Hello and welcome to the pen addict episode 65 on the lovely 5x5 network. The pen addict is a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper and the analog tools that we love so dearly. My name is Mike Curly and I am joined by a man that when he gets into bed every night he has a big sheet of leather pulled over him and a huge elastic band pulled round just to make sure that he is securely held in place. You get where I am going with that. I'm basically saying you sleep inside a moleskin. Yes, I do. Oh my gosh, that could go so many wrong ways. It's not even funny, but I appreciate that. I think I'm not sure. I don't even know how you come up with this. I'm going through the bottom of the barrel folks. Basically what I do is I just look around me at all of the pens and paper and notebooks and pencils around me and I use them for inspiration. I looked at one of those journalist moleskins. You know the ones that they flip up. Yes. Then somehow that managed to end up in a bedroom type scene so I'm not sure what your thought process is there. I just assumed that the only time you would ever need to be closed is when you go and sleep at night. I guess I'll let you have that, but yeah, good grief mate. You guys probably heard another little giggle in the background. We got a special guest on today. Mike, we have Mr. Ed Gelly with us from EdGelly.com. How's it going, Ed? How's it going? Good to be here. We're happy to have you. We're excited. I'm very excited about this show because I'm a big fan of yours and I want to talk a lot about your blog and your reviews and some of your pens and paper and we're definitely going to get into that. We always do. We've got a little bit of follow-up so Mike and I are going to go through this. We'll get you to chime in on a few things and we'll just let it roll and go from there. Sound good? Sounds good, I'll be here. All right. Mike, it caused a bit of a stir last week which is to be expected with the Vision Air Kickstarter project. We had a little kicked up the dust a little bit on that project and for some reason you're jumping in on this episode without listening to the previous episode, you definitely want to give last episode a listen. I think it actually turned out, I was a little bit nervous about it. I think it turned out better than expected. I don't know if you got any feedback that I didn't get, Mike, but I got it caught a lot of emails, tons of tweets and messages for that. Most people were interested to hear some of the comparisons I'm making. I think most of the feedback I got was positive. A little bit, I wouldn't say negative. No one was like, "Oh, you're completely wrong and you shouldn't be doing this or anything like that." I had one or two. Maybe you're taking this a little bit too far thing or you're taking it personal. I didn't think that was the case at all. I thought it was more of an education for people who were not familiar with this product and what my takeaways were on it. During last week's episode, I had made contact with Morgan, the project founder of the Vision Air and the designer. I did air quotes there, Mike. Just letting you go. To Morgan's credit, he called me on Thursday and I was not available and what call went to voicemail. I messaged him back and then I messaged him back again and then again and then I sent him another email and said, "Hey, can you respond to the questions?" Since that last Thursday, it's been radio silence. He is not responding to me at all. I've got no answers to my questions. I've got no contact with him whatsoever. I think I'm done with it. I don't care that much. I don't want this to be CSI, Pentown on this Vision Air project. I just wanted to leave some information because I was getting asked about it so much that I had to talk about it because it was just like a boulder rolling down the hill and there was no stopping it. I think I pretty much said my piece with it last week. Morgan is choosing not to communicate with me anymore and that's fine. He did make the effort to his credit, but he has a very, very short list of emails that I sent him that he could respond to at any time in about five minutes and he has not taken the time to do so. Ever since he left me a voicemail, I have texted him several times and he has not responded to a single one of my texts. I mean, I don't want to spend any more time on this to be quite honest. Unless something crazy happens, it's like, I think I've said my piece on it. So there you have it on that. What do you think about that, Mike? Do you have any follow-up on the Vision Air? Do you want to talk about it at all? So I'll take that as a no. No, it's not that I don't want to talk about it. I don't feel like we have an answer. Yeah. I mean, you can take silence as an answer, right? And I think that that's perfectly okay to do. I don't think that, you know, I mean, I think you could take that easy. You could take that. Right. And I don't want to be that finite and say, you know, or make it that final and say, well, he didn't respond. So it's clearly clearly no good at all. I don't want to do that. But it's kind of telling. And you know what, it's been that way since the beginning of the project. He's been elusive and evasive. I guess it's probably more the proper word. So did you ever take a look at this Vision Air pin on Kickstarter? What do you think about that pin? Yeah, I did. I came across it. I don't even remember where like in the first few days and I just kind of scrolled through it. It's a lot of fluff going on in the description of it. And like the marketing was great. Like I think if he were selling anything with those, you know, putting in things about his firstborn son's birth certificate and you know, whatever. But I think like what you guys are saying last week, he's not entirely sure about fountain pens. It looks an awful lot like a couple of Chinese pens. And the IPG, the Iridium Point Germany nib is kind of pretty much as generic as they come, which is never a great sign when you're, you know, paying more for something that you could definitely get for cheaper. Right. But like you guys said, I don't think it's going to be a bad pen. I don't think it's going to, you know, people aren't going to be annoyed when they get it. It's just the uneducated and the pen world are. I think that's really who's buying it. Right, right. And I think the money that it's at now, the, I mean, $266,766. I think this guy is going to make an absolute killing on this. I mean, he is just going to, I mean, despite his, his comments, I am whew. Yeah. And I don't see him this, him cost this costing him very much to get manufactured and good on him. Like you said, and I said, damn, he's good at marketing. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's weird that he's not answering stuff and it seems like, you know, there's a lot of money involved. There's a lot of other people's money involved, but you know, it'll probably happen and people will probably be happy with it. And some people won't just like anything, I think. Right. Right. I don't know what to do. What? I mean, there's no reason to cancel. We'll never know. Right. Take one for the team, mate. You take one. Hey, I already made my stand and you made yours. You went in and I didn't. If any, if anything, I'm going to go pledge a dollar. So when this campaign ends, if he ever updates, I get the updates because I want to see what happens when this thing ends because he wants to sell them for $80 when it's over. And the way he's the way this campaign has gone down. I don't see there's any way that that's even going to happen. I see this going away. Once the pins are shipped, I think he's out. I mean, he's going to make a mint. So when does it end? Oh, it's got like 30 more days, 27 more days. All right, I'm going to keep it. All right. I'm going to buy it. You got plenty of time. Well, no, the only reason that I are that I