Hello and welcome to episode 90 of the panetic podcast a weekly show where we discuss pens paper and the analog tools that we love so dearly my name is mike early and I am joined today by a man who must in fact be a permanent marker because he's left at lasting impression on me. We're as we're ramping up towards valentine's day I decided to go down a more romantic route for you each week now wow wow I think I might have that's that's like a tattoo or something incoming you know for a valentine's day for me and use some I heart Mike with a little quote underneath it we can get one of those deals where it's like you get half of the tattoo and I get the other half. That was amazing that was amazing good stuff man episode 90. Yeah we've we've done quite a few of these now yeah yeah it's it's pretty amazing so they they go by fast these days it seems like it just seems like we were in the 30s not too long ago then boom 90. So we got an epic amount of feedback from last week's episode about your not issue but your quest to help help help find someone a perfect the their perfect pen I got loads of emails we got loads of tweets I'm sure you got lots of you know emails as well and the. It was awesome to see all the feedback and we got lots of good ideas and they were coming left and right I mean they were coming from everywhere on Twitter and app dot net and our mail and our contact. So that was pretty cool so did you did you find the perfect pen and the span of a week. Probably not is the answer like we've not yet been able to narrow it down to a specific pen exactly but we have a couple of interesting avenues that we're going to go down now. So I want to echo what Brad said like the pure amount of follow up and feedback that I've had this week has just been absolutely fantastic like I want to think that you know I've kind of I hope that I have at least thanked everybody that sent something in. I'm not sure if I've been able to you know sometimes you you miss some people but hopefully I've got got to everybody. But yeah the the actual scale of stuff that's come through has been incredible so I want to sort of given what you've very kindly Brad friends some of the these are like the really common suggestions that I've had. Yeah into into the document so the Twisbee classic is potentially the best answer to the information that I gave last week. However I left one very important piece of information out that I forgot about until somebody reminded me via Twitter about the fault of the Twisbee classic is that you can't post it. And for this person that is a key thing she likes to be able to post a cap because she's worried she was lose the cap otherwise. Oh yeah. Which is actually a very fair reason that a lot of people do that so when she's looking for a balance in weight as well she's also looking for the ability to be able to have the weight balanced even when the cap is on. So that no the Twisbee classic doesn't post huh does not pass. Huh. I did not know that. I guess I need to put it in there like. I think what do you say sorry. Go ahead you said Twisbee said what. I think I've seen Twisbee have given that information I think I've seen it might have been on the writing desk with the call or call pens. And they were like yeah just you know like the descriptions like be aware this pen doesn't post. Really it's strange to me why I don't know why it doesn't. I think it's something to do with the sister filling system and the fact that the fact that the pen is a bit thinner I think might be part of it. Now we've got so yeah aside from that is a couple of other like the really sort of key suggestions and the frequent ones is a metropolitan with a stub nib swap. Now this is what you suggested. Right. But what my friends said to me she said well I've got the pilot metropolitan now and I like that. I want something else. Gotcha. Which definitely seems like the pen addict you know the call of the pen addict I think. I found a pen that I really like but now I want a new one. So yeah she's like you know I've got I've got that that's cool I've got that down. She's been using the Metropolitan she loves the Metropolitan you know I've told her she can keep it which she's very happy about because she didn't want to give it back anyway I don't think. But so yeah that that is is a good option just to get a stub nib so I might I may actually try that if we can't come up with anything else then I may just just grab it was a plumex wasn't it. One suggestion the pilot 78 the pilot 78 is no longer being made and I'm not really I'm not really looking for vintage in this. Yeah it might still be me being made in Japan or something like that you know I'm sorry yeah. Available but not easy to corral if you will. I'm not really looking down that route. The SC model 27 kalega which is new to me which is a Franklin new Franklin Christoff pen which is now on my list of pens to buy. She just didn't like to deny the design. Sure. But I'm probably going to get one. Yeah that seems like a really good deal plus they have a you know just a huge um. Huge range of stock nibs that you can get for it. The closest that we have gotten from a design perspective is the Monte Verde Monte Verde. Yeah. Just in general a selection of those pens like the the Arista crystal the Invincia color fusion the Invincia stylus and maybe the deluxe. So there are a couple of different models that she quite likes to look off. The issue that I think that we're having at the moment whether I the reason that I've not gone ahead and just bought one for or told her to buy one. So if I'm probably going to be the one to do the buying anyway because