Flexible black squared plastic strips, 2 inches long
Like paper matches in a book but bigger
About ¼ inch wide and ¼ as thick as it is wide
Up to 5 stripes on each end
Wider, engraved/debossed stripes, called notches, at one end
Narrower, surface stripes at the other
Stripes = multipliers of 1 through 5
Notches = decimal places (digits? powers of 10?)
• 1 = 1
• 2 = 10
• 3 = 100
• 4 = 1,000
• 5 = 10,000
Therefore...
(Notches on left, stripes on right)
1 |_______________| (1 x 1)
10 ||______________| (2 x 1)
50 ||__________||||| (2 x 5)
100 |||_____________| (3 x 1)
500 |||_________||||| (3 x 5)