asked that was just, you know, go through to the next payday. And I don't have to think about it. Yeah. But yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to keep it. I'm going to just because I feel like, you know, I think at this point, because I've been thinking about it and listen to you guys talk about it again, especially hearing Ed's opinion as well. Not that I don't trust yours or anybody else is Brad. Oh, sure. But I think to myself, you know, yeah, probably, probably is just this common thing, but could still be great. Maybe I just, maybe I need to continue the benefit of the doubt that I wanted to give him in the first instance and actually get and put my money with my money. Sure. And actually receive the thing. Sure. And I actually, I told you offline last week, and I should have said it while we were live, but like right when the show ended, we were talking about it. And I said, if, you know, if I get a, if I get a clear answer on where, you know, how and where this pins being manufactured, I will, I will back it. And that hasn't happened. So all right. That's enough visionary for me. Let's, let's talk about a different, more maybe, maybe a better Kickstarter project, Mike, the, the Joe Topen, which was super, super popular. And you, you were in on this and they had some delays and some shipping delays, and it took a long time to get to it. But you finally got it in hand, right? Yeah, it arrived like on Wednesday, which is like the worst time for anything to arrive. Went because that means it's, you know, it's come to me just after the show. Yeah, right. And we got away the whole week. So I don't feel like I need to give a background on it too much. I think we've spoken about it a bunch of times. It's UK based. As with any Kickstarter, you know, I was waiting, they were very, very, very responsive and their customer service was awesome on Twitter and stuff like that. But I kind of just was, you know, wanted to get the thing. So I wasn't really frustrated at them for the delays because that's just how Kickstarter things go. And I think I said this before, but the difference is you pay and then you wait. And that's not how we used to doing business, like how we used to make in transactions. So Kickstarter for physical products is, is interesting in that regard. And I haven't really backed many, many physical product kick stars. So the JoJo arrived. And one of the things that I was thinking about during the process of receiving their updates was that they were putting far too much effort into the packaging. That they, I felt that they were potentially wasting time with the packaging. You've got, let's see if you'll hear this. That is an aluminum case or aluminium, as I should say, case that is in that is part of the box. Inside is cork. You can see all of this on the Kickstarter page, actually. Yeah, I'm looking now. Is that, that's aluminum that goes around the outside? Yeah. Oh, wow. Wow. I didn't realize that. There's a cork box, which has a cardboard sleeve on it. And the cardboard sleeve has their little, their little motto, which is also on the cardboard box, which surrounds this. You're about to embark on upon an amazing journey. Be creative, stay curious, make your mark. That's their whole little thing. That's good. But when I opened it, I was, I kind of understood why. It just, that, that sort of care is, is really important, I think. So I opened, you know, I pushed out this cork casing and took off the card and have been met with one of the most beautiful pens I have ever owned, looking at me. I haven't, this brushed aluminum, like, it's like a torpedo. It's just long and thin. There's no clip. Don't know how I feel about the fact that there's no clip. I haven't really made my mind up on that yet. And it has like a, a retro 51 style mechanism in which you twist, but it pushes down a bit. And that's, that's how it can use different refills, because it doesn't lock into the refill to make the spin. Does that make sense? Right. So the mechanism isn't like clicking into the refill and then turning it. When you once, when you unscrew it, it's just like a, a plunger, basically, you know, which is on a, a thread on the inside, right, which is pushing it down. So I was really, really impressed by the build quality of the pen. The packaging was incredible, but the build quality is, is really nice. It's weighted very well. Maybe a little long for my tastes, but not so long that it's a problem, because typically the length would mean that it would be heavy, but it's, it's not a very, it's not a very heavy pen all in all. So the waiting is quite well. That makes sense. So because it's long, it's not like my hands tipping over. Right. And the, the aluminum should, you know, that's not going to be the heaviest material to make a pen out of. So, and it looks like, does it, I'm looking at one of the pictures, does it taper out slightly towards where you grip it? Ever so slightly. Yeah. It's like, it's not, it's not a complete, it's not like a perfect cylinder. It like, no, which is a great decision. Mm hmm. Because you notice it when you hold it, you really do notice it. And that's a good thing. They made a very smart decision with that. They didn't need to do that, but they made what I consider to be the right choice there. And because it's brushed aluminum, it doesn't need a grip or anything because there's a grip to the whole barrel. I'm pleased that I went with the aluminum. They do a, they did a brass version, I think. That would have been far too heavy. Yeah, I think so. So they, they included a refill, which they branded. I don't know what this refill is. I tried to find out. I couldn't see. It's a pretty generic, rollable, you know. Mm hmm. But guess what it takes? Oh, the, the, the retro, the easy flow. Mm hmm. Eight one, eight one, two six or two seven, one of those. The best refill of all time, you mean? Yeah, definitely. Takes that fits, fits perfectly. Okay. I love that refill. I was using it last night as a matter of fact. So with that refill, 0.7 millimeter guy at all, with that refill, this body, one of the best pens I own. Wow. Fantastic. Well, it, I got to say it looks awesome. I always thought it did. It does. It really does. I think I would like, if I would, I haven't been using it on a daily basis, and I've been using it a whole lot. I think I would like to have a clip on it. Sure. They might make, I mean, they're going to open a store, and if they don't have clips, then I may like sort of contact them and suggest, you know, try and, try and manufacture a clip of some description for this. Mm hmm. But what I've got is a really, really, really well, really well crafted handmade pen. And it has, it basically, they provided me with the dream that I had for this pen, which was they would come and be extremely well made, but would allow me to put the best refill for any type of pen of this ilk for me in it, which they've been able to do. And it's like, basically, what they've done is they've made a really high end retro 51, which is exactly, if I think I mentioned this, when I, when I backed it, that was what I wanted. That was what I wanted, and they've given me that. So I'm really, really happy with this, and they will be opening a store of their own soon. So I, I, it is, this definitely gets a, um, a recommendation from me. Cool. Yeah, I would totally sign my kid's birth certificate with this pen. You say, I mean, that, that is a right way to put it. Yeah, this, this is a pin. It's going to last you for a lifetime. This, this is an heirloom pin. This is a pin you can pass down from generation to generation, you know, I'm having fun there, but I'm serious about this pin, not, not the, the other one. This is a, this is a killer pin. And, um, you know, I might have to look into their store when, uh, once it gets up and running, I don't know if it is yet or not, I haven't looked, but that's what I look at. They are working on it and they're going to, they, they manufactured these leather sleeves. I saw those. Um, they were an extra that you could buy. Mm hmm. Like you could increase your, your pledge. I will buy one of those probably. Yeah. I think that's a good combination. That was a good, uh, good add-on that they did there. It fits the whole idea of this pin, I think, pretty well. Because I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about it. I didn't want to go and spend all that money on buying a dish, like a, an accessory for it. Yeah. But, um, yeah, I, I will probably look into buying one of those leather sleeves as well. Um, I mean, I don't know why I didn't. It was 20 pounds more kind of silly. Well, I can see that in hindsight. It's 2020, right? Right. And now, you know, now I know that I like this pen. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, Ed, do you get into the Kickstarter pin thing? Like, like Mike and I do, or do you stick more to the fountain pins, which haven't been like really as well represented on Kickstarter yet? Have you gotten involved in any of these projects at all? No, I haven't. And now after looking at this one, I kind of wish I did. Um, yeah. And should probably start paying attention. Uh, I did. I bought one of those, uh, it was a big eye design. Um, yep. They, they did a Kickstarter thing, but I bought after the fact. Um, what is it? It's the T I big. No, I didn't get that one. I got the Oh, you got the P it, the P H X one. Yes. The stainless steel, uh, weapon of a pen. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But you bought, you bought the add on one, which was just the pen without the, the weapon, without the business end. Um, or you, you got the one with the executive blade end. Oh no, I didn't get that one. I just say because it weighs a ton and the cap is, it's, it's like a, I don't even know. Yeah. It's like a bullet. It's like a bullet. It's really heavy. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that after seeing the, the T I pen and a few of those, I'm like, Oh, maybe I'll check it out. And since I don't, I don't really write, I usually stick to fountain pens, but, um, I do like the high tech C. I like the uni Sino. Um, and then this takes both of those easily. So I figured why not? And now looking at the Jodo, that's, and hearing it's a nice pen. It's definitely something to keep on my radar now. Yeah. I think since pen started appearing on Kickstarter, there's really just been, uh, a steady, you know, one of the straight line up of improvement in, in pen designs, even, you know, from the big eye design guys who I talked to frequently, you know, their first pen did really well, but by the time they got to their second and third pin, the first pins are almost unusable compared to the, the second batch, the T I pens. They're so much better. And, you know, I think some of these people that are doing this are, are, are learning as they go. And that's good. That's, that's actually what Kickstarter's for, you know, for these people to come up with these designs and, you know, test them, sell them, improve them and, and things like that. So yeah, that's good. I definitely don't, um, search or like, uh, browse Kickstarter for this stuff. People suggest to me anything that I back or look at backing. Yeah, I'm one agreed. Like the, uh, I believe that, uh, Stuart Hasley, Haisley, I, I do that every time I say his name. Same here. Um, I'm going to say Haisley. And again, he said, yes, you got it right again. Um, he, he turned me on to the mojo toe. He got one himself. He loves it. Um, we were, we were talking about it over DM. Well, he was telling me what I felt, what he felt. And I wouldn't tell him that you have to wait for the show. You're so mean. So we're not even done with the follow up yet. I know, but I want to, I want to talk about a new sponsor that we've got this week, Brad. Oh, awesome. I want to hear this. That's a great, I mean, that's a great thing. Everyone loves to hear that right. New sponsors. Yeah. So, uh, cause that, what does that mean, Brad? It means we can continue to make the show. That's right. More sponsors mean we don't go away. That's right. So, uh, we have a, we have a great new sponsor this week, Brad. It's Shatterstock.com. Right. So Shatterstock, should I, should I tell the listeners about Shatterstock? Please, please. And I'm going to do some typing and check it out myself while you're, while you're reading. Shatterstock is where you'll find over 20 million stock photos, vectors, illustrations and video clips. You can start searching at Shatterstock.com and you will find the perfect image for your website, add publication or any other creative project. Shatterstock gives you a global image collection to find images from across the world to suit your project. You can choose between image packs and monthly subscription packages. You can choose whatever fits your need and you never have to compromise. If you, but if you just need one image for a blog or a mock up or something, you can do that too. They have an add a cart option as well as their monthly subscription packages. Every time you visit Shatterstock, you will be bound to find something new since they add 10,000 new images every single day. 10,000 a day. And it's much more affordable than you'd think. There's no extra charges for large files. You just download any image in any size and pay one price. They're not nickel and dime you because you want to have it high rate as because you want it to look great on a written display or something like that. They just, you just pay one fee, one price. If you need them, take them. You can easily curate and share your pictures via light boxes you can choose your favorite pictures or videos and add them to your light box gallery in just a few clicks or taps because you can use that iPad app to do this as well. There's something called enhanced license access that they do. So if you need an image, if you love an image and you want to run it on print or swag for trade shows, that sort of stuff, you can get an enhanced license for any of the images that they do. They have a great huge library of vectors, icons, infographic, templates and video clips as well if you need any of those. It's not just images. If you need any help over at Shutterstock, you can get an account rep dedicated to you who can answer any questions and they also have 24 hours support during the week. We need to go and sign up for a free browse account now. Go to Shutterstock.com, no credit card needed. When you find the images you like and you decide to purchase, you want to use the code PENS7, P-E-N-S and the number 7 and you'll get 30% off any package. 30% Brad. A third. Incredible. Thank you, Shutterstock, for supporting the Panadact and all the 5x5. We really appreciate it. If you enjoy the show, go check out Shutterstock, buy some of the images. Support us. You can put them on your website and we'll talk about that a little later on. Oh yeah, we can't talk about that too. Yeah, so I went and searched for PENS on Shutterstock while you were talking and these vector images are great. I could see those coming in very much in handy. I like the way they've done these. They did a good job. So yeah, I will check that out further. Thank you, Shutterstock. That's incredible. I'm going to put a link to a search for PENS on Shutterstock so people can see. And what we've got, 2,685 pages of images. Yeah. Just a few. Just a few. That's on the Popular tab. Oh, there's 268,491 results. Yeah. So just, you know, few. They have a couple of images. One or two. Oh, they have, oh, I just saw this cool. They have this grid ball. They have some ballpoint pin on grid paper vectors. Those are pretty cool. All right. Sorry. I'll stop playing around because we're already we're going to be long as it is on this episode because I got a lot to talk