I have a reason for that I'll come to in a moment. The reason that we haven't pulled the trigger on one of these is it's very different. You haven't tried one. I know that Jeff has and Jeff who writes for you Jeff Abbott. He has so he sent me a link to his review of one and I've had a cup and then I sort of put a I sort of like you know put the call out on Twitter. For people who have maybe who have tried out these pens and you know what are they what they like what the weight was the weight like. What are the nibs like what are stuff nibs like and it'll want to see it's been extremely mixed. Okay. Some people are telling me the fantastic. Some people are telling me that they're inconsistent not worth the money. Some people are telling me they're a great investment. So we haven't bought one of those yet even though it seems like the best thing that potentially the best route because a lot of these have stub nibs. So that that works. Now the reason that I say that I'm going to buy it was made most most probably because I have kind of led her down this path. So I feel like it's my responsibility and also if she doesn't like any of them. I'm going to keep them. Right. But I'm not really that excited by the Monteverde line. I really don't like their logo and I really don't like that they print them on the cap. They print it they print it on the cap. Yeah. I mean I've always been kind of torn you know Monteverde has always come up in in lots of conversations and I've just never bought one just because I've never loved how they look. I'll probably try some out at the pinch show because there's always a I don't know if the distributors usually there but there's usually a ton of Monteverdes there. It might be because of the one of the distributors comes to the show and there's just tables and tables of Monteverdes. So maybe I'll pick one up and try it and maybe get a better idea maybe even purchase one but I'm kind of with you on that. They've never grabbed me from an appearance perspective regardless of how well they may write. I've just never been enamored by the looks. Although the crystal the the clear demonstrator does look pretty good. Big June alone. It's the only one that doesn't come with a stub nip. Really? Yep. I found it interesting that she liked the that but didn't like the Twisby ones. Yeah. I guess you know it's all and as we know very well this is a matter of taste. Totally. So I tell you where we are as well and the reason that I haven't bought anything new. I've received another email with a bunch more. This is the kind of stuff that I like having looked around. So one that one that we're actually going to pursue is the Rotoring Art Pen. Just as a fun little how does this work project? Yep. You know they're typically not really intended for daily use. They're more of a calligraphy item. And research online is proving that they actually clog up and stuff quite a lot. But they're thirteen pounds. So I will add it to an order whenever we do buy something. Other than that. If you like if you like that one. If that's even a consideration, you should Lami does the same thing. Yeah. It comes with their 1.1 and 1.5 stub nubs and I've always wanted to buy one of those pins. It doesn't ever have because I think they look great. They come in black and white but they look nice. So I should have mentioned actually that Lami have been a consideration as well. We're investigating that too. There's another option. Cool. Then I think the only other lines that we're going down at the moment is Kawako. We need to revisit Kawako. I have equipped my Colt Penn's Mini with a broad nib because she didn't like the nib. She didn't feel it was smooth enough. I've had that problem with the medium quaker nib. I have found that the fine and the broad are much better nibs and the medium nib is kind of not that great. Yeah. It's a bit scratchy. I actually found the same thing which is kind of weird. I don't find the fine tippy scratchy and the broad is nice and smooth. So we have that and I'm also going to give her the quaker to have another look at it. She picked up a couple of the different classic sports in their different colors and actually quite likes them. So maybe I think that a Kawako would be perfect. So we'll see where we go there. Okay. I think they do stub nibs. If they don't, they have stark stub nibs. Yeah, they don't. They just do broad. But anyway, we're going to look at that. Okay. And we'll see again where we go from there. This is all a fun experiment. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with maybe another two pens in hand before we get one that's actually a stub. But yeah, and there is always the option of getting one ground. But that's kind of not, again, it's not really the route. I want to go down this early in this experiment. Yeah. I'm with you on that. I say I'm enjoying it quite a lot. It is actually quite a lot of fun to do this. And I'm happy that I have somebody who's so receptive. Oh, one other thing. Interestingly, she found that the platinum vibe to be quite a good looking pen. Obviously, I have a very similar platinum pen. So I'm going to have another look at that. However, I don't suggest it because the nib is terrible. So maybe I'll let her have another try. I want to see if it's a contender for her. So as I say, I feel like we're probably going to end up with a few pens before we get a stub nib. And it may be that we never actually go down a stub nib route, but just end up with a nice medium or broad, which suits her needs on a daily basis, but really stub nibs aren't that practical. And if she finds something that she prefers to hold