Japanese Real Estate Portal Issued A Second Sherlockian Themed Phone Card

“I went to the house agents …”

-The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge (WIST)

Back in September 2015, we posted about a 500 unit prepaid phone card for the Japanese online real estate portal HOMES.CO.JP We now have a 1,000 unit card reported to us.

There are a few differences from the previously reported card. This card has a vertical design, while the earlier one had a horizontal design. The newly reported card only has one cartoon figure – dressed like Sherlock Holmes wearing deerstalkers, inverness capes and holding magnifying glassest. Small silhouettes of houses make up the background design The card is white in color, with printing in brown, orange and blue inks. The back of the card is silver colored with black printing. The “fine print” on the back indicates that the card is intended for use in Japan.

Many of the visitors to this website probably recall the days when pay phones were a common site when walking down a city sidewalk or inside a hotel lobby. You would drop a few coins into the phone, dial the number and make your call. Perhaps you would use a calling card if you were making a long distance call. In the mid 1990’s, there started to appeared prepaid calling cards by some enterprising companies, such as AmeriVox. These prepaid calling cards would generally have 50 call units that would be redeemed at a fixed ratio as the call progressed, until the card would have no remaining call units.

In Asia, prepaid calling cards are quite prevalent and frequently used to promote products or services. Public phones are equipped with card readers. A user would insert the prepaid card into the reader, make the phone call and when finished remove the card. The card reader would punch a small hole into the card, prior to its removal, showing approximately how many call units remain, if any.

Your editor would be very grateful to be contacted by any Japanese Sherlockians, who could translate this and other Japanese phone cards.