfer it into my notebook. Because you can do that so much faster. You can do that one-handed, right? Like your hands are tied up all the time now, I'm sure. Until you get, can you sit at your journal once a day? You might not be able to. But maybe once every three days, you can look at that digital, basically a little note file of just randomness and pull out the important things and then write that in your journal. Now, don't feel like you have to write in arrears either, right? You don't have to write, oh, today's June 4th. Let me make sure I get something down for June 1st. Just say what's been going on, right? Today is, you know, X and like these things have been going on. You know, here's some of the good things. Here's some of the bad things. Oh, this was funny that I forgot. Like because I'm developing this new product at Cortex Brand. It's like a new journal with a new layout. And something I did do for that a couple of weeks after the baby was born, I did go back and fill out some stuff. And I'm going to do that again because this journal that I have,
• it ended in March and like the first few weeks of it. And I did that last when Adina's mom was visiting and she's coming again. So I will have maybe a little bit extra time to write some stuff down. But what I'm going to do, thank you to this excellent recommendations from you, from Katie, I'm going to give day one another go. Because what might be good for day one as well, if it works how I used to remember it working,
• like it can surface imagery and stuff like photos that I took on certain days. And that might help remind me of the things that were happening. And maybe I could more easily go back and fill some stuff in the past if I wanted to, you know? Yep. Yep. So like I've never been a person that could live in the digital journal, but what the digital good journal is for is for remembering just the little things that I, during the day when I don't have the time to do anything else, except write a sentence that this happened. Yeah. And then, then be done with it mentally and then circle back into a journal entry, maybe even days from that point. It worked out so well for me. I just haven't, I'm very tools based for when I need the tools. I don't have habits that I do every day, but when I have problems, I look for solutions until I don't have that problem anymore. Right? So like right now, I'm not typing all that stuff in my journal because I'm not having like a mental block or just like a lot, or like my brain won't stop. A lot of it for me, it's not like personal journaling. It's like literally my brain won't stop. Like we just saw with the pen shell I had a minute ago. That helps me empty the brain. Yeah. Even though my notebook's not here, it can go in this digital app. And then I would go look at that, look at the results and everything that I added in there and then write them down in my journal if I needed to. No, that's good because I still think for me,

Paper journaling vs. digital journaling preferences

• paper journaling will be better for me than digital journaling is realistically because it just, paper journaling just works the way that my brain works, but digital journaling is better than none. Right? And so I'm going to give it a go. This is really good. I'm glad I brought this to the show today. Yeah. And I think of it when I do that, I think of it as quick capture. I don't think of it as digital journaling. Yeah. Right? I don't want a prompt for today. Like I don't, this is not for what went well today, what went poorly today. It is for like, hey, like, you know, we just spilled the bottle all over the kitchen floor. LOL. And I will literally write that, type that down. Right? I'm not like, today's good. You know, this, this, and this, today's bad. This, this, and this. It was like, no, I'm just writing down the good thing and I'm writing down the bad thing. And there's just a collection of stuff that I put in there. And then later we go look at it. No, this is great. Thank you. Well, hopefully, hopefully it works. Should we finish out on a couple of last EPA questions today? Let's do it. All right. So, Tomas wrote in and said, have you tried the Tombos 707? I found one by chance in a secondhand shop and thought it looked strange, but interesting. Could that be the perfect field notes or similar EDC pen, particularly if you swapped out the refill for your favorite Jetstream D1? So, Tomas actually made me look this up on stream the other day because I was not familiar. Tombow and Tomas, two different things.
• They have a Zoom, Tombows always had a Zoom series and I've used their Zoom roller balls, but I didn't know there was like an expansion of this series. I had actually seen this pencil before, oh, this pen before. I hate this. It is, yeah, it is no bueno. I hate this so much. This does not look good to me. So, where I landed, Myke, is there's actually a mechanical pencil version of this. And I think I could, Myke could get down with the mechanical pencil version. I could. It's too slim. It's okay. Yeah. For people that can't see it, this is,
• imagine a refill with like a millimeter of metal around the outside of it. That's kind of what it looks like. It's an incredibly slim mechanical pencil or ballpoint pen. And like, it's designed interestingly too. Like, there's a lot of flair to the design. It's like a 1980s themed like ball clip plunger knock thing. Like, you could see this in like the laser beams idea of like the pen floating around like a wallpaper full of like, you know, tricky photography laser beams or something. Like, it's very odd. It's, it's a miss, it's a design mismatch from the front end to the back end. Yeah. This is business in the, this is the mullet pen business in the front party in the back. I guess so. Not for me. I don't think I could use the pen version. I think I could probably get away with the pencil because it is too thin. Like, I think it's too thin. That's, that's what I landed on. It would be super light too. Right.
• Yeah.
