Hello and welcome to the Panatic Podcast. This is episode 64. The Panatic Podcast is part of the 5x5 network and it is a weekly show where we discussed 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 came from the future back to the present day today to tell us how we are using pens and paper. Wrong. That is Mr. Brad Dowdy. Good afternoon, spaceman. Good afternoon sir. Wow, that is pressure telling people how they should use their pens and paper. That is pressure. Although I do get wrapped up in that sometimes. I have to be careful with that, don't I? We have an interesting episode today. We know what we are talking about. Well, I know. But I don't think either of us know how this conversation is going to unfold today. That is exactly right. I am actually two days ago. I didn't know what we were going to talk about. And now between two days ago and now I am like, I couldn't wait for this episode to get started. Yes, I have been very excited for today's episode of the show. More for our second part. Yes. Not to take away from anything in the first part. No. But I am unaware of the first part. So, why don't you jump in for some follow-up? Yes. So, last week we talked about the big box retailers in the state of the big box retailers. And, you know, I just had some more comments on that topic. And one of the most excellent emailers I have a gentleman named Theodore Liu. Theo sends me these epic link emails that are always fantastic, always well thought out. And he always brings up some good points. And I wanted to, Mike's looking at the set of notes I took from his email. That's about a third of his email. This is about four paragraphs full. So, I kind of summarized his email. So, I want to go through this because what he says, I actually agree with 100%. So, I wanted to just read this real quick and say that, you know, make a couple comments. So, this is my summarization from Theo's email that he sent me. He said, back in the day, we used to go to Best Buy and staring at a bank of TVs, we'd ask the sales rep, which is best. Today, an informed buyer goes online, reads reviews by experts and real customers, price compares, and goes to Best Buy prepared and likely with more knowledge than the sales rep. Pins are no different except in one crucial respect. Not that many people research their pin purchases. It's by and large a purely functional disposable purchase. I think we're a small segment of the population than we might realize. All of this is to say, at the end of the day, the big box stores don't really want our patronage. They won't cater to us because they know at the end of the day, the small percentage of pin obsessed customers will go out and find and buy what they want. They also know it means we'll eventually stop buying from the big boxes because they can't keep up with our appetite for pens. In fact, why would they carry a pin like the Sano DX when it could turn someone into a pin addict who would eventually, inevitably, find their fix elsewhere? No, they'd rather carry and push their house brand because it has a height, a slightly higher profit margin. It's the same for all enthusiasts. Hardcore runners don't buy sneakers at dicks or academy sports. Foodies don't buy groceries at Walmart and audio files don't frequent Best Buy. It's fine by me. I just know I'm not their target. I'd rather patronize jet pens, the Goulais, the Anderson's, etc. Anyways. I think that was kind of the conclusion that we came to. Yeah, I think I was hanging on to the fact that why don't the big box retailers try? Why don't they at least try? Or why don't the manufacturers, the pilots, uniball zebras and stuff, why don't they try to expand their stock or their SKUs in the stores? And I'm not expecting them to do everything to get all the great stuff in, but I guess I was just feeling more people. I guess I just want to share our passion for pins with more people. So I want more people to experience these great pins that you and I use and everyone who listens to this podcast use that walks into staples and there's not a sign of it all. So, but I think Theo is exactly right. I mean, I thought this was a perfect email. And it's really, I agree with this 100%. I mean, it's pretty much a pipe dream to say that the big box retailers are going to change. They just have to totally change their strategy. And that's not something I expect at all. It's just a couple of points I wanted to make and why I haven't been into staples in six or eight or nine months or something like that. I thought it kind of hit all those. He summarized what I was trying to say very well. He did a good job there. And I think he's right. And it's probably never going to change. And all of us that are pinatics. We're going to shop at the places we know we can get all the good stuff and more for us, I guess, right? Brother, Mr. Lou. You did a great job. Now, I actually forgot this next topic on last week's episode. It totally blanked on me because it was a follow-up on a rhino from the Well-Appointed Desk when she was on two episodes ago. And we were talking about the Twisbee Mini and how to get ink out of vials into the piston-filling mechanism. And I said I used that my Twisbee Mini with a syringe. And she was kind of shocked at that. So, she went and took hers, took her Twisbee. And just doing the steps of that tech that I take to fill mine, she went and did a great, great, great tutorial filling this. Everyone would have heard something really weird then. I was queuing up a show-note link and heard a noise and it's a YouTube video and a noise happened. A noise happened. You're getting ahead of it. That's funny. I didn't hear it. I was too busy jabbering. But Ana did a great job. Did you go look at this post? I'm looking at it right now. This is exactly what I do. And people who always talk about syringe filling. And Ana, what isn't even aware of how easy this is to syringe fill. And that's why I use my Twisbee Mini for ink test because I can get the ink in and out with a syringe, get it cleaned up and swapped into a new ink in five to 10 minutes. So, if I'm going to do four ink reviews, I can get those done in an hour or two. That includes cleaning and going into a new ink. So, it's a very simple process. And I wanted to share this because I forgot to last week because she did it right after our episode. And it's so simple. It's really one of the easiest, I mean, Twisbee piston fillers are one of the easiest pins to fill anyway. When you have a bottle of ink, you know, just dip the nib in and use the piston filler mechanism to suck up the ink and wipe it off and you're good to go. Well, when you have ink sample vials, like a lot of us do, you know, from the goolays or anyone else who sells ink samples, it's hard with a piston filler to suck that ink up in the small sample vial. So, the Twisbee just screws apart in the middle. You get your syringe, fill it from the vial and stick it right there in the pin barrel. The hole in the pin barrel, fill it up, screw the nib back on, and you're ready to write. I mean, it's really, really easy. It's kind of a no-brainer task. And she did a great job of putting it in pictures and steps. And, you know, it's really easy. And I wanted to make sure that we mentioned that because I love that -- love the link that she -- she -- love the post that she put together on that because that is what I do all the time. So, when people ask, you know, this is a prime example of syringe filling a piston filler pin. So, it is wonderful. So, did you ever get me a syringes mic? Did you ever go down to