MasterCard turns 40

PURCHASE, N.Y. - Robert W. Selander was a Harvard University graduate student in the early 1970s when he opened a checking account and began using his first credit card with a $200 spending limit.

Credit cards were such novelties then that he had a hard time using the card much beyond the area of the issuing bank.

“Remind yourself, that was when gasoline was 30 cents a gallon,” Selander recalled. “We had not gone through the first oil shock yet. For me, $200 was a lot as a grad student. It was like, ‘Boy, you want to be very thoughtful about how you use this.’ ”

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