Turns one of the most fundamental parts of life in Japan into an unforgettable event.

In Japan, business cards are seen as representations of the individuals whose names they bear, and so keeping yours loose in your pocket, or worse, doing so with someone else’s card, is a major breach of etiquette. Instead, you should have a dedicated business card case, something stylish or elegant…or super, super steampunk.

At first glance, this might look like some sort of scanner to help you look for deposits of astro energy in the alternate-timeline past of the year 193X. Really, though, it’s the Mechanical Card Case that Opens with a “Kasha!” (Steampunk) from Japanese design company SMD Factory.

To operate the case, you undo a latch that wraps around one of the top corners, then slide the ring at its base to one side to split open the top of the unit and grant access to the inner core chamber, as shown in the video below.

Made with carbon and duralumin aluminum-alloy, the case is durable but light, weighing in at just 105 grams (3.7 ounces). Sporting a decorative oscilloscope and astrolabe, the case clearly skews towards the front half of the form-versus-function scale, but it will hold 35 business cards.

Alternatively, if you’ve chosen the life of dashing adventurer over 9-to-5 businessman, the case can also be used to hold nine credit cards, your ID, or other plastic plaques you need for your day-to-day life or upcoming excursion on your local dirigible service network.

The Mechanical Card Case that Opens with a “Kasha!” (Steam Punk) ca be ordered online here from novelty retailer Village Vanguard for 46,200 yen (US$430), with shipping scheduled for mid-April. And if you’re looking for a suitably high-tech style of business card to put into it, this seems like it’d do the trick.

Source: PR Times
Top image: PR Times
Insert images: PR Times, Village Vanguard
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[ Read in Japanese ]

Follow Casey on Twitter, where he always wanted a business card with one language on the front and another on the back.

[ Read in Japanese ]