AUSTIN -- When Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed 50 bills on Thursday, readers immediately asked if he personally popped each with a red "veto" stamp he posed with weeks ago in a photo for the Houston Chronicle.

The short answer: No.

In order for Abbott to veto a bill, he has to write a "veto message" stating his objections, usually a paragraph on why the legislation was a no-go.

The stamp? It's an historical item in the governor office, little more.

According to top aides to recent former governors, the "veto" stamp was a gag gift to Gov. William Clements during the 1980s. Clements kept it in his office, and posed with it several times when he wanted to make a point that he didn't like legislation that had come his way.

When Clements left office in when he left in 1991, he left it behind -- and it became a conversation item among several of his successors, we're told.

Gov. Rick Perry found it found the veto stamp in a drawer  soon after he he came into office in 2000 -- and joked with staff that he might actually use it when he vetoed bills. They dissuaded him from that, we're told, but it stuck around for Perry's 12-year tenure.

And it was left behind for Abbott when Perry departed.

Two weeks ago, Abbott posed with it in a photo that quickly went wild online, in the closing days of the 140-day legislative session, as lawmakers tried to enlarge the frame to see what bills he was vetoing.

They couldn't.

He had stamped a large red "VETO" on a blank piece of paper carefully positioned atop a stack of bills to no one could discern what their numbers were.