• Fibber asks, have you tried Sorter notebooks? S O R T A. I just heard about them and I haven't heard you mentioned before. So I wondered if you'd seen them. Kinda. Sorta. Sorta. Ah. See. Ah. Ah. I haven't, but I've seen other products like this. It's basically like, they have a good phrase on here. It's called a note binder, right? It's where you have loose sheets in a cover, but then the cover itself itself is actually like the slide over the sheets to keep them stable. Right. So it's not a ring bound notebook and it's not like a perfect bound notebook or like a stitch bound notebook. It's got loose sheets that are then bound by the actual binding of the cover. So I think I saw something similar on Kickstarter. It wasn't this brand. Um, this it's, it's not compelling to me necessarily. Like I'm sure it's perfectly fine. I've seen things like this, uh, before where you fit in the, uh, fit in the inserts and like, it's pretty cool. Like it's, I, I wouldn't, I'm not interested in it. Um, I worry, I'm curious about like the, the fold over. Like it's pretty, I don't know. It looks like it folds over pretty well. And, uh, you know, it'd be something I'd check out the paper quality before I got into the system. I can't figure out why I would use it. Right. I'm either going to have a fixed, you know, stitched glue bound notebook, or I'm going to have something loose leaf sheets. That's like, in my case, ring bound. Um, in the case of the plotter, other people use disc bound. This is like a combination of both, but doesn't,
• I don't know what it's solving for. That's what I can't figure out. What are we solving for here?
• And Kristen writes in and says, after six scrolling months of an autoimmune flare, I'm finally in remission. Congratulations, Kristen. Heck yes, Kristen. I decided to treat myself to a new pen and my jaw fell on the floor when I saw
• Virgilio or Virgilio in Visconti's comedians. I bought it sans remorse. While I've never quite understood the need to have ink match the pen, this one definitely deserves some special ink. I welcome any and all advice to all my pen friends dealing with chronic illness. Do not give up. Heck yes. Heck yes. Uh, Kristen do not give up. I'm glad you're in remission and that is beautiful. Like this pen that you bought that might pronounce it and I'm not going to. Um, but it's a, it's a beautiful kind of, uh, light brown, creamy, ivory swirl, uh, with gold trim. It's gorgeous. It's beautiful. Straight up beautiful. Yeah. I instantly, like, I knew I was going to pick a brown ink for this and I instantly went for Robert Oster, uh, cafe crema, which is one of their most popular longest running inks for good reason. It's a brown. That's not too brown. Um, it's a little bit lighter. I think it'll match the tones, maybe more on the darker ends of the tones of the pen, right? It's not a deep, there's not a lot of deep browns or dark browns. There's not a lot of medium browns. It's a more lighter browns, but lighter browns inks. If you're going matchy matchy, right? Lighter brown inks tend to be not readable, right? So you need some saturation in the brown. And that's where cafe crema kind of hits that middle road where I think it's not too dark for a pen of this character and more than dark enough to be legible. So if you weren't going matchy matchy, I'm thinking about putting in like a dusty dark purple in there, right? Which I think is a good complimentary to that. Um, one of the G Herban inks, uh, Poussier de Lune looks kind of spectacular. It's kind of a, um, you know, darker, dusty or purple, but not too vibrant. I would, with this pen, the tones lead me to non vibrant inks, right? I want something flatter. Yeah. I want something flatter. I don't want something to really, like I'm not putting imperial purple in this ink. I mean, in this pen, um, that's just so, so purple and bright and vibrant. Um, also Kaweco summer purple kind of surprised me when I was looking around at shades. That's kind of a cool, that's kind of a cool color. I don't think I've ever tried that before, but I was like, Oh, I like this. It's kind of dark and dusty. And I think it kind of fits the mood of your pen. So I think it looks spectacular. Um, and like, yeah, this pen, you, you can almost go with anything, but, uh, if you're going matchy matchy, I like cafe crema.
• I could put a gold in this. I could see that.
• Just not to not yet. The goal. So the golds tend to not lean as yellow, right? They have a different kind of almost honey like shade.
• Um, I could see that working. I could, that would be something interesting. Um,
• yeah, I'm just thinking of like the challenge would be, would I be happy with the matching? There's just, you can get some odd tones with gold inks. If you find the right one that leans more brown. Um, yeah, I think that would be kind of like perfect. Like a Bisu. Like I think like what you can't buy, but like that's what I, that's my golden choice. But yeah, it's, it's spectacular. It's not really fair. There's not a lot of colors like that one. Right. It's just a really unique, legible, um, legible gold. Yeah, that's a good call.
• If you would like to send in a question for us to answer in a future episode, just go to penaddictfeedback.com and you can send that in along with any, uh, follow up or feedback you have about today's episode. Uh, thank you to Brad. As always, you can find Brad online over at penaddict.com, spokedesign.com and twitch.tv slash penaddict. You can find me here on relay and you can also find my products at cortexbrand.com. Thanks to Pen Chalet and Squarespace for the support of this week's episode. But most of all, thank you for listening and we'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.