and to use on a daily basis, then maybe that's better than having a stub nib anyway. Yeah. Well, I think stub nibs are totally practical. I could use them all day, every day, not more writing. But it depends on your writing style too. I will say that. I have to. My writing style, it suits. It probably doesn't necessarily suit you probably as much. I don't know. I would use my Tuesday mini for a while. I think I mean more in that they're not necessarily, you know, it's not that we only really be doing that. It's just like a gimmick. This is nice because basically it was like, "Oh, I really like this. This is different." But I feel like maybe putting that over another pen like if I could, the Koeiko ends up being the pen for her then, you know, just because it's not in a stub nib. That's not saying no to it. And she's really enjoying using the Metropolitan. But I would like to get, you know, so it might end up being something along the lines of, we find something a bit nicer, a bit more expensive. And then we put a stub nib on the Metropolitan or something, you know? There you go. We'll see. We'll see. But thank you so much to everybody who has sent in their suggestions. It's been really, really useful for me. And I've actually found some new stuff for me as well. So great. And, you know, if after hearing this today, if you've got any additional suggestions, you know, because I maybe have given a bit more information than I gave last week, then please feel free to send those along because they would be greatly appreciated. Cool. We got a bunch more feedback. We did a short chat about writing left-handed, left-hander switching to their right hand last week based on an email we got from Josh last week. And you weren't a big fan of the idea. So Josh just wanted to clarify that the only reason he tried to switch is because of, he was just getting, you know, the standard left-handed ink smearing and was trying to find a way around it to fix that. But he did like my idea of just, you know, regardless of what hand you're using, it's just, you know, the constant practice of what, you know, of making yourself a better, a better writer and, you know, finding the proper way to write and not have all these smearing problems and things is a good course to go. But it was funny that he wanted to make sure he got in there and said, you know, that, you know, the people couldn't learn to switch hands with practice and the appropriate motivation. But it was not because he is a proud left-hander Mike and he wanted to make sure that was clear. I read the email and I'm happy. I'm very happy that Josh decided to get back in contact and just make his case. That's right. That's right. And we got another interesting email from a topic that we beat to death and we haven't actually talked about in a while. But our friend, our friend, the visionary pin, we got a good email. And this was kind of what I was thinking might happen and have kind of seen happen just in an ancillary reading of comments and things like that on the visionary project on Kickstarter ages back. But I got a good email last week. It's the subject is a vision and penmanship. He said to listen to last week's episode and wanted to pass on, he sent me a link about the penmanship because we've been talking about that a lot. And that was kind of goes back into the topic we were just talking about left to use and penmanship and all that. But he says, now, why am I here writing this email and listening to your podcast with a very talented Mr. Mike Hurley? That's the way to get your email read and you suck up to Mike and you get your email read. He says, why is he here? One word, visionary. Yep, that's the one. I made it work, recommended it. I jumped in, haven't played with fountain pen since I was a kid. I've written with space pens and watermelon roller balls for about 20 years. Now, I know you guys like to hear listeners stories, so here's mine to add your collection. So, he says, so my mate received his visionary and I was still waiting. So about a week before mine turned up, I started looking around to see how other people were finding the experience found the fountain pen network. Ouch. Met with the same disappointed as many. You said it yourself. It's fine, but it's worth a dollar and not what we all paid. So, reading the fountain pen network led me here and led me to this podcast. Then I'll allow me safari and a vista and I'm waiting for converters and fine nibs in the mail. I've pulled out my old vintage Australian made, I don't know if it's Daisy or Dossy, D-A-S-I and he picked it up, playing with paper, building a list of ones and needs. He says, I too need a Nikaya someday. And he says, his ink pirate moniker is what he's going by. It's a mix of my rekindled love affair with the unique lines and shades, the fountain pens leave behind on his journey and the fact that I'm madly playing a Assassin's Creed flag flag. So, he's also a video game pirate. He says, hell, I might even get that Squarespace account out and start documenting the journey and the treasure I find in this new old world of pens. So, damn you Brad and damn that mic too for bringing me back to something I was passionate about as a kid and enabling us all along the way. So, I thought that was an interesting email. You know, when we talked about the visionary, we were like, well, if anything good will come about it. Maybe some people will get into fountain pens and just start to understand, you know, what makes a good pen, what the quality brands are, how to, you know, and how to sort these things out. When they're shopping for pens. So, I wanted to read that