last callcards ?

Albert X

When were the last callcards produced and for sale in shops? I read somewhere 2003 but I'm pretty sure I saw them in shops as recent as 2007/08

Danco

I'm pretty sure the last Eircom Callcard was issued around 2009 or so. It's a €15 euro card with a red/orange phone on a white background. You still see that one and the blue €4 and €7 Simply Talk cards for sale in newsagents the odd time. But they're getting scarce now to say the least.

yoyo

I actually found a "Simply Talk" €7 Callcard in Ranelagh recently (May this year-and of course, no shop in the locality stocked them!). As Danco points out the "Simply Talk" range were Eircoms final set of cards. Many of these cards were overprints of earlier cards early on in the transition period however most of the more recent ones are plain and simple. As Danco says an "Orange Phone" €15 + €10 free Eircom Callcard was produced in recent years, and is still available to purchase in some newsagents in Dublin (so I have been told) however I can't imagine Callcards being used that much these days.
Even for tourists with data roaming options and various other communication options the need for Callboxes and Callcards nowadays has declined. You may believe the final Callcards were produced in 2003 as the last Callcard produced to mark an event were both a €4 and a €7 Special Olympics card to celebrate Ireland hosting the 2003 Special Olympics, but there have been some generic "bland" simply talk cards produced since then.

Nick

madmoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/85603048#Comment_85603048

Are you a collector? I collected them way back in the 90's and have recently found my collection in my mam's house. I want to try and use the many many duplicates I have to get the ones I am missing.

Thanks,

M

yoyo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120494867#Comment_120494867

I am indeed! Infact I put together the website https://www.irishcallcards.net you might have come across before! Plenty of cards out there so a good time to start filling in the gaps!

madmoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120494914#Comment_120494914

And I have a fair few gaps to fill! 🤣

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120494914#Comment_120494914

What a brilliant website, thanks for putting that together. I was never a big call card collector (my collecting back in those days was mainly stamps!) but it's lovely to see such a niche Irish hobby given that level of detail.

On a side point, it's like a trip back through the 90s looking at the pictures on them, fantastic stuff.

yoyo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120495067#Comment_120495067

Glad to hear the feedback o1s1n! Hope you enjoy the nostalgia trip! I have the complete catalogue up there!

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120495151#Comment_120495151

Did it take you long to put a full set together as a matter of interest? Any in particular that took you a while to find?

yoyo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120498200#Comment_120498200

A couple of years o1s1n. The website obviously helped me a good bit to acquiring contacts as other collectors got in touch with me through it but also people selling off their collections.

Some cards are fairly hard to find. The later Eircom ones and some of the early Trial cards like the 20 and particularly 50 Unit Autelca IMI ones. There are plenty of cards out there though, and if your willing to spend the cash you can get the full collection completed. I'm only after some of the Telecom eireann/Eircom Engineering Callcards now. They are hens teeth but I have a good few in my collection already.

You can find callcards on the likes of Delcampe, Adverts, ebay even. I made a blog about it with links:

https://irishcallcards.net/callcard-info/collecting-callcards/where-to-buy-sell-or-swap-callcards

A nice thing about the Irish Callcards is that there was a Callcard collectors Club. Every private Callcard from the mid 90s onwards was available at just over retail price to registered collectors so it made acquiring private cards much more possible for collectors, and making it more difficult for dealers to stockpile. That is why you generally find it is the earlier private cards (pre-year 1995) and later ones year 2000+ that are harder to find. Because there was such a demand for Callcards back in the 1990s though most private cards have been brought to the market again by now, as many were bought at auction or from dealers back then into collections.

I also did a small blog on the Callcard collectors fairs a while back:

https://irishcallcards.net/callcards-blog/20-years-on-from-the-last-callcard-collectors-fair