Issue 61. 05/20/00

Summary

-Phonecard News from countries: Belgium, Britain, China, Greece, Norway, Slovenia

-Other news: Chinese phonecard fair recap by Henry.

Thanks to the contributors of this issue: Henry Hsu, VTC, Charlie Stanikowski,  Lenny Rapp, Vasilios, Daniele Pitaressi, Alan Kilpatrick,

OTHER News
-Remember the many colorful World Cup cards from '98.  Two years later, it's time for the European Championships.  Consequently many cards have appeared for this event.  the latest is an Expercom XL-Call set from Belgium. The 16 card set features a giraffe.  The 16 cards show the flags of the 16 nations who got into the finals. The phone value is Hfl16,-/300 BEF, and mintage is 13.000.  See the rest of this set at VTC's news site. 

/Contributed by VTC, club/

-OTE pulls the plug!

OTE  announced that all the 100 Unit phonecards manufactured from 7/1998 until 8/1999 will be cancelled in 15 JUNE 2000.  Afterwards only the 1000 ,1900 and 4200 Cards can be used! For any possible protest please write to [email protected] 

/Contributed by Vasilios Spanos, collector/

-New Telenor phonecards, Norway

P-34  The savings bank in Åfjord 

The saving bank in Åfjord promotes their business towards young people on this card. Mintage: 2000. 10 units. ODS. NOK 48,-

N-171 Norway Cup 2000 

The motif is drawn by Christoffer Norén, who won the Norway Cup drawing competition last year.  Mintage: 30 000. 23 units. Schlumberger. NOK 40,-

N-170 Switchboard 

Here is yet another card with a theme of old telephones. This switchboard is from 1912 and was produced by L.M. Ericsson. Mintage: 100 000. 23 units. Schlumberger. NOK 40,- 

An advertising-card from ’Statens kantiner’. Mintage: 25 000. 100 units. Schlumberger. NOK 140,- 

Currently, the largest Hospitals have phones by the beds. This card wish the patient ’’ get well’’ and is an oppurtunity to call someone. Mintage: 100 000. 23 units. ODS. NOK 40,-. 
 

N-167 Nostalgia. Alexander Graham Bell-1876

 
The last phonecard in this series is a copy of the telephone Mr. Alexander Graham Bell patented in 1876. Mintage: 50 000. 23 units. ODS. NOK 40

/Telenor/

-New Slovenian phonecards from Impulz

#0193 KLOVN 2000 

50 units, mintage 2.000; 100 units mintage: 1.000 
 
#0194  BENEŠKA MASKA 2000

 
50 units mintage: 3.000  


#0195 SKB BANKA

 
25units  mintage: 2.000;  50 units mintage: 9.000; 100 units mintage: 2.000; 300 units mintage: 2.000  


#0196 PARKIRANJE S TELEKARTICO - sporoèilo 

25 units mintage 2.000;  50 units mintage: 1.500;  100 units mintage: 500 


#0197  PARKIRANJE S TELEKARTICO V MODRIH CONAH - Nova Gorica 

25 units mintage: 7.000; 50 units mintage: 7.000;  


#0198 KALAMARI 

25 units mintage: 3.000;  50 units mintage: 1.500; 100 units mintage: 2.000



#0199  EXTASE - pure passion 

25 units mintage: 3.000; 50 units mintage: 1.500; 100 units mintage: 2.000  


#0200 FINANCE 

25 units mintage: 3.000; 100 units mintage: 2.000;  300 units mintage: 2.000  

Private #0060 

ZBIRALEC TK - RENER 
25 units mintage: 50 

Smartcard news

-Beautiful US cashcards! 

The 8th Annual Cajun Zydeco Crawfish Festival occurred in Ft. Lauderdale this past weekend, and if you have never been to one, it is great: fantastic bands, and some terrific food that you normally wouldn't find in restaurants and at other fairs.

 Many of these fairs are turning into cashless events, where you must use closed loop cash cards for goods and services at the event. It doesn't say it on the back of the card, but it looks like Technology @ Work, a leader in the field, produced the official festival card, a
gorgeous and colorful keepsake from the event. One of the other generic looking cards that was also used at the festival had the Technology @ Work logo on this, so this is what I based my assumption on. These are smart chip cards that can load money on them and you use them for food, admission and souvenirs. Closed loop cards can be only used at the specific festival they were designed for and then they expire.

The card is multiple colored with a girl, seafood and the fair's logo adorning the card. There's a crocodile on the card, and the chip is on the right hand side of the card.

Lenny has some of these cards available.

/Contributed by Lenny Rapp, dealer/

Telecom News:

-Another one bites to dust.

Texas based Twister has announced this week that it is ceasing operations. Twister provided utility phonecards, but had rather unfair practices and received an outstanding number of complaints.  

/Contributed by Bish of Pearland PCC/

Other phonecard news:

New catalogues from

Scandinavia 1
By Daniele Pitarresi and Jörn Colding

160 pages, full color - Includes: Denmark, Faroe
Islands, Iceland.

Issued: APRIL 2000
Price is Eu 8.82 (Get 5% off just by referring to WPD!)

