Parker T1
As a collector for vintage pens, I have been looking for a Parker T1 for a long time. The T1 was made for a very short time during the 1970s with tooling that wasn't really up for the task. The T1 pens where introduced in April of 1970 as "The Space Pen". In the wake of the moon missions of the late 1960s, Parker decided to make a pen of the consummate aerospace material, titanium.
The result was the T-1, released in 1970 and discontinued shortly thereafter making it one of the rare and collectible fountain pen.
It was a bold venture to honour that man had succeeded with landing on the moon by using a special material. The titanium however, proved so hard that it became increasingly more expensive to produce them. Also the supplier was unable to produce titanium sheets of the Titanium. It came to a point when Parker's production costs ended up exceeding the profit for each item. Furthermore the T1 had an ingenious design where the nib was only a continuation, a true integration which had one disadvantage; if You dropped the pen and broke the nib, it could not be exchanged or repaired. Latter day collectors have tried replacing the tips with modern techniques, both still to this day, the titanium is one tough metal to work with.
