Check Collecting

We live in an age when checks are being phased out. It wasn't that long ago when most people did not have checking accounts. If one needed to mail a payment the local bank would write a check for the customer. Many of these bank checks had some very collectible vignettes. This was also the era of Federally required Tax Stamps on documents including checks. Here we have three different checks combining both vignettes and tax stamps. First is the German American Bank check of 1874 with a great vignette and a tax stamp as the under print on the check. Next is a German Insurance Company check of 1866 with another nice vignette on the left and a tax stamp on the right in a framed area reserved for the tax stamp. The last and worst of all from the collectors point of view is the German National Bank check of 1881 which has a great vignette on the left but no place in the design for the tax stamp so they stuck the stamp over the vignette. Apparently their only concern was to not pay the tax one minute sooner than they had to.