Upon delivery and opening the box I was taken back by the beauty and depth to the Christmas colours, almost too good to touch a really beautiful pen.
Upon unscrewing the cap I found that the thread would bind and more effort than usual was required to unscrew the cap, the main body unscrewed from the nib and I was greeted by the vacuum filler system already in place, I filled the pen with CS black ink and reassembled. The writing experience was not silky smooth but scratchy, I did look at the nib under magnification, but I couldn’t see any obvious damage that would cause the nib to feel so scratchy. I own a Churchill pen which I purchased back in 2004, at that time it came with a cigar and a quotable Churchill book, the nib on this pen is definitely what one would describe as silky smooth (this pen is 452/1000), so I know how the pen should perform, the Christmas pen is smaller than my Churchill as is the nib.
Overall a beautiful pen to look at, let down by a less than precise thread and a rather scratchy nib.