They are questions as old as the telephone debit card itself and chances are they are not going away. What constitutes "mint" and "non-mint" and does the mere fact that a phonecard no longer has time on it mean that it is not a mint card? Then there is that troubling question of expiration dates. Should they appear on the cards or not?
As you can imagine, a random sampling of dealers produced a random load of answers and opinions.
"If the card does not have a scratch off and you use the time, it should not detract from the value of the card," said Scott DuPont, owner of the Keep the Change store in Orlando, Fla. "The PIN is eventually going to expire anyway.
That would seem like the most logical answer but many others offer the opinion that if there isn't any time on the card, all you have is a piece of plastic. While true, it begs the question of "Why was it purchased in the first place?"
Art West of Finish Line CollectiNes in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla, takes a strong stance on the issue. As a long-time manufacturer of collectible trading cards and now a major phonecard producer, he speaks from both sides of the fence.
"If you had only 500 items of high-quality plastic trading cards and only 500 serial numbers, they would have a value associated with them based on the limited production quantities - as it relates to trading cards," he said. "If you did a set of trading cards like that, then dealers and collectors woould associate a value with that low production as cards that are diffi cult to find."
That concept shouldn't change in the case of phonecards, West says - just because a used phonecard doesn't have any time left on it doesn't change the number that were issued. "There are still only 500 of these collectible cards and the value should be judged the same as if they had not been used."
Collectible vs. utility
This brings the argument back to the issue of why the card was purchased in the first place. If it was bought as a collectible then should phone time even matter? However, if it was purchased as a utility card then why would the collectibility matter?
"If a $100 face value card is selling for $25, the people who buy them aren't buying them to use, they are buying them as collectibles," says DuPont. "We think utility is great and we're pushing that as a way to grow the industry." DuPont estimates 60 percent of his sales are going to people who will use the cards before they collect them. Convenience stores, such as 7-Eleven, push collectible phonecards as utility cards. A a result, the largest seller of phonecards in the U.S. is 7-Eleven.
There is however, a steadily growing collector market, says Chris Giorelle, owner of Copley Phone Cards Yorktown Heights, N.Y. "The majority of my customer do not ask about PIN numbers or expiration dates because if they want the card and the price is right, they aren't going to use it anyway," she said. "I haven't lost sales because of expired cards and I've never had anyone say they didn't want it because it had expired."
Giorelle believes if the PIN number has been scratched off, the card should be worth less than if number remains covered. "Scratched-off cards should be devalued because they have been altered and are no longer 'as issued'," she added. "I had people begging for the Cracker Jack cards but they wanted the 15-unit cards and you have to scratch them off to determine the minutes. It was like a toy surprise."
She says she isn't sure if there should be a pre-set formula regarding how much a card is devalued when it's scratched off, but the price should drop.
Klaus Degler of USA Cards in Denver, Cob., believes the problem could be solved by making cards that do not expire. "If you buy an American Express money order, you can use that several years down the road, because you pay for the product," he says.
"Phone time should not expire, and the company should be liable for that time. The problem is that many of these companies are using the money to stay in business rather than putting it in an escrow account."
They are questions as old as the telephone debit card itself and chances are they are not going away. What constitutes "mint" and "non-mint" and does the mere fact that a phonecard no longer has time on it mean that it is not a mint card? Then there is that troubling question of expiration dates. Should they appear on the cards or not?
