Yet another money order problem.

[Ray Mitcham]

Harry Holmes to the Warren Omission

"I relayed this information to them and told them to start on the 13th because he could have bought it that morning and that he could have gotten it by airmail that afternoon, so they began to search and within 10 minutes they called back and said they had a money order in that amount issued on, I don't know that I show, but it was that money order in an amount issued at the main post office, which is the same place as this post office box was at that time, box 2915 and the money order had been issued early on the morning of March the 12th, 1963."

How did Holmes know that the money order was issued early on that morning?

[Sandy Larsen]

As I dive into this issue, I continue to be struck by the fact that the experts continue to assure us there "should be" evidence of processing but never seem to provide examples; they just assume there "should be."

The evidence suggesting there should be bank markings is as follows:

1. There is a section on the back side of the money order set aside for bank markings.

2. In the note printed above that area, it is stated that only one endorsement is allowed, and that bank stamps are not counted toward that maximum. Implying that bank stamps are expected.

3. In 1951 (if I remember correctly) it was decided that postal money orders should be processed the same way as checks were -- via Federal Reserve Banks (FRB). And so the Postal Service was issued a Federal Reserve Routing Number, which was printed on postal money orders, just as bank checks have their routing numbers printed on them. With money orders being processed the same way as checks, one would naturally expect to see bank markings on them just as one sees them on cleared checks.

4. FRBs require banks to endorse checks before handing them over to them. Since money orders were supposedly being handled the same way as checks, one would think they would require the same bank endorsement.

How is it possible that no one in the past decades has located someone who could definitively say, "This was the process in 1963, this is what should be on a processed money order, and this is what 138 4159796 means"?

Someone had to have taken the initiative. Nobody did. It's as simple as that. I wish someone would have. I'm sure there are still people living who know the answer to the question. The problem is finding them.

Edited November 17, 2015 by Sandy Larsen

[Doug Buitenbos]

Looking at the un-cut money orders, I think I see a feature on them which would allow them to be oriented correctly for machine processing. There is a red circle on the face of each where a square hole is punched out, along with another to the right, and third directly below. I would think that would suffice to determine the orientation of the cards.

I'm reasonably informed about the money order issue but am not following the significance of this thread. Here is a 1963 postal money order that does not have the corner cut. (Weirdly, the payee is the same as the 1961 example in the OP: Harry Smuckler.) The Wikipedia article on punched cards states, "Some cards have one upper corner cut so that cards not oriented correctly, or cards with different corner cuts, could be easily identified." So it doesn't appear that a corner cut is essential.

1_af1f64b76362ea939a7fa6537ea4b468.jpg

<snip>

It looks like I am wrong about the corner. But given the oddity of the two MOs, I'm not quite ready to concede yet.

Sandy, I know you directed that particluar post to Lance, but if you feel that the oddities you see in the two money orders are an issue, you may want to re-think your argument as presented in the OP, since one of them is the very same MO you use to support your argument.

Edited November 17, 2015 by Doug Buitenbos

[David G. Healy]

So why don't you just ignore him?

He can't. He's obsessed with me. Has been for years.

I wish he would start ignoring me, though, because the way he calls me "hon" and "toots" is creepy as all get out.

Can you imagine a 60+-year-old man talking like that over and over again on public forums? (Yikes.)

It's 70 son, .john lone nutters can't get things right. Especially when it comes to case evidence!

Ignore? How can you ignore a guy that has 25,000 recent forum/boards posting (probably 200,000+ over the past 20 years), 15 blogs (and counting), 8 YouTube channels (and counting) and 6 websites (and counting) all associated with the JFK assassination? Kinda like ignoring the plague... (oh, and promoted the worst book publishing disaster ever: Reclaiming History by Vinnie daBug)

I'd love to see him back on AMAZON, one can rightfully assume DavidVP wishes he never started posting there...

Edited November 17, 2015 by David G. Healy

[Guest]

Alas, what began as a focused thread on a specific aspect of a specific item of evidence (the corner cut on the Klein's money order) has deteriorated into mud-slinging between True Believers and Infidels. This is the primary reason I have been reluctant to participate here, being neither a True Believer nor an Infidel.

