As far as the Long Beach show is concerned if they hadn't downsized and the possibilty of putting something together there was still possible, I would definitely offer my support. Do I feel there is a need for a National phonecard show? Well, I would LOVE a National phonecard show that would offer more to collectors than any other show however I'm not so sure *just* having dealers set up would be enough to make it work. However, I have spoken to a lot of folks and show promoters about getting them to do more for collectors and have had a few conversations over the past couple of weeks with Laurette Veres at Intellicard News. Laurette for those of you who don't know is also the promoter of the Intellicard News expos and American Telecard Expos. Recently, she made an offer to me that I will now put out on the table to each and everyone of you and we can basically decide if it even makes sense. I have my feeling on the following but I NEED your input and if we think it can work, then I'll agree to get up and running with it. Here's the deal:
In the beginning of November (the dates escape me) Laurette is holding the Intellicard News Expo in Miami Florida for a 3 day period running from Monday thru Wednesday. The Exhibit hall is ONLY open tuesday and Wednesday NOT Monday. Laurette has made an offer to me to book one of the decent size rooms in the hotel where this expo will take place on SUNDAY (the day before the expo begins) and sell tables to phonecard dealers. I believe her table price to be quite fair (if you'd like to know the price and you're a dealer, please ask me privately and I'll tell you). In exchange for me booking the show, she has agreed to devote part of the space on ALL of her advertising promoting the expo to also advertising the Collectors show. She will also give all the dealers who set up free admission to her Exhibit hall when it's open. There will be a charge for everyone else. Now some of the things to consider are as follows:
Keep in mind that if this doesn't happen in any way shape or form, there more than likely won't be ANY phonecard dealers at her Miami show since apparently the Trade exhibitors have complained enough to her to where she pretty much had decided to ONLY have trade folks exhibit rather than collectible dealers. If enough dealers are interested, then this WILL happen. Think about it and give me your thoughts and suggestions. Obviously, if dealers think it's a good idea and commit to take a table or two it's up to the collectors to show up. The advertising will be in all the trade publications, her bulk mailings that she does and of course local media in addition to all of the dealers who I would also expect to mail some info out to their customers. This would also be a join Intellicard News/IPC venture in case anyone was wondering.
The search for the most prized trading card of all time, the Honus Wagner T206, continuesin Talk N' Sports. Five redemption cards will be randomly inserted throughout the case run, each redeemable for a vintage Wagner card and an entry into the drawing for the T206 card.
The interactive Trivia Catch $10 phone cards are valid for either $10 in calling time or a chance to win autographed memorabilia by answering challenging sports trivia questions. After dialing the 800 number on
the back of these phone cards, card holders will be asked how they would like to use the card. Collectors who elect to use these cards for phone time need to follow the simple instructions of a prepaid phone card. Once the card is used for phone time, it may not be used for the 'Trivia Catch' option, likewise, once the caller opts to use the card for the 'Trivia Catch' it is no longer valid for phone time.
Collectors choosing to use the cards for the 'Trivia Catch' option will be asked 10 sports trivia questions upon entering the prompt. Entrants answering nine correct questions will receive a baseball bat autographed by one of these six players: Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., Pete Rose, or Chipper Jones. Callers correctly answering all 10 trivia questions will win an autographed bat and be entered into a drawing for the
authentic autographed Babe Ruth baseball.
Score Board has also inserted a limited number of instant win phone cards, with which callers will immediately be notified of their memorabilia piece as soon as their PIN number is entered. Each card in this 10-card series is sequentially numbered to 3,960.
The 10-card $20 On-line Sports Update phone cards will have dual application; they can be used for a prepaid telephone call or an on-line sports update. These cards can be used for either phone time or sports updates as long as there is time remaining on the card. The $20 On-line Sports Update phone cards are sequentially numbered to 1,440 and are inserted at an average of 1:36 packs. Talk N' Sports also contains a five-card $1,000
phone card series, with each card sequentially numbered to 10 and inserted at an average of 1:11,000 packs.
