In
September 1995 I first became aware of hotel keycards (also called roomcards) at
the Berlin airport ”Tempelhof.”
As I had plenty of time until my flight to Cologne, I strolled through
the departure hall and just by chance saw a telephone card in a telephone booth.
I thought that someone had left it there, and this card seemed totally
unknown to me.
As
any collector will understand, I was bit by the collecting bug, and so I seized
the opportunity to inspect it very carefully.
I was disappointed to find that this was in fact not a telephone card,
but rather a room card of the Steigenberger Hotel in Berlin.
Nevertheless, I took it – without knowing that this card was the
beginning of a hotel keycard collection.
In
December 1995 my wife and I spent a vacation in Florida (USA).
To avoid the stress of travel, we decided to stay overnight in a Dorint
Hotel close to the airport in Amsterdam-Shiphol (NL) from where we had booked
our flight. At
the reception we did not get a room key, rather two keycards.
After our arrival the next day in Orlando a nice woman at the hotel
reception again gave us two keycards instead of room keys while checking in.
It was at this point that I decided to collect these often very pretty
cards, especially because they were exactly the size of telephone cards, and
could easily be put into the same collecting album.
During our trip to Ft. Lauderdale, Naples, St. Petersburg, and back to
Orlando the small collection of keycards had grown to four.
Unfortunately at this time I did not have the idea to go from hotel to
hotel to ask for the particular hotel keycards.
Back home again I talked to friends about my new hobby, and some of them
dug out a keycard of the Hyatt (Boston), the Mövenpick Hotel/Istanbul, or the
Hotel New York in Disneyland/Paris from the last vacation or business trip.
Others brought keycards from their vacation in the USA.
So by November 1996, my collection grew to 25 keycards.
Later
I decided to write or fax German hotels to request their individualized keycards.
I found their addresses in a Varta hotel guide.
h
Hotels do not have to fear abuse of the keycards, because their
magnetic stripe is programmed individually for a particular time and hotel guest.
After this programmed period of time the access to the particular room is
no longer possible.
The card has to be programmed again for a new guest.
Older, but still used, lock card systems work with punched cards, which I
also collect; however I will not go into further detail about this topic.
At
first I sent card requests to hotels in which I would probably most likely not
stay overnight, like the Hilton Inter Continental, Sheraton, or Kempinski Hotel.
I got a great response.
Hotels not yet having this modern system let me know by phone or even
letter or FAX that they regret that they are still using common keys and
therefore it would not be possible to send a keycard to me.
Most of the hotels already using keycards sent them with an accompanying
letter. My
collection grew quickly to 70 keycards from German hotels alone.
At the cheapest calling time, I sent faxes internationally – to Italy,
France, the Netherlands, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Saudi
Arabia, Thailand, and others.
Most sent their keycards with best wishes for my collection.
I was especially pleased to receive six hotel keycards of the Caesars
Hotel in Las Vegas.
These cards belong to a ”collector series” and were sent to me with a
friendly letter in German.
Most
of the German and foreign keycards that are extravagantly made have the name of
the hotel on the front side and are also used for advertising.
On German cards, as on telephone cards, we find the very popular beer
advertisements such as Bitburger, König Pilsener, Köstritzer, Radeberger,
Paulander, Erdinger, etc. that are loved by collectors.
Other cards advertise for musicals such as Cats, Phantom of the Opera,
Gaudi, Starlight Express, Tommy (special edition of the Steigenberger Hotel
”Frankfurter Hof”) Les Miserables, Buddy, or Gambler.
Also credit card institutions, banks, insurance companies, the German
Telecom, and private taxi enterprises have a place on keycards.
In foreign countries, the backsides often have the advertisements of the
card producer.
On others, airline companies like American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, or
companies like Europcar and American Express advertise.
Through
the magazine ”Telefonkarten Journal” (7/97) I had the opportunity to present
my hobby to collectors of the phone cards.
As a result, four collectors contacted me.
From
the last telephone card auction catalogue from ”Rogge Auctions,” I learned
that I share the passion of collecting keycards with many others.
Every card had been sold.
Since
July, 1997 I have been using the Internet to write to hotels.
After
reading a report on the Internet, the West German Radio Station (WDR) called me
and asked if I would like to present my hobby to the listeners of Radio 5.
For this purpose the above-mentioned collector friend from Cologne and I
had been invited in April for a 30-minute radio program interview ”Our Radio
Listeners Run the Show” to the broadcasting center in Cologne.
Besides this, I got to know my collector friend from Cologne personally.
In
the April 1999 ”Telefonkarten Journal” I again had the opportunity to report
on my hobby as well as the progress of my collection since 1997.
Meanwhile,
the small community of collectors has grown to eight hotel keycard collectors.
My own collection has grown to
5408
different keycards from
103 countries.
Perhaps this article will encourage a reader to start collecting keycards.
I
would appreciate it very much to find exchange partners in foreign countries.