the corner and come up with any syringes? I know, but I've had a few people, I think, send me some links, like, to a bunch of stores that you can get syringes from. So, cool. I believe -- I can't see this is the worst thing now as I now can't remember where I got the -- I think I've got link -- Gulai -- people keep sending me links to the Gulai site. I believe that was somewhere in the UK as well. There was. I remember -- someone copied me on that tweet. I can't remember what it was. But, yeah, I get mine from Gulai pins. There's -- there's -- you'll stumble on it on -- on one of the vendors, for sure, for sure. All right. So, now I'm going to -- I'm going to click that link that you did, and I'm probably going to make a -- make a sound too. Let me see how quick I can pause it. Oh, I got it. Oh, did you hear it? No. I heard a little burp. Okay. So, this next link, I -- somehow, in all these episodes of the "Pinatic" podcast, I have never linked -- I don't think -- to a video of Stephen Brown. If y'all aren't familiar with Stephen Brown, and most of the fountain-pin enthusiasts are, he has this YouTube channel, and he is just -- he's got 380 videos so far. He does pin reviews, ink reviews, all kinds of fountain-pin stuff. And he's also part of the fpgeeks.com website. He does reviews on there. I may have linked to one of his ink reviews in the past. I know on my side I have, but Stephen does a great job. He's very thorough. He's very funny. He does a -- he does a good job. He's very passionate about pins. He knows everything there is to know. And 380 videos into it, he published one this week called "Goat Pins," the greatest of all time, fountain pens. It's a 47-minute video where he goes through his top 20 fountain pens. And it's a really, really cool list. If you listen to this podcast, you're going to know the majority of these pens, and if you listen to this podcast and read the blog and see the rest of the pens that you've never heard of, you will be educated and learned like I was by watching Stephen's video and learning about these great new pens as he's talking about them. I'm searching them on the internet, you know, some of these ones that I've never heard of. It's a fantastic list. It's got a lot of the ones that we talk about all the time. Just, you know, platinum prep week, we go sport, Lamy Safari, Twisbee, Diamond 580, you know, the pilot vanishing point, the Lamy 2000. It's got all the classics in there. Out of that entire list, his number one pen, it's actually -- if you look at the -- well, and we'll have all these links in the show notes, you guys know that. But I'm looking at a list of the pens that he wrote, went down. He started backwards and with the number 20 pen first, which was the platinum prep week, all the way down to the number one pen. It's a pen I had never heard of or seen, but when I went and looked at it, Mike, it's fascinating. So you need to go look at the Visconti opera crystal and he says it's with a mosquito filler. You have to see this filling system on this pen. I have never seen anything like it before and it's quite amazing and now I want it. It's a very expensive pen and I'll explain while Mike's going to look up the link, but basically it's a two compartment ink reservoir in the pen. So say you're holding the pen, the larger reservoir towards the back end of the pen is basically your bulk filling section. Your large quantity of ink is going in there and I think it's -- I don't know if it's a twist that makes the change, but you hold the pen like in the writing position, you twist the bottom of the pen like where the section and the grip is and that loads the bottom reservoir to get the ink into the writing position. So the nib and the feed will start getting ink to write and when you're done, you can reverse the process. You stick the nib up in the air, you twist it and the ink flows back into the main reservoir, twist it again and you seal it off so the ink's protecting you from leaking. So it's two pens? Is it two pens? I don't know, there's just two pens in this link that I'm looking at. Yeah, yeah, it's one pen. So like the back end of it is a bulk ink reservoir and you twist the front of it and the ink flows down into the writing section. Have you got a good link for this? I found one on Fountain Pen Network but it's just showing images and it's not really helping me. Well, Stephen's video is really the best because he shows the ink moving back and forth. So people should look at that. Yeah, well, he's got an individual link to that specific pen. Oh, really? Yeah, I'll put that in the show notes too. It's hard to explain because I've never seen anything before like that. Whoops. It's, you know, Stephen talked about it being great for airplanes and stuff because you just reverse the ink back into the main compartment of the pen and, whoa, there you go, that's some Stephen's intro. And you're protected from it linking. It's, I had never seen this, I don't know how I've never seen this pen is really cool. But it's, yeah, it's hard to explain. So go check out the links, go check out Stephen's videos, but it's basically a sectioned off Fountain Pen to where you can move the ink between the sections when you're, when the pen's not in use and when the pen's in use. So it's, it was a great idea. It's a very expensive pen. I think it's around five or six hundred dollars. But despite the fact that it does all these weird ink things, I thought it looked really cool too. So, very, very nice looking. Yeah. So anyway, check out Stephen's videos. Make sure you have a lot of time because not only is this a long video, once you watch this, you're going to want to go watch the rest of Stephen's videos. And like I said, there's 380 of them. So subscribe to his YouTube channel, watch his videos. If you want to learn about fountain pens and just learn some of the terminology, just watch two or three of his videos. And he just, he talks about everything. He's very thorough and you will learn a lot from watching Stephen's videos. So be sure to check that out. All right, mate, you got any, you got any follow up you need to go through? Nothing. You don't want to talk about his bradness that was born yesterday. His bradness of bradness of Pinman Char. We don't need to cover that. Is that what we're going? He hasn't got a name yet. The Prince of Cambridge. No, no, no, he does have a name. They're been emailing me, trying to clear the authorization to use that name. So it's, it's in discussion right now. Yeah. All right. What are you asking for? What's your, what's your bounty? I want, I want a pin that says welcome royal baby. That probably already is. Yeah. I want one of those floaty pins with a little baby floating around in the water. So when I turn it upside down, you know, he swims around. I haven't really got anything to say. Are you going to be able to do the ad read now? Of course, Brad. I am an absolute professional. All right. Well, I'll, I'll let you do that. I'll, I'll stop monkeying around because I know the next topic is what we want to get to and spend the meat of a meat of the show talking about today. So you're the man, go for it. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. 