Now, this pre-dates me, but:
The 'Nibelung' tech 5 mining laser This is the story about how TTI acquired one of the two tech 5 mining laser that ever came in the hands of a player. The stats of this laser were as follows:
'Nibelung' Particle Bore Stream V 30 Energy 20 32mW 1 133tf 22320m 148 ore units 5 60 sec Mining
It happened in the beginning of August 2003. The lead artist of CCP, Torfi Frans, went out in his 'newbie' Jove ship to show the newly modeled ship (and do some role-playing). To reward the player that he role-played with, named Saruu, he dropped the mining laser that he had on the ship into a can, and then messaged Saruu that he had left something outside and to undock immediately. Frans thought that this mining laser was not of much value, and that it was available as rare loot. Saruu was smart enough to realize that this mining laser was immensely valuable, and hence he contacted TTI. Ragnar gave him 50 mil for the laser, which at the time was a considerable sum. Following this a screenshot was published on the TTI website of the laser. Much uproar followed on the EVE-O forums, as this item never was intended to be given out to the players. In exchange for giving the tech 5 mining laser back to the devs, Ragnar were in exchange given a Mining Laser tech 2 BPO, which at that time were not out on the 'lottery'.
The dead rogue Jove dropped more T2 Mining Laser blueprints.
It is worth to note that the original plan, allegedly, has tech levels up to ten, so Tech5 would be mid-level items for someone who has done only art, not playing the game.