Case Magnets and Credit Cards

deftech · 03-04-03, 01:08 AM

I posted this reply in one of the case threads, but thought it might better serve it's purpose as a separate thread since there have been MANY discussions of people worrying about magnets.

I am not an "expert" on these by any means, but have dealt with magnetic stripe technology on access cards (same as used with credit cards) in the past. Any mag strip is going to be either high-coercivity or low-coercivity. A high-coercivity magnetic strip is very hard to erase with a magnet, requiring usually a very strong magnet. The low-coercivity strips are the only ones to REALLY worry about with magnets. Most any credit card is going to use high-coercivity strips. The easiest way to differ between these two types of strips is that high-coercivity strips are a dark black (like those on most credit cards). While low-coercivity strips are normally a medium brown color (you might find these on some gas cards and other not-so-frequently-used cards). I for one have used high-coercivity cards in a magnetic closure case for years, and the cards still work fine. I really hope that this can possibly help clear some of the confusion.

p.s. As mentioned in the beginning, I am NOT an "expert" on this subject. So if anything I have said is not 100% accurate, please post a correction. Thanks.

--deftech

deftech · 03-09-03, 10:58 PM

Just wanted to give this a single bump since there are still some ongoing threads that involve magnets and cards.

--deftech

WindWalker · 03-09-03, 11:48 PM

Thanks for clarifying this. I had always thought that it wouldn't make sense for case makers to include both CC spaces and magnetic closures without testing to see if they were problematic. Seem to be too many options out there to have been unobserved for this long.