Yes, postal money orders do require bank endorsements!

[Guest]

more than enough prestidigitators and fabricators on the lone nut side of the equation not to mention WC members to keep one busy policing for the next 50 years. Why do you insist on making a fool out of yourself? "...did the money order pass through the system?"

The number of money orders has been declining, but the volume processed through the Federal Reserve in 1963 was gigantic. A commercial customer like Klein's typically would have been making a bulk deposit of items to its account (cash, checks, money orders), each item requiring an endorsement stamped with the language found on the money order. After that, the bank's transmittal to the Federal Reserve bank would have been a bulk transmittal. The Federal Reserve bank's transmittal to the Post Office would likewise have been a bulk transmittal. Are there piles of 1963 (or 1964 or 1965) money orders bearing some evidence of processing different from the Klein's M.O. (perhaps there are - I'm sincerely asking)? If there are not, I'm not seeing anything inherently suspicious about the fact that the Klein's money order bears no stamp (apart from Klein's deposit stamp) indicating processing by the depository bank or the Federal Reserve. Surely the definitive question has to be, "Is there something different about this money order versus the tens of millions of other ones deposited in local banks and processed through the Federal Reserve in 1963 or thereabouts?" If the answer is yes - OK, that's extremely noteworthy.

Edit: I just read through a very extensive paper on this at CTKA. Although the author insists the individual money order "should" bear evidence of processing by the First National Bank of Chicago and the Federal Reserve Bank, he really provides nothing indicating why it "should." Although he says the Klein's money order is very different from others he examined, he provides no examples of the others. I would love to see at least one example of a 1963-era money order bearing evidence of depository bank or Federal Reserve processing. It may be noteworthy that money orders really aren't considered "negotiable instruments" in the same way as checks and that the depository banks and Federal Reserve really perform more of a "collection agent" function - which could (but may not) be important to why there is none of the usual evidence of processing.

Further edit: I have tremendous respect for the work John Armstrong has done. However, he states flatly (on the H&L site):

US Postal money orders are normally deposited or cashed at a bank or financial institution. They are date stamped, endorsed by the bank, routed thru a Federal Reserve bank where they are endorsed and date stamped a second time, and then sent to the postal money order center in either Kansas City or Arlington, VA. where they are endorsed and date stamped for a third time and placed in storage. But the $21.45 money order that was allegedly used to pay for "C2766" did not have a single bank endorsement or date stamp by any bank or by a postal money order center--this $21.45 money order was most certainly never deposited to a bank or any financial institution.

I did some viewing of the relevant portions of his collection at Baylor University and didn't find anything to substantiate the above (I certainly could have missed it). Subject to being corrected, my belief is that the stamp we do see on the back of the Klein's money order would be all we would expect to see if the m.o. had in fact been processed through the system.

Edited November 16, 2015 by Guest

[David Von Pein]

Lance,

Thank you for your recent posts concerning this "money order" topic.

I'm just pleased to see that there is at least ONE other person on the planet (besides myself) who thinks that the only real "payee" involved in the CE788 Hidell money order is Klein's Sporting Goods.

Repeating what I said four days ago....

"All of that legalistic language can be quite confusing as to exact meaning. But I'm not sure that the information in "Paragraph C" of those money order regulations really means what you [sandy Larsen] think it means.

The word "drawn" has me confused. The Hidell money order was "drawn" in favor of Klein's Sporting Goods, was it not? It wasn't "drawn" "in favor of [a] financial organization".

And Paragraph C says that, in effect, the financial organization is the "payee". Wouldn't that mean the name of the financial institution would also be on the "PAY TO" line on the front of the money order too?

The language has me scratching my head as to WHO IS WHO there.

~shrug~

[...]

And I also just now noticed that the heading for everything that follows in Section 762.29 of those postal regulations cited by Sandy Larsen is this heading:

"Endorsement of disbursement postal money orders by payees."

