Privacy signatures

I when I was a youth in the Southeastern US, at an early age my grandmother gave me my ceremonial set of letterpressed 3.5 x 2 cards with my full name on them. It was a formal Southern rite of passage, not unlike the silver monogrammed spoon (although this latter tradition had already degenerated by my time). I was too young to pay much attention to their quality or use at that age, and the social relevance of the things took a serious dive during the time I was in gradeschool. (Or maybe the users of my cards drifted outside social of spheres which prized such protocol?) They were used on gifts at the more formal childrens' parties, family Christmas, and given to girls (compulsory) at cotillion.

Thinking on these sliver memes tonight, it's interesting to see that those cards were not only not cheap, but that they were treasured, with definite value and context. Certainly a currency of etiquette which has fallen into obscurity.

I have never been employed in such a way that it was in any real way important for me to carry and hand out business cards. I have had probably 10 full boxes of 10 different manifestations of personalized paper infocards, but have only ever given out 100 or less. There is a specificity and narrow context to "business cards" which differs regrettably from the data-packet that was the letterpressed name card of my youth, or from the minimalist certainty of Patrick Bateman and his peers.

I have always desired a "card" that was not only a sigil of myself which can be given to a person in a sigilized, pocket friendly format (which a name unquestionably is), but was itself a conduit for relating to me.