about. I think I just sold Shutterstock to someone. Yeah, sweet. All right. Let's rip through these next follow ups because I'm going to get talking to Ed. I got a link on Twitter the other day. Someone sent me saying that someone on Facebook, there's always field notes. It's always been well represented on Facebook just on the standard field notes business page. Someone went and created a Facebook group dedicated to field notes trading. I've gotten like three emails alone in the past week. And how do I start collecting field notes totally unrelated to this, to this, to this group on Facebook. And I just got, I literally, I think three emails in the past seven days about how do I start collecting, how would I find the old editions? Well, your, your place has now arrived. It seems this group is already, it's, it's invite only, I guess you, I'm not a Facebook guru actually recreated my Facebook account just to join this page. If that tells you anything, but you just, you just ask to join and they approve you and you're in. But it's really cool. It's got a lot of people that I've traded with already, a lot of familiar faces, familiar names. And if you're looking to get into the field notes obsession, this is a good place to start to try to find some of the older or rare editions that you are looking for. So I'm, we'll have the link in the show notes to this page. So I posted a link, I posted a link to my collection page on my website. A couple of people say, Oh, you know, I just said that, yeah, I'm like a, I'm like a new, compared to some of these guys. Some people saying, you know, loving some of the editions, which you've helped me source. But then I had a couple of listeners basically chasing me away from the page because the reason that they were there is because they'd heard about field notes on this show. Cool. So people get angry at me no matter where I got on the internet. I know. I know. And I just, I just joined it last night and I just made my first post about, I don't know, 20 minutes before we started recording today. And yes, I've already got a bunch of answers like, where did you get this one? I mean, a bunch of questions, where did you get this one? So I got to go back and answer it. So, you know, Ed's, Ed's a big, huge field notes guy. I know just from talking to him before the episode, right? Ed. Yeah. You know what? You just, you're not a, not a carry notebook kind of guy. Just kind of not in your daily, your daily thing. It's just not your, not your thing, right? I've tried. I have three packs of field notes sitting on my desk. I really enjoy looking at them. I don't know. I just don't, I don't know. I prefer a bigger notebook for, I don't know. I carry one for a year in my back pocket. I can tell you I have five pages written in it and like, nothing useful, absolutely nothing useful. Yeah. And really, if you're using, you know, a lot of fountain pens, that's also a challenge that I have found. You got to have the right pen and ink. If you're going to, if you're going to go fountain pen and field notes, it can certainly be done. But it's more of a challenge than just, you know, taking on a ballpoint or a pencil and scribbling something down. But yeah, I can totally, totally understand, understand that stance and, and how, you know, you just kind of need that, the bigger format or, you know, just don't want to carry it in a pocket or lose it or throw it in the wash. Speaking of throwing it in the wash, I actually did have some fun with the, the expedition edition. Oh, yeah. Just, you know what? I, they said it can go under water. So I threw it in the sink for a while. I don't know. Yeah. Pretty cool though. That, that, you know, they, they did a good job on that, you know, as long as you're using the rock pen, which we, we talked about a bunch, um, if, if that's the kind of notebook you need to, for, you know, the outdoors types and, and things like that, they did a, they did a good job on that. Now we do have, do have something you can get behind here and I think I sent you these links. Um, one of my followers on Twitter named Ron Sinclair, Ron Sinclair, we'll put the links in the show notes to, to Ron's Twitter page and to his Flickr set. He's in Japan. He was in Japan last week. I don't know if he's still there. The photos stopped coming, but I told him to take some pictures of, uh, pen stores and, uh, he came through with flying colors. So he's got some links we're going to share in the notes. If, if anyone is not aware of what pens look like, uh, what stationery looks like in Japan and how they sell and, you know, what even, one of the stores he, he sent like on his Flickr page, all those photos on the Flickr page. Those are just in like a general store. That's not a pen store. They just have that much quantity of pens, stationery, pen cases everywhere and just like a, you know, just a general type of store. And then on the pen store. No, the ones he put on his Flickr page, I think are at a pen store where there's more fountain pens and things like that. But the, I think the ones on the, um, on the, uh, yeah, it's called Tokuyu hands. They have a pen department, but it's not just strictly like a stationery store. It's, it's fascinating. So these are fun pictures to go look at and see all kinds of crazy stuff. Um, I really like some of the fountain, the fountain pen pictures didn't make it to his Flickr page yet, but they're on Twitter. So you'll check out both of those places. If you want to see, if you, you know, get your drill bit about because it's, it's pretty crazy. Yeah. So we're like, we're linking to one tweet, but you want to click through to his, like his full like timeline and you can view, like he sent us loads of pictures and I was like, yeah, I just, it was much to love our listeners. I don't think I like this guy very much anymore. He's on the list. He's on the list Ron. Sure. Coming after you, you're going to, you're spending our money. We don't like it. All right. What else I got? So the last bit of follow up and then then we'll focus on Ed because that's what I want to do. Um, Twigby came out with the, I think this is official, the, the official colors. They do so many like mockups and, and, um, you know, throwing out some ideas, like on their Facebook page, just getting feedback on them. I never know whether it's an official release or a legitimate, Hey, this is come and release. I think this is the second part. I think their, their comment on the Facebook page is 580 new colors to come and question mark, you know, like no, like, um, I think they look really good. They're all like have a clear demonstrator body like the barrel in the middle and then have matching colored caps and ends where the, the piston twist mechanism is all matching and we'll have this photos in the, in the show notes as well. Um, what do you think, Mike? I want the orange one. Yeah. I think they look pretty good. What do you, Ed, are you a Twigby guy at all? I, I read your blog all the time. