The credit card has a long and storied history with the original idea approaching 100 years of age soon. Of course few people could have realized just how much of a financial WMD they would become, but that’s a topic for another post. (OK, in fairness, every other post.)

But those pieces of plastic (which used to be pieces of paper) do have a certain aesthetic to them I must admit, and not just when you put pictures of your poodle on your Capital One card. It’s especially interesting to see how these cards have evolved over time.

For that, check out the slideshow Plastic Flashback from Slate’s The Big Money blog.

Just like we can’t imagine the credit cards of today without magnetic stripes and signatures, the future will be bringing us cards with all manner of new enhanced security features that haven’t even been dreamed of yet. (RFID tags were supposed to be the wave of the future until hackers learned to bypass them for less than the cost of a venti latte.) These will change the appearance of cards down the road, for sure.

What won’t change is that credit card companies will still try to gouge you. Probably by charging a fee for RFID chips.