Subscriber identification module (SIM) cards that include a sequence of numbers that is easy to remember, such as license plate codes or the founding year of a football team, are sold for up to TL 100,000 ($34,363) on the Internet.
According to information compiled by the Anadolu Agency (AA), many SIM cards, which are offered for sale as vanity numbers, are valued at prices that are far above the market value, and can even compete with the price of a brand new car. These SIM cards stand out with their easily remembered sequence of numbers that represent the license plate code of a province (every province in Turkey is designated a two-digit number, like Istanbul is identified as 34) or the founding year of a football team. The prices of such SIM cards vary between TL 100 and TL 100,000.
A man in İzmir is selling his SIM card, the last four digits of which correspond to the founding year of the Galatasaray football team, for TL 90,000. Fahrettin Açıkgöz, who lives in Istanbul, is requesting TL 20,000 for his SIM card, the last four digits of which are 1907 - the founding year of the Fenerbahçe football team. Açıkgöz said he bought the SIM card for TL 5,000 six years ago, and is now pinning it as "a unique SIM card for Fenerbahçe fans."