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It's got some really great videos and it shows you all of the different things that you can do with Squarespace. So they have loads of different people from loads of different industries and how they're using Squarespace to create their brands and their identity in their place online. You can try Squarespace for free as I mentioned earlier. If you decide to purchase Squarespace plans, start at $8 a month and they include a domain name if you sign up for a year. And make sure you get 10% off and help support this show by using the offer code tallyhoe. That's T-A-L-L-Y-H-O. So go check out Squarespace everything that you need to create an exceptional website. Thank you to Squarespace for their support of the Panadact and 5x5, something extra this week, Brad. I want listeners to send in to me links to their Squarespace sites. So if you are a listener and you have created a site on Squarespace, send them in to me, say that you are a listener of the Panadact, you have created a site with Squarespace. Please say that you listened to the Panadact and what we would even better if you've used it to create a site where you show up your patterns and that sort of stuff. Or like me and Brad have our field notes collection. So maybe you've done that. I will collect some in and in some future episodes we'll feature some of the websites that our listeners have created. Man, that's a fantastic idea. How do you want them to send them to you? Anyway, they please, Twitter or email. So Twitter, iMike, i-m-y-k-e, or go to mikeherley.net/contact and you can send me an email there. Great. Well, my idea, I have to say, came from Little Ryan over at Squarespace. That's a great idea. I really like that. I like it too. I think it's fun. Yeah, I want to discover more sites and like to see how other people use Squarespace to give me some ideas on how to use it better myself. So that's always a good thing. All right, so what are we going to talk about today? I don't know. I think we both know very well. And I think all of our Twitter followers know very well. And I've been getting a million questions about this just in the past week. Maybe it's kind of ramped up. But we are going to talk about the Visionair, which is a pin that is being kickstarted right now. So this started out from here and you're on app.net, didn't it? Okay. Yeah, yeah. That was probably a week ago. I got the first question and I don't have it pulled up. I don't have that piece pulled up in front of me. But yeah, I found the tweet or the post on app.net. It was from Chase McCoy. This is how I first found out about it. This is three days ago. And he sent us a link to this Kickstarter project for the Visionair. I went on, watched a video and immediately backed it. Told him I backed it. And then things started to unfold. Yeah. And I think he didn't say specifically, I guess he was still in the thinking about it stage. And then he hadn't backed. He said that this was going to be his first pen project if he did. I backed before even he did. Right. That's right. He said this is going to be his first one. And then what six or seven hours later, I woke up and started checking my feeds. Was that about the timing of it? It was something like that anyway. So I woke up, I started poking through it. And I had seen it before. I was fully aware of it, but I didn't really pay it any mind. I didn't give it a second thought. And then I started really looking at it more, reading all the descriptions, watching the videos and checking out all the comments and other things on it. And I had some real concerns about this pen. And I just said, generally, as much as it basically looked just like a Chinese manufactured pen that a diamond does in type of pen. Did bring anything new to the table, didn't look new, unique, didn't look visionary. And so that was my comment. And I left it at that. And Chase was like, OK, thanks for your input. He said, I'll probably pass. And you said you backed it. And we just kind of went from there. We kind of left it at that. And then I started getting more questions about it. Some questions came up on Twitter asking me about it. So then I really started looking at it. And I have some legitimate concerns about it. God, what's the best way to jump off on this, Mike? Let me tell you what I think. How about that? And just kind of a big picture what I believe this is, what I believe it isn't. And then we'll just kind of jump off from there. So one thing, let's get this out the way real quick. There's people that are tossing around the word scam around this Kickstarter project. I don't believe for one second this is a scam project. And by scam, I mean that you're going to pledge your money and the money's going to vanish and you're not going to get a product. I don't think for a second. I think this is a legitimate pin that's being manufactured. That said, I think there's so many red flags around the manufacture of this pen that I don't know that even at $37, which is the, well, that pledge level is gone. And we're going to talk about that more too. Right now it's $45 you can get it at. I don't think it's a good value. And the reasons why are very, very long. But let's start with the founder of the project. Boy, I'm blanking on his name. I think it's Malcolm. Sorry, Morgan, Morgan. Morgan is the guy behind the BHG design. And so what Morgan did was he came up with this whole project around this visionary pin. And if nothing else, Morgan is a brilliant marketer. Yeah, I mean, I'll watch the video and pledge. Yeah. I mean, he kills the project page of the visionary pin. The video is extraordinarily well done. His writing is very well done. He hits, he, he, he's got the magic as far as the marketing goes. Okay. So I think that's what a lot of people got in on this pen. If you start, if you look at some of the original comments, people are saying, this is my first fountain pen. This is going to be my first pound pen. I've never used a fountain pen before, but I'm backing this. You know, that's kind of a recurring theme right in the beginning, right? It's people who don't have any fountain pen experience and are looking at this, seen it's a good deal. And the way he is marketed and compares it to other high end pens and things like that. He really, he sells the heck out of this pen on this project page. He does a killer job. If he's not in marketing, he should be because that's the best thing about this, this product, project page by far. So then this project starts to get some traction. And some people with more fountain pen experience start to get involved. They start backing it and they're happy with it. And then they started just asking general questions. Where's the pen being manufactured? What's the nib material made from? You know, all kinds of different like physical spec type questions. What's the material of the pen? Things like that. And Morgan is not doing a good job answering those questions. He is answering around those questions without answering them directly. And that makes that, that's when this thing starts getting sideways a little bit where people are really questioning the sourcing of this pen, the design of this pen, how it's coming to be, how it's going to be manufactured. And Morgan, to his demise a little bit in this, as well as the marketing piece of this done, the customer service piece, he is not handling that well as far as answering backers' questions. So I read there's, what are we at now? 383 comments already on this. And I read through them all this weekend in preparation. I knew we were going to talk about this. And it's really gone from the original comments where I'm a new fountain pen user to now, everyone's got lots of questions about basically everyone's becoming very skeptical of this project. And I don't have any firsthand knowledge of this pen. I'm not a backer of this pen. What I did yesterday is I did