When it comes to polymer leads Rotrings are the ones I love. They are average-priced but exceptional writers. The leads write very smoothly, and it's hard to emphasize this enough. I do not have problems with the leads breaking under pressure, but this is usually not a problem anymore with modern half-decent products. If you haven't written using the Rotring leads I recommend giving them a chance. So I give them 10 out of 10.
When rOtring introduced its first mechanical pencil, of course, it had to come up with the leads for it. So in 1979 when the Tikky was introduced to the public the first polymers from rOtring came to market as well. The leads came in a package that resembled the 2 mm.
In the catalog, rOtring specifies that the leads are resistant to breaking, and they come in size 0.3 / 0.5 / 0.7 and have different hardness levels.
As you can see back then rOtring was marketing their sizes differently 0.3 instead of 0.35 nowadays and 1.0 instead of 0.9 nowadays.
As I used rOtrings a little bit later down the line I did not use this first model but I don't remember the early leads to be that resistant as it was not unusual for the pencils to get clogged up.
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| rOtring catalog 1980 Romania |
A new design of the lead box was released in the later years. I do not know exactly when the new design was launched to the market but it was before 1990. Most likely the formula changed as well as the package. The leads were not any kind of Polymer but a hi-Polymer.
The new lead boxes contained 16 leads divided evenly into two compartments that. The compartments were independent and each had its own cap, even though the caps were connected to each other.
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| rOtring catalog 1990 |
In addition to the size, color coding was added to the label. And of course, the number of leads in the package was reduced to 12 pieces instead of the previous 16.
The box kept the same design and color.
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| rOtring catalog 1996 |
In the early 2000s, a new package was introduced. A more modern design, where you slide the access door to access the 12 leads that are inside. The dual compartment was forgotten. Also, the dual-labeling of the size was dropped in favor of 0.35 mm and 0.9 mm. This is the way rOtring codes the sizes even today.
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| rOtring catalog 2005 |
Another change happened in 2008 when rOtring added the Tikky name on the label. Also, the article number was changed. This makes me believe that the product itself suffered a change, or maybe it was just integration in the Stanford article system.
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| rOtring catalog 2008 |
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