If I had to pick one pencil to write with for the rest of my life it would be the Rotring 600 in a .7mm. This is the ultimate mechanical pencil. It has a shaft made of solid brass which gives it really good heft and balance. It has a hexagonal profile – like a wooden pencil. It rarely jambs and is easy to take care of and refill.
They were available in both a silver and black finish. Both of mine, as you can see, are silver.
All of them have the distinctive ‘red ring’ around the top of the shaft – near the rotating lead hardness indicator. ‘Rot Ring’ is German for ‘Red Ring’. I bear down pretty hard so I break the .5mm too often so I stick with the .7mm. The earlier pencils said ‘rotring 600 /’ followed by the point size. Newer ones just had the point size. I have one of both.
Unfortunately, the Rotring company was bought out by Sanford which is a subsidiary of Newell Rubbermaid and this model has been discontinued. Go figure.
It can be found on a few websites and also on ebay.
Prices typically range from $60 to $80 depending on if they are new or used. I paid a very reasonable price for my first one but the second one was purchased after they started becoming hard to find. I hope I never feel a need to buy another one. That’s like the price of a week’s groceries.
For a while (not sure they still do) they made something called a rotring ‘Core’ which was a weird stubby rubbery thing. Obviously, this was part of the growing pains of the buyout. Huge mistake. Why did they think those were good but got rid of their classic? What were they thinking? To me, raving about the Core would be like thinking a Mustang II was cool.
They still make a pencil called the rotring ‘tikky’ which is very inexpensive but looks like a decent pencil. I don’t own one. I might give one a try sometime. So, if you can find (or decide to be extravagant and actually buy) a rotring 600 you will not be disappointed.
Just keep your hands off mine, please.
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