reach out to Morgan, send him an email through the backer page. There's a contact page. He got back to me like within an hour, like really quick. He's, you know, I said, hey, I wanted to ask him some questions or, you know, call him about this project. He got back to me. He said, yeah, I'd be happy to. We can do this over email or phone. So I sent him my phone number, told him I'm free right now. He could call me. I said, and I can also put together a list of questions that I'll send you an email kind of, you know, the questions I have around this project. So I sent him that last night. And as of this morning, I hadn't gotten a phone call or haven't gotten any answers back to my questions. You know, it's, he didn't have the longest amount of time to answer it. So I don't really fault him for that. You know, I sent it late last night, like around midnight. And as of now, he hasn't replied to my email about 20 minutes before we started recording, Mike, he sent me a text. Oh, he said, Brad watching my kids this afternoon, we'll try to call you later today or tomorrow around five. I think that's a really good person that he, you know, yeah. So he said that several times before in his other comments. I'm on my family, vacate, I'm spending time with my family. He, that's a recurring theme though. So it is, it is what it is. I'm assuming it's, I can, can't do anything and assume, but assume that's true. And to his, you know, defense, I didn't send these questions till late last night anyway. So, so I just replied, says that sounds good. We're recording the podcast in about 20 minutes. If you have a chance to answer those email questions beforehand, that would be great. If not, I understand. So tell me, what are the concerns here then? Like, why are there concerns? The concerns are around the manufacturing of the pen, the design of the pen, what he's calling, what he designed, what pieces did he design, where it's being manufactured and what the basically, I think anyone with fountain pen experience is looking at this and going, where's the value and where's the innovation. So do you want, do you want to know the questions? I emailed him. Yeah. Okay. So reading through everything. And let, let me go back. Let me talk about the project a little bit more. I need to lay some more groundwork. So you, you, you watch the video. The recurring theme on the project page is Morgan is saying he is a, he designed, he repeatedly says he designed this pen to fit his needs and things like that. And one of the problems with him repeatedly saying that is then he comes back in the comments section when backers are questioning the design of the pen, he says, I don't have a lot of experience with fountain pens. So that's a big contradiction and a red flag to me. If you design this pen, and then on top of that, you don't have a lot of fountain pen experience. What did you design? So if I can jump in here, because this actually leads in quite nicely to a point that I see, I've seen a bunch of our friends and listeners mentioned today and yesterday. And I haven't, I haven't played my hand about this yet. So lots of people were mentioning that. And oh, in the video, she's using a big pen, you know, how can, how can he be a pen designer? Look at Karas customs. Dan was not a pen addict. No, not a lot. But designed the render K, the retract, the bolt, great pens. I don't necessarily think that. Let's say that he did design this. Let's say that. I mean, I don't know, because I don't know. But let's say that he did design that. I mean, he's showing renderings. Now, he doesn't need to know a lot about fountain pens. If he's, he could have designed the, the body, right? And then he's sourcing nib parts. Maybe he's tried a few different nibs. He doesn't, I don't think he necessarily, I mean, obviously it'd be great if he knows lots about fountain pens, right? But I don't think that he has to. He can just be a product designer, because Dan is an awesome guy. And the Karas customs stuff, the Karas customs stuff is really awesome. But it, I don't think that Dan was able to make those pens because he knows how to design great products. And he's learning more and more, and he's becoming clearly becoming one of us as times going on for him. Right. I guess that, you know, I just think that you can, you can be a product designer and he could maybe be, I don't know. I mean, I'm, I'm putting words, I'm giving him help here, really. But he could have had somebody who he knows, which, who maybe knows a bit about pens and stuff like that that's helped him out. I don't know. Right. I, I actually agree with your point 100%. I have no issue with the video showing him using, I think it's a paper made stick, ballpoint to design the pen, I mean, or to, okay, let's, let's, let's temper that. I'm not, I'm not convinced he designed anything on this pen, is my point that I'm eventually going to get to. But he shows him in the video, he's sketching, you know, product designs with a ballpoint pen, you know, just a cheap paper made. I have zero. I take no issue with that. That's not an issue at all. You know, I would expect anyone who's a designer, anything, you know, to be doing it with the pencil or whatever, just anything they find on any piece of paper they find. I, I don't, I don't take issue with that at all. Where my questions arise or what did he really, really design on this pen? If you want my, let me just cut to the chase and then we can go from there. Okay. This is my opinion. This is me connecting the dots. This is me making a judgment on something that I don't have, admittedly, don't have the answers to that I don't have, I don't have the pen in my hands. I haven't had a chance to talk to Morgan yet, although I'm efforting that. I am of the opinion that this pen is an off-the-shelf barrel, cap, nib, and converter from one of the large Chinese pen manufacturers. Okay. And that there's no unique design in this pen and that to use the word design in this Kickstarter project is inaccurate. So I would like to know why you think this? So I put a link in the, okay, so before I get to that link, I think this because Morgan cannot answer anything about the design of the pen. He's been asked specifically, it took him days, if not more, to find anything out about the nib of this pen because he marketed it on the page, on the project page as a German nib. It's a Chinese nib that he finally had to come and put in the fact that it's actually a Chinese nib. One of the readers sent the, one of the backers in the comment section sent an image to one of the nib manufacturers in Germany, Bach, which we've talked about before. They said not only is this not a German nib, we didn't make it and no other German manufacturer made it. And so they had to be a clarification. Morgan cannot answer any design aspects of this pen. He has a pretty picture of like a CAD drawing of a barrel. There's no dimension. It's like, it's like something scanned in there. Like I could scan in a picture into a 3D renderer and show it on my screen. I'm not saying he didn't. That's why I want to ask him these questions. But my opinion, looking at this, it is so generic and so not unique that I don't believe he designed a single thing on this pen. That doesn't mean there's two different things. That doesn't mean at all that this is going to be a bad pen. What it means is I don't think this is a unique design for a pen. I don't think he came up with a brilliant new idea designed every bit, every spec of this pen and had someone build it for him. I think he went to a manufacturer, picked