Some collections are born from an encounter, and some are reborn from one. The collection of Giuseppe Perrotti, WPC Club member and a regular at the PIM – Phonecards International Meeting since the very first edition, has lived through both. Born in Naples, he grew up among the phonecards his father brought home and the phone booths he searched with his friends, then let the passion sleep on a shelf for years, until a conversation with the woman who would become his wife brought it back to life.
Today his collection is entirely Japanese and entirely thematic: around 4,500 phonecards dedicated to Disney, anime and manga, sorted and re-sorted with every new discovery, with a dream in the drawer that concerns every collector of this theme.
Here is his story, in his own words.
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How many years have you been collecting phonecards, and how did this passion begin? How would you describe your collection to someone who doesn’t know this hobby?
My passion for phonecards began as a child. My father worked away from home and when he came back he brought me the phonecards he used to call us. It carried on as a teenager, when my friends and I “patrolled” every phone booth to find the most beautiful and the rarest card. Then, as happens to many, the passion faded a little, or rather it dimmed: the cards sat still on a shelf for years.
In 2010 I met the woman who would become my wife and, while telling each other about ourselves, I discovered that she too had collected phonecards as a child. That spark set the passion alight again, like a fire. Over the years I wanted to add a collection of Japanese phonecards alongside the Italian ones. It happened a bit by chance: in a lot of cards I had bought I found a few from this country that I love and dream of visiting, and from there a whole world opened up.
Since the production of Japanese phonecards is immense, I preferred to give myself a theme. With a small daughter and a wife who, like me, has never quite grown up, Disney, anime and manga seemed a more than obvious choice.
Now the Japanese collection takes all my energy and I have specialised above all in the Disney theme, whose market logic and cataloguing I am trying to learn in order to make my collection as complete as possible.
Roughly how many phonecards do you have in your collection, and over how many years did you build it up?
By now my collection is only the thematic Japanese one, mainly Disney with a part dedicated to anime and manga. It started around 2018 and counts approximately 4,500 phonecards.
Is there one phonecard you would never part with? What makes it so special to you?
I am the custodian of my collection, a bit like a librarian, but the ones who decide are my wife and daughters. The most beautiful cards are the ones that move them: when they tell me “this one is lovely” I already know it will never leave the album again. On top of that, I am very attached to the annual Disney phonecards, which are produced for different themes and anniversaries.
What gives you the most satisfaction in this hobby: the search, the discovery, the history behind the cards, the contact with other collectors, or something else?
They are all stages of collecting that I love, each in its own way.
The search never stops. It feels like monotonous work until I see that one, her, the card that was missing to complete a series or fill a gap in the album.
And then there are the whys: the discovery of hidden stories, of the slight differences that turn two cards which look identical at first glance into two completely different things.
When I started collecting Japanese phonecards I only looked at the front, I was satisfied with the picture. Then, little by little, I studied and read up, I discovered the market logic and the way cards were used in a country that is magical to me and so far from our culture, and in many respects harder to understand even just for the language and the writing. I discovered that one notch on the back instead of two meant something different, I found (no easy feat) a catalogue, and I made my collection more serious.
I also love that, with this “study” of the cards, my collection evolves: it changes order and arrangement in the albums with every new piece of knowledge I gain. And who knows, maybe in the future I will find a way to learn the language, to understand better.
Other collectors are the last piece of the puzzle. Being in contact with them online and at fairs lets me grow my knowledge and my collection, and gives me a chance to talk with people who share my passion.
Have you ever made an unexpected discovery? A phonecard found by chance that turned out to be particularly rare or meaningful?
Yes. It is something that may seem trivial to many, but at the time it gave me a great thrill. We are still talking about the Italian collection. After discovering that my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, also collected phonecards, she offered to give me hers so we could merge our collections.
Also because I, a Neapolitan, despite having a much more complete collection than hers, had very few bilingual cards from South Tyrol, which she, being from Trentino, was well supplied with. While merging our collections and checking the identical cards one by one, looking for variants or the best preserved copy, we discovered that we had two cards with consecutive OCR numbers. They are the only Italian cards from my old collection that I kept for myself before selling it.
Have you taken part in the PIM – Phonecards International Meeting? What do you remember of that experience?
I have taken part since the first edition in Milan and then in all the following ones in Turin. When I heard about the project I was thrilled. I was motivated by the chance to show my collection and to sell and swap my duplicates, but above all by the chance to get to know different sides of international collecting, hoping to find other collectors devoted to my theme. Which is exactly what happened, right at the first edition, where I met another collector of manga-themed Japanese phonecards.
How did you hear about the WPC Club, and what convinced you to join?
Taking part in the PIM from the first edition, I always stayed in touch with the organisers and kept up with what they were proposing. When it became possible to join the WPC Club it seemed an obvious choice, to stay ever more connected to this world and in contact with other collectors.
Is there something you expect from the WPC Club community that you haven’t found elsewhere yet?
To keep meeting collectors from all over the world, hoping to find someone else who shares my theme. Or, why not, to “infect” someone else so that they start collecting Japanese Disney, anime and manga phonecards.
Is there anything about your story as a collector that you would like to share and that the previous questions didn’t let you tell?
As a collector of such a particular theme I have a dream in the drawer: to produce a catalogue of Japanese Disney-themed phonecards that is as complete as possible, since the only one I know of is dated and therefore incomplete. So that anyone wanting to start a collection like mine can do it with a tool that guides them in searching for and cataloguing the cards.
The WPC Club thanks Giuseppe Perrotti for opening his albums. His story tells something many members will recognise: a collection is never just a set of cards, it is the way you learn to look at them. From the front to the back, from a picture to a notch, from a lot bought by chance to a theme that absorbs every ounce of energy.
The catalogue of Japanese Disney phonecards that Giuseppe dreams of producing should not stay a dream in the drawer, and the Club wants to lend a hand. If you have Japanese Disney-themed phonecards in your collection, send us a scan or a photo of the front and back, with whatever you know about the card (year, issuer, series). The WPC Club will gather the material and pass it on to Giuseppe, who will compare it with his collection and with the existing catalogue. Every extra card is a step towards a tool that does not exist today, useful to anyone wanting to start a collection like his. Write to [email protected] with the subject “Japanese Disney Catalogue”.
All the interviews in the series are collected on the Collector Stories page. If you are a WPC Club member and have a collection to tell, write to us: you could be the next interview. If you are not a member yet, find out how to join on the Membership page.
