But the popularity of the novelty check seems inversely proportional to popularity of real ones. In the U.S., the number of checks being cashed between 2009 and 2013 dropped 50 percent; In the United Kingdom it was even faster, falling 79 percent over the same period. As a society we’ve grown tired of waiting for checks to clear, and technology means that delay is no longer acceptable. Online payments are everywhere, and checks are being aged out of the marketplace.

“Each passing generation is becoming more familiar using electronic methods of payment than writing on a piece of paper that is physically transported around the country,” says Mark Bowerman of the UK’s Cheque and Credit Clearing Company, an industry body. “Some young people probably would not even have a checkbook or will have written a check; certainly those in their teens and 20s.”

Some people have found an opportunity in all this. A decade ago Daniel James had his own full-service design and marketing agency in the U.K., and started an adjunct company called Big Cheques Ltd. In the last few years, demand has been so great that the agency has shut up shop, and the novelty check sideline has become his main source of income. The fact that people don’t actually use checks as much any more doesn’t really matter to him.

“I’m well aware that using a cheque as a traditional method of payment is certainly less popular than it was,” he admits. “Just because there’s a paper check, a check in a check book, that isn’t the same as making a presentation to somebody. The two things are quite separate now.”

And even if kids might not understand what a real check is, stick a two-foot long piece of cardboard in their hands and they’ll exactly know what to do with it: Grip it and grin, smiling at the flashbulbs as they burn your retinas.

They’ve become something different, pictorial shorthand that harks back to a different age. We still denote functions to save computer files using a 3-and-a-half inch floppy disk icon, even on solid-state hard driven devices. Rotary phone emojis are used in place of cellphones, even though you’re more likely to see them in period dramas than in any modern-day home. The check has a warm, fuzzy nostalgia.

“Having something written in the birthday card that says I’ve electronically transferred [money] to your account isn’t the same as having something fall out of a birthday card. The check dropping out is much more — ” Bowerman struggles to find the words: “I don’t know… life affirming?”