(6,500 Sticks puzzle)

Flexible black squared plastic

Like paper matches from a match book but longer

Flattened by about half

• not paper but not an actual stick

With stripes on each end

Wider, engraved/debossed stripes called notches, at one end

Narrower, surface stripes at the other

Notches = powers of 10

• 1 = 1
• 2 = 10
• 3 = 100
• 4 = 1,000
• 5 = 10,000

Stripes = multipliers of 1 through 5

Therefore...

(Notches on left, stripes on right)

• |--------------------| = 1
• ||-------------------| = 10
• ||---------------||||| = 50