Editing Rotring (section)

==History==
The company was established in 1928 as Tintenkuli Handels GmbH. The company's first product was the Tintenkuli, a stylographic pen—a [[fountain pen]] with a narrow steel tube instead of a conventional nib. While stylographic pens were already common in America and in fact pre-dated conventional fountain pens, they had not been previously marketed in Europe, and Rotring would eventually become the name associated with such pens throughout the world.

"Rot ring" directly translates from German to "red ring" - which is still placed around the barrel of their pens today. The company's name was changed to Rotring in the early 70s to match the trademark.

Although stylographs never overtook fountain pens for use in writing, by 1953 the Rotring '''Rapidograph''' became the prototypical [[technical pen]] of its age. Its technology virtually replaced the [[ruling pen]] and greatly simplified technical drawing. Rapidographs are still made today, both by Rotring and by [[Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth|Koh-i-Noor]], its US subsidiary.

The famous [[Rotring 600|Rotring 600 series]] was introduced in 1989. 

The advent in the 1990s of computer-aided design (CAD) saw the partial demise of the technical drawing pen. To combat this, Rotring diversified its range of graphic pens, pencils and markers.

In 1998 Rotring was taken over by [[Sanford L.P.|Sanford]], an American company specialising in graphic products and part of [[Newell Rubbermaid]] Inc. since 1992 <ref>{{cite web | author= | title=Newell Rubbermaid history | url=http://www.newellrubbermaid.com/Images/UploadedDocument/DOC000269.pdf | publisher=Newell Rubbermaid | date=10 June 2011 | accessdate=21 June 2010}}</ref>