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The bigger problem is current gen QA or lack thereof… so many reports of cracked metal barrels. And I have personally seen an Iron Blue ballpoint have its chrome metal interconnect completely detach. Very shoddy.
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I bought the pearl white BP+MP, and they look great. Perfect. However…
I bought two of the LoFt yellow ones. I checked them over with a magnifying glass upon receipt. They both looked fine, no cracks. However, just the other day I decided to give them a close look. Low and behold… one is showing a very tiny crack. The other? An obvious crack. It wasn’t there before. Just sitting in a drawer, not even used. This metal they’re using in recent 600’s seems inferior somehow, apparently prone to intrinsic stresses that result in eventual cracks… completely independent of use. They’re almost always near the join part, where polished metal screw thread insert is underneath.
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It’s frustrating that the brand owners are either oblivious or can’t be bothered to own the issue.
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It’s an old issue with Rotring. There’s a good number of R 600 fountain pens that are cracked. I read somewhere that it was a factory problem and many of them were developing cracks as soon as they were made. These was for the models before the Newton models, afaik. Not sure how accurate this info really is, but it is commonly accepted among collectors that black R600 FPs have cracks. Mine is cracked a little bit in one of the edges at the bottom of the pen. Doesn’t really bother me since it is a factory defect (it’s not from mis-usage or falling or etc). I already bought it like that, i found it in a pawns shop. Apparently only the black ones have this issue, doesnt happen with the silver ones.
Truth be said, Rotring products don’t have the largest life-expectancy in the world… very much the opposite.
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I’d bought a small pencil lot that included a boxed rOtring 600 in dark blue. I guess what they call “iron blue.” Anyway, it looked good to me… at first. Well, with the noticing of the crack on my yellow LoFt 600, I ran the blue one through greater scrutiny. Turns out… yeah. There IS a crack. A very tiny one, pretty near impossible to spot with the naked eye. But I can see it under 30x magnification.
I recently bought a rOtring 600 in mint green, as noted above. Now I’m fearful this thing is going to show up with a crack. Frankly, I’m glad I didn’t go down the rabbit hole of trying to collect 600 colors. I’m not buying any more of them, that’s for certain.
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Wow this seems crazy! I don’t collect them but generally thought they were built fairly well and wouldn’t have thought they were prone to cracking so readily let alone have a history of it! What do you think causes this? I was assuming metal fatigue or something but it sounds like it happens to shelf queens too?
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This is making me nervous 
When you get time can you post photos of the defects?
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In fountain pens it’s usually something like this:
The crack on the one I have is probably half the length of this one and it’s actually not that noticeable.
(Photo Credits: “The Clicky Post”)
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All these cracks just shores up my belief that the 500 was the real deal and the 600 et al were playing to executive’s desks…
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agreed - and maybe the 400? (the drafting model, not the metal Esprit one)
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I
Took some photos to show the cracks I found and made a composite, with enlarged cut-outs to exaggerate the detail:
The yellow 600 on the left has a very shallow crack that almost looks like it’s the enameled paint coating. But the other one is definitely into the metal. You can see it on the bevel adjacent to the knurled section. The blue 600 has an extremely tiny crack, hopefully just in the paint. I hadn’t noticed it with my naked eye. Magnification revealed it.
The earlier ones didn’t suffer these cracks very often at all. They were more of a rare occurrence.
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Oh wow!
Yikes
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Time to inspect all of my 600s with a magnifying glass. 
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I literally am just about to do that.
I’ll check yours when I do.
But need to cook dinner first.
Having a lovely salmon
Mrs pdunc just got off a 12 hour shift and looks hangry
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I was joking. Don’t check mine. I don’t wanna know. Leave them be. Let the crack heads rest.
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DANG!! That is terrible!
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I’ve been lucky that neither of my R600 FPs have developed cracks so far, but Rotring isn’t the only one with this problem. Two of my TWSBI Precision mechanical pencils developed very similar cracks near the top of the body—which is also brass—within months of receiving them.
I wonder if this is a case of inserts+glue are not being milled down enough and creating too much stress, or if there’s just a lot of crappy brass stock these days.
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It’s from cut-rate alloy sourcing. Modern cost pressures = cheaper brass alloys. Simple as that.
Very unfortunate.
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