From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!ihnp4!ihuxm!prgclb Newsgroups: net.misc Title: Re: Do we need to buy checks? Article-I.D.: ihuxm.147 Posted: Thu Jan 6 14:33:32 1983 Received: Fri Jan 7 03:43:41 1983 References: rocheste.369 It used to be true that any medium (e.g. napkins) would serve as a check, until the Federal Reserve (sometime in the 1960s) required that any checks it handled needed to be magnetically encoded. Try printing magnetic numbers on your napkin! Seriously, I remember as a kid when my parents went to a store without their checkbook and bought more than they had cash for, they'd ask the cashier for a blank check. It was simply a piece of paper that asked you to fill in the name and address of your bank, plus all the other typical stuff (pay to the order of, amount, signature). In this day and age, where you have to get fingerprinted, photographed, blood-typed, etc to use checks that already have your phone number, social security number, address, etc, it's hard to believe the trusting practices of an earlier era! Carl Blesch Bell Labs - Indian Hill Naperville, Ill. ihuxm!prgclb