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Put yourself in their shoes. What if one copy says the interest rate is 3.5%, and the other says 3.8%? You SAY they are the same, but are the really?

If you have a strict policy of "one version is the 'original' and the rest are 'copies'", then wording of the 'original' gets legal priority. Legal priority == much lower legal bills.

If you have a policy of "they are all the same", then when they are different, you have a nasty, expensive legal fight.

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The real issue to me then and now was how do you prove the original is the original? I pointed out then that frankly a good enough photocopy would also be indistinguishable despite a rubber stamp. I no longer remember but I guess the answer to that is red ink. This was prior to color photocopies being readily available. Or maybe they bought themselves a crimper and embossed a stamp.

Ink marks on the laler can be chemically analyzed, and I am sure forensics teams learned long ago how to identify a photo copy.

Take a look under a microscope. The difference between a rubber stamp whose ink bleeds into the paper and a Xerox which is kind of melted on the paper is enormous.

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