The key words there are "BY PAYEES".

Well, in the case of the subject Hidell postal money order, the BANKS certainly aren't the PAYEES. The "payee" is Klein's Sporting Goods of Chicago, Illinois. It was Klein's getting PAID the $21.45, not First National Bank or the Federal Reserve Bank.

So I think that heading of that regulation--alone--makes Sandy's assumption that the BANKS were required to endorse U.S. Postal Money Orders to be an unproven assumption based on Postal Regulation 762.29." -- DVP; Nov. 12, 2015

[End Quote.]

----------------

The literal definition of the word "payee" is....

PAYEE (noun) ---

1. (Banking & Finance): The person to whom a cheque, money order, etc, is made out.

2. (Banking & Finance): A person to whom money is paid or due.

Also....

PAYEE (noun) ---

A person to whom a check, money, etc., is payable.

-- TheFreeDictionary.com

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/payee

----------------

It seems to me that the BANK doesn't qualify under any of those above-referenced definitions. The Hidell money order wasn't made payable to "First National Bank". And the bank can't spend the money that has just been deposited into a customer's account. Only the "payee" (Klein's) has that right. The bank is just storing and holding the money for Klein's. They really aren't being "paid" (in the literal sense of the word, because it's not First National's money). From my (admittedly) "layman" point-of-view on this, all of what I just said above makes sense to me.

But on the other hand, I will readily admit I could be wrong when it comes to any LEGAL or TECHNICAL meaning of the term "payee" in conjunction with official postal regulations and the language utilized therein.

Some other people in this discussion have said that once Klein's stamped the Hidell money order with its "Pay To The Order Of First National Bank" stamp, that automatically makes First National Bank the second "payee" of the money order....

"Klein's was the original payee. Its endorsement stamp made the Chicago bank the second payee. The basic rule here is that any time a check is transferred (negotiated) by a "pay to" type of endorsement, the transferee is a payee." -- Jon Tidd; Nov. 12, 2015

But as I then said (when responding to Jon's post)....

"It still seems a bit strange to me to have the bank considered a "payee", since it's really KLEIN'S money, regardless of where it's being stored. But, oh well. ~shrug~" -- DVP; Nov. 12, 2015

Anyway, thank you, Lance, for your contributions to this discussion regarding this rather confusing subject.

Edited November 16, 2015 by David Von Pein

[Guest]

I've been a lawyer for 35 years, and there is just no way the bank is the payee - unless you get a money order to pay your mortgage or car loan from the bank, and it actually is the payee. The payee is simply the person to whom the instrument is payable. In an instrument is strictly payable "to Klein's," Klein's is the only payee. If an instrument is payable "to the order of Klein's" or "to Klein's or bearer," it is transferable by Klein's - Klein's would endorse it over, and the new holder would also endorse it when it was deposited or cashed. But the payor/depository bank is never the "payee" of an instrument. This is such standard stuff that the Uniform Commercial Code article (statutes) on Negotiable Instruments does not even have a definition for "payee."

This is not to say that the local bank or the Federal Reserve Bank might not put some indication of processing on a money order. This I don't know - but I'm not seeing anything in the regulations to suggest this is required or any examples being provided by those who say there "should" be such indications on the Klein's m.o.

Edited November 17, 2015 by Guest

[David Von Pein]

I've been a lawyer for 35 years, and there is just no way the bank is the payee - unless you get a money order to pay your mortgage or car loan from the bank, and it actually is the payee.

Thank you.

[James DiEugenio]

Brian S.:

The rifle that Oswald owned. The one that Marina repeatedly refers to in her testimony.

Excuse me, but this is simply not the case. And when we had people like Farley, Josephs, Hogan etc on this forum, it would have been called out immediately.

On multiple counts. And any lawyer would have ripped it to smithereens.

​In her first Secret Service interview, she said she was shocked when she first saw the alleged rifle in evidence.