out the parts, had them put together and the manufacturer is going to manufacture that pen. That's what I think is going to happen here. And for $37, you know what? That's fine. It's a fair price. I just think it's misrepresented a little bit. No one's going to get killed for $37. It's most likely going to be a fine pen. Most Chinese pen manufacturers are very solid. They're very good. I put a link in the show notes and I don't know if you've clicked it yet, Mike, to an eBay item. What do you think about that pen? So this link I sent Mike is by the Shanghai Hero Pen Company. They're based in China. They're the single most well-known and respected Chinese pen manufacturer. They've been around for 80 years. They sell pens. They sell good quality pens. They're known for good designs and they're very, very cheap. So I sent Mike a link to a pen. What do you think about this pen? So it's similar. Let me try to understand something, right? So one of the images in his Kickstarter page is a close-up of the nib and it says a ridian point germany on it, right? Right. But he's now said that it's not a German nib. Right. So it's not the nib then that he's showing in the video. No, it is the nib that what the nib is saying is that the tipping on the very tip of the pen is a ridium tipping. Okay. So but the nib itself is not German, German manufactured nib at all. I mean, there are, I mean, there are similarities, but I wouldn't say like, I'm not saying that you're saying this, but then I took the way that they look to me. They don't look like they're the same body. I'm saying this is an identical match to that pen. So I'm showing Mike a hero pen, it's called the three, six, nine, silver mat, chrome steel, fundamental pen. I'm not at all saying this is the exact same pen. I'm saying in general, it looks the same. I mean, if you had these two pens on the shelf, they're going to look next to each other. They're going to look different physically, but in general, you know, your mentions look the same nib looks the same section, looks the same, cap looks the same, clip looks the same. How much is this pen that I just sent you the link for? $399. $3.99. This is from the single largest Chinese pen manufacturer there is. The single most respected Chinese pen manufacturer there is. Lots of people use a lot of hero fountain pens. This pen looks, I'm going to say it would be, if you can put these two pens together, I think they're going to be in the 75th percentile match. Is that fair? Sure. Just to with just to the eye test. I mean, yeah, sure, but I think that. So then this pen is $3.99. Yes, it is. I'm really not sure, Brad. I'm really not sure, because I feel like you could do this to so many pens. I'm not saying that this guy has created this thing from scratch, right? But I feel like there are so many pens that you could put next to that one and be like the same, like so many Parker pens and like more pens and all sorts. And a couple of the things that made me, right, so there are two things in this video. Let me make one point before you go. The problem is he's saying he designed this pen. Yeah, I mean, that's interesting. I don't really know how I feel about that, because he's not just saying it. He's showing it. He has CAD designs here. So I'm not saying that they're his. I'm just saying he's showing that he has done that. Right. All right. So go ahead. The video, there are three things actually that made me buy this. Where I told us to start, he's writing on a postcard. And the way that the ink is being distributed and the line that it's drawing looks like the sort of line that I would like. And it looks like the sort of style of nib that I enjoy, right? It looks smooth. It looks like it. There's quite a thick ink being laid down. That looks like how I would like a pen to be, right? Yep. I think the Chrome model is beautiful. Wherever it's a Chinese knockoff or not. Let's not use the term knockoff. There's a differentiation. There's Chinese pens and there's knockoff pens. Knockoff pens or bad Chinese pens are completely fine. I was more just poking funny at you. Yes. Yeah, because I get caught up. I try to make a point of saying that because I get caught up using that term interchangeably and that it's way unfair. You know, that's an unfair comparison. And I'm the one guilty of that, not you. You're doing that making fun of me. It's not a knockoff by any means. It's manufactured by a large Chinese organization in manufacturers at scale for very cheap. Yes. That's what it actually is. Also, right at the end of the video, he puts the cap on the pen and it looks like there is a nice funk. He actually talks about that saying that there is a nice, a nice feel to it. Those are three things that if Twisby put their name on this and it looked like this. Oh, but, right? Right. So I really don't know. I do not know because, and I'll tell you, I'll tell you anyway, there is lots of of conjecture. Nobody can prove anything. Nope. There are only so many designs you can make of a pen, you know, right? For a pen to be functional, they kind of do to a point look similar. Fountain pens of this ilk. I say you could take it into a Mont Blanc shop and put it in one of the cases and it probably look as Mont Blanc as the next one sitting next to it, right? Right. I don't think people will be like, "Hang on, that's a Chinese pen, cost $399, like I don't necessarily think that would happen." I think if you took that one that you sent to me on eBay, it would. But I think this looks nice to me, what he's showing here. I agree. I think anyone who backs this pen is going to get a nice pen. But you just wonder if it's overpriced. Yeah, and I wonder about the sourcing, and I really wonder about the word design being used throughout the project. So what did you render? The guys at Cara's Customs design a pen. Yeah, I wasn't using that design design a pen, the guys at Balts pen design a pen. I don't believe the visionary was designed from scratch, like he's representing. This is such a difficult thing for me. But on the other hand, the flip side of this is for $37, people are going to get a completely fine pen. There's nothing wrong with this pen when you get it. You're going to like it, you're going to enjoy it. Actually, the writing samples that you were talking about that he did, we're very impressive. I thought it looked good. I was like, man, that's going to sell me on the pen. My $37 could be better put elsewhere. Exactly. But the other $246,590 could be fine. But me with what I know could be different. So I don't know. I don't know what to do. I feel like this is going to be around for a couple of weeks that we're going to be talking about this because I can cancel. I've got 34 days to cancel. Right. And I'm not trying to get anyone to cancel. I just think there's questions around it. One of the biggest things, another topic, another point in Morgan's, I think it was in the main project page, not in the comment section. He discusses how low his margin is. Did you hear that? My texts go off? Yeah. Your text is the email send nice. Yeah. So that's Morgan. Well, happened to R2D2. I took that off because that was a little bit annoying at work. Oh, he's just text you now. Morgan's just texting me while we're recording. Man, this is an epic link test text. I don't want to read it out loud without reading it first. So you read it first. Maybe I'll vamp for a moment. I'll give people an update. So I mentioned that I have a Kickstarter pen that I've mentioned for weeks called Deo Johto. They contacted me and told me