# Cheques on cows revisited

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheques-on-cows-revisited/188621>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 15, 2003, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheques-on-cows-revisited/188621 "2003-07-15T12:16:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheques-on-cows-revisited/188621/1 "2003-07-15T12:16:10Z")

</div>

[Snopes](http://www.snopes.com/business/bank/cowcheck.asp) says it’s a myth, but was a cheque ever written on the side of a cow and cashed?

Barclays Bank is currently running adverts on the London Underground, and one of the posters says “The UK’s strangest cheque was written on the side of a cow in 1970 [it specifies the month, but I can’t remember it]. It was led into a branch of Barclays and cashed.”

So, did this ever happen? Googling turns up nothing. Surely that well-respected financial institution wouldn’t go propagating urban folklore, would it?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheques-on-cows-revisited/188621/2 "2003-07-15T12:25:08Z")

</div>

Have you tried asking Barclays? They should know.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheques-on-cows-revisited/188621/3 "2003-07-15T12:36:59Z")

</div>

Well, that was going to be my next line of enquiry. I suppose that in the spirit of stamping out ignorance I should ask them.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheques-on-cows-revisited/188621/4 "2003-07-15T14:17:53Z")

</div>

Cecil has [this](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_352b.html) to say:

> [@](#):
>
> Charlie Rice, a columnist for the old This Week Sunday newspaper supplement, once wrote about various goofy checks that he claimed had been successfully cashed over the years:…
> 
> - Albert Haddock of England paid his taxes by whitewashing a check for 26 pounds, 10 shillings on the side of a cow. The check was ruled legal.

But!

> [@](#):
>
> \*\*Dear Cecil:
> 
> This is 12 years too late, but better late than never.\_ In your column on checks you describe a non-standard check whitewashed on the side of a cow by one Albert Haddock.\_ I regret to inform you that someone has been funning you.\_ It is contained in a book of legal spoofs entitled _Uncommon Law_ by A.P. Herbert and is, of course, phony.\*\*
> 
> Cecil knows this–knows it now, anyway–but may as well give credit where it’s due. \_ A.P. Herbert’s spoofs, many of which originally appeared in the British humor magazine Punch, were written in such a dead-on parody of legal style that they were often taken as fact by unwary journalists.\_