I wish we were joking...I truly do.
Let’s face it - collecting credit cards will never have mass appeal. Collectors of almost any item are relegated to the same social purgatory as middle-aged Star Trek fans and there is a special stigma reserved exclusively for collectors of items as obscure as credit cards. But a growing number of credit card collectors (also called numismatics or exonumics) take the preservation of over a century of credit card history very seriously.
The American Credit Card Collector’s Society boasts between 75 and 150 members. According to the group’s website, the organisation began in 1993 by Jerry Ballard. Every second year, the group holds a convention at which 20 to 60 collectors enthusiastically discuss and trade credit card memorabilia.
The modern plastic credit card has a broad variety of ancestors, all of which are collected by the group. There are the early celluloid, metal, fibre and paper cards and even metal tokens (called credit coins) which were accepted as merchant credit cards in US department stores in the first half of the twentieth century.
Other items of value include special edition or rare credit cards. EBay has several vintage credit cards available, including cards from Pan Am, Exxon, United Airlines, Avis and Mobil. Collectors especially covet cards owned by famous dead people. Elvis Presley’s Amex from the 70s was sold at auction for over $41,000. The card was, of course, signed by Elvis.
