Before electronic banking, how did wealthy businessmen keep track of their earnings?
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When I started in insurance, we used spreadsheets… Paper spreadsheets. 11×17″ paper with rectangular grid. You put one digit per rectangle and you could construct free form calculations. I did large group underwriting. We would set rates based on the recent experience of the employer.
Later, I would see calculation sheets laid out by actuaries and filled in by clerks with calculators to calculate tables of rates and reserve factors. One pricing memo from 1966 which I had occasion to review 20 years later, opined that it would take “65 girl hours” to calculate all the rates for a new form.
ETA: Bonds used to have physical coupons. To collect your semi-annual interest, you had to cut out the coupon and present it to a bank. As a fundraiser for charity, my company used to sell worthless, pre-Revolution Russian paper bonds denominated in rubles with the coupons still attached.
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