Cheque (or Check)

Cheques (or checks in American English) were first used in the English Civil War when the wealthy stored cash in goldsmiths' safes.

The first known cheque was written (for £400) on February 16, 1659. It was merely a slip of paper with a payment instruction from merchant Nicholas Vanacker to his scrivener (17th century forerunners of bankers).

On January 1, 1772, The London Credit Exchange Company issued the first documents referred to as "circular credit letters" or "circular notes" which functioned similarly to modern travelers' cheques. These documents were valid in 90 European cities and could be exchanged for local currency. However, unlike later travelers' cheques, they weren't pre-denominated and required endorsement from the company on each transaction.

Cheques became common among the upper classes from the 1820s. The first literary use of the word cheque book was in the 1848 novel Vanity Fair.

Finnish banks stopped issuing checks  back in 1993, The Netherlands abolished the check in 2002, Denmark officially killed it in 2017,

In the US a check does not need to be written on a bank check. It can be written on anything (including clothing) and legally be cashed as long as the required information is included in it.

A rancher in Oregon named Bill Brown would often write checks on any paper available. This often included soup can labels and newspaper margins. As he was rich and known for this, the banks would cash the checks without question.