Some test and demo cards from Ireland

Telecom Eireann first introduced phonecards into the Republic of Ireland in the year 1988. The brand name chosen for these cards was “CallCard”. Telecom Eireann, Ireland's state-owned telecommunications company became privatized in 1999. Subsequently the…

North Macedonia, 1995

North Macedonia is a state of the Balkan peninsula in south-eastern Europe, born in 1991, when it separated peacefully from Yugoslavia, taking the name of the Republic of Macedonia or FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of…

Czech Republic, 1993

On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia split peacefully into two new countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Telecom Praha, the Czechoslovak national company, which had already issued several cards before the split, continued to operate in…

Estonia, 1993

The new public cardphone service was officially launched by Estonian Telephone Company Ltd. in 1993, with an issue of a series of 8 Alcatel cards, each of them in four values (A, B, C, and…

Lithuania, 1993

Lithuania is the southernmost of the Baltic republics and has an area slightly larger than neighboring Latvia; it was the first to gain independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. The national telephone company, Lietuvos…

Latvia, 1995

Latvia, one of the Baltic republics, with two million inhabitants, regained independence in 1991 after the fall of the USSR, and has been part of the European Union since 2004. The first cards used in…

Mercurycards: the origins

The Mercurycard was introduced to London on July 271988 at Waterloo station, where 26 Mercurycard Telephone Booths had been installed for Mercury Communications' launch of its Public Payphone Service. The design of these telephone booths…

Guernsey, 1994

Guernsey is an island located in the English Channel, facing the northwest coast of France, administratively dependent on the British Crown. Guernsey Telecoms began issuing chip cards in 1994, with a series of three values…

Jersey, 1988

Jersey is the largest island in the English Channel, between the United Kingdom and France. It is a self-regulating dependency of the United Kingdom, with its own government and laws, which fuses English and French…

Isle of Man, 1987

The Isle of Man is a self-governing British Crown dependency in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Ireland. The first cards, one 10 units with a 14,500 run and one 20 units with a…