because that's not the only time I've heard this, but I thought it was a really good mail and something good has come out of the visionary project. Even if, you know, one person has started to find out, you know, all the good things about good pens and legitimate pens and companies out there. So, I thought that was very nice. Yeah, if, you know, great, if that's what it took to, to bring him back, if that's what it took to bring Craig back into the, the pandemic fall, then I'm pleased. Yep. Yep, yep, yep. Now, random, random tidbit, I wanted to throw out there, I ran across this last week and I apologize, I didn't save the link. Someone didn't send it to me, but I grabbed it from somewhere. Someone's post somewhere. And it was, when we were talking about, you know, how noodler zinks, it was from the episode where a few episodes back where we're talking about noodler zinks and some of the big pin shops like Richard Bender and those guys were, you know, talking about not keeping warranties on pens that do's noodlers, inks, but regardless, I mean, I'm still a noodler span. I still use their inks and all that, but I stumbled across this PDF file at Gulai pens. It's the noodlers, ink properties PDF, and I just wanted to put that in the show notes for anyone who questions, the hard thing about noodlers is Nathan is so prolific in the amount of inks he makes that sometimes the properties of each individual ink gets lost in the shuffle. So this chart tells you about all the properties of each and every ink from noodlers and it is fantastic. So if you're looking for a particular ink property, like is it bullet proof, which is, you know, UV resistant, you know, not washable, things like that. You know, they're marked on that and, you know, it's got waterproof, lubricated, there's even some freezer-assisted inks and things like that. So this is a good resource for anyone. Go check out the show notes at 5x5.tv/pin@x/90. Did I get that right? You got it right. Does it have a category for destroy pens? No, we can make our own list for that. Let's see, what's the one that's, what's the big destroyer? It's one of the blues. Base state blue, right? Base state blue. Let's see what it says about base state blue. Base state blue just says forgery resistant and water resistant. It doesn't say destroy pens. There's no box for that on there. So yeah, I'm staying away from that. There's no doubt, but I've got Apache sunset inked up right now and that's a keeper for me. Anyway, I thought I'd point this out because it was cool. Actually, I think it came up on one of Jeff's review on Panatic for the Heart of Darkness. I think someone put this link in the comment section was what it was and I thought it was a great resource because I'd never seen this chart before. Cool. Yeah. So you have some ink. Well, I have a quick tip too, like you did. Somebody alerted me, this to me on Twitter. Terrible now because I can't move who it was, but I'm going to find that person in a moment and I'm going to give them props. There is a Amazon seller in, I believe they're in the UK that they're doing this deal in the UK. I can't really put a link to them because the link isn't useful because they have like 250 pages of stuff. They sell like Japanese goods. It's called Santa Trading Japan. They're currently selling bottles of Eroshizuku for like 12 or 13 pounds of bottle, which is like half the price that you'd find it elsewhere. Wow. And I've actually picked up some Eroshizuku ink and it's been dispatched now. I bought a green one, which I can't remember the name off the top of my head, but I'll tell you about it next week when it arrives. Oh, that's great. But yeah, it's definitely worth picking up. The Eroshizuku on the writing desk is 25 pounds of bottle. Wow. So it's half price. So I sort of scanned through. I don't want to get more than one because I just don't need it. So I bought a different colour for me so I went with green instead. Very nice. Which is definitely different for me to the colours that I've had in the past. So I'm now going to find this person by scanning. Basically, I'm going to the Twitter website and I'm loading back my conversations over the last few days. And then I will search Eroshizuku because Twitter is quite possibly the worst system for trying to find anything. It's so difficult. It was. I did the same thing. It was a Tony gun trip. Oh, so thank you very much, Tony. What I will do so people have actually got a point of reference. I'll put that tweet into the show notes. So if you need to find the name of the company, then you can do that. Yeah, and I don't know on the on the US Amazon store, there's oftentimes a retailer that sells Eroshizuku for cheap. And my inbox usually gets flooded at the time that they have the low pricing. It's not consistently a low price. But when it does, it's usually about $18 or $20 I think a bottle, which is really good. And I've usually missed them by the time I've gone to do it either. They're sold out of the colours that I want or not offering the same price anymore. But I know several people watch that on Twitter in my email. I'll usually get pinged in email or Twitter. So I will be sure if it comes out again, I will shoot out a link on Twitter. If anyone's looking for some good prices on Eroshizuku, so that's pretty cool. So my last piece before we take a quick break. Friend of the show, Mr. Mike Dudak sent me a message a couple of days ago. And he was like, "Just keep your eye on the mail." I was like, "Okay, dude, what are you up to?" And he's just like, "Just keep your eye on the mail and I apologise if there was any customs judges." It was basically