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Telearch purchased 10,000 pairs of the $2 Zoo Anritsu phonecards from
Telecom Australia (Telstra) to sell to collectors. Telearch subsequently
became Card Phone Australia and then started to produce their own Anritsu
phonecards. Card Phone phonecards could not be used in Telstra payphones and
Telstra phonecards could not be used in Card Phone payphones. Telearch /
Card Phone were unable to sell all of these zoo cards to collectors, so
where possible they used the excess themselves for business purposes in Telstra Payphones,
which resulted in the accumulation of a significant number of these cards
which had been fully used up. Card Phone subsequently recycled these used
phonecards by magnetically re-coding them for use in Card Phone payphones,
and as part of this process they added the Card Phone Australia Serial
Number on the lower left side of the rear of the card – the Telecom
Australia Serial Number was also left on the lower right side of the rear of
the card. The same last three digits were used. NOTE: These cards were ONLY for internal Card Phone use (e.g.
Technician Test Cards) and were NOT sold. It can be seen, by looking at the
rear of the cards, that the holes punched in the
top edge of cards indicate that the Telecom Australia encoded cards have
been used, whilst the holes punched in the bottom side of the cards indicate
that the Card Phone Australia encoded cards have also been used. In total,
Card Phone appear to have produced 750 pairs of these Technician Test Cards
within the Telstra Phonecard Serial Number ranges of 596 06000 to 596 06749
and 597 06000 and 597 06750. Refer
Card Phone page. |
