This gold family crest-style signet ring would have been awarded to students who performed exceptionally well while learning to use the Comptometer. This machine, made from 1887 to the mid-1970s, was the first push-button calculator. It could perform addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Because each key depression accumulated the total, an operator could press multiple keys at the same time making it an extremely fast machine. Men at the factory who proved most talented at comptometing(?) received enameled tie pins and women got these + % X - rings so there would be no confusion over who was the biggest nerd in the room. Made by Ostby & Barton, an American jewelry manufacturer with fascinating ties to the Titanic (Ostby was an unlucky passenger).