My Old Credit Cards
Whenever you receive a replacement credit card, the issuer always asks you to destroy the old card, like cut it in half, so the old card can no longer be used. Do you always follow what you are told to do?
I don’t know about you, but I never destroyed a single card and never thrown away one. Instead, I put them in a box and after more than ten years since I got my first credit card, I have *collected* a bunch of credit cards that are no longer in the market. For example, Chase once offered a StockBack credit card that let me invest cashbacks in a mutual fund, Citibank had a card with which I used to pay Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) phone bills and earn rewards, which was probably my first card with a reward program, and I can shop and donate to Smithsonian with Discover Smithsonian Card. I guess none of them exists any more.
BTW, do you know Discover also had a black card in the past?
We know American Express has a Centurion card and Visa recently introduced its own Visa Black Card. But in my card collection, there’s a also a *black* card from Discover.
Never heard of? I bet that’s the case unless you, like me, actually owned one. Well, it’s just an ordinary card that’s all black. There was no special requirement to get the card and there’s no privilege associated with the card either (obviously, if I can get one, everybody can).
From my collection, I can see that credit cards have changed a lot since I first became a cardholder. Not just the program, but the card itself as new cards come and old cards gone. I even had a Discover card that’s like those grocery cards you can put on your key china, though I never did that. Going through the old cards is kind of fun sometimes.
Do you still have your first credit card? If so, what is it? My oldest is an American Express Optima Card that I got in 1998.
BTW, credit cards are not the only items I collect. I also collect stamps and coins. Last year when I went back to China, I filled the entire 22″x14″x8″ luggage with only a portption of my stamp collects. And I had a box full of paper cigarette packs that are 30 to 40 years old 
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I also collect all kinds of old cards and never threw them away. I think it is kind of fun! I don’t where my oldest credit card is, but I am gonna guess it is my first credit card that my credit union gave me back in 2002 with $500 credit line and no rewards whatsoever.
i have credit cards from the 1970′s and later years, all i have ever held. anyone interested in buying them?