Interesting Proof Set Cancelled Check

MICHAELDIXON

I bought a run of Proof sets (1956-1983) and the envelopes and boxes are in excellent shape. It appears the sellers were the relatives of the original owners. I have seen invoices where collector's have bought coins, but I had never seen the original cancelled check to the Bureau of the Mint. It is a 1976 6 piece set and the check was written in November 1975 to purchase it. I blacked out the last name and part of the checking account number.
The check is below.

JBK

You're making a lot of us feel old.

That's how you bought them back then. There were tens or hundreds of thousands of those checks written every year, but how many survive? 🤔

Kliao

Wow really interesting piece of history.

I actually never knew that they used to send checks back to you till I was helping my grandfather clean out some stuff one day and saw that they used to send the cashed checks back to you. I'm used to see them photocopied in bank statements now.

jmlanzaf

I've recycled a few of those checks. Collectors tend to save everything.

MasonG

@jmlanzaf said:
I've recycled a few of those checks.

I shredded more than a few when I moved twelve years ago. At the time, I regretted not accepting the bank's earlier offer to not return them to me.

jmlanzaf

@MasonG said:

@jmlanzaf said:
I've recycled a few of those checks.

I shredded more than a few when I moved twelve years ago. At the time, I regretted not accepting the bank's earlier offer to not return them to me.

Stamp guys do it even more frequently. Keep the checks with the items purchased. I bet they don't complain about 1099s. They probably demand one.

JBK

I miss getting my original checks back.

Years ago when I actively collected baseballs signed by Hall of Famers through the mail, I'd pay the requisite fee with a personal check and get an added bonus of the endorsed checks returned with my monthly bank statements.

I also have my personal checks endorsed by Jimmy Carter and (now Saint) Mother Teresa.

Modernization of the check processing system has meant that the paper checks usually get destroyed during processing after either being imaged or transformed into an electronic debit. Cancelled checks are now historic relics of our monetary system.

Dave99B

That’s really cool. Love old original documents like that.

Dave

BryceM

Can you imagine how....., well, slow the world used to be?

I can remember driving to the library to borrow the little blue book to look up the price of a used car I was considering buying.

Need a new battery for your fancy watch? I remember hunting around for a catalog, making a long distance call across the country, mailing a check, and waiting for a package..... all to get a new battery for my watch. Took more than a month.

Want to fly to Hawaii? Drive down to the local travel agent, pay them, get the printed tickets a day or two later, and hide them away, but hopefully not somewhere you'd forget them on the way to the airport.

Have your pager go off? Pull over, find a pay phone, dig around for some change, and call them back.

Can you imagine the poor shmoes at Amazon's bank sorting and routing all the checks they'd receive in a day if we were stuck with that old system?

Trying to get to Cleveland? Go buy some maps and start driving. Need a hotel along the way? Stop in and look for the neon "Vacancy" sign in the window.

I really only write checks now for coin purchases, expensive items like cars, and such.

I still likes me some cash for walkin' around money though.

2windy2fish

Kinda cool!!

daltex

@BryceM said:
Can you imagine how....., well, slow the world used to be?

Can you imagine the poor shmoes at Amazon's bank sorting and routing all the checks they'd receive in a day if we were stuck with that old system?

Trying to get to Cleveland? Go buy some maps and start driving. Need a hotel along the way? Stop in and look for the neon "Vacancy" sign in the window.

Well, it really wasn't quite like that. The banks sent all their checks to clearinghouses which eventually had dedicated flights to get them to the destination bank overnight. I have no idea how they managed this before pre-printed checks.

No, you write AAA and they send you a TripTyk, (sp?) which was a series of maps for your route with it highlighted. Many people choose hotels the same way today, but the prepared wrote (later called) for reservations.

I understand that around the middle of the century (maybe 1930 to 1960??) there was a publication which listed people in various towns and cities who would rent rooms to Black travelers.

And now I feel old.

BLUEJAYWAY

@daltex said:

@BryceM said:
Can you imagine how....., well, slow the world used to be?

Can you imagine the poor shmoes at Amazon's bank sorting and routing all the checks they'd receive in a day if we were stuck with that old system?

Trying to get to Cleveland? Go buy some maps and start driving. Need a hotel along the way? Stop in and look for the neon "Vacancy" sign in the window.

Well, it really wasn't quite like that. The banks sent all their checks to clearinghouses which eventually had dedicated flights to get them to the destination bank overnight. I have no idea how they managed this before pre-printed checks.

No, you write AAA and they send you a TripTyk, (sp?) which was a series of maps for your route with it highlighted. Many people choose hotels the same way today, but the prepared wrote (later called) for reservations.

I understand that around the middle of the century (maybe 1930 to 1960??) there was a publication which listed people in various towns and cities who would rent rooms to Black travelers.

And now I feel old.

The book you may be referencing to in your last paragraph may be "The Green Book". There was a movie about it within the last 2 years. I saw the movie.

Capgun

Oh, the days of wine and roses. And milk chutes and black and white tv's with knobs. Yes !

JBK

It wasn't all fun and games back then. We had to walk to school, and it was uphill, both ways to and from. And it was always in the snow, even in the summer.

But kids were tougher back then.

ricko

I do not feel old.... however, I am old. I remember most of those things noted in previous posts... Rabbit ear TV antennas - often with aluminum foil attached to the tips, telephones where you told the operator the number, and she connected you, penny candy at the store, five cent candy bars and ice cream cones. Oh yeah... Cheers, RickO

MICHAELDIXON

Your guys kill me!

BLUEJAYWAY

@JBK said:
It wasn't all fun and games back then. We had to walk to school, and it was uphill, both ways to and from. And it was always in the snow, even in the summer.

But kids were tougher back then.

You had it easy. We had to roller skate to school-uphill.

MICHAELDIXON

Revisiting this thread!

Glen2022

@JBK said:
It wasn't all fun and games back then. We had to walk to school, and it was uphill, both ways to and from. And it was always in the snow, even in the summer.

But kids were tougher back then.

My dad who grew up in the 1920's in rural Iowa often talked about walking 5 miles to the one room country school in snow up to his waist. One summer we visited the old farm and saw the school, across the road from the farm. Lesson: take some things with a grain of salt.

Extremeengineer

@BryceM said:
Trying to get to Cleveland? Go buy some maps and start driving. Need a hotel along the way? Stop in and look for the neon "Vacancy" sign in the window.

I do miss the AAA, spiral bound, Triptiks. As a kid I remember an entire trip from MI to GA my sister and I sat in the back of my dad's Avanti and did nothing but trace our route and read every single nearby attraction from the open up pages. Kids now can't go 2 minutes without having something to do on their ipads or phones.

World67

Neat item

ElKevvo

I do miss the AAA, spiral bound, Triptiks. As a kid I remember an entire trip from MI to GA my sister and I sat in the back of my dad's Avanti and did nothing but trace our route and read every single nearby attraction from the open up pages. Kids now can't go 2 minutes without having something to do on their ipads or phones.

I miss those things also...they had a lot of fun information and were easy to use. Personally I would rather use that then Waze for longer trips, sort of more relaxing and 'we will get there when we get there' vs. Waze which I am always checking to see how close I am to their estimated arrival time.

K

Floridafacelifter

And this was how you advertised your business and found everything you needed- let your fingers do the walking!