The Drum Goddess and I were watching CSI:NY the other night. In the story, a check-signing machine figured into the pot. This device actually held a pen and, through a complex bit of machinery, maneuvered the pen around to look like an actual signature. The machine belonged to a charity organization. The manager of the charity was to use the machine to endorse donations to the organization and deposit them in the bank. The machine signed the group’s founder’s name. Of course, this being CSI, this guy had neferious uses as well…
So, my question: Who needs such a machine? Is there a time when a rubber-stamp endorsement wouldn’t work? Wal-Mart uses the cash register to print an endorsement. No human ever signs the back of the check. Heck, these days, checks hardly are even used. Some stores hand them back to the customer after scanning them. So, does anyone actually use such a signing machine? Why?
I’m no expert, so I don’t have a definitive answer. But I’m with you.
We sell (and install and train users on) computer software for small and medium size businesses. In the course of doing that for 20 years, we’ve worked closely with the financial departments of hundreds of businesses, and I’ve never seen anybody use anything but a stamp to endorse checks on a regular basis.
But my business has been all in the western half of the country. A regional thing, maybe?
I worked in a stationery shop in high school. We had two of these plotter-bed machines, and used them to make custom invitations. The invitations were obviously written with fountain pens, rather than stamped or printed–though the handwriting was too beautiful and perfect to be real.
Back in high school AP Government, I learned that Congresspersons get these machines as part of their goodies package, along with the free postage and all. It’s so you can tell your letters are signed with a real pen instead of a stamp or printed by a computer. Not that I believe everything I read, but it was at least in the textbook.
Note that there is a difference between endorsing a check and signing a check. Given the description in the OP, it’s clear that the show involved endorsing and therefore all the prior posts are relevant. But, with signing checks for an organization, there are such check signing machines. There are also endorsers, but AFAICT the most common usage involves satisfying government red tape for the US govt and its contractors.
I worked in the Admissions Department of my alma matter, and the Admissions director had a machine that did this so he didn’t have to personally sign all the acceptance/rejection letters. It was a pretty cool contraption and the actual platter that held the (real) pen was cut out from a large circular piece. It was placed on a turntable and as the platter was spun around, the pen signed the name. It partially broke once, and everyone who received a rejection that year got one with a signature that looked like the admissions director had a very serious case of the shakes…
IIRC, the purpose of the machine was to sign thank you notes and letters, not checks.
Donors get pissed if they see you’ve signed things with a rubber stamp. And you don’t want to piss off donors. So if your signature is needed, it would make sense to run a letter through the machine if there was a reason you couldn’t sign it.
In the episode, the machine was also used to endorse checks. While a rubber stamp could have been used, since they had the machine for signing thank you notes, they decided to use that.
Thanks everyone for the ideas. I hadn’t thought about donors wanting to see an actual signature as thanks for their donations. That would make sense. Tofergregg, you’re absolutely right. The device they had on CSI had this large round piece that was the matrix for the signature. It really seemed to me to be a clever bit of machinery. I just didn’t see the point of needing such a contraption to endorse checks.