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a Twigby on there. Do it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I had the vac. I don't have it anymore. And, um, my 540 has broken a few times. So I kind of let that sit. But in terms of what they're doing, I mean, I liked it at the time and then I kind of grew to not like it so much, but I think these look good. I liked, uh, I know when the mini came out, they had the classic, which was with the black tail cap and the black cap with the clear body in the middle and I thought that was really cool. And, um, just like these, these are, I like the colors. Yeah. And then the, like you were saying lots of people had issues with the 540, right? And you know, just the plastic were, you know, the threading was breaking. The barrel was cracking. Just some kind of like pressure type issues were there. Yeah. That's why they came out with the 580, you know, reasonably quickly, um, in the grand scheme of things and hopefully to correct some of those issues. I have a 580 with a 1.1 stub nib. It's not like in the super heavy rotation, but I love the pins. I don't know if, you know, the, the old issues are still present, but, um, it seems like they've, they've corrected some of those issues. And yeah, I, I surprisingly out of these colors, I, I kind of like the yellow one. That's, that's really different. Um, if it, if it's not too gold, I'd like to see another picture of it. Um, but yeah, I mean, this is, I might have to have more than one of these, but, um, they come out with so many different things. I hate to buy too many and then not be able to afford the next thing they come out with. So, so yeah, those look great. I'm, uh, very impressed with those and we just got those, those tweets about an hour before we, we came online. I didn't even didn't even see those and I went and slapped them in the show notes real quick so we could mention that in case people because we keep, Mike and I, we keep saying we're waiting until the colors ones come out and now they finally are. I do wish they would do like with the 540, the same color demonstrator, like the full body, one color, clear, you know, like a full blue or a full amber. Um, I thought those were some of the best looking pins they've ever done. So hopefully maybe one day they'll do that, but, um, I think this is, this is their starting point with, uh, with the Twisbee 580 colors. So should we, uh, should we take the time to thank Squarespace and then we'll get into talking to Ed. Let's do it. So I want to take a moment to thank Squarespace for also supporting this show, um, Squarespace.com. So where they give you the all in one platform that makes it really easy to create your own website for a free trial and 10% off. Go to squarespace.com and use the offer code, tally ho T-A-L-L-Y-H-O. Squarespace is constantly updating their platform with new features, designs and fantastic support. They have really great designs for you to start with and loads of fantastic style options that you can adjust so you can create your own space online. Squarespace takes care of everything hosting SEO and also makes your site look fantastic on any device. It's really easy to use and they have 24/7 customer support. If you have any issues, there's an award winning support team over at Squarespace. We need to go and check out squarespace.com because that's what you sign up for your free trial, but also you confuse some really cool videos there that show you how different people use Squarespace and then all the different things that you can do to create your own space online. So whether, you know, if you're an artist or a blogger or a photographer, they show all different people using Squarespace for that sort of stuff, which is really cool. They have really nice videos. So at squarespace.com you'll be able to sign up for a free trial. No credit card required to do this and you can get a Squarespace plan from just $8 a month and they include a free domain name if you sign up for one year. Don't forget you will get 10% off and support the show by using the offer code "Tally-Ho" so go check out Squarespace, everything that you need to create an exceptional website. Now last week I asked people to send in some sites, some listeners sites that they've used to create on Squarespace and we've had a bunch of suggestions that I'm going to bring up to today Brad. Okay. So we have our good friend Mike Dudek, the dude. Oh yeah. We mentioned this before, but his site clickypost.com, that is a Squarespace site, really nicely done, a great pen site. Yeah, I love that site. It's a great site and I had another one at Ola Carlson on Twitter, has sent in a Squarespace site that they have, but these two sites look totally different, which I love. But this site is about yarn. Oh cool. So I think that's really cool, right? And the reason I liked it, and I wanted to pick this one today, is because it's a niche love, like pens, something totally different. Yeah, the whole yarn and knitting community is really similar to the pen community. It's like a huge, huge thing that, you know, if you're not into it, you wouldn't know it exists, but once you get into it, it's just this huge, expansive, you know, community that is hugely, hugely popular and has a lot of crossover with the pen community. So that's pretty cool. So you can find both of these in today's show notes, which you can find at 5x5.tv/penadict/65. If you want to send in some suggestions, you can go to mikeherly.net for the contact page, or you can send them to me on Twitter, maybe hashtag it with like the penadict Squarespace as well, so Squarespace will see it. That might be cool to do, or maybe just at reply both me and Squarespace and say that you're a pen So thank you to Squarespace and thank you to all of you too. So there we go. All right, so we are now ready to get into our main focus. Finally, after that epic link follow up, we got 40 minutes, we've done two sponsors image, 40 minutes, two sponsors and we've just finished the follow up. This is how we roll today. That's right. We are rolling deep. So we have Ed Jelly with us. Sorry. And Ed Rex blog, Edjelly.com, and we'll have it have a link in the show notes. And Ed is one of my favorite fountain pen ink bloggers out there. You know, I'm pretty, pretty excited to have him on because I want to pick his brain a little bit. But the first thing I need to know Ed is how did you come up with the name for your blog? That's my last name. So, Edjelly.com is me. That's you. You know what, I couldn't, to be completely honest, I couldn't think of a good like pun fountain pen name. So I already owned the domain for me. So I kind of just went with it. Yeah. And I think you're probably better off for it. You know, I think the pun, the pun, the pin pun market is kind of saturated at this point. So yeah, it's slim pickings in the pen puns. And you've done a good job. You've got some, you know, some good branding. And you've done, you know, some of the, had some of the design work done in the cool logos and think like that. Anyway, it came out great. So I'm just, I'm just busting on you there a little bit. But I got to thinking when I was, when I was having you on, it's like, how did I first find out about your blog and Edjelly and what you, what you did with pins? And I said, you know, did I stumble across this myself? Did someone link it to me? And I did a, I did a search in my Gmail. And I found this email from December the 4th, 2012 from Edjelly. And the subject is ink link submission. And it says, Hey, I just started my fountain pen ink and stationary review blog of I'd love to be featured in and ink links. My URL is, you know, Edjelly.com. Thanks, Edjelly. So that's how, that's how I first came about your, you, you, you sent me an email to get into the ink links, which I get a lot of those emails and honestly, not a lot of them go straight in, you know. And I usually stumble across things myself or get other people sending them to me. But I clicked over your blog and I was like, okay, this is going to be good. I better follow this blog. So I'll put it right in my RSS reader. And I've, I've never been disappointed. So what, what made you get into, into, you know, want to start doing, you know, this, this whole pin blogging type of thing? You know, it just kind of happened. I got my first fountain pen. Probably, it was a Lamy Safari. It was the charcoal with the black nib. That was like, that was only like three and a half, four years ago at this point. And I'd use that for a while and nothing kind of came of it. And then like anything, you just start buying more stuff when you're in a hobby. And, you know, and most of it was kind of being bored in class and I'd be like, Oh, here's an ink review. And then I'd be like, you know what? Maybe I should do something with