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)