Koh-I-Noor Rapidomatic Mechanical Pencil, 5mm Lead, White, 1 Each (5635)

This is a re-issue of a classic mechanical pencil from ca. 1984. It's a solid pencil with good balance and no noticeable lead wobble. It says "JAPAN" on the clip. The body of the pencil is plastic, though the grip and various other parts are metal. The external design has roots in other Koh-I-Noor pencil lines and can currently still be seen in the almost-identical Rotring 500, the metal-bodied Rotring 600, etc., and now also in the Chinese Rotring knock-off called the Redcircle 600. (I haven't tried the Rotrings, which are reportedly good pencils, but the Redcircle is, in my experience, an inferior product with noticeable lead wobble. It's also too heavy for my taste.) The Koh-I-Noor brand originates from a company that had split into at least two parts by the time of the pencil's introduction, and whose parts have since changed hands over time. This pencil is apparently a product of Koh-I-Noor North America (or USA), which split off from the Czech company of the same name around the time of WWII, and was long affiliated with Rotring but is currently separately held by Chartpak in the US. The similarity in Rotring's pencil designs is presumably due to the fact that the right to use the Koh-I-Noor design was acquired by Rotring along with their acquisition of the/a non-Czech-held part of Koh-I-Noor in or about 1985. Rotring was later acquired by Sanford, which was itself acquired by Newell, and then Koh-I-Noor North America was sold off. The "about" section of the Koh-I-Noor North America website says that the company has now "partnered once again with Koh-I-Noor Europe", which is presumably some sort of reciprocal licensing agreement. (As for the Redcircle copy of the Rotring design, that's clearly just trademark infringement.)

Writes great, but it looks a bit cheap, don't know why.

It feels good in the fingers with it's knurled metal grip and hexagonal casing. Handy for precision drawing or writing.

Excelente manufactura y muy aesthetic. De mis favoritos.

Recibido, aunque tardó, pero es enviado desde EEUU y lo he recibido en Galicia. Es cómodo y ligero, quizás lo prefería un poco más pesado. Sí es agradable al tacto, tanto la parte plástica como la metálica. Satisfecho con la compra.