what he said to me. And I, yesterday, received my mail and he has mailed me his own personal prototype of the Karas Customs Inc. Sorry? I said, "How cool was that?" Yes, I'm very happy. And it's very nice of the dude to do that for me, actually, to send me his own. Oh, by the way, they, congratulations to Karas Customs. Yeah, they nailed the funding. It was, what, 90? $96,930. Man, that's awesome. So, that's excellent work. I was very happy to get my email to tell me that it had been backed. So, yeah, I'm really, really pleased for those guys. It's a great, it's a really great project, and I'm happy because I think I'm really, just really pleased for them. They do great work. So, I've only been able to play around with the ink for a little bit, because I've decided not to take out of my home. Because it's not my pen. I've never lost one, but I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it, especially because I can't replace it. It's not like I can just be like, "Oh, sorry, dude, I lost your pen. I'll buy you a new one, because this is not possible right now." I want to give a very quick rundown of my feet, of my sort of feelings, and maybe I'll have some more in the near future. So, the grip section is really, really nice. It's made well. It's really, really nice to hold. The screw section, where the pen screws on, is far enough away from the nibs. You get a really nice grip section, because a lot of the time you see a pen like this, where it's made, especially of metals. I find that the screw section can be quite uncomfortable. It's too close to the nib. It's definitely not the case here. It's really designed very, very well. The pen itself, to look at, it looks quite like big. It's just like a big pen. And I kind of like that. It's got this real distinctive style to it, like the way that it sort of bulges out in the middle. It reminds me of a hot rod, and I don't know why. Like that sort of style, that like 50 style, I think, is something about it that I can't quite put my finger on, but it's just got that sort of really cool look to it. The nib is excellent. This is the medium, and I do feel like the medium is nice, but a fine will be good too. On that, it is a good ink flow and stuff. The pen's weighted really well, surprisingly. I think it's a great choice to go about a medium, because even though it is a big pen, it's full size for sure. This doesn't feel heavy to me. It's got quite a good weight. It's definitely comfortable to write with, and my favourite thing of all is the sound it makes when you put the cap back on. I will attempt to do that for you now. I'll do it again so you can. I love that noise. You're only going to get that on the Panatic podcast, folks. No, it's awesome. I agree with that 100%. I can't wait to get my orange anodized ink. It's going to be pretty sweet. I'm very, very anxious to get that and get that going in the rotation, because I think it's just a totally cool pen. B.S. Thank you, Mr. Dudek, for sending this off for me to try out. He told me he was going to do that. He said, "You better not tell him." I said, "Okay, I'll see how it goes." I'm very excited to get my own now. Yep. Thanks. It's time for a quick break, and then we have some stuff that we put off last week, I think. Yeah, just a few things we'll go through. Just a big old grab bag episode today. We love doing these every now and then. I want to take a quick moment to thank our friends over at Squarespace for sponsoring this episode. They are the only one platform that make it fast and easy to create your own website. For a free trial and 10% off, go to squarespace.com and use the offer code TallyHo1. Squarespace are always doing great stuff to make sure that their platform is rich with new features, new designs, and more support. We spoke a little bit about their new layout engine, which is their page building system, which has recently been updated. And as Brad was saying last week, he finds it a lot easier to use. Once you've got the groups of it, and it's sure they have a little video to show you when you first log on to Squarespace after the update, so you can just see how it works. And then once it's made it very, very clear to him how to use it and to start adding new stuff to his site, and it really does more to make Squarespace even more wiziwig. So you're basically building your pages all within your web browser. It is quite literally what you see is what you get to see how your pages look live as you're building them, and that's what layout engine allows you to do. Squarespace have really beautiful templates that you can get started with and tons of style options that you can adjust so you can really create your own space online. They take care of hosting, SEO, and even make sure that your site looks fantastic on any device as they have mobile, responsive web design built right in. It's incredibly easy to use, but if you did any help, they have over 70 dedicated employees on their customer care team, which are based in New York City. Squarespace truly cares about design. It shows throughout their entire product, from the templates to the backend system and even their own website too. They've won loads of awards for not just their design, but also their customer support. They have two brand new iOS apps for Squarespace customers. They have Squarespace blog, which allows you to post and manage a blog, and they also have Squarespace metrics which allows you to keep track of all your statistics. As I said earlier, you can try out Squarespace 4.3. There's no credit card required to do that, and if you decide to purchase, it starts at just $8 a month, and