The five-card $50 phone card series pays tribute to baseball revolutionary Jackie Robinson. Each of these phone cards commemorates the 50th anniversary of Robinson breaking baseball’s color barrier. The $50 Jackie Robinson phone cards are sequentially numbered to 499 and are inserted at an average of 1:200 packs.
There's also a 10-card Essentials insert series featuring 10 sports greats on high-quality, acetate-based trading cards..
Talk N' Sports offers stackable $1 phone cards with which collectors can combine the phone time on as many $1 Talk N' Sports phone cards as desired. For instructions on how to 'stack' phone time, users can call the customer service number on the back of each Talk N' Sports phone card.
The complete 50-card Talk N' Sports trading card series bring to life the top athleles in sports today, including Brett Favre, Allen Iverson, and Alonzo Mourning.Along with the interactive phone cards, Talk N' Sports captures 50 sports stars, including top selections from the 1997 football draft, rising stars, and rookie and veteran superstars from football, basketball, baseball, and hockey on phone cards in denominations of $1,000, $50, and $1.
Score Board will produce only 1,500 sequentially numbered cases of Talk N' Sports. Each case contains 12 boxes, with 24 packs in each box and five cards per pack. Suggested retail price for a pack of Talk N' Sports is $3.49 or less.
Almost every aspect of their product invites criticism. The $1 per minute rate is high. It would not be so bad if the card had 5 minutes printed on the front, but $5 is very misleading. I have watched the CEO of the company, Ken Goldin, on the Shop at Home Cable Network trying to promote Classic products. Many of the sportscard lots contain $100 Classic Phonecards. If the lot contains Four of these cards, they keep harping on the fact that they are including $400 worth of long distance phone time. The problem is that they have never told the consumer that they are only getting 400 minutes, or less than 7 hours. For someone who uses Sprint from home, they can get 400 minutes for only $40 - and they may think they can get a similar rate with these cards. They must go into shock when they discover that phone time is rated at $1 per minute.
Another problem has been the announced sequentially numbered cases. What is being left out here is that Classic produces quantities that are not numbered, but still hit the secondary market. Will I be buying this product? Well, maybe a pack or two, but I will wait for the price to drop at least 50% before purchasing a box.
Two new members showed up. First came Coral Knehans, a friend of Richard Brook. She established us as an international club as she currently resides in Rome, Italy. We now know it isn't as easy to get Italian cards as it used to be. Coral went home with an MCI card donated by someone.
Our next new member was Kendra Hershey, who heard about the club through Alan Cohen's PhoneCards On Line report. Coincidentally, she won a Collector's Link phone card, donated by Alan Cohen.
Other phone card regulars included Lowell Rollins, Art Becker, Tom and Susan Zelinski, Bob _____ and me. We expected Brain Chanin, but family concerns kept him from coming. Lowell brought some Nations Bank SVC which we divied up from our last group order. Other door prizes included a card Kendra brought from Singapore, an Olympic 1995 card, two of the 7-11 nascar cards, a Bobs Store and Kinkos card, an Air Force 50th Anniversary card ( I won it) and an AT&T apples and oranges card.
I am not sure how many will be at the June 25th meeting. Art will be traveling the world searching for more PC's. For those with nothing else to do since the Wizards don't have a 1st round draft pick come on by. It's at the Pentagon City Mall, 7:00 until we are tired and ready to go home.
This cover has it all and represents artist Alex Schomburg's best work of the Golden Age of comics. "The setting is a hot tropical night bathed by the eerie illumination of a full yellow moon. The air is heavy and still. Our victim, a seemingly innocent scantily clad female has been bound to the stake before her executioner. He represents all that is evil and foul; the Nazi swatika, the hooded predjudice of the Grand Dragon, the demonic sacrifice of a satanic cult. He is the devil incarnate! Basked by the fiery flames of this would be hell, the executioner and his condemned face one another in these final moments. The others look on in anticipation as the flames glint from the blade of his sword before it falls. A few bats silently flap past. We can only hope that our hero's spear will find its mark in time."