AH-HA, I have discovered a highly significant item that cuts against my previous position! Being neither a True Believer nor an Infidel, I will share it. The following appears in the court's opinion in UNITED STATES v. CAMBRIDGE TRUST COMPANY, 300 F.2d 76 (First Circuit 1962):

From October 1956 to January 1958 one Ralph Porter purchased 699 postal money orders payable to himself. The orders were in the usual form and each bore on its face the legend "Void If Altered." Porter cleverly raised each order about ninety dollars and then transferred them to E. M. F. Electric Supply Company, Inc., by the endorsement: "Pay to E. M. F. Electric Co. Ralph Porter, Payee." E. M. F. delivered each order to the appellee bank, referred to hereinafter sometimes as the Bank, for deposit to the credit of its account with the endorsement: "For deposit only E. M. F. Electric Supply Co. and Camera Exchange" Printed on the deposit slip accompanying each order was the statement that in receiving items for deposit the Bank "acts only as depositor's collecting agent and assumes no responsibility beyond the exercise of due care" and that "all items are credited subject to final payment in cash or solvent credits." The Bank stamped each order with its usual clearing house stamp reading: "Pay to the Order of Any Bank, Banker or Trust Co. Prior Endorsements Guaranteed Cambridge Trust Company" and transmitted the orders to the First National Bank of Boston for collection. That bank in turn presented each order to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston for payment, and it paid the full face amount of each order as raised.

So this certainly suggests that the Klein's money order should have been stamped by First National Bank of Chicago. The question would be whether this was mandatory, standard practice, or what.

[David Von Pein]

Just in case anybody wants to see another yellow U.S. Postal Money Order to compare with the Hidell M.O. and the previously posted yellow M.O. dated 9/11/63, here's an uncashed money order issued in Deer Trail, Colorado, on May 17, 1966, which bears a serial number that is 5.2 billion numbers higher than the number on the Oswald/Hidell money order.

And, again, like the 9/11/63 M.O., this uncashed one from 1966 also shows no stamped number in the top left corner. An odd thing I noticed about this particular money order is the fact that the serial number stamped on the stub doesn't match the serial number on the M.O. itself. They're five numbers apart, which is quite strange.

Click to enlarge:

Edited November 18, 2015 by David Von Pein

[James DiEugenio]

Harry Holmes to the Warren Omission

"I relayed this information to them and told them to start on the 13th because he could have bought it that morning and that he could have gotten it by airmail that afternoon, so they began to search and within 10 minutes they called back and said they had a money order in that amount issued on, I don't know that I show, but it was that money order in an amount issued at the main post office, which is the same place as this post office box was at that time, box 2915 and the money order had been issued early on the morning of March the 12th, 1963."

How did Holmes know that the money order was issued early on that morning?

Ray, that is a very good question which was thunderously ignored. Because its ramifications go to the heart of the matter.

We shall soon see why.

Lance, thanks for that. Its also a point John Armstrong will address soon.

[Thomas Graves]

Harry Holmes to the Warren Omission

"I relayed this information to them and told them to start on the 13th because he could have bought it that morning and that he could have gotten it by airmail that afternoon, so they began to search and within 10 minutes they called back and said they had a money order in that amount issued on, I don't know that I show, but it was that money order in an amount issued at the main post office, which is the same place as this post office box was at that time, box 2915 and the money order had been issued early on the morning of March the 12th, 1963."

How did Holmes know that the money order was issued early on that morning?

Ray, that is a very good question which was thunderously ignored. Because its ramifications go to the heart of the matter.

We shall soon see why.

Lance, thanks for that. Its also a point John Armstrong will address soon.

Devils Advocate: If Klein's in Chicago had gotten the money order from Dallas by airmail on the 13th, then Holmes could logically rule out the possibility that the MO had been purchased on the afternoon of the 12th for the simple reason that that would have been to late for Klein's to have received it when they did. But that raises a question:

Question: Would that (the sending of a letter by airmail in the morning from Dallas to Chicago in 1963 --- and the reception of it the next day) have been possible?

Tangential Questions: Assuming that he actually did purchase and send the money order by airmail on the morning of the 12th, why was the notoriously stingy Oswald in such a big hurry to get the rifle? (Why else would he have sent the money order by more expensive airmail if not to speed up his receiving of it?) If he was in such a big hurry, why didn't he just a buy a rifle in a Dallas store? The only remotely-plausible "official" explanation is that "he had to have a 6.5 caliber Mannlicher-Carcano as soon as possible."

More Questions: Were Mannlicher-Carcanos available in Dallas? If so, could Oswald have saved any money by buying one from Klein's, instead?

