Counter checks


Many retail stores had pads of "counter checks" available at the checkout counter.
After your purchase was rung up, you'd request a counter check for your local bank, on
which you'd fill in the store name and the amount. Then you'd sign it. In small towns,
no account number was even needed and in some cases you'd even fill in the bank name.

This practice died after 1967, when it became mandatory for checks to include the bank's routing
number and your account number in magnetic ink with a special font for easy reading by machines.