this. And if you look at like the very first ones, they were like, the photos were pretty bad. I took them on my phone. And then it was just kind of like, I need to improve this and make it look better because it reflects poorly on me as, I don't know, I guess an internet presence, if you will. Yeah. So even right now, like I'm on my site, like clicking back at the old ones and I'm like, Oh my God, the pictures are terrible. And I skipped a whole bunch of things. But it was just kind of, Hey, I think this is something I want to do. And then I just kind of kept trying to make it better. Until I have a where it's, you know, where it's at. Yeah. And I've seen that same transformation of mine, you know, you go back and look at the old posts and you're just like, Oh my goodness, what was I doing? And even, you know, like my photography to this day is still really, really hit and miss. But like when I go to your blog, I'm always blown away by number one, your photography is fantastic. Thank you. I think the pictures come out great. You always, you, unlike me, you always take like a big group of pictures. And actually I started to try to do a better job of that myself. Because of yours, I love how it looks where you can see different angles of the pen, different angles of the paper, maybe the light hitting the ink in a different angle or the pen nib and a different angle and things like that. So I think you do a really, really brilliant job with the photography and the whole layout. It's very, very sharp and clean and wonderful looking. I'm a huge, I'm a huge fan. So I think you do a good job there. Is that do you have a like a special setup for your photography or you do just kind of wing it? It's honestly, it's kind of winging it like that background with all the lines on it. That's a tile left over from the bathroom. Right. I try to use natural light as much as possible. This way I don't have to mess around with like white balance and weird stuff coming from different incandescent lights. And it's pretty much just a tripod and that tile on top of two old speaker stands. And the camera I use isn't even anything crazy. It's an Olympus pen EP3. So it's a micro four thirds camera with like the kit lens. It just works. Yeah, that's fantastic. It always comes out good. My personal favorite thing that you do is your ink reviews. If anyone hasn't is not familiar with Ed's blog, I know you're going to go there after this podcast and you should check out the ink reviews that he does. I think they're fascinating really because they're very simple, but you always add like some extra flares or extra dimension into, you know, stay in doing some drawings or some sketching where there's some, you know, it's not just a writing sample. It's, you know, some there's a lot more depth into it without going like crazy overboard. Say like on a on a fountain pen network, you know, you don't have like a printed out sheet of like every spec and every timing and every everything on there. You just do it like a real, a really good use case. How did you come up with like your ink review format and what I guess basically how did you, how did you come up with the style because I think it's really unique. And I think that's the kind of ink review I want to see. Thank you. First off, I kind of wanted to keep it simple because like you said, you see those printed out papers and people dunking their paper in water and how long the ink stays on the page with water on the paper. You know, it gets a little crazy and I'm, I'm kind of, I'm a big doodler. All my notebooks, like every single class I've ever taken throughout school, the doodles outweigh the notes like 10 to 1. And you know, I just figured this is kind of the most practical thing. Personally, I, you know, if an ink is waterproof, great, it'll say it when you go to buy it. But I want to see what it looks like on the paper more importantly. And, you know, I want to cover the basics, but not go crazy and make it look nice too. Right. Well, I think you accomplished that. And I'm, I'm like you, I want to read ink reviews about how people would normally use inks, right? I mean, there's extreme, you know, there's edge cases where, okay, you know, my notebook got stuck in the rain and this is really important data I'm collecting in my notebook and I need it to not, you know, wash out if it gets wet. But that's a very, very small percentage where, you know, probably 95%, it's just people writing with an ink on a piece of paper and writing some words or doing some drawings. And I think that format really shines in your interviews. I really like that a lot. So now there's one specific thing that I want to cover with you that just happened recently and I haven't had this experience yet, that you've just gone through, you've gone through a breakup with one of your very expensive pens. And so Ed had a Pelican M605, which is a really, that's probably the middle range Pelican, but it's still, it's a very expensive pen. It's well over $300, probably close to 400. It's a beautiful, beautiful pen. It's obviously, I mean, Pelican has one of the best reputations in the fountain pen world. So at some point you decided that, hey, I'm going to purchase an M605 because I think it's going to fit me. And then later down the line, you've spent all this money and it's not working out for you. And that's a situation I haven't been in, but maybe I'm close on a couple pens, but it's like, well, I spent all this money. Should I, do I really want to sell it? Should I just leave it here and collect dust? But take me through this whole Pelican M605 process. I know it's a very specific thing. It's probably something only I want to hear, but it's, I think it's important because fountain pens can be an expensive hobby. So when you get into something like this where you've bought, you've laid out a bunch of money, then all of a sudden that pen's not fulfilling your needs anymore. Tell me, tell me how this, this happened. Well, I've wanted a Pelican since I pretty much saw what it was. Like, since I learned about the brand, I knew this was something I had to have. I settled on the M605. I'm not a huge fan of gold accents. So I went with the silver, rhodium, whatever it is, bought the pen. I was like, wow, I just spent 300 something dollars on the pen. I can't wait for it to get here. I should have bought faster shipping. I bought it in September of last year. So I used it for a while. But as of lately, it just wasn't what I was reaching for in terms of, oh, I'm going to bring this one with me or I'm going to put ink in this one and use it. A lot of people are more straight up collectors and they have pens that have never seen ink and they sit in drawers and they're great to look at and whatever. But I'm, I personally like using everything I have. And it just wasn't getting used enough to justify keeping. I mean, I know that's like a lot of people would be like, why would you buy that and then get rid of it? I actually got a few emails and tweets myself, are you selling all your pens? What happened? But no, you know, I recently have been really wanting to get an Akaya. And the only really feasible way to do that from a financial standpoint is to fund it with, you know, by getting rid of some stuff. Right. So go ahead because that's not a purchase where you could just, all right, I'm just going to, I'm going to pick this up and it'll get here and okay, like, I'm contemplating traveling to DC next weekend just to go get one. I know. You're the second person that has said that exact phrase to me, my friend Thomas, who loans me out all these pens and actually having the Kaya of his sitting on my desk right now. Oh boy. He said, I think I might just go Friday, fly over Friday and fry, fly back just so I can hold some, some other Nikias. And I mean, he said that exact thing to me. And that's, that's definitely something you know, I'm looking