includes a domain name if you sign up for a year. And make sure that you get 10% off and help support this show by using the code "TallyHo1" as T-A-L-L-Y-H-O, and the number one that I thank you so much to Squarespace for supporting 5x5, and especially the pandemic. Yes, thank you Squarespace. All right, so I did a review. It's been about two weeks ago now that I really didn't think twice about posting. It's a pin I've had, probably since last summer, I had Thomas Hall send it to me to review. You had sent it back, and I've just kind of been sitting on the review waiting for a good time to post it, and it's for the Platinum 3776 Century U-E-F ultra-extrifying nib fountain pen. And what's special about this pin is one is the first, I think, first golden nib platinum pen I've reviewed for one. But secondly, platinum is one. This nib, the U-E-F, is a .1 millimeter nib with stupid fine, and that's the stock width. That's even. Yeah, it ships that way. So there's a chart in the post on nibs.com. It's got a tipping size comparison chart, and only this pin, the U-E-F platinum U-E-F nib, and then there's one sailor nib that I've never even heard of also comes with a stock .1 millimeter. But that's it, everything else starts at least .2 millimeters and higher on the Japanese nibs. And when I reviewed this pin, like when I was testing it out and actually had the pen in hand, I liked it. It felt really awesome when you wrote with it and it was just very delicate. You couldn't even tell that the nib was hitting the page, but it was like just a completely consistent line. There was no, it was basically flawless. So I posted this pin and just went on about my day. And then the feedback I got on this post was amazing how many other people had this pin and say, "What are the best pins they own?" And it just knocked my socks off. I didn't expect that at all. Like I didn't even have this on my shopping list because I was even .1 millimeters, maybe a little much for me. You know how I like the fine nibs, but I thought this was maybe even a little extreme for me. And the amount of praise this pin got from other people has ramped this way up my shopping list. I think I'm going to have to break down before too long and get the UEF nib. The only thing that told me back right now is I don't want the gold furniture. I want to find a Rodeum one, which is proving difficult, but it may not be the .3776 model platinum, but there's other platinum models that carry it that I can get something that I will like to look at as well as use. But I couldn't believe, I thought people would say, "This is crazy. This is crazy." But it was basically a long list of people saying, "I have this pin and it's amazing." Or, "I've never seen this pin and I'm buying it." I think two or three people went out and bought this pin just from this review. I got feedback from that saying, "I ordered this now or I got it in and I'm trying it out now." It's unbelievable. It just took me back the response that I got for this review. If you haven't seen this pin, more importantly this nib, because honestly, the barrel is nothing special. Actually, that's what a lot of people say, and that's the few detractors of this model saying, "The barrel is kind of no big deal," but it is kind of an entry-level platinum pin anyway. With the gold nib, I think it's probably in the $150 range, I'm not sure. - Entry-level, yeah. - Gold nib for 14K nib, it is kind of an entry-level. Because you figure the nib, there's probably $125 of that anyway. That's what I mean by entry-level. Anyway, check this review out if you haven't already because I was surprised at the feedback I got on it. It's really interesting, and now I have this on my shopping list, and it's on the radar for things for me to look at. If I run across a good one, I'm going to jump on the UEF 0.1 millimeter stock fountain pin nib. I'll get you one too, right? - Yeah, okay. - Could you use a pin that fine? - I don't know. I feel like I probably couldn't. In all honesty, I feel like it would be very uncomfortable for me. But you never know. I'm not going to go out and buy one to try it, but I would try somebody else's. - After I got all these rave reviews about this, I was like, screw it, I'm going to buy it right now. I could never find the perfect one for me, or that I was willing to pony up the money for. But it led me down the path that we've all gone down before. I just went down the rabbit hole of looking at new things, because we've talked about Nikaya's, how that's on my wish list to buy one this year. Platinum and Nikaya are related. Nikaya came from the Platinum company originally. I guess it's still affiliated with Platinum, and their nibs are somewhat similar. You can kind of get a little bit of a similar feel. So as I couldn't find a Platinum that I wanted to spring for, I just happened to run across a Nikaya that I hadn't seen before. And I didn't want to do anything with this pin other than put it in the show notes. Because in the show, in Mike and I's notes, I put this in as the holy crap, Nikaya. I have never seen this model before, and I will never own this model, because the price is ridiculous. This would be like the ultimate pin for me. I would probably never use it. It's called the Seyru Blue Dragon fountain pin. It's one of the most beautiful pins I've ever seen. And I usually don't like a lot of embellishments on my pins, or a lot of artwork, or anything crazy like that. This blue dragon, right? Yeah, blue dragon. This pin's a stunner, so I just wanted to throw that in the show notes for people to go drool over. And then they also have a different model where