[fujimotos]

The "Diners' Club" story is fun to tell, but it's really a fictional story created for advertisement.

* Actually, there were a lot of "credit cards" when Diners Club started the business. One of the oldest such cards is one issued by Shell (oil company) circa 1920, predating more than a decade.

* The real innovation of Diners Club's card was that it was general purpose. It could be used for multiple merchandises, while other cards were very purpose-specific (e.g. Mobil card for purchasing gas from the store, Western Union card for its telegraph service).

A good resource to read about the origin of credit cards is "The credit card industry: A History" By Lewis Mandell.

> My theory is that those early adopters signed up because the card gave the illusion of status or eliteness

The primary motivation to own diners cards was post-pay. To put it simply: you can eat a dish without paying for it now. That was appealing for people who just started to enjoy consuming stuffs. Yes, you still need to pay the full amount every month, but minimum monthly payment (a.k.a. revolving credit) was an innovation yet to be conceived...

[mattm]

I'm part way through "The Credit Card Catastrophe" right now. It was written by the author of the article and is also worth a read.