at down the line. And it's, I mean, you're, you're talking about $600 just to start looking at those really. Yeah. And so yeah, selling off part of the, the collection is to fund a bigger purchase. I mean, I think that's, I mean, I think that's a legitimate thing. But do you think, do you think with the 605 because of the price you paid for it, you didn't use it as much? Because I worry about that sometimes too. Like if I buy an expensive pen, I'm going to use it less because I'm worried about damaging it or, you know, taking it out and you know, something happened and happening to it. Do you think that was the case at all? I mean, the first few weeks I had it were really, I was like paranoid about it. I bought one of the Pelican leather pen sleeves. I kept it specifically in that I tried to keep it in my pocket most times. I wouldn't put it in my bag or anything. And then, you know, it actually, I found it scratched pretty easily. The resin on it was not like a, you know, it's resin so it's not bomb proof. Right. So I don't know if the price necessarily kept me from taking it out or, you know what it could have. I mean, I like being able to throw a safari or, you know, even my, my laundry 2000, like I have no problem with throwing that in my pocket because I know nothing's going to happen to it. Right. And with this one, I didn't have that same degree of freedom. Yeah, I can understand that. I mean, I think that's a challenge I go through from time to time. It's like, you know, finding that right balance. I've always said that I'm not a collector. Like, if I buy the pen, I'm going to use that pen. And I mean, I think we're on the same page and a lot of that. I'm finding I've bought a couple pens here and then not to recent past that are more collecting dust than using it. So I'm either trying to try to change how I'm using my pens in general or, you know, maybe I just need to thin the herd a little bit and we'll see and fun some other purchases because there's lots of other, you know, great pens that I want to try. One of them I really want to try is one that you own and it's one of the best looking pens ever, I think. And that's the sailor 1911 professional gear Imperial Black. I just got my first sailor, my first legitimate sailor, like 14 karat gold nib. I got the support of demonstrator recently. And I just, I love the nib. It's awesome. And the Imperial Black has always been on my radar. Where does that one sit in the, in the, I guess in your, your personal arsenal there? How did you, are you still liking that pen? You still use it a lot. What's coming about that pen? Yeah, it's my favorite looking pen prop. Actually, it's pretty much tied with the Lamy 2000. For whatever reason that pen just sits with me. I love everything about it. The design, the way it feels, everything. And the sailor is definitely a close second. It feels nice, but it's, you know, everyone says resin. It's pla, it's all plastic. I mean, it says resin, it's fancy plastic. But the way this pen feels like the mattified surface on it, it just feels great. It's balanced great. It's a good size for me. I mean, it just, I mean, I'm holding it right now. It just, everything about it's, you know, it's, it's, it's held up well through use, through portability, through anything you can throw at it, it handles well here. You're liking it because I think either a standard professional gear or the Imperial Black is probably the next pen I buy. And I'm, I'm weighing the, which one to get. So you know what? Now, now that you asked about the Pelican, I feel better carrying the sailor around than I do the Pelican. I feel like the matt finish, there's probably tons of hairline scratches on that, so you can't see them. I like, you know, the nib on the Pelican is great looking. I like the unique shape that the Pelican has. I like the scroll work. But like this, like the black nib on this pen is just awesome. Yeah, that's pretty cool. That is really cool. So tell me, what are some of your other pens? Like, what are a handful or a few of the favorite pens that you, that you carry? Like, if you're, you know, the pens you always want to have, you know, inked up or, you know, available to, to take with you or, or in use, what are, what are some of your personal favorites? I keep going back to the Safari. It's, you know, it's not fancy. I have like six of them. I like that I can swap the nibs readily. I like that I can keep each one loaded up with a different ink. It's, it's a great pen to just throw in a bag or in a pocket and not worry about it. Also, I have right now to, is it Althar, you know, the aluminum version? I don't know, I don't know proper pronunciation. I don't need that. I always say Althar, but I don't even know. Yeah, that one. I have three of those. I love them. It's like the Safari. It's a little heavier. I just got the matte black version that came out this summer. Those were, those were always inked up. I have two vanishing points, which I keep, keep handy. I have the matte black version and the gun metal with the matte black accents on it. Those are great because they're retractable. It's so easy to just pull the pen out, take a few quick notes and then click it back in and put it away. I like to have one of those with me. Usually I have like at least one or two vintage pens around. I have an ever sharp symphony, which is a 1950s flex nib pen, which those are just fun to play with. So that kind of fills the flex category, I guess, and what I usually carry. I have a noodle or they have flex, but those are so finicky and this one. I just like this better. Another one that's pretty much always around is the Shafer Snorkel. Those I just find really cool because of the way they fill. The mechanism is one of the most complex filling systems to date in a fountain pen. From the second I am like, oh, that looks like something I want. I had a chance to see a bunch of them at the Lion Pen Show back in March. I picked one up there and I actually recently traded my Twizzbee Vax 700 for another one. The snorkel is one I've shot away from just because I'm scared of it. But after seeing your pictures, that's something I need to check out. I think that's something I probably just have to own. That's one of those I need to own one. It's kind of what you do. Just to have that unique filling system, it's pretty crazy. But they're so well respected and well-liked pens. They're pretty cool. Kind of like a park or 51. People just, if they buy fountain pens at all, they usually have at some point end up with one of each of these really classic all-timers like the snorkel. That's pretty cool. There's no wonder why I like you so much because you're going through the list of pens that you use. I'm like, yep, that sounds like me. It's like, I don't know. There's something about the lommies where you just know they're going to work. They can take a beating if they have to, not that you're going to be rough with the pens, but you're not afraid to take them stick them in a pocket, tell them in a backpack or something like that. You just know everything is going to be fine. Even up to like the 2000, which I carry all the time. That's one of my all-time favorite pens. It's just fantastic. People keep getting on to me because I've never reviewed mine yet. Then I keep talking about it. That's one of my top search terms is every day. Lommie 2000 review in ten different ways of saying it. But I get why. It's a great pen and I think everyone should try one or you can't try one and then not get one, I think. It's very, very impressive. It's one of those pens that's grown on me the more I've used it and I've had some modifications done to the nib so I like it even better. I think you and I have talked about that at some point in our history. We discussed that. I'm a huge, huge fan and I promise everyone I will get that review done soon. I need to get it done. It's just one of those