Maybe many of the forum members are too young to remember but the first fully machined titanium reels were Charltons. There has been and never will be another reel like the SST. When Charlton introduced his aluminum line of reels in 1993, the entire line was also available in 6AL-4V HEAT TREATED titanium. The fire storm of publicity world-wide assisted in launching the company. It received write-ups in every major fly fishing magazine around the world and was featured in a segment on CBC Morning show nation-wide. It was touted to be the ultimate fly fishing desire by Gene Hill in his article for Field and Stream in the December 1994 issue. One was even exhibited in the Guggenheim museum in New York. Even the crazy magazine "Wired" spotlighted the SST (Signature Series Titanium) reel in a 1998 article. http:/wired-vig.wired.com/wired/archive/6.07/fetish.htmlAnyone that knows the Charlton reel can only imagine one made to museum standards in the same material used on the Space Shuttle. I once had the opportunity to visit with Jack at his Burlington, Washington plant to learn quite a bit about the reel. Yes the material IS expensive. But more than this there are only a small percentage of aerospace machining firms that will consider machining it. The material is like machining Moon Metal. Stainless steel is bad enough but titanium takes over 6 times as long to cut (6AL-4V). According to Charlton, each SST cost over $400 in expendible tools to produce. That will get you $900 dollars at the retail level just in tooling costs alone! But as Jack pointed out, 1/3 of the cost of any Charlton reel was the superb finishing and polishing. I saw what it took to achieve that finish and understood the costs involved. Even with reels seen today, look at the finish. I love Henschel reels (and own several) but if you go their site, you will see only dull finishes. I'me sure there are good titanium reels out there but should you ever happen to see even a picture of the SST it would knock your eyes out. Were one lucky enough to find one (only 50-70 shipped ...and what a whos who list) a current price would likely (depending on the model) be in the TENS of thousands. Even when they were produced prices ranged from $3600 to $12,000. What a bargain that was !!!!