2007 Celebrity Metcards

Earliest known issue: October 2007

Page last modified/checked: Sunday, 28th March, 2010

In an attempt to encourage the pre-purchase of tickets, Metlink released a series of ten "Celebrity Metcards" in late 2007.
These tickets were produced only in pre-encoded format, specifically for sale from the Metcard online and phone order facility from 21st October 2007 and through the retail network from 4th November 2007.

The ten designs were available as full fare or concession issue 2-Hour, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, 10x2 Hour, 5xDaily and Seniors Daily.
The online issues can be immediately identified by their unusual blank backs. The retail issues carry the standard bar code and re-order number on the rear, however Metcard retailers were not able to specifically order any of the celebrity Metcards; receiving them only randomly among regular tickets.

Each of the ten celebrity Metcards designs is allocated its own designator S1 to S10 (this being the first use of designators S-7 to S-10) and features artwork depicting what Melbourne means to each celebrity.

Click on any image for a larger scan.

The celebrity metcard series were officially launched at Flinders Street station on Friday 12th October 2007 (this is the set illustrated above) and were promoted in the print media for approximately two weeks after their release. A poster illustrating the range was provided for display at railway stations.
By mid-March 2008, the Metlink website was advising that due to depleted stocks of certain fare types, orders would be matched as best as possible for the design requested. By early June 2008, there was no reference to the celebrity Metcards on the website any longer.

The promotional artwork replicas for all ten tickets were later auctioned to raise money for charity work.

We found Michael Klim's (left) retail issue one of the more difficult to find used examples of, while all of Kate Ceberano's (right) on-line issues sold out completely within two weeks. We found only a solitary example of a used, discarded on-line issue suggesting that a lot of celebrity Metcards may be salted away...... somewhere?

This special metcard folder was supplied to on-line purchasers of 10 x 2-Hour, 5 x Daily, Weekly and Monthly metcards.

The following metcard does not follow the previous sequence as Livinia Nixon was on S-1 card. This appearance may indicate that as metcard is displaced by the myki smartcard system, the "S-5" designator may be used as a "fill-in" until such time as metcards are no longer valid.
There may, of course, be some other explanation that we are unaware of at this time.

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