Bank By Mail – July 1955

Today we do just about everything online, including shop, work, socialize, correspond, manage your finances, play games, earn college degrees and... bank.

Well, I don't bank online. I might check the balances of my CDs but I still refuse to do anything else. I know I'm in the minority here, but I just don't trust it. 

Speaking of trust, how do you feel about banking by mail?

Three years after Central Bank unveiled its popular Drive-In Teller service at its main branch in central Lorain, it was promoting banking by mail with this ad that ran in the Lorain Journal on July 16, 1955.

It's an odd concept, especially by today's standards. "All you need do is fill out a special mailing form, enclose your deposit, stamp your envelope – and mail it,"notes the ad. "The postman will speed it safely to our bank, where it can get the same prompt attention as deposits made in person."

It makes it sound like the postman will deliver it to the bank without the envelope first having to be processed at the US Post Office. And the ad recommends that "letters containing cash should be registered." Sounds like you have to go to the post office to send a registered letter – why not just go to the bank instead?

Anyway, it's an interesting look at what was considered modern and convenient in 1955.

But more than 70 years later, I'm still doing my banking the old-fashioned way: in person. 

It's got a little harder since last year when Fifth Third Bank closed the branch in Vermilion that was only about three minutes from my condo. They kept the ATM machine there – neglecting it pretty well, letting it run out of money, paper to print receipts, etc. – before unceremoniously closing it for good a few months ago. 

Since I also bank at Northwest in Vermilion, which is fully staffed and where I have my own – ahem – personal banker, I may just abandon the fifth-rate service I'm getting now. We'll see.