Why? Because the rifle she said she saw Oswald with did not have a scope. (Reclaiming Parkland, by James DiEugenio, p. 62)

​Now, if we watch how Marina's story changed in this regard, things get very interesting. Because her story changes just as her story did about the Imperial Reflex Camera. Because by the time she was dressed up and ready to go for the WC, that rifle that shocked her at first now became "the fateful rifle of Lee Harvey Oswald."

Geez, you think that deal she signed with that phony film company for 135,000 bucks (about 900 K today) had anything to do with that switcheroo?

Need I add, the rifle that the FBI says Oswald ordered is not the rifle in evidence.

Let us never lose sight of that fact. Because it is a fact.

Edited November 17, 2015 by James DiEugenio

[Thomas Graves]

Brian S.:

The rifle that Oswald owned. The one that Marina repeatedly refers to in her testimony.

Excuse me, but this is simply not the case. And when we had people like Farley, Josephs, Hogan etc on this forum, it would have been called out immediately.

On multiple counts. And any lawyer would have ripped it to smithereens.

​In her first Secret Service interview, she said she was shocked when she first saw the alleged rifle in evidence.

Why? Because the rifle she said she saw Oswald with did not have a scope. (Reclaiming Parkland, by James DiEugenio, p. 62)

​Now, if we watch how Marina's story changed in this regard, things get very interesting. Because her story changes just as her story did about the Imperial Reflex Camera. Because by the time she was dressed up and ready to go for the WC, that rifle that shocked her at first now became "the fateful rifle of Lee Harvey Oswald."

Geez, you think that deal she signed with that phony film company for 135,000 bucks (about 900 K today) had anything to do with that switcheroo?

Need I add, the rifle that the FBI says Oswald ordered is not the rifle in evidence.

Let us never lose sight of that fact. Because it is a fact.

What phony film company was that, Jimbo?

--Tommy

[James DiEugenio]

Further on this issue, just to show how bad the WC was and how malleable Marina was and how clumsy the cover up was.

George DeMohrenschildt's wife said she also saw a rifle at Oswald's apartment.

The WC pegged this on April 13th. The problem was that, according to Marina Oswald's testimony, the rifle was still buried at that time. (Reclaiming Parkland, p. 81)

To show how this story about the so called rifle gets further entangled with the Paines and DeMohrenschildts: in 1993, MIke Paine told Dan Rather that when he went to pick up Oswald for a dinner engagement in April of 1963, Oswald showed him a photo of him with a rifle and newspaper. Yet, if this was so then why did Mike not say this to the WC or FBI, since he had several opportunities to do so in 1963 or 1964?

All of this less than credible testimony about Oswald and the provably wrong rifle smells to high heaven of the FBI pasting together a cover story willy nilly to frame a patsy.

They had no fear of how bad they did it since the WC was, in many ways, worse than they were.

Edited November 17, 2015 by James DiEugenio

[Thomas Graves]

Brian S.:

The rifle that Oswald owned. The one that Marina repeatedly refers to in her testimony.

Excuse me, but this is simply not the case. And when we had people like Farley, Josephs, Hogan etc on this forum, it would have been called out immediately.

On multiple counts. And any lawyer would have ripped it to smithereens.

​In her first Secret Service interview, she said she was shocked when she first saw the alleged rifle in evidence.

Why? Because the rifle she said she saw Oswald with did not have a scope. (Reclaiming Parkland, by James DiEugenio, p. 62)

​Now, if we watch how Marina's story changed in this regard, things get very interesting. Because her story changes just as her story did about the Imperial Reflex Camera. Because by the time she was dressed up and ready to go for the WC, that rifle that shocked her at first now became "the fateful rifle of Lee Harvey Oswald."

Geez, you think that deal she signed with that phony film company for 135,000 bucks (about 900 K today) had anything to do with that switcheroo?

Need I add, the rifle that the FBI says Oswald ordered is not the rifle in evidence.

