Ah, the non-pen people. I need to make certified copies of some documents, so that I can apply for permanent residence in the country I live in (yay me!). Obviously, I sign pretty much everything with a FP. One of the documents (a rental lease extension) was signed with my lovely Platinum 3776 with a SF nib and inked with Iroshizuku Ku-jaku. And... The people at the post office (which is where these copies are made) refused to make a copy because they weren't sure it was an original signature rather than a printed-out copy. The problem apparently being that the ink is green. (It's not even green. It's turquoise, which as far as I am concerned is blue and green in equal measure.) Here's the thing, though. There is no law that says that blue ink must be used. At least not in this country! (As far as Google can tell anyway.) And technically, their argument wasn't that the signature isn't allowed to be green. Just that they weren't sure that it was an original. Now, why exactly green would look more "printed out" than blue - I have no idea. Blue is no less printable than green. I even showed them the exact pen and ink that I used, scribbled something on a piece of paper to show them it's the same color - no use.
And once I got back home, it occurred to me that I could use my saliva to smudge it a bit - and it actually works! (It's Iroshizuku...) No way that a printed-out copy could be smudged like that. I'll go back tomorrow and demonstrate it to them. Me, my Ku-jaku signed document, my tongue, and my finger. All to be done in their presence. Too bad I didn't think of it while I was there. (Let's hope it works.)
In the meanwhile... Lesson learned: I'll get myself one of those hyper-cheap blue ballpoints for signing documents in the future. The uglier the better!
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