Mechanical pencil having lead-rotating mechanism

A mechanical pencil comprising:

• a tubular main body cover having on the inside thereof axially spaced apart front and rear gears;
• a main body that is housed in the main body cover to undergo forward and rearward axial movement and rotational movement and that feeds a lead from a front end thereof, the main body having one or more exposed peripheral surface portions that are exposed and not covered by the main body cover;
• a forward fixed gear fixed to the main body forward of the front gear and a rearward fixed gear fixed to the main body rearward of the rear gear, the forward fixed gear being disengageable from and engageable with the front gear and the rearward fixed gear being engageable with and disengageable from the rear gear in response to forward and rearward axial movement of the main body to incrementally rotate the main body thereby incrementally rotating the lead;
• a writing pressure spring that moves the main body axially forward when no writing pressure is applied to the lead and that allows the main body to move axially rearward when writing pressure is applied to the lead;
• and one or more protection collars each rotatably disposed on the main body and covering one of the exposed peripheral surface portions thereby preventing a person from gripping the exposed peripheral surface portion and rotating the main body.