Paymaster Series 7000 Keyboard Ribbon-Writer Check Writer, The Paymaster Corp., Chicago

The Paymaster Series 7000 is a hand-cranked keyboard check writer made by The Paymaster Corp. at its factory at 1811 W. Winnemac Ave. in Chicago. Sellers and its own dust covers call it the Paymaster Keyboard Ribbon-Writer. It has eight columns of number keys from 1 to 9, a Clear key and a Repeat key, a crank on the right side and a key lock in the front. A machine like this sat in an office and printed the dollar amount on each check through an inked ribbon, which presses ink into the paper fibers so the figures are hard to wash off or raise. Wikipedia's checkwriter article explains that same ribbon method.

Paymaster grew out of the Checkometer Sales Company, started in Chicago in 1917 around George M. Willis's Checkometer. Theodore B. Hirschberg Sr., a former salesman for the rival Todd Protectograph company, built the business, bought the Willis patents in 1920, and launched the first Paymaster machine in 1932, when the firm traded as the American Check Writer Company. It became the Paymaster Corporation in 1940, did war work at its Lexington Street plant, and moved to the Winnemac Avenue factory in 1956. Ted Hirschberg Jr. ran it until his death in 1971. The company sold machines with a renewable service warranty, and the Made in Chicago Museum says it closed around 2000, after which the factory was torn down. Its main Chicago rival was F&E Hedman, maker of the F&E Check Writer.

This copy has no key or cover in the photos, and its back plate reads Series 7000, a price of $471.50 F.O.B. Chicago, and serial 8P102483 on a riveted tag. Paymaster never published a serial list, so the plate itself is the best way to date it. The ZIP code 60640 puts it after July 1963, when ZIP codes began. Older Series 7000 plates in olive green and woodgrain carry the words "Keyboard Ribbon Writer," four patent numbers granted from 1954 to 1960, and list prices of $274.50 and $299.00. One seller dates a cream copy with a $374.50 plate to 1978 from its serial. This plate has no patent numbers and the higher $471.50 price, the same as cream copy 8P105644, which points to the late 1970s or the 1980s. That's an estimate, but either way the machine is well over 20 years old.

The Series 7000 is common, and on October 29, 2026, 42 live eBay listings named it, in cream, gray hammertone, mint green, teal, black, white, olive green and woodgrain. Most of them asked between $30 and $80, and shipping often costs as much again because the machine weighs about 20 pounds.