Never sign your name with a ball-point pen
Media
Part of Panorama
- Title
- Never sign your name with a ball-point pen
- Language
- English
- Source
- Panorama Volume XVII (Issue No.7) July 1965
- Year
- 1965
- Subject
- Signatures (Writing)
- Ball-point pens
- Forgery
- Rights
-
- Abstract
- This is still a good suggestion.
- Fulltext
- ■ This is still a good suggestion. NEVER SIGN YOUR NAME WITH A BALL-POINT PEN If you use a ball-point pen for signing checks or other legal documents, you are leav ing yourself open to similar liabilities. According to El bridge W. Stein and Ordway Hilton examiners of Ques tioned Documents, New York City, a ball-point pen fails to give adequate protection from forgery. One reason is due to the construction of the pen itself, another is in the type of ink it uses. The great construc tion weakness (from the view point of. forgery protection) is the fact that it uses a steel ball (about 1/25 of an inch in diameter) fastened at the tip of the pen. As the ball rolls, it deposits ink on the surface of the paper as even ly as the supply of ink will allow, regardless of the amount of pressure applied by the user. Contrast this with the con ventional pen, with the nib split lengthwise for about half its length. The action of the nib in writing is to spread apart under pressure by the writer. This produces a shading which is present in all writing and is very pro minent in some. The signature with an or dinary pen thus stands for the writer himself, and has in it a maximum of his in dividuality. It is almost im possible to forge it in such a way that the forgery can not be detected under a mi croscope. If the forger writes at a different speed, or if he hesitates during a stroke, the signature discloses these facts with tattle-tale marks. The forger, however, has no such worries with a ball point pen. He can write at any speed, or variation of speed; he can hesitate, or can com pose a line with a succession of small, careful strokes, and July 1965 53 there are no marks to betray him. A ball-point pen causes this further disadvantage: its writing usually carries “blotches, dark spots, irregu lar ink deposits throughout the strokes, and the skipping of the ink at points along the line where the pen fails to write. These defects- . . . may cause a signature to take on an appearance of inferior skill in writing and serve as an alibi for those who are attempting to defend a for gery,” state the handwriting experts in the American Bar Association Journal. Further more, they say, "the defects typical of the ball-point pen have been found in all makes and price ranges.” The ball-point pen also offers the forger an easy way of duplicating a signature. Although the ball-point pen ink doesn’t need blotting, it is not fast-drying. As an oil base ink, it can usually be smeared for a considerable time. All the forger needs to do is press the palm of his hand on a fresh signature and transfer it to another do cument. Although the im pression so obtained may be weak, authorities give warn ing that it “constitutes a dan gerous means of forgery.” — From American Bar Asso. Journal, 1948. ALL IN THE WAY YOU SAY IT A Dominican and a Jesuit wanted to smoke while walking in the garden. They agreed that each would ask his Superior for permission. The Domi nican returned to find the smoking, and complain ed indignantly, "I was refused!” “What did you ask?” inquired the Jesuit. “I asked if I could smoke while meditating.” “Oh,” said the Jesuit, blowing a reflective smoke ring. “I asked if I could meditate while smoking.” —Deadline Delayed. 54 PANORAMA