[pikewood]

The original SmarTrip cards came from a company that went out of business, but used proprietary technology. WMATA eventually found another company to create the cards, and I believe this came about the time when new SmarTrip cards reduced in price from $5 to $2. So perhaps not a change in the design, but definitely a change in the manufacturing.

http://wamu.org/news/10/10/15/metro_board_replacing_smartrip...