Little Details You Don't Notice At First Glance.

I had looked at these three revenue-imprinted (RN) checks before, but never side by side. The first two are both examples of RN-B5, the revenue imprint being printed in metallic bronze ink. The third is RN-B3 with the imprint in blue.

What I never noticed without comparing them side by side is that the signature of C. C. Parks was not done by hand. It's printed as part of each check! Very unusual IMO.

Interesting little tidbit about the company......
https://books.google.com/books?id=N...1866&f=false

Pleasing items. They're all signed by an agent ("per"). I think it would be more surprising if they were all countersigned.

How do used checks like these, and the many others that are shown in this forum, end up in public hands? I would have thought that the bank/finance institution would retain the checks once processed. I know a lot of these banks etc. no longer exist but I still don't understand the process that allows these documents to be made available to collectors.

Probably sold as waste paper to someone with a philatelic interest.

The cancelled checks would have been returned to the account holder (C.C. Parks) and would not have been retained by the Bank. Individual account holders would have retained the cancelled checks for a period of years and then could have sold them as waste paper, or stored them until a stamp collector came looking for them. Most were probably burned or thrown in the trash.