This cover is regarded as one of the most violent images depicted in this time period. The actual comic book is from 1944 and is considered to be the rarest Golden Age comic and is seldom offered for sale. Estimates have only 6 to 10 copies that are documented to exist at all! So if you have one, just name your price!
Suspense Comics #3 phone cards are more plentiful. They are limited to 900 regular edition one unit cards and 100 ten unit cards. The 10 unit cards will retail at $10 each. the 1 unit versions retail at $4. Please call Argo City Company to order or for more information at 1-800-345-9155.
The cards are being produced by World Wide Digital and the platform is
provided through DCI. A donation of 10% of all recharge and activation
fees is made to the LDS Church Missionary Fund. The cards were designed
and formatted by Sherry Ferrin Photography and the scriptural selections
made by Professor Mikel Vause of Weber State University. Cards are being
distributed as framed sets or in attractive albums throughout Asia,
Europe, South America, Polynesia, Central America and North America.
Website is on the card mall at fpcc.com. Set numbers available on July
3rd are from 250-499. Series are being produced in card runs of 250 sets
at a time. Series 500-750 available approximately August 30. Further
information available from:
A pioneer in the creation and distribution of stylish, premium phone cards, Star Telecom has raised the phone card to a new level of design excellence with the debut of its newest series, entitled "When the Web Was Young," conceived by Larry Ball and produced by Star Telecom Network. "This is a great way to promote a Web site. Not only does it allow Webmasters to show off their hard work, but it allows users to help support their favorite Web site by doing something we all do - spend time on the phone."
Star Telecom's president David Eisenstadt notes that the series, which links together carefully selected commercial and artistic Web sites, has a potential audience of millions. "Our partners include such heavy traffic pages as imusic, the alternative music site, and CyberTown, the virtual village," he says, "as well as such high-visibility destinations as the sites for Condomania, Star Chefs and The Year 2000 Information Center."
The participants in the Home Page series were chosen because "they demonstrate independence of spirit, excellence and originality of concept," according to Eisenstadt. "The designers for sites like Art Scenecal, PhotoArts, The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black and The Outhouses of America have created images from the beautiful to bizarre and would stir the interest of collectors and Internet users everywhere."
Each card in the "When the Web Was Young TM" series contains 40 minutes of long distance calling time and sells for $20. Any three cards from the series can be purchased for $50. Voice menu and information tree enhancements such as personalized greetings, included on many of the Web site cards, provide significant added interactivity and entertaining information related to the subject matter or business of the site.
Contact:
To commemorate this truly historic event, AT&T is proud to present this special Handover set of two limited edition Prepaid Calling Cards. These long-distance cards feature twilight views across Hong Kong’s beautiful Victoria Harbour and the Kowloon Peninsula.
This is a strictly limited edition collectable with only 4,000 sets available worldwide. Each set consists of the two cards which have a face value of HK$138 (20 units) and HK$318 (50 units) each, and bear an individual serial number, adding value for collectors. Sets are sealed in a special protective jacket and retail for just HK$497.00.
You can purchase your limited edition set of 1997 Hong Kong Handover Prepaid Calling Cards from participating stores of SmarTone, 7-Eleven, Daily Stop, Duty Free and South China Morning Post book stores. And on July 1st, one lucky visitor to this AT&T Handover Web site (http://www.ap.att.com/1997/callingcard.shtml) will win as a special prize set number "1997", regardless of where they live. So visit us again and remember, with only 4,000 sets available, they’re bound to sell out fast!
"Check your fuel gauge with Duracell & Shell. Get up to a $12 free Shell prepaid card when you buy Duracell batteries...plus you could win free gas for a year." See display in stores for details.