France-Monaco-Laos catalogue

Issued: APRIL 2000

In this issue, moreover:
Feature on Laos
Pakistan: overprinted cards
Real phonecards or fakes?
Worldwide reviews and news
Price: Eu 3.89 (Get 5% off just by referring to WPD!) 

Fairs:

Just back home from Fuijian province GSM/SIM cards & Mobile Phone Exhibitions.
There were 2 shows:
- Mobile Phone Cards & Mobile Phone Exhibition 14-16, May 2000 in Fhuzhou
City including GSM/SIM card Collecting Forum. Maybe this was the FIRST GSM
phonecard exhibition & Forum in the world.??
- Mobile Phone Cards & Mobile Phone Exhibition 17-19, May 2000 in Xiamen City
including GSM/SIM card Auction. Maybe this was the FIRST GSM/SIM card
Auction in the world.

I enjoyed the show very much & met a lot old & new friends there, including collectors from Taiwan province & Hongkong. This time for the exhibition in Fujian province, China Mobile Fujian Province Co paid for the 4 star hotel & food ALL FREE of CHARGE!!!

Furthermore Gemplus, Motorola, Nokia... bigger companies joined us.
A special expo card was over printed 1,000 pcs for our exhibition.
This is recharge card for mobile phonecard issued by Fujian Province China
Mobile Co.

Clubs:

-NTC the largest Dutch club, which now includes the former ATC club has a new site.  Take a look: www.welcome.to/ntc 

Upcoming shows: There is a major phonecard, stamp, coin and banknote event next weekend at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, UK. Dates are Friday 
26th May, Saturday 27th May and Sunday 28th May. Many hundreds of dealers
including ourselves (Wycombe Phonecards) will be there. If you are attending and want anything special, want to trade or sell contact us first so we can take the right material from our stocks.

/Contributed by Charlie, dealer/

WPD chat summary:

Summary of the Alan Kilpatrick chat of April 29th.  for personal reasons, Andy Murray couldn't make the chat and as you'll see Alan Kilpatrick faced serious technical problems.  Luckily Daniele Pitaressi stopped by to partially fill in. We are going to reschedule the chat with Andy very soon. 

[Daniele] Mvcards start to work about 3 mounth ago,I personally am collector
- from 8 years.We have in MV about 20 expert for write catalogue,the program is
- a collection of 12 vol about all difficult countries in the world of
- phonecards
novci> You started collecting eight years ago. How has the hobby changed
- since then?
[Daniele] Only phonecards,I think that hobby that can be the more
- interessant,if all dealer make a correct work in future
[Daniele] about 50% complete cards and informations,about 30% near to
- complete and 20% we need 2-3 mounth for complete
[Daniele] The big problem is with informations from some Asian countries,for
- example Sri Lanka,and little more
[Daniele] Edmund,do you know how many cards was issued in Indonesia at today?
[Daniele] yes,is important for me all help,but I know that is very
- difficult,MVcan pubblish a catalogue,only if informations are all complete,we
- have about 30 countries at 95%,but is impossible in this moment to pubblish
- for the 5% of rest
[Daniele] Also Russian catalogue we have at 95%,but is hard to complete
[shay] Daniele,Do you collect all countries or you are specialist in few
- countries?
[Daniele] Hi have in collection about 180 countries complete,I only don't
- collect some type of cards

[Alan] Hi, we seem to be having a few technical problems. My messages are
- getting through to you but I am not receiving any in return

[Alan] Peter has asked if I can chat blindly so here goes. I have been a
- phonecard dealer here in New Zealand since cards were first introduced in
- 1989.
[Alan] I started collecting and dealing after seeing an article about Mercury
- cards in the Stanley Gibbons Stamp Magazine.
[Alan] I decided that it would be a good idea to start to collect NZ cards as
- soon as they started.
[Alan] Towards the end of 1989 the first issue of NZ cards was released and
- that was the famous trial issue featuring the Christchurch Post Office.
[Alan] Even although Christchurch is not far from Dunedddin where I live
- these cards were very difficult to obtain and this is why they are so scarce
- and expensive today.
[Alan] I am still having problems with my computer and for this I am sorry.
[Alan] As well as an interest in NZ cards I was also interested in cards from
- the Pacific and Australia.
[Alan] Getting cards and indeed information from the Pacific area is quite
- difficult because Pacific people have a diffewrent approach to doing
- business.
[Alan] Information is an integral part of collecting phonecards.
[Alan] Without good information it is very hard to form a good collection.
[Alan] MV Cards and Daniele have started what is the best series of
- catalogues for the hobby of phonecard collecting.
[Alan] It is my belief that these catalogues will be a very valuable resource
- and will help stengthen the hobby over the coming months and years.
[Alan] I have and will be involved in the Oceania series of catalogues.
[Alan] Still having problems so I think that it may be best if I sign off.
[Alan] In the mean-time if any one has any questions suggestions etc email me
- at [email protected]


[Daniele] Shay,many thanks,the vol 6 or 7 is about near east,with
- jordan,Israel,Syria,and more countries,is very important for MV if you can
- help for a more control about informations

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The "WPD news" is the free weekly news service of the Worldwide Phonecard Database (WPD). Copyright WPD 1999-2000 PR is from Reuters