Overprinting phonecards for advertising purposes is a common practice in several countries; sometimes these overprintings are authorized by official issuing Telecoms, and these cards are usually catalogued, as an official quantity exist. On the contrary, on most occasions these are private advertising overprints, and the card is used just to spread the ads; or it could be just a speculation, overprinting cards in order to grow up their value as collectibles.
It's interesting to notice that several times the printing is quite bad and easily removable, especially when the cards are overprinted with advertising, because there is no necessity for these prints to be resistent for long time.
The cards reproduced in this page are just a small part of New Zealand cards overprinted on several occasions, without being authorized by Telecom New Zealand: we have seen at least 80 different ones.
It must be said that someone tried to catalogue these cards, and a collectible market exists, so they are often overvalued. In our opinion, these cards have the same value as the official card. These cards are in fact overprinted on original copies, and the printing is easily removable without leaving any trace or damage on the card itself.
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