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The Old Geezer
Please Excuse My Absence

I have not blogged since July of 2015 due to the fact that my Lovely Wife was diagnosed with 2 types of cancer. A new case of breast cancer which has metastasized and gone to her bones, mainly her back. She had a mastectomy of her left breast which showed the type of cancer that was in her bones. She has been taking an oral med. every day and she has a port under her skin to receive a liquid med. She has gone through one round of radiation treatments to stop some pain in her back. That gave her GERD and the med for that was nasty tasting. The bone cancer has caused the vertebra in her lower back to pinch her left sciatic nerve causing her pain, numbness and foot drag. She also has skin cancer that has only been partly addressed.

I have been busy taking care of her as the treatments have left her weak and sickly. She can not drive so I have to drive her to her appointments and treatments. I also have to do all the cooking and most of what cleaning we do. So I do not have a lot of time for blogging. However the installment of the review of the Schaeffer Ultrafine 0.3mm pencil marks what I hope will be a new review every month. However some of my future reviews may seem familiar as they may be a review of a pencil or pen that I have reviewed before just in another size due to my limited collection of writing instruments and the economic state of our nation.

I am grateful to George Fox for wanting me to do a review of another one of his pencils. I think that as a reader of my humble blog, may fine of interest as the Schaeffer Ultra Fine is a very unusual pencil.

So please excuse my absence and as a reader of my humble blog I hope that you enjoy the review of this unique pencil.

Coming Soon...

Thank you,

The Old Geezer.




Wednesday, March 18, 2009

uni-ball Signo 207, Don't Leave Home Without It

If you've read my review of the uni-ball Vision Elite Bold 0.8 mm then you... What's that? You haven't read my review of the uni-ball Vision Elite Bold 0.8 mm rollerball? Well, shame on you! It's right below this post, so go ahead and read it, we'll wait... There, wasn't that a delightful and informative review? As I was saying, if you have read my review of the uni-ball Vision Elite Bold 0.8 mm Rollerball pen then you know that uni-ball is formulating some of their ink so that is is resistant to "check washing". The Vision Elite has it and so does the Signo 207 retractable gel pen. The same rep from Weber Shandwick that sent me the uni-ball Vision Elites also sent along 2 pair of 0.7 mm uni-ball Signo 207's. My lovely wife snagged one leaving me with only one to test and review. So I decided to toss a 207 Micro into the mix just to spice things up.


The 207 now comes in 8 colors, Light Blue, Orange, Green, Pink, Purple, Red, Blue and of course, Black, and 2 point sizes, 0.7 mm and 0.5 mm. All colors and point sizes help prevent check washing, the ink is fade resistant, water-resistant and acid free making it archival safe. That's a pretty good line up of features. I was so impressed with the first Signo 207 Micro that I bought that I went on-line and bought a dozen refills, just in case I could never find any again! Silly me! The 207 is so popular that I have no problem finding refills. That's a good thing because I have put uni-ball 207 Micro refills into other uni-ball and non uni-ball pens! That's how much that I like the Signo 207 Micro.

The ink is dark, not washed out or weak. The 0.5 mm ball of the Micro puts down a 0.38 mm line and is smooth for such a 0.5 mm pen, especially one that makes a sub 0.5 mm line! And the 207 is an attractive looking pen as well. It has a sleek modern design incorporating a smokey blue-gray transparent barrel, black rubber grip and chrome and black accents. The Micro has a touch of gold coloring in the digits on the pen, while the 207 sports silver colored digits. Both are equally attractive. The pens are 144 mm long and 11.5 mm in diameter at their widest. The balance point is just about at the midpoint of the pen so they are well balanced. The rubber grip makes them easy to hold and their light weight make them almost effortless to write with.


Now up until I received the 207 for review I had never used a 0.7 mm 207. I had only used the 207 Micro, which as I mentioned earlier, impressed me very much. The 207 Micro felt smooth to me, and still does, all things considered, but the 207 0.7 mm pen is very smooth indeed. It is at the very least as smooth, or smoother than the Vision Elite Bold with it's 0.8 mm tip. So once again I find that I'm impressed with the uni-ball 207, the 0.7 mm version this time. The ink appears even darker to me than the ink in the 207 Micro, but that's only due to the thinner line width!

Regular readers of Pens And Pencils know what my standard pen test entails. It entails me writing a short line with each pen on a 5 x 7 Ampad efficiency note pad, followed by a line used in the water test. I then hold the tip of the pen to the paper for 10 seconds using normal writing pressure for the bleed test. The results were of no surprise to me. Both pens wrote with smooth, almost effortless strokes and laid down nice dark black lines without feathering. The water test consists of me putting a single drop of water on each line using a cotton swap, the allow the water to air dry. Neither line feathered or lightened in any way, shape or form. Again, not a surprise.
Finally the bleed test showed that neither pen bleed through to the next page. Yawn, still no surprises. What was a surprise was that neither pen bleed through to the back side of the single sheet! I guess all pigmented ink is not the same!