that it's on the way. They're very good Twitter support, actually. Me and Stewart Hasley were talking about it because he's has arrived. And he's very happy, actually, with his. And I said that mine hadn't because I mean, to their credit, the reason that they delayed it was because they felt like the silver pen that I bought that the anodization, I think they weren't. It wasn't up to their standards. So they shipped it back and got them anodized again, which I'm sure it's done at cost. So I'm really excited. Stuart loves his. So I'm really excited to get mine. So hope for next week's episode, I should have that pen that I've been talking about for many, many, many, many weeks now. Months even. So that would be fun. So I'll be receiving a Kickstarter award down. I'm excited to try out. So we'll see. All right. So I scanned through this. I'm not going to read it all. It doesn't say too much, but he's he's not making this easy on me because I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. And I do. I think this is me reading between the lines. I think this has gotten out of hand. I think this is gone. A quarter of a million dollars is out of hand. Yeah. That's out of hand. And he only put this up. I think he's freaking out. He put this up for sale. Like. See, he did a 60 day Kickstarter and it's been up for a month. So the fact that he did a 60 day kickstart, so because usually people do them for 30 days, probably says that he wasn't confident he was going to hit this. Right. But go on. So let me. I'm just going to read a piece of this that goes along with some of what I'm saying. He has no idea. He has no idea what's happening right now. No. And I don't want to. I'm not going to throw him under the bus without talking to him. He doesn't even know. He really doesn't just in. Yeah. In general, he doesn't say anything in this text that's, you know, who are wow or anything, but he does give some insight on his thought process. And this is the this is the challenge that I'm having with how this pens represented. He says, when I start thinking about making a pen, I looked at it as what I would like, not on specific technical data, but as look and feel. That's the point. I have some hard time explaining to some to an expert like you. My pen is certainly not of any particular interest because it does not have such a pedigree or such and such part. You know, even if I was to develop a pen in collaboration with me being Brad, I'm sure someone would find something to say about it. And he's exactly right. But this is again, and he says, so again, I wanted a nice pen that writes well with a certain looking shape and a certain sound when he close it in a certain way. And that's the way I approach it. Then he goes on, yes, it'll be made in China. And I have zero issue with it being made in China. That's not my argument at all. All right. So that's that's all I'm going to read of this text. It goes on and on and on and on. And I'm going to talk to him some more. And we'll we'll probably follow up on this next week and see if I can get some answers to the questions. But that goes back to my theory. I think that plays into my theory that he didn't design this pen from scratch. He didn't come up with the specs and the shapes and the dimensions and the cuts. And anything on this pen is my speculation. So that's my issue. But and he talks about one of the point I was getting to before my text went off was that he talks about how tight in the on the project page in one of the sections. I'm pretty sure it's on the project page and not in the comments. Say that again, you cut out. Did you say the first part? Sure, sure, sure. He talks about how tight his margins are for this pen. Right. Pretty openly. I have a hard time believing that. Until I talked to him, you know, once I talked to him, maybe my my assumptions will change. And I don't I don't want to butcher the guy. I mean, I haven't talked to him yet. I'm trying to. Hey, tell him if you come on the show. Yeah, I offered him. I offered for him to come on the show. Believe me, I did. He didn't respond to that particular question. No, he said he would call me on the phone. Yeah, he probably would. I mean, if I was him, I wouldn't want to go on a podcast and be outnumbered. I know. And I think he's getting. I mean, I feel like I'm unfairly wrecking him over the coals, but I'm really just trying to get some answer to questions that fountain pen people want to know. So this got out of hand, I think, because it started as, you know, it basically started as as, you know, Johnny, any pen, right? It was just a basic pen that beginners were going to use and love. And again, I'm going to say it. If I say it once, I'm going to say it a thousand times, people who backed this project, you're going to get a perfectly fine pen. It's going to be fine. You know, there's no reason to jump out of this project. It's going to be perfectly fine. When, you know, people with more expert fountain pen experience get into this, they look at it and they see that this is just like any other pin that any other Chinese manufacturer in how or bear makes, and they make them for $5 or $10. You know, we've never gotten into the list of questions I sent him. Do you want me to to go over that real quick? I would like you to do that. Yeah. All right. So question one, you've talked about designing the visionary, but you also talk about not having much fountain pen experience. How much of the actual design is yours and how much is pre made parts? Question number two, did you fit your specs into an existing design or is this 100% original design? Number three, are any new tools or dies being made to produce these pens or will existing tooling be used for manufacturing? Number four, the full manufacturer of your pen is Chinese. Why should someone buy the Vision Air instead of a hero pen from the most well-known Chinese pen manufacturer that looks similar and only costs $4? And that's the last sent him the link to the same pen I sent you. And the last question number five, you mentioned several times that your margins are low for this project, yet you increase the number of early bird backers exponentially, allowing more backers to get the pen at a cheaper rate. What was behind the decision to allow this if the margins are so low? So that was my list of questions. That last question. Well, that's interesting. And I've seen a couple of people mention that my thinking would be, his margin probably was low when he was selling a couple of thousand. Right. And now, and this is how I would do this, if I start to get to the point where I have 4,000 backers, 4,500 backers, my volumes increased so much that I can offer it for cheaper because it will bring even more people in cutting that margin. Because the cost of all of this stuff, I mean, I've never made a fountain pen, but I understand a little bit about production. I mean, I do production of paper, right? Sometimes quite a bit for my living or my day job. I don't know if it's my living. The main cost for us is starting the machines. Right. Every time you start and stop that machine, that's the cost. It's not the paper. It's not, and it's not the ink. It's not the people. It is the physical starting and stopping of that, of the, the press. That is what costs us the most money. Everything else we can get down. You can't get those prices down. So if he is able to turn around to his Chinese manufacturer and say I have 6,000 of these, he's going to make a lot more money. So he can charge them at $37 because if he sells them for $37 rather than $45, he might make more money for himself because that $10 difference is a chunk of the price when it's $37. Basically, it's like a quarter of the price off if you're buying $45. So that would be my thinking on that. That sort of stuff you should communicate, I think. But if that is his reasoning, which I think it probably is, then I think that he's made the right decision because he's been able to give that price to many more people. He's been able to give a lower price because because of the sheer volume means he can pass the saving along to the customer, which is that old sort of car showroom, infomercial, passing the savings along to the customer, which is probably what he is doing. You know what? I feel like this is Brad. This is a man who has very little experience in everything that he's trying to do here. So the business, the actual manufacturer of the pen as well, the problem is he's selling it to 4,500 people when he may be only intended to sell it to 20% of that if he was lucky. Right. A thousand max. I think that's the problem that he's throwing himself in. Yeah, I think so too. I think it's gotten into the mainstream and that mainstream comes along with the people who have experience with the product that he's trying to sell. How did this happen? I have no earthly idea, zero idea. I mean, this looks really nice and I thought it was quite cheap. I got in at $37. So I was like, that doesn't, you know, that's not too expensive. $10 shipping as well. So it's $47 for me. So it's like 30 pounds. So it's not that much providing this is a good pen. Right. That's like, I don't know, price and a bit for a larmy. Maybe two larmy safaris. Yeah, it's almost a Twisbee. Almost a Twisbee. Yeah. I haven't bought anymore. I'm waiting for the new Twisbee basically before I get in. That's a hard weight. I know. The fact 700, it looks a little too long for me. Yeah, yeah, I'm past it. It looks a bit too long. And also, I want one of the 580s, but I don't want a clear one. I want a color. And they haven't got any colors yet because I've got a clear mini. So many people compliment me on the mini, by the way, that's a great pick it up. And they're like, this is really interesting. I'm like, yeah, yes. So I'll be able to see what the people say about this pen. It's been leaking quite a bit this week. The Twisbee. Yeah. I've got a lot of ink left in there. I don't know if that's got anything to do with it. But yeah, maybe need to fill it up some more. I had my Twisbee. Yeah, I don't know how that I don't know how the air pressure reacts when there's more air in the body in the body. I think it's it's harming. I because I have my ink at home pen at work, it's just the pain. I had my Twisbee in my pocket and somehow maybe a little bit of ink got onto the barrel because I took my earphone out of my ear where I keep them in the same pocket sometimes. And my earphone was blue. So my inside of my ear was blue. That's the time I just totally got off track now. But what was I saying? I can't even know what I was saying. I was talking about him. Oh, you were just talking about the price. How I mean, it's. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's a fair price. I think people are going to get a perfectly fine pen. But now that it's reached this kind of tipping point, you know, people are asking me, like, what do I think about the pen? And honestly, I've got a lot of questions on it, you know, I'm not count. I wondered, I knew that today doing this show, I was going to go one or two ways. It was I was either going to count so straight away, or you weren't going to convince me. And so at the moment, I'm not convinced. I had one 100% agree of everything that you're saying. But as much as I love you, you can't prove any of it. And I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. So but what I do trust is your judgment and your ability to read people. So if you have a phone conversation with him, and you're asking these questions straight out, and you're not comfortable with his answers, and you tell me the man I agree with you, then I will be canceling my pledge. Now, I what I think is going to happen, I the more I read his texts and his emails to me, I think it's just gotten out of hand. And it's gotten way bigger than he intended. And now he's having to answer questions. He would have never thought he would have had to answer in a million years by putting his pin project on Kickstarter. And I don't want to unfairly mark him or this project. And that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm just trying to ask ask the questions that I have when I read everything about this project. Again, I'm going to say it. If you're a backer of this project, you should stay a backer of this project. I think you're going to get a perfectly fine and usable pen. I just have questions with how it's presented. And you know, some of the claims that Morgan's making, which kind of throws up a red flag, and it's not something that I want to be a part of. So and you know, I hope I'm I hope I'm wrong. I hope this is the greatest pen ever. And when he's done, he's talking about selling these for $80. And you know, maybe everyone will start stocking these pens. And I tell you what I what what what my current thinking is, unless you or anyone can show me some proof that what I'm basically that not what I'm buying here is a is a four dollar pen. Because if I see that, I'm not I'm not going to pay for this, because that's ridiculous. Right. If it turns out that what I'm actually buying here is a four dollar pen. I mean, and I know that they can charge those margins because they're a big company or whatever this guy's a one man shop. But I'm still not going to do that because that's just ridiculous. Right. Because that that does feel scammy. Right. If he is buying three dollar pens off the shelf, there are thereabouts, you know, it might make us like you might be having them laser etched. Then, you know, I'm not going to pay for that. But there is a part of me now that wants to buy this pen. I don't I want you to buy this pen. So when it comes in December, because that's when it's what he sort of estimated delivery time is, I want to see what this is like. Now, did you look at any of the links to the other Japanese pens I sent? Let me see. Like bear. And I sent a review of a Jinhao. So go to that Jinhao review on pinning sillin. Okay. Pinning sillin. What a great. I know. And he's he stopped updating. He's he to look at this bad boy. So do you like that pen? That's good looking. That's good looking pen. Four dollars. Oh, stop doing this. Oh, I'm sorry. Eight dollars. Eight dollars. You're just trying to upset me now. No, I'm just trying to make the point. You're going to get a perfectly fine pen. Yeah, but I'd be happier paying 40 dollars for this. I know. Eight dollars. Where from? Huh? Where can I get this? Probably X fountain pens or his nibs, which is where I sent the bare link that goes to. You'll see a few other pens. But I thought you would like that one on pinning sillin, the Jinhao X750. It's a fantastic looking pen. It's a it's killer looking. It's better looking than the than the visionary. Oh my word, his nibs. This is a website. Wow. Oh my god. They've got a little mail truck spinning wheels down the bottom. Yeah. I wouldn't. I would be more willing to know offense to these guys to put my money in the Kickstarter guide than this website. I know, but this is just the sample of some of the other pins. It's funny. He said sort of stuff like, I can't trust this. Like you've probably used