[Jukebox-list] OT-Old names

[Jay Hennigan]

Ron Rich wrote:
> For you "young-ins", "Charge-a Plate" was (one of ?) the first charge cards on the order of what "VISA" or Master Card is today.
>   Does anyone know--was it a national system?  I only know that it was good in the San Francisco area, in certain dept. stores.
>   I think it was a co-operative type thing here, that combined the billing depts. of the stores---I also believe that "Bank of America" which was headquartered here at the time, took it over, and re-named it "BankAmerica Card"--which later evolved into "VISA". Ron Rich 

It was a metal plate with raised letters similar to those on a plastic 
credit card, but about 1/3 the size of a credit card.  If you had an 
account with a store they would cut a notch in the outside of the plate, 
which would fit a pin on that store's stencil machines.  No notch and 
the plate wouldn't fit into the recess.  There was also an oval notch 
that denoted the region.

The store would write up your purchase and put a form with carbon paper 
(another old term we never see any more) over the plate.  Then a roller 
would imprint the form with the name and address on the plate, and the 
store would mail a bill.

They were franchised by region.  Good pictures of one here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290050582627

--
Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay at impulse.net
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