Negotiable instruments

A general name for bills, notes, checks, transferable bonds or coupons, letters of credit, and other negotiable written securities. Any written securities which may be transferred by indorsement and delivery or by delivery merely, so as to vest in the indorsee the legal title, and thus enable him to sue thereon in his own name. Or, more technically, those instruments which not only carry the legal title with them by indorsement or delivery, but carry as well, when transferred before maturity, the right of the transferee to demand the full amounts which their faces call for. Daniel, Neg. Inst. § la. A negotiable instrument is a written promise or request for the payment of a certain sum of money to order or bearer.

CSv. Code Cal. § 3087.