I was sad to discover that the “negotiable cow” story is fictional: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Inland_Revenue_v_Haddock https://en.wikipedia.org/wik

I was sad to discover that the “negotiable cow” story is fictional: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Inland_Revenue_v_Haddock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Inland_Revenue_v_Hadd... The principle is true enough though: a check is just an order to pay a certain amount of money from a certain account to a certain person: https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/3/3-104 https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/3/3-104 It doesn’t need to be in the standardized form found in a checkbook.