This piece of equipment is probably older than you. I know it since 56 years ago, when I was age 3.
Everybody had it when I grew up. This was in a very technical environment: my father ran a bicycle and lawn-mower retail, maintenance, and repair business in Upper Bavaria. We had all the latest gadgets. Those were mostly mechanical gadgets at that time.
Today, I am still using a watch wristband calendar. And promised, you will use this calendar more often than you are looking up the time on your watch.
It is available here https://www.uhrenarmbandkalender.de/
How it Works
In October or November, you order one or two Uhrenarmbandkalenders. One is for you and one is for one of your friends. Actually, I am using two wristband calendars because I am using two watches: one business watch and one leisure watch.
Yes, I know. "Uhrenarmbandkalender" is a very long word, but that is how German written language works. Translate each one of the words "watch", "wrist", "band", and "calendar" and join them to one single word. Google for "Fussbodenschleifmaschinenverleih" if you want to find out more about long German words. By the way, that makes it fun to talk about your Uhrenarmbandkalender when someone is spotting it.
Your Uhrenarmbandkalender comes as a thin aluminum plate, with a thickness of 0.3 mm. The individual calendar chips are punched out by die-cutting, with a little leg left. This means that you have to break out a calendar chip before you can wrap it around your watch`s wristband.
To avoid reflections, the aluminum plate is anodized or matt-stained. There is a layer of foiling and it has proven to be very effective as a surface protection for the watch strap calendar. If the film comes off, it's not that bad as the surface is sealed with protective varnish, protecting it against scratches.
As James Whittle has highlighted to me, there is a US patent publication from 1967 (the Uhrenarmbandkalenderpatentanmeldung) here http://bit.ly/uhrenarmbandkalender
There is also a Wikipedia page about Uhrenarmbandkalenders, here https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uhrenarmbandkalender
What Date is Today
The headline of the calender chip has the German abbreviations for weekdays, namely "Mo" for "Monday", "Di" for Tuesday, and so on, until "So" for "Sunday". The Sundays are all arranged in the right column, so you will easily find your day and its date, see below:
What Date is Next Week Wednesday
After finding today´s date, it is easy to locate the "Wednesday" next week. It is the third day of the week, so the "Mi" (= "Mittwoch") column applies.
What Calendar Week is next Week
As you see in the photo above, there is additional information on the calendar. The column on the left side has the respective number for each week line on the calender. That is very useful when you work with finance or purchasing people because they use the calendar weeks often.
I have seldom seen the calendar weeks stated on regular paper calendars and my smartphone calendar also does not have it, so that is something that comes in handy with my Armbanduhrenkalender.
Other useful Information on the Calendar
As you can see above, the Armbanduhrenkalender comes with markings for national holidays in Germany. That is very useful if you work with German companies. As Germany is the 4th largest economy in the World, chances are high that you do work with Germany.
Other Uses
Apart from being an icebreaker for networking events, there are many other uses for your Uhrenarmbandkalender.
In the old times, I have used it for adjusting old-style motorbike ignition contact breakers, using the fact that it is exactly 0.3mm thick. You can also use it to scrape off protection layers in PIN letters.
It is also a cheap and handy business gift, which will remind the recipient on a daily basis of your own business.
What I like most is that it is a "passive" gadget, meaning that it does not need batteries.
IP Lawyer Tools by Martin Schweiger
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