them. Actually, I haven't. I haven't. But this website just he should be selling on Amazon and eBay. Yeah. Well, that's what I mean. eBay is full of hero and Jinhao pens. I'm sure. You know. But I'm just saying, look at some of the designs. Look at, there's one called a, gosh, what's this called? The Jinhao makes this. It's a dreadnought. This is a big wicked looking pen and he's selling it for 35 bucks. I mean, this is, this is. Whoa, look at that thing. I don't like that, but that's crazy looking. If you're not a fountain pen user and you saw that, you'd go, Oh man, look at that pen. Yeah. Yeah. That's like premium. Yeah. So that's just the point I'm making. I mean, it's just, I just think this is generic. We'll just leave it at that. Oh, what a topic today. Wow, we're going to get so much feedback on this. I know. And believe me, the last thing I want to do is, is eviscerate this guy without talking to him. Morgan, and I'm trying to be fair, but I'm trying to ask the hard questions too. And, you know, I've said it five times already. If you're a backer of this project, you're going to get a perfect, I'm convinced that this number one, people are saying this is a scam and he's going to run away with the money. I don't think that at all. I don't get it perfectly fine. That's not going to happen. That won't happen. I think you're going to get a perfectly fine pen. You'll get something. I just think it's way overpriced. I don't think it's, I don't think there's a lot of design work in here personally, but that's something I'll hopefully be able to sort out with Morgan. And I think it's, you know, it's gotten a little big. I think it's gotten way bigger than he anticipated. So I hope it works out for him. I hope it works out for everyone who's backed it. I hope everyone who gets the pen tells me how great it is and how wrong I am. I'm willing to be wrong in this case. I don't have a, I would be happy to be wrong in this case. I got no problem with that. And please tell me if I am once once the pen's come in December, but I'm sure we'll be talking about it more since then. And I'll try to talk to Morgan between now and next week. If Morgan is listening, I think I'm in your corner on this at the moment. Yeah, there's a pretty good dividing line, right? Don't you think just from our Twitter followers? I, well, no, I think everyone is in your, is on your side. No, there's, there's a few that say, oh, this is beautiful. I'm in. I also said that. But I mean, like, then it seems that the more people see, and they see what you say in links, whatever, then people tend to be going with you. And even though I'm hearing the same stuff, I still kind of feel like, I just feel like he deserves the benefit of the doubt a bit, because I can, I honestly feel like I can see from this guy's perspective how he could have gotten himself into a position where he is in and amongst a group of people who know more than him about the product that he's creating, which is not a problem, in my opinion. He just may have never made a pen before, as I said, because, yeah, we have had, we've spoken to Dan and we've told him and say he didn't know that we talk about every week, right? You know, sure, sure. Like he only picked up a retro 51 a few weeks ago. Right. To me and you, that's like, well, every pan addict has one. You know, and yeah, that's just my concern, because, you know, I just worry that people maybe, or maybe our clan, as it were, expecting something of this guy. Right. And we shouldn't. I mean, we shouldn't. But now that people keep asking me about it, I decided to look into it and, you know, he, like, how do you think that our listeners would feel if they found out that currently at the moment, I'm using my Fisher space pen, as much as I'm using my mini, my Twisbee mini, there'd be no issue at all. But like, but people are like freaking out using a big when to me, oh, yeah, that they have no different, you know, no, that doesn't phase me, do you know me? But they haven't, they have no real different experience in my opinion. I mean, I'm not writing in space or upside down or on the water. Right, right. But it's just because it's the pen that's attached to my field notes. And I don't write in my field notes in my fountain pens, really, just because it's, it's not as good an experience for the paper. Yeah, I don't, I don't think that's a real talking point in the grand scheme of things, what he was using to sketch with on his piece of paper. Someone was using just a generation number two pencil. Every conversation that we've been included on is some point mentioned that. I know, I know that that part doesn't bother me. Good. And by the way, listen, I love you all. I'm not, you know, oh, yeah, I'm playing devil's advocate and all of this. Yeah. And, you know, rightfully so, because I mean, I'm pretending like I know everything and it's really just me trying to make some educated guesses and connect the dots on what I'm seeing here. And it's just, you know, it, it leads to more questions and Morgan, since the project started has been very evasive, answering very specific questions. So it's kind of come to a boiling point in the comments section over there. And some of the, some of the commenters are actually helping him like, okay, you need to say this and you need to take this out of the thing and you need to do this and remove this and clarify this and do this. And it's like, oh, okay, okay, I got it, I got it, okay, I got it, you know. So it's, I feel a little bit bad for him. I don't want to, like I said, I don't want to eviscerate the guy, but it's, it's, it's leading to more questions for me from as a fountain pen nerd. And believe me, I'm way less experienced than a lot of people. And it's just, it's too many red flags for me to even commit just a little bit of money to it, which is not very much. So I just don't think I'll be getting anything special. So, and that's what I'd be looking for. I hope that this time next week we'll have even more to talk about on this. I hope so. It's a hot topic. It's crazy. Yeah. I, you know, last, last week, this wasn't even on the radar for me. And then I got one question and, you know, I just kind of answered it the best I thought and just kind of that was done. And then all of a sudden just blew up. So we'll see. Now everyone's talking about it. So we're talking about it too, which is fun. I'm glad we do this every week and we can, we can pick up on these new topics like this. Join in the conversation with me and Brad. I am, I'm Mike. I am YKE on Twitter and app.net. Brad is dowdy D O W D Y on app.net dowdy ism on Twitter. D O W D Y I S M. When I get in touch with my email, best way to do it for me, go to mikeholy.net/contact. I'm going to get it fed up form. Brad, you can do the same for him, panatic.com/contact or email him at the panatic.gmail.com. And Brad writes over at panatic.com, but you all knew that I were already of course because you go there every day. Absolutely. We'll be back next week. Thanks so much for listening. Thank you, Brad, for a great discussion. Absolutely. Thank you. Thanks to Squarespace. Don't forget if you have a Squarespace site that you have designed and you've signed up. Maybe you've heard about them through us. Hopefully you have and that was why you signed up. But send us your site and we'll take a look at some and we'll talk about some of them, especially if they're pen related. Yes. So we'll be back next week. Yes, we'd love to. We'll be back next week. Thanks so much. Bye bye. Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]