that I know it's going to be really long. I'm scared to start it. I need to get it done. I promise soon. You have something very cool that I am very impressed with and I am a huge fan of. Mike, I don't know if you saw. I almost forgot to put this in the show notes. I just added in a show note in the bottom. You should check it out. Ed has maybe the coolest tattoo I've ever seen. Let me let you explain it. I'm not going to do it justice. Tell me about your tattoo, Ed. I feel like I almost have to bring up a picture of it if that's bad. I have several tattoos. None of them are really meaningful per se. What does that mean? Everybody asks, what's that? I wanted to get it. That's not the case with. Actually, my uncle, he was a big fountain pen user. He had a big collection and was a year and a half ago. He suddenly passed away. I was fortunate enough to inherit his collection. Along with that collection, there was a Mont Blanc 149 and a vintage bottle of Shafer Peacock Blue Ink. I went to my tattoo artist. I told him I wanted a fountain pen tattoo. I said I want a Mont Blanc 149. I gave him a piece of paper with some of the Shafer Blue Ink on it and said I wanted ink bottle with this color in it. When he sent me up the drawing, I was blown away by it, made the appointment and had to do it. I don't have any tattoos, but I'm a huge tattoo fan. I love the artwork and I love the design and I love the detail. I'm a real detail, small details guy. I'm fascinated by tattoos. When I saw this, I was jealous. I'm like, that's the perfect tattoo. I just love it. I thought and especially to have that meaning behind it for you, where it really means something. The colors mean something and the pen design mean something. That's just really, really cool and exceptionally well done. It's definitely one of my favorites out of anything I have. I'm sure you get a lot of comments on it too. It's pretty fascinating. It's definitely there. It takes up a pretty big section of the back of my leg. That's one I constantly enjoy. I like that it's there. Not that I have a choice, but it's one of my favorites. It's a Mike, what fountain pen tattoo are you getting? I don't know if I would. Hello, Kitty. Hi, taxi. Of course. What's the lady hi, taxi one? Look at one of those. Well, cool. I love it. I wanted to make sure I mentioned that. A couple more things and then we'll let you go because I know we're going super long here, but you have a couple of things on your blog. You've hit me up when you started them out. I've been slack in getting back to you on a couple of these things, but I want to do them. One of them is called, you do a weekly loadout post where you've taken what readers of your blog, what pens they're carrying that week, what pen and ink combination do they have loaded out? It's kind of like their favorites. What their current carrying is, how did that come about? Is that just something we're all have that voyeuristic nature in us? I love reading those posts because I want to see what other people have. What am I missing out on? Tell me about how that came out. I actually started doing it. I was just doing mine initially, what I was carrying because I thought that would be interesting because instead of just like here's one pen and here's a review, I think it's interesting to see what anybody has to round out what they carry. I got the idea kind of from the everyday carry community where they'll post what's in their pockets every day. There's a couple websites, a couple blogs where it'll be like a watch, a pen, a pocket knife or whatever else these people happen to carry. I kind of thought that bringing that feature over to see what pens people carry is not only is it topical, but it's interesting. It's just like you said, it's being nosy. Yeah. You want to see, have I seen this pen or have I used this pen or am I considering this pen and I can see how someone else uses it, things like that? I think it's fascinating. I like it and I need to submit mine. I keep saying I'm going to do it. If I would stop changing them around so much, every second day, maybe I could stop and take a picture of the pens that I'm carrying because I've got a pretty solid base now that is kind of like the main pens that I carry, so I need to photograph and get that out to you. Another thing you do, it's called the Trading Post and I didn't think much of it at first, but now that I've gotten more into fountain pen inks and actually I've developed quite an ink problem. Ed keeps a list on his blog where people have ink samples to trade, where you can just look at what everyone has available and if there's an ink you wanted to try and you have a list of your inks that you have available and you make a match with someone and you trade ink samples and I think that's really cool. Has that been working out well? I haven't gotten a ton of feedback from it, but I do get emails asking people personally. I have no way of telling if other people are getting requests. I can only hope that they are and nobody's getting ripped off, but I've had a few good trades with people. I've heard a few trades back from people, but I thought it was just a good way to not only have something interactive, but if you don't want to go through all the trade posts on fountain pen network and it's pretty straightforward. I just thought it was cool to personally, there's a few things that I wanted to try and I have tons of bottles of ink here that I don't think I could go through personally in a lifetime, so why not try to try some new things without spending a whole bunch of money. It's nicer to pay for just postage as opposed to buying the actual samples themselves. I think that's a real good service you provide and I need to, now that my ink collection has gotten completely out of hand, it's more of a hoarding than a collection at this point. There's no way, like you said, I couldn't use this amount of inks in a lifetime, but I can't stop buying them either and I have more on my wish list. I need to use something like your trading post to get in touch with some other people, see if we can swap some inks and things like that. I'm glad that you do that and have that available. Anyone who's interested in doing that needs to check out Ed's site and it's on the sidebar, it's real obvious how you can go get that and get to be a part of that. I think I've about covered it on the things I wanted to talk to you about. Is there anything else you need to add? I'm a huge fan, I'm going to keep reading and keep posting about your blog because I love it. I think you do a fantastic job and it's one of my favorites online and everyone should definitely check out edjelly.com when they get a chance. I think that pretty much covers it. Thanks for having me and it was a pleasure and thanks for all the kind words. You got it and hopefully we will have you again soon and we can definitely talk about this all day. Obviously, as we're proving quite well today, so we will do it again for sure. Hey, Mike, do you have Ed's contact info? Do you want Ed to say where he can be reached? Do you have all that stuff ready? It's always good to read it, like to say it as well as put it in the notes. Because not everybody wants to check the notes. So where's the best place to get in touch with you Ed? Through the site, it's www.edjelly, it's J-E-L-L-E-Y.com and the big old contact button in the top bar. I try to answer emails as quick as possible. Always welcome to hear questions, comments, concerns. Awesome. Well, it's great to have you and Mike, I think that's a wrap. You got anything else? Just where they can find us. I'm on Twitter, I'm I-M-I-M-I-M-Y-K-E, same on App.net. Brad is Dowdism-D-O-W-D-Y on Twitter, Dowdie on App.net and PennAddict.com. Thanks so much for listening. Thank you, Ed, for joining us. Thanks for having me. We'll be back next week. Won't we, Brad? We sure will. Brilliant. Until next time, bye-bye.
