Originally Posted by kebosabi

And it's not like debit or credit cards issued today did away with embossed numbers either. Even cards today still continue to have raised embossed numbers on them as a vestigial remnant of those times, and for various good reasons like some motels still use carbon copy imprinters for incidental purposes (banks requires them to keep a copy of it until a certain period), pizza guy still uses the for pizza delivery, embossed numbers also enables the blind to pull out the correct card, etc.