Phone and smart cards
Phonecards with playing card designs.
A selection of phone and smart cards dating mainly from the 1990s featuring playing cards in one form or another. Those shown here are from Austria (Piatnik), Belgium, Brazil, France, Great Britain, Italy and Japan. The ones from Italy are the most interesting from a playing card collector’s point of view, having a playing-card motif on both sides.
NOTE: some of the cards shown have been scanned still sealed in their original cellophane wrapping.
By Roddy Somerville
Member since May 31, 2022
Roddy started collecting stamps on his 8th birthday. In 1977 he joined the newly formed playing-card department at Stanley Gibbons in London before setting up his own business in Edinburgh four years later. His collecting interests include playing cards, postcards, stamps (especially playing cards on stamps) and sugar wrappers. He is a Past President of the Scottish Philatelic Society, a former Chairman of the IPCS, a Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards and Curator of the WCMPC’s collection of playing cards. He lives near Toulouse in France.
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