--Tommy

Edited November 18, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Sandy Larsen]

Looking at the un-cut money orders, I think I see a feature on them which would allow them to be oriented correctly for machine processing. There is a red circle on the face of each where a square hole is punched out, along with another to the right, and third directly below. I would think that would suffice to determine the orientation of the cards.

Doug, the purpose of the cut corner is to make it QUICKLY obvious that a card among a stack of them is oriented incorrectly. The red circle you cite would require looking at each individual card... a slow process. (If you were to look at each individual card, the red circle would hardly be necessary as it would be obvious if a card were upside-down or flipped over.)

[John Dolva]

Perhaps the circle is used for calibration of a machine. A crude kind of quality control. If the punch out falls within the circle the machine is correct for registering data on the reader. If not it shows how to adjust. ?

[Sandy Larsen]

I am officially conceding on the cut-corner issue.

I believe that, while the old-style punch cards (pre-1963) did have a cut corner, the new ones did not.

The reason I held to my earlier position is because the cut-corner was an improvement over the previously un-cut version of the card, and had become the standard in IBM punch cards. It made so sense to me that such a feature would be removed, because in doing so it would allow cards to be inserted upside-down or flipped over. And that would lead to cards not being readable. Or so I thought.

Well, a few days ago something occurred to me. Wouldn't it be nice *if* the cards could be inserted into the card reader in any orientation and still be readable. And that's when it clicked. That indeed could be done as long as there were unused columns in the card. An extra hole could be punched which would indicate to the machine what the orientationof the card was, and the machine could adjust the read code accordingly.

In this thread

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=22434

I showed that the punched holes on the Hidell MO would be decoded as

2202130462 P - [dash]

The number clearly represented the MO's serial number. But I didn't understand the purpose of the P or dash holes.

But now I see that one of these could have been used by the machine to determine the orientation of the card. (Maybe both would be needed for that purpose, depending upon the peculiarities of the machine.)

Now, this idea could be the case only if ALL the cards had the presumed "orientation hole(s)" punched. Well, Lance Payette and DVP have each posted samples of the post-1962 cards and the both have the "P" and "-" characters punched, just like the Hidell MO. If we are to assume all the cards had these punched -- a reasonable assumption -- then indeed one or both of those characters could have been used for orientation detection. And if that were the case, that would explain the elimination of the cut-corner feature.

I believe that this is the case, as it makes a lot of sense. Also given that the extra holes appear to have been added when the cut-corner was eliminated. I wouldn't be surprised if the sorting machine used the orientation information to automatically correct the orientation. Thus eliminating one more step in the sorting process.

[Thomas Graves]

I am officially conceding on the cut-corner issue.

I believe that, while the old-style punch cards (pre-1963) did have a cut corner, the new ones did not.

The reason I held to my earlier position is because the cut-corner was an improvement over the previously un-cut version of the card, and had become the standard in IBM punch cards. It made so sense to me that such a feature would be removed, because in doing so it would allow cards to be inserted upside-down or flipped over. And that would lead to cards not being readable. Or so I thought.

Well, a few days ago something occurred to me. Wouldn't it be nice *if* the cards could be inserted into the card reader in any orientation and still be readable. And that's when it clicked. That indeed could be done as long as there were unused columns in the card. An extra hole could be punched which would indicate to the machine what the orientationof the card was, and the machine could adjust the read code accordingly.

In this thread

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=22434

I showed that the punched holes on the Hidell MO would be decoded as

2202130462 P - [dash]

The number clearly represented the MO's serial number. But I didn't understand the purpose of the P or dash holes.

But now I see that one of these could have been used by the machine to determine the orientation of the card. (Maybe both would be needed for that purpose, depending upon the peculiarities of the machine.)

Now, this idea could be the case only if ALL the cards had the presumed "orientation hole(s)" punched. Well, Lance Payette and DVP have each posted samples of the post-1962 cards and the both have the "P" and "-" characters punched, just like the Hidell MO. If we are to assume all the cards had these punched -- a reasonable assumption -- then indeed one or both of those characters could have been used for orientation detection. And if that were the case, that would explain the elimination of the cut-corner feature.

I believe that this is the case, as it makes a lot of sense. Also given that the extra holes appear to have been added when the cut-corner was eliminated. I wouldn't be surprised if the sorting machine used the orientation information to automatically correct the orientation. Thus eliminating one more step in the sorting process.

Excellent research, open-mindedness, and willingness to share, Sandy.

--Tommy