Callcard Blog - The Irish Callcards Site

Collecting Callcards Nostalgia

Remember when you used to go around ransacking all the local card phones in the hope that someone left their used Callcard? The excitement felt when you found a "rare" 50 or 100 unit Callcard on the lucky days. For many people, Callcard collecting was an exciting hobby due to not knowing what you would find next. Would it be a private card, a limit[...]

Prepaid Phonecards

While many Callcard collectors may have taken little to no interest in collecting prepaid phonecards, there have been many very interesting examples of Irish prepaid cards produced. Prepaid or Remote memory Phonecards were not inserted into a cardphone during use, instead they used a secret PIN Number which would be revealed on the rear of the card[...]

So after all those years, are my Callcards valuable?...

So after all those years, are my Callcards valuable?... A question I have been asked quite a bit lately is this. Unfortunately in the majority of cases I get asked, the answer is no. Telecom Eireann (and Eircom) released different kinds of cards throughout the years, with a mix of trial, definitive, private and general release cards. In this shor[...]

A History of Telecom/Eircom phoneboxes

Back in the nineties before the popularization of mobile phones, every village, shopping centre, public spaces typically had one or more public telephones. In fact, public telephones were so popular, there were often queues of people wanting to use them! The first public call box was installed in Dublin in 1925. Move on 63 years, which saw the intr[...]

Callcard Chipsets

This guide to the chipsets used on Telecom eireann and Eircom Callcards will allow you to easily identify the different chipsets used on various Callcards produced. These small EPROM chips are factory programmed with a set amount of units, in quantities of 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 Units for the consumer market. These units are stored in a protected ar[...]