VintageGent’s Menswear Daily

A Tip and a Tip

You Ladies and Gents are such great readers, if you were in the service business, this would be the tip I would leave you.

Now here is a tip that will actually save you some dough, bread, loot, moolah, Georges, or G, whichever term you prefer based on the era whence you came.  Which word fits which era?  Read on to find out!

Some of my readers are in the business of buying and selling vintage clothing and antiques, chiefly online.   When you transact online so much, you seldom require paper checks.  So many customers pay by autodraft, Paypal, Google payments, or just by trade these days that checks often collect dust.  However, when you open a business account, you kind of need to have some.   Having a dozen or so is a good idea, but the books you usually have to buy are expensive and often go unused before you have a change in heart as far as your retail location, or bank goes.

VistaPrint, whom I have sung the praises of before for labels and business cards, also offers checks. Surprisingly, they offer free checks, just like they do their business cards in small quantities. You can receive a quantity of 25 checks for just the cost of shipping. If you are not in a hurry and can go with standard shipping and processing, you can make out like a bandit for $3.99. Because you can create them online, you can proof your own name and address as it will appear on the check. The checks you can receive free come in a limited selection of six styles, but that is a fair trade off. If you like the quality and want to expand on the designs, they are available in a plethora of styles for a reasonable price.

Unlike other VistaPrint products, you cannot create checks with your own images form scratch. There is a good reason for this, as any check printer has to conform to guidelines to insure the check can be considered valid tender. A design that is too dark and obscures the routing numbers would be a no, as I imagine an obscene photo that would shock the socks off of your bank teller. If they did allow anything goes, there would have to be a very large staff making their judgement calls on your work, which would probably take forever.

If you are like me and only use a check once in a blue moon, this steal of a deal might be for you.

Money Slang Answers Key:
Dough is from the 1850s.
Loot was originally from the 1780s, but has resurfaced in the last 20 years.
Moolah originated in the 1940s.
G’s is modern, though in all fairness, it really indicates amounts counted in thousands.
I don’t know if “Georges” is in wide use, but since I don’t have many “Benjamins” lying around, I’ll go for it.

the business of vintage | Comments (2)