The Parker T1, Titanium made in U.S.A.
Nib: fine
Excellent pre-owned condition. * a very small ding on the barrel. Light wear only, Original box and instructions not available
Comes with original squeeze type converter
Few modern pens are so legendary as the Parker T1. Manufactured for a very short time, with tooling that wasn't really up for the task, the pens where introduced in April of 1970 as "The Space Pen". It was a bold venture to honour that man had succeeded with landing on the moon but unfortunately it didn't work out as well as one had hoped for. The titanium proved so hard and un-yielding that it became increasingly more expensive to produce them. Also the supplier was unable to produce titanium sheets of the consistent quality that Parker needed. Too much broke and went to waste during production. It came to a point when Parkers 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, of the body.
A small screw under the nib allowed for the user to adjust how broad or narrow a line he or she preferred. Two nib sizes were offered fine/medium or medium/broad. This was all good, but it had one disadvantage; if You dropped the pen and broke the nib, and it didn't take much force, 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. Hence modern day collectors tend to leave their T1's unused
*For more of the story order Back issues of Pen World Mag.
Sept./Oct. 1998 Vol.12. No.1.2