Editing The Pen Addict 382/transcript (section)

== Sailor Pens ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. Uh, but we have another North American exclusive, which is the more important part, I think.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Eh, I don't know. So, it looks great, right? Like, the color's great. It's not that far off. I want to see this in person. I don't think they're going to be out in time for me to see one this weekend. Um, the color looks close to my big, um, sky, you know, demonstrator, my Pro Gear Sky demonstrator, which is a blue, um, clear barrel pen. And they did that in standard Pro Gear large and King of Pen size, which I have the King of Pen size. Um, and this one's in the 1911. The color looks a little bit brighter than Sky. Um, and it looks really good with the plating on the exterior. But yeah, the, the nib's a letdown. It just is. Like, I don't like to, it doesn't make sense, right? So, this was the conversation that we had. Um, when this came out, we were discussing it on Twitch. And so, we just kind of got to have a free flowing conversation, um, with myself and with the chat. And, you know, Dan Smith was in there and he was talking about how, you know, it's, it's Sailor's, um, you know, decision, Sailor USA, um, strictly 100% their decision on, you know, what to make of this pen. Um, and you know, how to design it. And he was basically saying, well, it would be 50 to $60 more to upgrade the nib to match the rest of the hardware of the pen. And I'm like, you know what? If I'm in the market for a $315 pen, I'm in the market for a $375 pen if it's going to look better. Right? You're not making, I think the buying choice, you're not looking at this pen to begin with at $312 if you're not interested in it. Right? And then if you're in the market to spend $300 on a pen, that upgrade is not really going to affect you if this pen is up your alley. Right? I, that's my opinion. I mean, it makes it crazy expensive, but is it the right choice or the wrong choice? I mean, I don't know. That's my opinion. And, you know, I would pay, I would rather pay, you know, $380 for a large size full ruthenium. Is that, they're calling this ion plated. I don't, I'm using the wrong terminology. I get all those terminologies wrong. They're calling this black ion plated trim. The problem they run into, aside from the cost, is when you do platings on nibs, they end up looking bad over time. Right? Right? So when you have a dark nib, when you clean it and use it all the time, it ends up losing its luster a little bit and it changes a little bit of color. Like I have one of the Imperial blacks where I've cleaned it so many times, like where the tines are is a little bit lighter shade than the rest of the nib, but I don't care. Like that's, that's, you know, part of the deal with that pen. I just think it would look better. And I don't really think the price is, the price is already a roadblock. If you're not interested, I don't think the added cost is an additional roadblock. I was like, Oh no, I was going to spend 320. It's 380. Forget it. You can go jump in a lake. It's not like that. Right? So just give me, give me all the same color.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Go jump in a lake. I like that. It's a new frame.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, well, I mean, what else are you going to do at 4am, Myke? That's the other thing I want to talk about.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't get it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What is, what good happens at 4am, Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Is it?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Can you tell me?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, I don't know. Is it the light? Like, are they trying to say that it's like.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, if you're in Copenhagen in the spring, maybe. Right? I mean, what I, where is the, where is the ad copy for this? They're just, the 4am standard fountain pen depicts the state of mind at 4 in the morning with its transparent twilight blue cap and barrel. What does that mean? I mean, you're either, you're either completely drunk or you're completely hung over. None of that is blue, is transparent blue in my mind at 4am. If I'm awake at 4am, there's nothing good that's happening at that time. You know, like one of my kids is sick at 4am. That's what 4am is for. If I'm up at 4am, I'm going sweet two more hours till I have to get up. So I'm going back to bed. Like, it's a funny name. Like, I, like, it's a real try hard name, right? Yeah. Like, you're really trying hard. I mean, if they would have tied it into like the sunrise at somewhere, you know, near the Arctic circle where it's light all year round and 4am is like the golden hour of that area. Fine. But there's nowhere in North America. This is the North America exclusive. You know, I, I'm a little confused by that. But it's, it's more funny than like anything because it makes it, it literally makes no sense.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, that's not, it's not the greatest.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I think it's a very pretty pen. Like, I, you know, it's not something I need. I have one so close to it. Um, if I own this pen or choose to buy this pen, the nib actually wouldn't bother me. I would prefer a black ion matching plated nib. Um, but like if I was buying this pen, it wouldn't faze me if I was using this pen on a daily basis at all. I think it's really good looking. Um, and it'll do well. So, you know, that's that. It's, uh, it's just a lot of interesting decisions go into this. And that's where I look at this. Maybe too hard, right? Like I, maybe I overthink all of this as all the minutiae parts, but like, that's what I do. Like, that's my thing. So I'm, I'm fine with that. It's, it's very interesting. It'll do well though, because it's a pretty pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I have some other sailor related. Speaking of pretty pens. Speaking of pretty pens. So my multiple pen, my multiple person, uh, pen handoff was successful. Multiple country. Multiple country was successful. And I now have the, uh, bung box magic of Alice. Um, I have it. Yay. It is. I was surprised. Um, I really, really love this pen a lot. The colors are wonderful. The white and the blue, uh, there is glitter in the body and cap of the pen. Just didn't really show up for me in the images that I saw, but it just adds something a little extra to it. Uh, yeah. Look, I knew I was going to love it because I love the colors and I love the rodden and the finial. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful little pro gear. I just wanted to follow that one up to say that it half arrived. And, uh, oh, one other little detail that I like, um, the cap, like the band on the cap, it says magic of Alice on it, but then it has the like, uh, clubs, hearts, diamonds and spades. Nice. Around it too. So very cool. That's just like a nice little nod to Alice in Wonderland. So it's a beautiful pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah. So this is something like if I was interested in, I would jump through every hoop and pay that much more premium over something like the 4am, right? It's, you know, mentally and physically worth that much more to me personally. Right. And then when you're placing these side by side and you start to have that conversation, you know, that's where, you know, you're trying to make a buying decision, right? Where do you want to spend like your hard earned dollars on? And those, when you see something like the magic of Alice and your mind is just blown, at least mine is. Yep. Um, at the beauty of this pen, you, it makes me argue for or against the 4am differently.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It did make me realize that I have vastly more pro gear slims in my collection than regular pro gears.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, me too.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because most of the weird and wonderful colors are slim. I'm not sure why that is.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I just, it's cost because they, the larger ones have 21 carat nibs. So not, I'm not, I don't even mean the physical large size of it, um, is bigger, but it's because it's a 21 carat gold nib instead of 14.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I didn't know that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So yeah, that's, that's 90% of your premium.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' In my, my crooked math.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I got an email from, uh, from Pensachi.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Uh, are you not burnt out of all this sailor stuff? Shush. No.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's like asking like, I love you. Am I burnt out on pens? The answer is no.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm just joking.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right? Like, no, I'm not.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Neither am I. I just think it's funny. So the reason why we talk about this so much is because sailor does it better than anyone else. And it's nonstop and it's interesting and it's cool and it's fun. You know, I get like, I am not interested in owning any of these pens whatsoever, but what sailors doing on a large scale is what fascinates me the most, right? They're doing it right, in my opinion, by doing all this crazy stuff. Like, this is what people want these days. And this is what I wish other companies would kind of latch on to. And we'll, we'll talk about that a little bit later, but yeah. So what, what landed in your, in your email?

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I, I am a person who by and large does not like, uh, email newsletters, right? Or like not, not newsletters as such, more like marketing campaign email stuff, right? That's kind of what I'm going for more. So I'm mostly unsubscribed because I have so much email that I have to go through on a daily basis that is work related. I don't like my inbox to be full of marketing messages, right? It's just, I just unsubscribe from most. Never unsubscribed from Pensachi's, uh, email newsletter email. Remember Pensachi is a company that they somehow seem to get their hands on limited edition products that are in Japan and they sell them. I have had mixed success with them so far in actually getting what I've ordered, but my customer service experience with them has always been very good, right? So like, I think the first time I bought from them, the pen that I wanted sold out, but they were like really responsive and they refunded me and everything. They're somehow getting their hands on this stuff. But I think since that first experience, my other experiences with them is like, it seemed to have gotten things a little bit more on lock. I got an email from them, uh, showing off the sailor, uh, limited edition sparkling Royale, uh, in purple. Have you seen this pen? Yeah, I've seen this pen. It is a full size pro gear. Uh, the cap, the grip and the fin, like the, the end finial on the, on the body of the pen, they are like a white acrylic. Then the body and the finial on the cap are a translucent purple with multicolored glitter all through the body. And it has gold accents, like gold furniture. This pen is stunning. And I bought it. So I have ordered one, uh, I ordered it in a medium nib because I don't have a lot of medium nibs. And I have to leave it on my entire collection. I have two medium nibs from sailor.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, that's sailor's best nib probably. And in my extra fine opinion, I think the medium is their best nib.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It ticked all my boxes. Right. And Jesse is agreeing with me in the, in the chat room here as we're recording live. Uh, sparkles purple. Perfect.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, so I need to let you in on something. Um, when we were discussing this on Twitch, um, you know, around sailor, this particular pin came up, this exact pin, uh, sparkling royal purple, and it's beautiful and it's stunning. And I specifically said, I am not talking about this pin and I'm not putting in the show notes this week because we're going to talk about enough other sailor stuff. And lo and behold, Myke goes and puts it in the show notes and I find it absolutely hilarious. Like I am trying, I am trying listeners like to meter some of the sailor talk, but at the same time, like I said, just a minute ago, they do it better than almost anyone else.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I understand. I just think it's hilarious. Right. Like I understand the thinking of trying to talk about sailor stuff less, but this is just one of those things that I want to talk about their products all the time. Yeah. I do too. I do too. They are my favorite, right? Like when I, sailors pens get me more excited than any other like mainstream company because I can get, I mean, I've said this a million times, right? But like I can get exactly what I want and then I see something like this and I'm like, I want to talk to Brad about it because I think it's amazing. And also because I think it's hilarious because it's just seemingly can't stop buying.