What's in Your Wallet?
11 June 2008Yester-day, my tearing the lamination off a credit card that I was destroying caused it to release a strong smell like mineral spirits or turpentine, which odor I infer was actually that of vinyl chloride or some impurity. I've not had that experience before, though I've torn the laminate off quite a few cards over the years. The card in question was probably issued about two years ago.
Tags: credit cards
What you were smelling was a built-in anti-theft device similar to the dye packs included in cash stolen from a bank. Had anyone attempted to buy a Phil Collins album with that credit card it would have exploded.
Yet it wouldn't much surprise me if Phil Collins used vinyl chloride as cologne.