I'm sold on the uni-ball Signo 207 gel ink pen. I favor the 207 Micro, but the 207 is smoother by a skosh. Both pens utilize the same parts, only the refill, wording and wording color are different. But if you want a slightly more elegant option then there is the Signo 207 Premier!

The Premier features a metal upper barrel in either Blue, Gold or Silver with a translucent gel grip. The Premier comes in either point size and is sold in the 0.5 mm size by JetPens.com. Two other metallic options are the 207 LTD and the 207 Pink Ribbon, both having upper bodies made of metallic plastic and feature a semi transparent rubber grip.

No matter which uni-ball Signo 207 Gel Pen you choose you'll be choosing one of the best gel pens available.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was journaling with a .5 for a while then swiched to the .38 and later switched to the Pentel Hybrid Technica. I like the Signo line quite a bit still and even found the Signo RT .38s in an Office Max this week, so I am thrilled we are able to get quality fine points in America without having to order online.

I will -still- be using JetPens though. I just love them!

The Old Geezer said...

I've been able to find uni-ball Signo 207's, 207 Micros, Pilot G-2's, G-2 0.5mm and 0.38mms all locally. But finding refills for the finer pens is almost impossible locally! I've had to go on-line for most of them.

Unknown said...

Love this pen! Best for my engineering notebooks and Moleskins as well. Archival quality is a must. I prefer to write using a fine Staedtler mechanical pencil (cheap 9705), but am more often required to use ink. The 207 Micro is my pen of choice. Only I dislike the "chrome plated" tip, so I swap it out for one of the translucent tips from the standard 207.

Unknown said...

I decided to try the 0.7mm 207 after all the great reviews I have read on it recently. It's a very nice pen, with a wonderful rich black ink and very smooth! I might pick up the micro soon, to see how it compares. Great review as always! :)

Deb said...

I would like to find refills for my uniball purple ink and can't seem to find refills. I love the purple ink...anybody know where to find these? I'm internet searching right now, no luck.
Thank you!

The Old Geezer said...

Deb,

To the best of my knowledge uni-ball does not sell refills for the colored 207's other than red and blue. Why I don't know. You may want to go to the Sanford website and send them an email asking them why they don't sell refills for the other colors. They may offer an explanation or tell you where you can get them.

COLEEN said...

thanks for the great review! I was convince. Going to the bookstore!.I will pick the 207 next time!;-)

Michelle Roebuck said...

I'm tickled to find someone even more obsessed with pens than I am - Thank you for the great information!

Now, I'm having trouble finding ANY place to purchase colors other than black, blue or red in the Micro size - Suggestions?

Unknown said...

I've loved the 207 micro for some time now. I used to be fine with the 3 color options but now I am needing more colors. I haven't been able to fine the nice purples and oranges and light blue and green in the 0.5 tip. Do they exist in that point size?

Unknown said...

the uni ball signo premier 207 has THE BEST grip that i have ever felt also it writes smooth

Anonymous said...

I love my 207, but I can't find refills anywhere local, and paying $10 shipping for a $2 refill makes me a bit unhappy.

However, if I could find some of the purple variety (my mother loves purple), I may have to just get her a case!

Mikey B said...

I'm a Chemical Engineering student and need a smooth, fine point pen to take notes and draw intricate diagrams and such. I started using the 207 0.5mm about a year ago and won't use any other pen! I wish they sold an industrial sized pack of refills in various colors. If they did I don't think it could get any better!

Unknown said...

I have received numerous comments/compliments on my pen and am obsessed with them to the point that i "frankenstiened" a pen together. I took the Pentel energel .7 ink barrel and placed it in a premier 207 body.

It is hands down my favorite pen combo and they last FOREVER!

ML said...

We have the Uni-ball Signo gel ink pen in white which is opaque. We were wondering if any of the other colors are opaque?

melissa said...

Love the style and quality of this pen, but just wondering, is this 'experiment' peer-reviewed? I need a peer-reviewed source for my science project on the best type of pen, if any of you guys need to know. Thanx! (pls answer as soon as possible)

melissa said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
The Old Geezer said...

Melissa,

I am not sure what you are after or mean by Peer Reviewed but if you go here
http://onelonemanspensandpencils.blogspot.com/2009/03/uni-balls-fight-against-identity-theft.html you can read what Uniball ask me to post about identity theft.

If you want to know how ID theft is done dropt me an email and I'll tell you about a neat experiment you can try.