Can you reuse check numbers?

The short answer is Yes, you can write multiple checks with the same check number.

A slightly longer answer is that my bank lets me, and so I'm guessing probably yours will let you too.

Fewer and fewer people use checks to pay for things nowadays, but the other day I got to wondering what happens if you use the same check number more than once. For example, maybe your last check was 1249, and you order new checks starting at 1200. What happens when you write checks with numbers you've already used before?

At least where I bank, the stuff that's normally supposed to happen happens -- the money goes out of your account and to whomever cashed the check. They don't care if you use the same check number more than once. The only warning they had for me is that while they let you download the image of cashed checks from their online banking website, if you reuse a number, only the image of whichever of that number was cashed first will be available to download.