10 Most Bizarre Cheques Ever Written
Credit: Dave
Cheques are on the way out, with the Payments Council recommending that they no longer be accepted after 2018. While small business owners may be concerned, major supermarkets have already stopped accepting cheques, as debit cards and online shopping have become increasingly popular. The first cheque in the UK was written by Nicholas Vanacker over 350 years ago, instructing Messrs Morris and Clayton to pay £400 to Mr Delboe. Since then, bizarre cheques of every kind have been issued; a selection of the strangest of which are outlined below.
10. Cheque for the Greatest Amount of Currency
Credit: Zero One
The Zimbabwean bearer cheque shown above is for a paltry $250,000,000. However, what about a cheque for $1,072,418,003,000,000? That’s one quadrillion, seventy-two trillion, four hundred and eighteen billion and three million Zimbabwean dollars. It’s also worth about £2 in the UK (or $3 in the US). Zimbabwe’s staggering level of inflation has been known about for some time, but the cheque, sent to the Daily Mail newspaper in order to highlight the issue, really makes clear the extent of the problem and how it must be affecting people’s everyday lives. In terms of the pure numbers, this has to be the largest cheque ever written.
9. Earliest Known Cheque
Credit: Portable antiquities
Roman coins are commonly found in archaeological digs across Europe. It’s clear from the sophistication of these finds and from historical records that the Romans had an advanced banking system. In fact, while the first UK cheque was written hundreds of years ago, the Roman’s had it sorted out long before that. Archaeologists believe that they may have been using a form of cheque known as praescriptiones as early as 100 years BC.
8. Cheque for the Purchase of Alaska
Credit: US Federal Government
When the Russian government was having financial difficulties in 1867, they hit upon a clever solution: sell their North American territory to the United States. The US population and government were happy to oblige as they felt that there were great economic benefits in the ownership of Alaska. So, the US Government wrote the Russians a cheque for a cool US$7.2 million, or about 2 cents per acre.
7. Largest Value Cheque
Credit: Jim Yi
In 2008, Morgan Stanley received a US$9 billion investment from Mitsubishi UFJ. As Morgan Stanley was in severe financial difficulty they needed that money the day that the deal was done. Unfortunately, it was Columbus Day, a national holiday, so instead of wiring the money electronically Mitsubishi wrote out a US$9 billion cheque – possibly the largest value cheque ever written.
6. Smallest Value Cheque
Credit: Sujit Kumar
This next cheque is certainly a contender for the smallest value cheque ever. On the 24th of May 2010 Dinesh Shivnath Upadhyaya wrote and lodged a check for .01 Indian rupee to the account of his younger brother’s business. That has the value of approximately US$0.000212. Apparently he did so as a token of his love – which may reflect a less than cordial sibling relationship.
5. Frank Abagnale Jr’s Cheques
Credit: Marcus JB
Frank Abagnale Jr is perhaps the most famous cheque forger of all time. Immortalised by Leonardo DiCaprio in the blockbuster movie Catch Me If You Can, he passed over US$2.5 million of forged cheques over 5 years in 26 countries. He started this life of forgery when he was just 16 years old. After many daring escapes from police custody and law enforcement officers in pursuit, he was eventually caught and tried. After his capture, he became a consultant on cheque forgery for the FBI.
4. Biggest Novelty Cheque
Credit: US Air Force
Lottery winners and charity donors often use large card novelty cheques for media and photo opportunities. People also use them as a form of protest, with one tale telling of disgruntled taxpayers using large card cheques in an effort to annoy tax department employees. The largest novelty cheque ever is believed to measure a massive 12 metres by 25 metres and was withdrawn from the Kuwait Finance House; it was for for US$100,000.
3. Cheque from God
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In 2008 Kevin Russell went to Chase Bank in Hobart to cash a cheque for US$50,000. The only problem was that the cheque was signed by the “King Savior, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Servant.” Given the lack of any bank accounts in the name of God or any of his aliases, Russell was charged with attempted cheque fraud and subsequent intimidation and resistance of law enforcement. It puts a whole new meaning on the idea of pennies from heaven.
2. Italian Mini-Assegni
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In the 1970s Italy had a crisis. They had run out of small-denomination coins and didn’t have the metal to print more. What they ended up doing was allowing banks to produce cashier’s cheques (known as mini-assegni) for the small amounts of money that people needed for everyday living. Of course, each bank printed its own, unique mini-assegni, leading to widespread confusion over what the money was actually supposed to look like.
1. Cheque Written on a Cow
Credit: Dohduhdah
This is one urban legend that just won’t die. It is commonly believed that as long as all the necessary information is written down, anything can be used as a cheque and must be honoured by the bank. The common example used to illustrate this is of a man who wrote a cheque on the side of a cow and walked it to the bank to be cashed. The man in question – though his name may change in the re-telling – is Albert Haddock, the entirely fictional creation of A.P. Herbert, a writer who delighted in humorous tales based around legal loopholes. Nevertheless the fictional case has apparently been cited in various judicial decisions.
