I've searched this site (probably not properly) but can't find any info about this weeks picture of the week. I'm really interested in these items, anyone have anymore info please?
Here is a search on Yahoo Japan. Apparently not super rare. Telephone cards, which were far more useful before people had mobile phones surgically attached to their ears, are a common promotional item in Japan. For large releases, shops will have their "own" telephone card as a promo for that release. If you're a hardcore collector, you may have to get 4-5 telephone cards for a single game release, and the only way to get them is buy the game new (or buy the card second hand -- usually for 1000 to 1500 yen... maybe more). If you don't know how to order off of Yahoo Japan, google around. You will need a proxy, which does this for a fee. I have a private one you or anyone can use. There are others out there but of course, mine is way better. Side Question: I always wondered how the cards worked in terms of copyright. Since each shop has their own card, you would think they'd get them through the distributor. This sounds like a lot of work for a handful of shops in Akihabara though.
"Lemon Party Organizer and Promoter" I laughed haha. But seriously, tell me more about your yahoo proxy
Works like most of the other ones. Make deposit->bid on item->I ship item(s) when you're ready. I have a search feature which scours Yahoo and emails results daily. Kind of like Ebay saved searches. Do note that for the 2nd time ever I have to suspend bidding for about a week at the end of the month as I will be totally disconnected from the interwebs. The only other time I did this was during the nuclear meltdown scare.
Are telephone cards still used as bonuses for preorders and such? I mean, what's the point in an era of iPhone, tablets and all. Nobody would use them anyway, so why not just call them "Collector's Card" and remove the functional aspect? I was already asking me that back in 2006 or so when Radirgy (DC) came with one as a preorder bonus. Why the hell would I want one?
Reminds me of that dude who collects McDonalds packaging. Last time I checked he had BigMac boxes, paper cups and merchandise that went all the way back to the early 90's. /edit Found it. Most (German) ad campaign packagings from the past 10+ years LOL
Weird. But hey, whatever floats your boat. The green phones are still around. What is rare is actually finding someone that is using one. I assume it's not people whose batteries are dead b/c chances are they don't know the number they need to dial...except home and office. I love looking at the "ISDN" brandished on the booth door.
I really like collecting them. I think I spend many hours hunting particular ones. I think maybe I have more of them than games. ^_^
Yeah I like this kind of promo goods, some of the artwork produced was amazing. I've got a lot of these kind of phonecards but I don't know much about how they were orginally released as they are all secondhand/used. The picture on the front page shows a diary or something as well... looks cool. Especially now I find I have little time or energy left to play games like I used too it's nice to have bits and pieces around which still remind me of the things I like.
