The 1994 Apple Card

As I’m often on the lookout for inexpensive things to add to my Apple collection, I recently scooped up an instruction manual for my Macintosh SE. It also contained a much newer packet of information for some early-1990s model of PowerBook and what caught my eye was a trifold brochure for an Apple credit card, issued by Citibank. Apple had offered closed-loop cards for financing since the 1980s, but this appears to be the first one that could help turn your general spending into a computer. The older cards have appeared on eBay and sell for thousands of dollars due to being rare and obscure. I have yet to find any examples of the Citibank (now branded as Citi for credit cards) version. After a brief postponement, it appears the card was introduced on January 5, 1994, although most materials appear to have intended for a late-1993 launch. Compared with a lot of credit cards today, this really feels like a time capsule. On the application, one gets the choice of Visa or Mastercard for…