Payments guru, Dave Birch over on the Digital Money Forum blog has great post on credit cards.  It seems the first mass mailing of plastic took place 50 years ago today in Fresno, California. Never again would the world be the same!

[Dave Birch] Today is a very important day for us payments nerds. It’s the 50th anniversary of the “Fresno Drop”. As the folks at Javelin put it…

On Sept. 18, 1958, Bank of America officially launched its first 60,000 credit cards in Fresno, Calif., setting in motion an experiment that changed the American way of borrowing, paying and budgeting.

[From Javelin Strategy and Research » Our Credit Card Culture Turns 50]

This is a fantastic look at how cards started and where they are going today. Read the full post here…