The collecting of phone cards stems, likely, from the collection of baseball cards that started, by some accounts, with their insertion into Cracker Jack boxes, and bubblegum packs. The phone card collecting 'craze', though it is not largely popular in more than a few select arenas, is attributed to the novelty phone card. The novelty phone cards include pictures of sports figures, actors, scences, or other works of pop culture. They came about due, mostly, to the natural inclination of manufacteres to make their products more eye-catching to the potential consumer. Phone card collecting is usually done in association with other types of collecting,'second-hand-collecting' if you will. For instance; a person who is into Michael Jordan sports cards might see a MCI phone card featuring Michael Jordan and buy it, then look for more, and then move onto other sports figures etc; You might say that phone card collecting stems, for the most part, from the "If you give a mouse a cookie.." senario.