At the shows, when people ask which pen is my favorite, I always say the Space Pen. The wood is dyed laminated birch, compressed with a 50 ton press to create the hardest wood known.  I drill the wood and turn it on a wood lathe. The chrome finish is the hardest finish available, and it will not wear off.  It is like the chrome on your bumper, if you are old enough to remember chrome bumpers.. It is a great guy pen, outdoor pen, artistic gift item, good for doing crosswords in bed, writing orders in triplicate, or writing on a wet or greasy surface. This is not a finicky pen.  It always writes. It feels and looks great. And it is extremely durable.

As a result of a meeting with Mr. Fisher in 1996, I am the only person making wood space pens in the United States.  

This refill will write upside down and under water, on calendars, wax paper, etc. It also has at least four times as much ink as a regular ball point pen, so probably won't run out of ink for many years. If it does, refills are available at Office Depot and Staples, or in 10 colors including gold, chocolate, silver, and turquiose from the Fisher Pen Company.

More about the Fisher Space Pen cartridge.....

The cartridges of conventional ball point pens are open to permit ink to be fed to the point. The secret behind the Fisher Space Pen cartridge lies in the unique design characteristics of the ink and the high precision manufacturing tolerances of the ball point and socket. The ink is fed to the ball point by gas pressure permitting the pen to write in any position. 

An additional benefit of the closed design is that it keeps the pen from drying out giving the Fisher Space Pen an estimated 100 year shelf life. Although known for the invention of the anti-gravity pen for space travelers the Fisher Space Pen also has proven track record here on earth. 

Due to its unique design and reputation for writing in extreme conditions the Space Pen has become the pen of choice for the United States air force, law enforcement agencies, undersea explorers, mountain climbing expeditions, ski and snowboard teams or anyone else demanding a high degree of reliability from the equipment they select. 

In the 1950's there were dozens of ballpoint models, and nearly every one took a different cartridge. In 1953 Fisher invented the "Universal Refill" which could be used in most pens. It was a good seller, since stationery store owners could reduce their stock of assorted refills. 

Not content, Fisher continued to work on making a better refill. After much experimentation he perfected a refill using thixotropic ink-semisolid until the shearing action of the rolling ball liquefied it-that would flow only when needed. The cartridge was pressurized with nitrogen so that it didn't rely on gravity to make it work. It was dependable in freezing cold and desert heat. It could also write underwater and upside down. 

The trick was to have the ink flow when you wanted it to, and not to flow the rest of the time, a problem Fisher solved. Fisher's development couldn't have come at a more opportune time. The space race was on, and the astronauts involved in the Mercury and Gemini missions had been using pencils to take notes in space since standard ball points did not work in zero gravity. The Fisher cartridge did work in the weightlessness of outer space and the astronauts, beginning with the October, 1968 Apollo 7 mission began using the Fisher AG-7 Space Pen and cartridge developed in 1966.  

All of my handcrafted wood pens have a genuine versatile and indestructible Fisher Space Pen cartridge.