you can actually see the dragon pattern better, but I like the subtlety of the blue dragon. I feel like if you're going to have a dragon pattern on your pin, it should be subtle. I know. That's why I always, like you look at my, I did that weekly loadout for Ed Jelly, and, you know, like all my pins are black pretty much. Black or clear demonstrators. I like basic pins, but if there's one pin that really kind of stunned me for how beautiful it is, and subtly beautiful, it was that one. And speaking of Ed, he had a Nikaya on his wishlist for 2014, and he's marked it off. He's gone and done it. So he went, he created a, this was a good idea. And I might eventually do this on my blog. He went and created like a for sale page on his blog. So he was, he was raising funds, selling some of his other pins, so we could go and buy this Nikaya. And we got a link to the show notes. He bought the Nikaya Neo standard in the Kuro Teminary finish with a 14k soft medium nib. So that escalated quickly. I keep looking, and I can't justify that, but I want to be able to. Yeah. I really, I wouldn't implore you to try at any cost or any means necessary. Try one before you buy one. Oh yeah. The feel is different than most pins. It's extremely lightweight pin, so it's not for every, like the pictures. You can't really tell the weight by the pictures, but these pins, the way they're made, they are very, very, very lightweight. I can't stress that enough. So it's something you need to feel for yourself before plopping down all that money, which is, you know, what I did. Well, I haven't bought one yet, and it'll be a while before I do, but, you know, this year, I'm feeling it. This year will be the year I get the Nikaya. There's no way that I would spend that sort of money without trying it. Yeah. And that's the thing. It's hard to find a place to try. You just got to find a friend or someone at a pin show, or, you know, that's what happened. You know, luckily, you know, Thomas had more than someone locally to him. That was about 20 minutes away that had five of them. So he went to -- he went and tested them all out, and figured out which one he liked the best and ordered it. So, yeah, it's definitely a try before you buy a thing. And one other review I did recently was actually for a pretty basic pin in the Pilot Acrobat, which I always rave about. And they came out with some color series a few months ago on Jetpin's .5 millimeter. I did a review of the light blue and orange, but what struck me interesting as interesting when I was doing this review, I went back and looked at the first time I reviewed the Pilot Acrobat. And I had a friend that a blog reader that went to Japan, and they picked me up some pins. And this was one that they sent back to me when they returned from their trip. They sent me a package, and it had an acrobat in it. And this was in 2009. It took from 2009 when this pin was introduced in Japan, it took four years for it to show up in the U.S. It's a slow boat. I don't know what to make of that. I didn't plan on focusing on that when I was writing this review, but I was like, I've reviewed this pin for the first time in 2009, and you're telling me Pilot USA just put it on their store shelves in 2013. I don't understand these things about pin companies. And I've gone on my rants and raves before about the Japanese market versus the American market and why we can't have nice things and things like that. But four years, I mean, the acrobat is a basic pin. It happens to be a great basic pin, which is why I wanted to see it in the U.S. And in retrospect, that it took four years to get here is kind of mind-boggling in a not-good way. So I don't know. I just wanted to point that out because I didn't expect to. That wasn't the focus of the review, but it kind of caught me off guard once I actually looked it up. So regardless, definitely try out the acrobat though. I don't know if they have them in the UK yet on the store shelves, but it's become a popular brand here in the U.S. Pilot's marketing heavily. Pilot goes to all these big events like in Hollywood where they have the swag rooms, the gift rooms and things like that. For all the gift bags and for these stars and stuff, they always have pilots always there, and they're giving out pins. They actually have the acrobat there, a bunch of people taking pictures with the acrobat. So I know it's a pin they're pushing. They could have pushed it three or four years ago. That would have been pretty cool, but whatever. That's just me griping. I love how you recognize the Pi the Acrobat during the World Ceremonies. It's not award ceremonies. It's the pre game like a couple days before where all the celebs get to walk through and pick up all their gift goodie bags. I just have to eat on Pilot's Instagram feed and stuff like that. Is this one of your celebrity friends that sends these to you? Shoot now. No, no, no. And one final review that I just did today, and I didn't know I was going to do it today, so I didn't have it in the show notes until just now. But the tactile turn mover. It's actually the tactile turn mover and shaker. There's two pins. A guy named Will Hodges is a Kickstarter project for a machine pin. Like the steel or aluminum in this case, just like Karis Customs or Big Eye Design or all these guys that do the machine pins on Kickstarter. Will sent me a review model of the one called the mover. The mover fits the Pilot G2 style refills and the shaker fits the Fisher space pin refills. And this is, I said it in my review and we'll have it in the show notes if you haven't seen it on the blog. This is one of the best machine