1999 :: Telecom Episode 1 Phone Cards

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Star Wars seems to find its way into many aspects of our lives. Starting in 1999, Telecom New Zealand went beyond the obvious marketing opportunities, and released a set of collectibles that were also functional, in the form of 'The Phantom Menace' prepaid phone cards. Assuming, of course, that you owned a prepay phone, and 'activated' the card to use it to make calls. That is the beauty, from a certain point of view (i.e., Telecom's), of collectible phone cards: some people bought them to use, but some people bought them just to collect, and with prices between $20 and $75, a full, unused set held actual intrinsic value (right up to the point when the cards expired).

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The total number available to collect is 11. This odd number is a consequence of the way exclusive/special cards were allocated. A base set of 6 cards is made up of 3 $20 cards, 2 $30 cards, and a single $75 card. These cards are all portrait-oriented designs, except for the $75 Watto card. The other characters depicted are Jar Jar Binks, Anakin Skywalker and Queen Amidala, each on $20 cards, and Qui-Gon Jinn and Darth Maul each on a $30 card.

A limited edition card bearing an image of Anakin and Padme, is the only $50 denomination available, and could be purchased as part of a specially packaged gift offer.

The 4 remaining cards carry co-branded advertising (on the rear) in the form of the company logos of selected resellers of Telecom prepaid cards. They are the $20 Sebulba card from Dick Smith Electronics, the $20 Obi-Wan Kenobi card from its loose-namesake, Ben Rumble Communications, the $30 Jabba the Hutt cards from Noel Leeming, and the $30 Royal Starship card from Shell.

And for the completists out there, a couple of variations have been reported: both the $20 Obi-Wan Kenobi card from Ben Rumble, and the $75 Watto card have been found with the "Go Prepaid" number, on the rear of the card, in silver text on a black background instead of the usual black numbers on a white background.

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28 Jun 2005 :: Update

In addition to the standalone prepaid calling cards described above, Telecom also capitalised on their Episode 1 license but issuing, in 1999, 3 mobile phone packs that each included a mobile phone, a $50 prepaid phone card, and a copy of 'The Phantom Menace' soundtrack. The bundles were packaged in boxes with images of Star Wars characters on the front and rear, and included either a Nokia 252, a Nokia 918 or a Motorola Profile phone.

Telecom Mobile Phone Pack 1 - Front Telecom Mobile Phone Pack 1 - Back Telecom Mobile Phone Pack 2 - Front Telecom Mobile Phone Pack 2 - Back Telecom Mobile Phone Pack 3 - Front Telecom Mobile Phone Pack 3 - Back

Matt G
(with thanks to Centuri Chan and Stephen Williams)

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