Sorry, but other than a $1.00 off Duracell coupon, that's all the info. provided by the ad.
From: Jim Silva
From: Ollie Paadimeister
From: Maria Rublee
From: Ollie Paadimeister
From: Carolyn Thomas
Until Next Week
Alan
2) Direct e-mail. Send a message to: phoneline@cardmall.com
If you wish to be removed from this mailing list, just send a short message saying UNSUBSCRIBE POL
New Scoreboard Product
CHERRY HILL, NJ - Score Board announced the May 1997 release of Talk N' Sports, a multi-sport phone card and trading card series featuring trivia and on-line sports update interactive phone cards. With the interactive'Trivia Catch' phone cards, collectors will have an opportunity to obtain autographed memorabilia, including an autographed baseball
signed by the Sultan of Swat himself, Babe Ruth. There's one prepaid phone card in each pack of Talk N' Sports. Scoreboard Opinion
This product looks like it could really be a great one. The only problem I have with it is that the company that is producing it is Scoreboard. I know that in a about a year, the price will be 50% or less of release price. This is something that has happened to every single Scoreboard product I can think of, and will probably continue to happen. Washington DC Phonecard Collector Club
Highlights of our last meeting:Suspense Comics #3 on Phone Cards
Argo City is proud to announce the next issue in their series of classic Golden Age comics covers. Considered by the cream of the crop comics collectors to be the "Holy Grail", Suspense Comics #3 will be made available in the style of a collectible phone card. Finally an affordable format to save this dynamic masterpiece.Deseret Calling Cards
Deseret Calling Cards, Inc. of Ogden, Utah is issuing a limited edition
series of The Temples of the LDS Church. There are actually two series:
UTAH TEMPLES (10 cards) and WORLD WIDE SERIES (50 cards). Each series is numbered. The front of each card shows a picture of the temple, includes selected scripture, and lists the location. There are nearly 9 million
members of the LDS faith world wide (more than half of them live outside
the United States. While there are 10,000 sets being produced, that is
far less than 1/10 of 1% of the LDS Church membership.
Star Telecom and the World Wide Web
ENCINO, CA (June 23, 1997) -- In a marketing breakthrough, Star Telecom Network has become the first company to offer a line of limited edition prepaid phone cards honoring the creativity and diversity of the Internet <<http://www.startele.com>>.
Hong Kong Handover Prepaid Calling Cards (And Contest)
Millions of people from all over the world will witness the historic return of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China on June 30, 1997. Shell Prepaid
From today's San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune:Pharma Plus
Pharma Plus - a chain of drug stores in Canada has launched a program
whereby if you buy two greeting cards by Carlton cards (it cost me about
$8) you receive a $10 calling card. Phonetime by Card Caller Canada.
Looks like a pretty good deal. Card has a scratch off and expires Sept
15/97. Offer in Canada OnlyPest Web
My father (a pest control operator) attended a pest control conference in
Southwest Florida. They were handing out free 10-minute phone cards
advertising the pestweb online. The background is black, with a greenish
egg of some sort in the center, surrounded by an orange glow. It says
"Visit us at the Pest Web, http://www.pestweb.com" It's issued by MCI, no
scratch-off pin, and came in a plastic wrapper.Pepsi/Batman
Pepsi and Lipton's Tea have both joined the Bat-Man Phonecard program.
With Pepsi purchase 3 x 2L bottles of Mountain Dew, Lipton's Ice Tea
purchase three small cases. The address where you send the cut outs of the Batman Logo's is the same as the one I told you about for Cadbury Beverages. I believe there are 4 different cards that you can choose from and you have to specify which one you want. Again all are 5 minute cards. This offer is good in Canada only.Web Contest
Win a Shaquille O'Neal '95 Assets Gold #15 (Microline) $5.00 phone card (a $40.00 Beckett value) by visiting: http://www.sccards.com/contest.htmDistribution
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.cardmall.com - All back issues are archived at the web site!