The gel rollerball is similar in design to the ballpoint pen. The main difference: while ballpoint pen refills are filled with a writing paste, the gel rollerball writes with a water-based and significantly less viscous ink. Accordingly, it glides faster and more smoothly over the page and leaves a clean typeface, which is very much in keeping with Asian writing habits. (It is therefore not surprising that the gel rollerball pen is of Japanese origin.) The gel rollerball pen offered here from Tokyo-based manufacturer Ohto is probably one of the most elegant representatives of its kind in terms of design: hexagonal at the rear end, the cross-section of the casing merges smoothly into a round shape towards the grip zone and tip, so that the pen sits perfectly in the hand. It is fitted with a black 0.7 mm refill. Replacement refills with a 0.7 mm tip can of course also be found in our range (under item number 205733) as well as a finer refill with a 0.5 mm tip (under item number 212206).

In China and in Japan, the market share of fine-lead pens is far greater than elsewhere. The reason: in other cultures, pens with line widths of less than one millimeter are used primarily for drawings and precise construction plans. The characters commonly used in the Far East, however, make even simple writing a filigree task, because they can consist of a number of individual strokes and must be put down precisely on paper even in small print in order to remain legible. Fine-lead pencils are therefore everyday products. The leading manufacturers - such as Ohto in Tokyo - offer small masterpieces that, despite their impressive mechanical sophistication, are surprisingly inexpensive as standard products manufactured by the millions.