I don't normally get drawn into "gimmicky" type marketing ploys where companies try and take a normal product and make it the dark or extreme version. Slap matte black finish on anything, call it the "stealth" version and it is sure to sell though. I do like some matte black finish pens through like rOtring 600 pens, my recent LAMY Unic acquisition, the Vanishing Point, and the Sailor Imperial Black Pro Gear, but when companies try too hard it doesn't really appeal for some reason.

Anyway, that was a rant and not entirely related to this pen, but sort of... they did change a few of the pieces originally in a chrome finish to black.

A short while back, Uni-Ball released a series of many of their pens referred to as BLX. The packaging shifted slightly and the main difference is that the ink is a fusion of colors and black ink. They have a brown/black, red/black, purple/black, and a blue/black in pens like the Signo 207, Jetstream, and Vision Elite.

While visiting a local office supply store, I noticed they had an a-la-carte style mix and match pen station selling various colors of Sharpie Pens, PaperMate InkJoys and Flairs, as well as some of the BLX Uni-Ball Signo 207 pens in a 0.7mm. I decided to pick up a couple of the 207s in blue/black (as I like blue/black ink) to try out.

My thoughts were that if I like this color it may be a good refill to toss into my Ti2 Techliners as they were built for the Signo 207 specifically.

Thoughts so far? So far, so good. The Signo 207 is one of my favorite over the counter gel pens due to the wide range of sizes readily available almost anywhere and is a smooth writer. Uni is one of the few "office supply" companies that allow you to buy a 0.38mm in either blue or black off the shelf in most stores. Pilots and others are much harder to find.

The blue/black ink in the 207 BLX is nice and dark. Depending on your lighting, it could be mistaken for a black in, but has that nice subtle shade of blue that helps it stand out a bit. One of the big draws to the Uni-Ball pens like this are the security features of the super ink that is claimed to be both fade and water proof which helps with fighting check fraud. In an almost all electronic transaction world, check washing/fraud I'd imagine is on the decline, but is still a selling point.

If your local office supply doesn't carry these, JetPens has all of the BLX models in stock and would be a good item to toss in the cart to try.