Patent ID: 7290705

Claim:
A method for dispensing personalized value-bearing instruments, the method comprising the steps of: a. providing a user-operated station for dispensing the value-bearing instruments; b. selectively providing a plurality of user-selectable instrument stores, a first instrument store including a plurality of blank instruments and at least a second instrument store including a plurality of merchant-specific instruments; c. receiving funds from a user at said user-operated station; d. storing an indication of said funds on a data store inseparably coupled to said value-bearing instrument selected from one of said instrument stores; e. providing a user interface at said user-operated station for personalizing an indicia carrier inseparably coupled to said value-bearing instrument; f. providing on said user interface a plurality of user-selectable graphic authoring procedures; g. executing at least one of said user-selectable graphic authoring procedures to formulate an original graphic arrangement; h. printing said graphic arrangement on said indicia carrier; and, j. dispensing said value-bearing instrument to said user subsequent to said graphic arrangement being printed on said indicia carrier.