Let us never lose sight of that fact. Because it is a fact.

What phony film company was that, Jimbo?

--Tommy

bumped

[James DiEugenio]

Tommy:

It was called Tex Italia Films.

​Shortly after the signed contract, the company left Samuel Goldwyn Studios for failure to pay rent on their office. The FBI could find no pertinent info on the principals involved with the company. (FBI memo of 4/24/64)

​Hoover then wrote Rankin, "For your information, this Bureau is conducting no investigation regarding the commercial ventures or contract negotiations of Marina Oswald in connection with our investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald." (Letter by Hoover to Rankin of 6/5/64)

​That was some investigation by the FBI and WC was it not?

(Sorry I cannot answer all questions all the time. I do have to open books and eat dinner.)

Edited November 17, 2015 by James DiEugenio

[Sandy Larsen]

Are there piles of 1963 (or 1964 or 1965) money orders bearing some evidence of processing different from the Klein's M.O. (perhaps there are - I'm sincerely asking)?

Of course there aren't any cleared money orders to be found... they were never in the public domain and were destroyed two years after being processed. Any evidence there is long gone.

If there are not, I'm not seeing anything inherently suspicious about the fact that the Klein's money order bears no stamp (apart from Klein's deposit stamp) indicating processing by the depository bank or the Federal Reserve. Surely the definitive question has to be, "Is there something different about this money order versus the tens of millions of other ones deposited in local banks and processed through the Federal Reserve in 1963 or thereabouts?" If the answer is yes - OK, that's extremely noteworthy.

Subject to being corrected, my belief is that the stamp we do see on the back of the Klein's money order would be all we would expect to see if the m.o. had in fact been processed through the system.

You make that conclusion based on seeing just one money order? The one that is suspect? Doesn't make sense to me.

[David G. Healy]

...

The rifle that Oswald owned. The one that Marina repeatedly refers to in her testimony.

Excuse me, but this is simply not the case. And when we had people like Farley, Josephs, Hogan etc on this forum, it would have been called out immediately.

...

speaking of who, whatever happened to Mike Hogan? Anyone?

[David G. Healy]

and....after all this, just how do you prove this money order was CASHED?

[Sandy Larsen]

I admittedly skipped the Postal Money Order class in law school, but there is only one "payee" - here, Klein's. The money order was "drawn in favor of" Klein's. Klein's, as the payee, then "endorses" the money order. Klein's deposits the money order in its bank, which is a member of the Federal Reserve system; it is the "depository bank" but neither a payee nor an endorser.

Klein's didn't just endorse the money order.... Klein's used a "special endorsement," thus making its bank the payee of the money order. The Klein's stamp actually reads "Pay to the order of First National Bank." Which makes Klein's a drawer and First National Bank the payee.

(If Klein's had endorsed the money over to some third party, that party would have become an "additional endorser" and could have deposited the money in its bank.) Klein's bank as the depository bank credits the money order to Klein's account, as indicated by the stamp on the back. The stamp is the depository bank's guarantee to the Federal Reserve bank that Klein's endorsement is genuine and the money order has been paid. (If the money order had been endorsed by Klein's over to a third party which deposited it in its bank, that bank's stamp would have guaranteed the genuineness of all endorsements, including Klein's.) Klein's bank, as the "presenting bank," then forwards the money order to the Federal Reserve bank, which credits the presenting bank and sends the money order to the Postal Service. I will defer to anyone who is more knowledgeable, but this is how I read the current regulations and understand negotiable instruments to work.

[Thomas Graves]

and....after all this, just how do you prove this money order was CASHED?

Why would it have to be cashed instead of deposited into Klein's bank account?

--Tommy

[David G. Healy]

and....after all this, just how do you prove this money order was CASHED?

Why would it have to be cashed instead of deposited into Klein's bank account?

--Tommy

thank you, I'll correct that to WHO deposited the MO?

Edited November 17, 2015 by David G. Healy