Cream 80-column punch card printed for John Deere East Moline Works , with rounded corners and a card cut on the top right-hand corner. The card is formatted as a payroll cheque intended for banking use while also serving as a punched data record.
Unlike a normal punch card the punch area of this card carries a number of printed fields including “WEEK ENDING”, “DEPT.”, and “CLOCK NUMBER” at upper left, followed by “PAY TO THE ORDER OF” with the payee name typed. Below are the fields “DATE”, “PAY EXACTLY” and “AMOUNT” with the corresponding values printed beneath/beside each field. At the top of the cheque “VOID AFTER 15 DAYS” and the serial number are printed with a smaller text showing “70 - 547” over “711” in the top right corner.
A large central legend reads “JOHN DEERE EAST MOLINE WORKS OF DEERE & COMPANY” and “EAST MOLINE - ILLINOIS.” A green John Deere deer logo appears at the left. The banking legend “STATE BANK OF EAST MOLINE · EAST MOLINE · ILLINOIS” is printed in the bottom left with magnetic ink character recognition characters for use in banking systems printed along the bottom of the cheque.
The archive’s lone specimen of this card is punched and printed. Dated for the 16th of March 1972, paying the amount of 65 cents to a “D. J. Kelley”. The check is stamped with a red facsimile signature block. Punched data are present in several columns across the punch area. No column or row numbering is printed. The reverse side is unprinted and shows areas of surface loss and adhesive residue from prior mounting.