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Rotring 600 Ballpoint review

Well, I’ve always been a fan of writing instruments.  Obviously comes from my Dad, who had a healthy/unhealthy? habit of collecting them.  When I was in the service, I ran across a black hexagonal Rotring ballpoint pen.  Now this was a pen!  Made of solid brass, a huge end-cap, and weighing about 1 pound.  Needless to say, between the unweildy cap, and the unnecessary weight, it wasn’t very practical.  Dangerous looking, yes.  Everyday useful.  no.  Think I actually gave this to my brother.  You do still have it, don’t you?

For un-estimable reasons (alignment of the celestial stars?), I got a purchasing whim and decided I shouldn’t have given that pen away.  So off I go online to find the same one.  Turns out Rotring has been bought by Sanford, makers of Sharpie, etc.  They don’t currently make that exact model anymore.  eBay to the rescue.  $21 later and I’ve got a close approximation of my old pen, the Rotring Silver 600 Ballpoint.

I didn’t want black anymore.  Silver is the new black.  And, while I was at it, end-caps are so… 1800’s.  Aren’t they?  So that was gone as well.

Now I don’t want the most expensive pen around, just a few basic qualities:

• nice flowing ink
• decent weight - plastic Bics are disposable for a reason
• good looks - see line above

The Rotring 600 has everything but the ink.  Although the ballpoint that came with it is ok, it just can’t stack up to a nice G2 Gel refil.  It’ll have to go.  Overall, though I’m pretty impressed.  The extra weight makes the pen feel a bit more balanced when writing on the ‘ol moleskine journal.

   
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