"There's a common misconception that blue-ink signatures can't be faked. I've had at least one judge tell me that she knew the note in the court file was the original because it was signed in blue ink. This isn't true, of course--blue ink signatures can be faked, too--but this common misconception among judges and defense lawyers alike makes the blue ink signature the holy grail of frauds. Those forgers who know how to fake blue-ink notes know that they will withstand all but the most clever of challengers. In this case, however, they got busted.
"My client, a former paralegal, happened to be a fountain pen collector. For signing legal documents, she had a particular pen that she always used: an Oriental Red, Expert II Waterman pen, which she always kept loaded with blue Waterman ink. But when she got to the closing, the notary refused to let her use that blue-ink pen to sign the documents. Black ink only, he told her, it photocopies better. She was, to put it mildly, pretty upset. That’s exactly why she wanted to use blue ink, so she could tell the photocopies from the originals. But the notary refused to notarize anything but a black-ink signature and she relented.
"So imagine her surprise when she saw the bank’s "original note" was in blue ink. Imagine the bank's surprise when they learned the notary had insisted on black ink--after they went to the trouble of creating a so-called original with a blue-ink signature they must have duplicated from a high-quality scan. Faced with the prospect of proof, at trial, that their "original" was a fake, they opted instead to drop the case. Victory!"
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