News and Views

Milestones

This marks the half year anniversary of phonecards on-line. I started this on a whim to increase knowledge about phonecard collecting. I set up a web page where the newsletter was posted, and decided to start e-mail delivery. Six month later, I am involved with five different web sites, three of them collectibles based (Card Mall, PCM Report and Collector-Link) My small e-mail list has grown to over 400, with more joining all the time. Needless to say I am quite amazed at what has happened over the past half year, and wonder what I used to do when I had free time. (Okay, I no longer read books, hardly play my bass guitar, so there have been sacrifices!) But I love what I'm doing, and I appreciate all of the positive feedback from everyone. It should be interesting to see what happens six months from now, I can make one prediction that will be true, I will be writing this newsletter from the other side of North America.

TLC Part II

Last week I reported that TLC went out of business. This news came to me literally an hour before I was going to mail this newsletter, so I just reported the fax memo and gave a brief analysis. Over the past week, I have learned a little more about this company, and what the impact this company going out of business will have on our hobby. Unlike USA calling going out of business, which affected K-Mart, TLC marketed their cards to small businesses like convenient stores. Additionally, they marketed their cards to non-English speaking communities. The end result will be stores holding onto supplies of cards that are worthless, causing these small businesses to take a loss or sell cards that do not work. This will hurt the hobby because these store owners will most likely be hesitant to sell cards again. For consumers who purchase cards to use, they will be annoyed that they have a card that does not work. What they will probably end up doing is go back to charge phonecards, the ones that are attached to the phone bill, or paying cash. The USTA, our telecard association in the US, was strangely silent about this one. No cash-in program for this mess, although it would not matter. The people who were affected would not know what the USTA is. If you have one of these cards, contact MCI. They were the ones who leased time to TLC. Good luck, you'll need it.

Northeast Corridor Show

It was announced this week that a phonecard show would be held the weekend of April 20 and 21 in Albany, NY at the Clifton Country Mall Official sponsors of this show are SLSC, Inc., The Collectors' Advantage, ATX - American Telecard, ACME Telecards, PCM Report and Mercury Marketing. This will be quite an event, a true collectors show! Albany is the perfect place for a show. It is within 3 hours of Boston, New York City, parts of New England and me here in Ithaca! I will be attending the show and set up at a table. If you are anywhere within the area, or anywhere not, make plans to attend. I've been told that there will be an auction at the show as well. I'll be giving away a Card Mall Phonecard to every phonecard dealer who sets up, and giving a couple away in random drawings at the show. In addition to a phonecard show, there will be a sportscard show at the mall, so traffic is guaranteed. For more information about the show, contact Tom Hunt at (716) 854-4400. E-mail address: 74471,2224

Promotions

Lucky Markets

Lucky Markets here in rainy So. Cal, you thought it was always sunny, has a promotion going. You buy a $20 or $50 Spree card and you get a FREE Sprint NCAA FINAL FOUR card. The card has the Sprint logo on the front and 10 min of time. It shows a guy from the back, a drawing, up in the air ready to slam dunk. The NCAA logo is top left above the basket..

From: Steve Carl

Coke!

Out here on the west coast there are 12 packs with free chance to get one of 4 different Friends (T.V. Show) Coke card. Needless to say I immediately bought 4- 12 packs and found NONE. You can't miss the specially marked 12 packs , because there is a big red phone on the box with a 15 where the dial is supposed to be.

A CHANCE TO WIN ONE OF THESE COKE CARDS WITHOUT BUYING ANY SODA YOU CAN ALSO SEND IN -----A stamped self addressed business envelope by 6/3/96 to

Diet Coke
Box 4863
Blair , NE 68009

Residents of WA and AL need not affix a stamp on return envelope.

From: Raymond Boyle

Maxwell House

My Sunday paper has an ad in the coupon section for Maxwell House Coffee. The offer is only good for the areas in which the Offer Form is advertised. You need to send 2 proofs of purchase from Maxwell House products, one of them has to be "Sweetened Flavored Ground Coffee". Offer is good until 6/30/96 or while supplies last. Card is shown on add and appears to be plastic, with 3 different Maxwell House cans on the 10 minute card. A .75 off coupon is attached to the phone card order form. Hope you find it in your area!

From: Cathy Ashbaugh

Texaco

FREE with purchase anyway. You have to purchase a case of Texaco/Havoline oil. This is a LDDS card, 5-minutes, and has the NASCAR Texaco/Havoline Ford on the face. The back indicates a run of 25,000. These just showed up at the local Track Autos here, the have them in stock so you get the card when you purchase the case of oil. The even have a POP display that the store near me set up so you notice it upon entrance. DO not read further if you do not want my *valid* warnings on LDDS cards. I plan to buy at least a case of the oil to get a card the old fashioned way for my personal collection.

Being that this is from LDDS, there may be some coming to a dealer near you soon. Also, since they sold all of those blanked back Pennzoil cards to Creative Communications there is a chance that down the road these will show up with a different carrier on the back, so mintage may be a mute point.

From: Brian Chanin

Weekly Auction

If you are interested in receiving a weekly phonecard auction, send a message to Wendy Tobias at clsact@whidbey.net

Montreal

This weekend I am taking a trip to Canada, going to visit Montreal, Quebec. I'll of course be on the lookout for phonecards, I will give a report next week.

Until Next week, Happy Collecting,

Alan

Distribution

Phonecards On-Line is written and distributed by Alan Cohen. It is a weekly newsletter devoted to phonecards - Current news, viewpoints, and reviews of new issues. It is distributed free of charge, and available two ways.

1) On-Line on the World Wide Web. The address is: http://www.pcmreport.com

2) Direct e-mail. Send a message to: phoneline@cardmall.com

If you wish to be removed from this mailing list, or find yourself with two subscriptions (It does happen), please reply to the ORIGINAL message that was sent to you - This will assist me in removing your name