Kohinoor RAPIDOMATIC Mechanical Pencil 0.5 mm, (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.)

Excelente manufactura y muy aesthetic. De mis favoritos.

Well made, high quality mechanical pencil. I wish it had a retractable tip, I ended up designing a protective cap for it to keep the tip from poking holes or getting damaged in my pocket/bag. The STL is on thingiverse for anyone else worried about it, just search Koh I Noor Rapidomatic

This is not the same pencil as the original Rapidomatic. See the image - top pencil is the "new" 0.7mm model, bottom is an original 0.5mm. The original has all-metal components in the internal mechanism - the new one does not. The knurling on the barrel is also a little finer than the original, and the threading on the plastic where the metal barrel joins on doesn't match well. Also, it came in no packaging at all - it was literally just flying around in the Amazon envelope alongside another item in the same shipment.

I think this mechanical pencil is truly the best value for money you could find anywhere. It is very well built and solid. I highly recommend it.