It seems I also spents some time at the Sahara poker room (one of dealers is an avid collector, and e-Bay seller). While pushing my checks ($1) to the center of the table (for others to drag, The Pigeon missed an opportunity), I noticed that many of them were in newer condition. They had sharper edges than the others, so I figured that there had been a re-order put into play. The newer checks were out numbered by about 3 to 1 by the older checks, and only when they were stacked did I notice that the inserts were two different colors. At first blush the older checks appear to have black inserts and the newer ones have Royal Blue inserts. On the scanner they are two different shades of blue, and the re-order has a wider insert. But this just points out a variety.

What I want to point out is the lone check at the bottom of the scan. The red ink for the denomination is out of alignment and produces a white line along the right edge of the number and the dollar sign.

Is this a quality control issue, or is it an error? The frequency of this mis-alignment is unknown, however I do have some traders. Additionally, it was only present for the Royal Blue (re-order) insert checks. I could not find one initial order check (dark, dark blue insert) with this same mis-alignment.

I believe that modern day printing can consistently avoid this problem, and Q and A (quality control) can screen these defects out. But these checks were and are available.

Errors, another variety, or ...? What do you think?

BTW - Click the link to see this rather large scan (too big to up-load to Greg's site). Please be patient and take a look.

Regards,

Jim Follis