Rotring 500
The Rotring 500 is the little brother of the 600 series. It shares the same looks but has a plastic barrel instead of metal. The grip is made from metal and has knurlings the same as the lead hardness indicator.
Nowadays it comes in sizes 0.5 and 0.7 only in black while the Rotring 600 can be found in silver as well.
This was not always the case.
The first appearance of the Rotring 500 is around 1989 - 1990, about the same time the rotating 600 appeared on the market.
When it came out the pencil was available in 0.3 mm, 0.5 mm, 0.7 mm, 0.9 mm and the grip and lead harness indicator sections were silver while the rest of the pencil was black
The codes for the pencil were:
502 503 (0.3 mm)
502 505 (0.5 mm)
502 507 (0.7 mm)
502 509 (0.9 mm)
Notice that Rotring was using lead size notations 0.3 mm and 0.9 mm. Nowadays the 0.3 mm became 0.35 mm and the 0.9 mm became 1.0 mm. This looks like a very serious drafting pencil, and it is. It has a Rotring classic design, it is built very well with precision and comfort in mind, but the times have changed. If you could buy this serious tool in all drafting sizes, now it is available only in 0.5 mm and 0.7 mm. These are the most common sizes used nowadays for general writing. So even the most die-hard drafting pencils are becoming regular mechanical pencils with a peculiar design.
