Abstract: A visiting card of a new type on which symbols, such as characters, mumerals and figures of any kind, for discriminating the bearer's identification items, such as the company name, section name or own name, from other items are marked in the vicinity of the identification items in the margin of the visiting card. Camouflage print may be made on the symbols to conceal them, by the use of a colored/colorless ink, so that they are readable only by an optical reader. The discriminating symbols optically read together with the identification items are converted into binary optical or electric signals and input to a computer in order to obtain a swift, correct and cheap retrieval of the data required.