Do they still sake male rulers in Germany?

I ask my German colleague and waive my (25+ years old) German made scale ruler at him.

Then we laugh, realising the silliness of what I’ve just said.

Needless to say the conversation quickly jumps from the scale ruler to computers and then the best make of cars, passing through globalisation, culminating in outsourcing.

Not surprisingly someone questions me owning one anyway (being all digital and BIMish), others extend the query to all of us, since we aren’t supposed to scale anything, anywere, anymore...

So, following a bit of quiet reflection I collect 4 contemporary uses of my German-made scale ruler:

As a bookmark in my very old fashioned diary

To underline/separate titles on printed drawing-list and construction programmes

To fold and rip A3 pages into halves

To indulge in a bit of nostalgia, remembering the times when Rotring, Steadler and Faber Castell ruled the industry;

..and while listing old tools of trade, let me mention:

My box of rapidograph-pens, I carried them around the world as I shifted houses and lives for two decades, disappeared in the last shift.

My stencils, a nice little collection of mainly orange (Rotring) and green (others) thin sheets of plastic, sold them a year ago.

The first-class-compass with the adjustable wheel, I paid an ‘arm and a leg’ for as a student was stolen while still studying. RIP.