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Originally Posted by David Merrill
Yet no checks ever say Pay to:
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I do not know that for a fact. I recall seeing some "Pay to" checks fairly early on, from the 1950s, before the UCC and its usages were adopted.
Here is a website that includes some 19th century checks, some of which are simply "Pay to" and some (closer to the 20th century) say "Pay to the order of".
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...26as_qdr%3Dall
What is the legal difference? Nothing really, but I think the longer phrase was adopted to avoid the (almost imaginery) construction that one person gets the money but possibly not when he wants but when someone else might want. The longer phrase makes it clear that the named payee gets the money when
he wants. In any case, the changeover of usages had nothing to do with the Gold Clause Resolution of 1933.