Call charge meter ƒ75 call:252006. This small advert appeared among roughly forty others in the 18 December 1992 print edition of Observant, where they were known as Paarltjes. Back then, call charge meters were essential in student houses. This was the second half of the twentieth century, when mobile phones didn’t yet exist or were still prohibitively expensive. Entire households shared a single landline, and everyone was expected to use the call charge meter to keep track of their own calls. When the phone bill arrived, you simply did the maths and divided the costs – in theory, at least. In practice, much like with shared crates of beer (with a running tally of how many bottles each person had taken), people often forgot to keep track of what they were owed.
Until quite recently, Paarltjes were an inseparable part of the print edition of Observant. For years, they filled page 2. Long before social media existed, staff, students and local residents used them to sell things, look for accommodation, recruit members for student societies, or send cryptic messages, all in no more than three hundred characters. In the 1980s, placing these mini adverts was free. Later, a small fee was charged – up to ƒ12.50 in 1992 and up to €8 in 2017. A few examples: For sale: 2nd-hand bikes, no dodgy history, from ƒ20. Call 043 – 3618352. Or: Free sex!?! No, but ƒ100 if you help me find a room in Maastricht. 09 3289722644.
Some were clearly meant for one person: Pieter Puntmuts, where are you? The windowsill feels so empty without you. Or: Marianne, I love you. Chris. And: HENKIE, de MATENAVOND has got your back. Most, though, were aimed at a general audience: Looking for self-cont accom for 1-2 people. Call: Marike 631159. And: For sale, Talbot Horizon Ultra. Oct ’83, 40,000 km. Call 043-474736.
Advertisements had to be submitted to the assistant to the editors by Tuesday 4 p.m., using a specially designed template with three hundred little boxes that could be cut out of the newspaper. It wasn’t unusual for a student to turn up at the office with a blank form and no pen, often at the very last minute (or worse, ten minutes after the deadline), ready to haggle over punctuation and spacing to keep costs down. Strict rules were soon introduced: “Each letter, punctuation mark or space gets its own box.”
The assistant to the editors occasionally rejected adverts, usually those containing sexist remarks from student associations, or adverts from brothels and escort services hoping to recruit young female students. And there was a grey area – take this advert from March 1993, which apparently made it through the informal vetting process: Wanted: attractive female students looking to make some good money on the side. Call Richard 256706.
With the rise of social media, fewer and fewer Paarltjes were submitted. They first moved to page 14 and then went online before disappearing altogether on 1 January 2025, when our last assistant to the editors retired.
Call charge meters had already disappeared much earlier, on 1 January 2002. They lost their relevance as mobile phones became commonplace, even when they were still just simple devices used only for calling.