Phonecard collecting is a very popular hobby. There are millions who collect cards. This means a big business. And wherever there is business there are those who want to take advantage of people. Fake phonecards are an insult to the hobby. They should NOT be collected, rather immediately thrown away. If you put these cards in your collection, you create demand for these pieces of plastic.

For example the "alcatel or autelca looking" Zambia and Malawi cards.

Zambia has a handful of card payphones. There are NO magnetic phonecards at all. These cards are unauthorized by the telecoms, just as the usually collectible pictures on them (Coke, Nigel Mansel, WWF).

These cards are the biggest problems. They are COPIES of the real cards. They can be either made either at home or in bulk. Some phonecards have fake overprints.

Suggestion: If you want a card that has an overprint, first ask the telecom or trusted dealer,

collector if the overprint was printed with the original cards. In this case the overprint is printed in the press with the image. This means, that the overprint itself can not be felt, by feeling the surface. If this is the case, feel the overprint before you get the card. If can only fell a smooth surface, then it's real.

An example: Hungarian gold card set. The set has basically 10 different images and 40 different overprints. The surface is glossy. The overprints were added to the card, before the glossy surface was added to the card, so the surface is smooth. One of each 10 cards was overprinted with "1db". So these cards are very rare. Only 1 made of each. Their values are huge. So naturally some cards appeared, where the overprint was clearly "feelable". Those were fakes.

Another example is a simple color copy of a card pasted on a real card, or pasted on a card sized cardboard. Usually these imitate valuable cards.

These cards were produced, but banned for some reason. For example the image was not authorized, or needed to be changed. Usually employees of the companies, smuggle these cards to collectors.

An example is a Swiss Coke card.

4,) Phonecards for use, published, but with unauthorized images.

These cards usually target topical collectors. Often the cards are remote memory.

About Japanese fake cards:

How to Identify a Fake or Repro Japanese Phone Card (category1)

Over the past couple of years there has been a flood of fake or reproduction Sailor Moon phone cards from Taiwan. The cards are made to look exactly like existing Japanese Tamura-style phone cards, yet, unlike the real phone card, authentic, they are not. The problem with these fake cards is that they are so well done, that most collectors have no idea weather the ones they have are authentic or not. The reason for my message here is to help people determine weather what they have is the real thing or not.

Please take a look at the image below. You will see the backs of two Teleca phone cards. If you notice they both look practically identical. However, they are not. Look at the one on the left. You will see a set of Kanji (Chinese letters) surrounded in a black rectangle. This is what the back of a fake card looks like. It's value is nothing more than a common trading card and has no phone time stored on it. The card on the right does not have this distinct marking, though it does have the number 50 and a couple of smaller Kanji with it. This one is the real card and can be used in an actual telephone in Japan.

Teleca phone cards normally sell for $30 and above each, some even into the hundreds. The cards are not common at all, thus their high price and sadly, most people that have them in their collection have the fakes rather than the real thing. I have not seen any non-Teleca fakes, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist.

Written by Noriko and Simon

novci@geocities.com

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