Red Pens! Conway Stewart Churchill in Cherry Red

Conway Stewart Churchill: Cherry Red

I've rambled about how much I love red pens when writing about the Montegrappa Alfa Romeo. This is another one of these beauties, a Conway Stewart Churchill in Cherry Red.

The Churchill is, I believe, Conway Stewart's flagship model and is a large yet rather lightweight pen with nice girth. I like especially the long section so there's no need to grip on the threads. They come as cartridge/converter fillers and lever fillers. I chose the lever filler on both pens as somehow it's a nice hint at the vintage Conway Stewarts.

I don't own a lot of acrylic pens, maybe because I'm a bit of a snob and prejudiced towards plastic but maybe also because most of the colors I saw didn't appeal to me. This has changed after I've discovered Conway Stewart. Both the Amber and the Cherry Red are awesome colors and patterns with just the right amount of translucency. The material is transparent enough to make its colors pop but opaque enough so you can't see the nib through the cap - something I despise if the pen's not a demonstrator. Cherry Red is naturally the more striking color of the two. 

As you can see, every pen has an imprint with a serial number and color code. 

Conway Stewart Churchill: Cherry Red

Oh, and the nibs don't have a breather hole! I don't have any other nibs built like this. At first I merely thought "okay, this nib is different" but couldn't tell what it was.

As Conway Stewart is one of the few pen makers offering factory italic nibs I had to go for these. I got an IB for the Amber and an IM for this one. The nib units screw out and can be easily interchanged. Sadly both nibs needed a bit of tweaking before they wrote really well - I think out of all the factory stubs and italics I bought so far there were three perfectly functional ones (makes me wonder why I still buy them, honestly). Two of those three were steel nibs by the way.

Anyway here's how it writes - which incidentally is very smooth and wet with nice line variation - with Diamine Sapphire Blue:

I got my Churchills from Pen Paradise here in Germany which is run by a true fountain pen enthusiast and a great source for all sorts of pens, paper and pen trays/boxes. The owner, Volker, has also been extremely helpful and quick with enquiries and has tweaked my italics for my when they were acting up.