Cool Computer Punch Card Bookmark! This is a genuine antique punchcard like they used to use to put data into computers. The idea was that it when a computer could fill an entire house, having a keyboard and monitor was too expensive. Instead you would write your program by punching patterns of holes in pieces of cardboard. Then, when you are finished and had bought some time on a computer (owned by a big company, government agency or university if it was wealthy enough), you would put the pile of cards in a machine that would poke switches through the holes and read the info into the kilobyte or so of memory, run it and then print out the results.

Owing to the exclusivity of such geeky paraphanalia and the time since they were last used this is a very rare item. The punch card you will be bidding on is even more unusual and otherwise unobtainable because it comes all the way from CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. It is yellow and of the right dimensions (Two) to make an insanely great geeks bookmark. CERN is the biggest and most superfabulous High Energy Physics Laboratory the world has ever seen! The name stands for the Council European Research Nuclear (In French, or course!) and it is where Dan Browns fictional character in 'Angels and Demons' stole antimatter from to blow up the Vatican. CERN really does work with antimatter, quarks, muons, neutrinos, bosons and other elementary particles but it is impractical to carry such things in a briefcase for the purpose of mass mayhem. (Not a viable WMD)

I have got hold of this and some more like it from a scientist / computer programmer / Geek at CERN who is just now retiring after 50+ years of High-Tech research. My little sister has just moved in to replace him and after a bit of opportunist prompting fom me has aquired a whole stack of books and stuff being cleared out of the office. Punch cards being small and light seemed ideal for me to take back to NZ on the plane so now you too can have this piece of obscure technological wonder.