pins I own and have ever reviewed. It feels amazing. It looks amazing. Everything about it is spot on. All the tolerances, the finish of the pen, the way the refills fit, it's tight. Everything about this pen is really, really good. It's up on Kickstarter right now. And you can read my review on the blog today. It's got a really interesting feature. The grip design is this circular pattern around the grip area and it feels great. Like your fingers just kind of lock into place, but it's not uncomfortable. It's not jamming you in the fingers, necessarily like a rough knurling pattern. It's just really, really good grip design. And it's a pleasure to hold and to write with. I'm extremely happy with this pen. And we'll send this one to me for free, but I've gone ahead and back this pen because I want to get another one. I like it that much. So like I said, I put my money where my mouth is. I really, really like this pen. And he did a cool thing. He's got free international shipping. So I didn't mention that in my review. But I wanted to throw that out there, Mike, just saying. It's not, the refills aren't really my style. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, that's why I like it because I can use .38 pilot juice refills, which is blue black, which is what I use. And I can use the pilot high tech sea cavalier. So those are my two people always ask what's my favorite refill for these type of pens that take all the refills. Those are the two that I usually go for. .38 pilot G2 and the .3 or .4 millimeter pilot high tech sea cavalier refills. So it's the G2 because, okay, I thought you said juice. I do. I use the juice. The juice refill is the same design as the G2. I use the blue black. I use the blue black juice. This is for the show notes. And then you use the cavalier. What size cavalier do you use? .4, usually. Cool. I'll make sure they're in the show notes. Yeah, they're just, you know, it's just not my, they're just not really. It's not your everyday writing experience. Sure, buddy. At least, you know, I feel like you chose a much better name for this pen than the last one. Was it the EIM? Yeah. And Bingo was his name. I think even he was making fun of his name and the former name of his company and the pen designs. It was, I think he said something like, if my mother can't remember the name, you know, it's probably a bad name. So that's why I changed name into tactile turn, which is much better, much better. You should, it might, even if you don't back this project, it's worth going to watch the video. Okay. In fact, why don't you pull up, pull that up right now as we, as we wrap up this episode and I think you will, you will fully, fully enjoy it. But, um, are you using, you're pretty much just using, if you're not using a fountain pen, you're using Retro51, and that's probably about it, right? Is that fair? You know, I don't even use the 51 anymore, really. Yeah. I mean, I- Sure, fountain pens. How many good fountain pens, like, at this point, like, my fountain pen collection is so good. So this is something, when I was talking to, to, um, my lady friend about this, finding her the perfect pen, right? Mm. So we, I was talking to her about this, um, a couple of days ago, and she was saying, you know, if you found the perfect pen, yeah, this is actually quite a nice way to wrap up the show. Have you found the perfect pen yet? And I was like, I haven't, I haven't found the perfect pen. But the two pens that I've got here, and I kind of have my Tashin Begliter with me. Naturally. Um, these two pens that I've got here are about as close as I've ever, I've ever gotten. But really, in all honesty, there is no such thing for me as the perfect pen, because it's just not possible. Like, there will always be something more. There will always be a next neck, and there will always be a next pen, because they're always, because like pens, let's say, for example, I find the perfect refill or the perfect nib. Well, one day there's going to be a nicer design in another pen, another model, one of a make. So then if I like that design more than the design of my pen, my pen is not like a perfect anymore. And so, you know, I think once you really start getting into this, like with many, many hobbies like this, there is no such thing as the perfect one, but there is as close to perfect as you can get. And I think that currently my mix, my two favorite pens of the Rotoring Lava 600 Fountain Pen, and the pilot, I've got the M to help me, Brad, Pelican, sorry, 2-1-5, yeah. I got the number right, the brand name wrong. The Pelican M2-1-5, which I've actually used in the M2-1-5 more than the Lava now, I just switched between them. Between those two pens, I mean, they're perfect for me right now. But I've always got my own next thing. Good. Yeah, I agree 100%, you know, there's a, I can have the perfect pen for now, but it's not the perfect pen forever, probably. The perfect pen for now, that's what we're after. Mm-hmm. Yep. Excellent stuff. So if you'd like to catch up with us online, there's a few ways you can do that. I'm @imike, I am YKE on Twitter, Brad is @dowdismdow, D-Y-I-S-M. If you would like to find Brad's writing, go to penaddict.com and if you'd like to get in touch of us by email, go to 5x5.tv/thepenaddict and hit the contact button up the top in the little masthead that we've got there. So thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. As Brad mentioned earlier, you can grab the show notes at 5x5.tv/penaddict/90 and we'll be back next week for another episode of the Penaddict podcast. Until then, bye-bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]
