Nigel Stock and Peter Cushing on a Japanese Phone Card

“… actors in this drama…”

– The Adventure of the Second Stain (SECO)

Peter Cushing and Nigel Stock were to portray Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson for 16 episodes of Sherlock Holmes on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 1968. Stock had portrayed Watson in the first 13 episodes of the series in 1964 and 1965, with Douglas Wilmer portraying Holmes. Cushing had starred as Holmes previously in the 1959 horror film adaption of The Hound of the Baskervilles and would resurrect the role again in the 1984 film The Masks of Death.

Nigel Stock as Watson, Peter Cushing as Holmes in the BBC-TV Sherlock Holmes series adaption of The Hound of the Baskervilles

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 these and other Japanese phone cards.