A silly looking box showed up in the mail a few days ago. It was attached to a spam mailer from a local car stealership proclaiming that I have already won a car, and just need to confirm the number this thing spits matches theirs. Naturally I took it apart:

Two coin cells and an LED,were you expecting an actual LCD display here? No budget even for a series resistor. Black insulator is the pulltab that turns things on when removed.
Conclusion: it’s an odd business designing things to be used once, cost close to nothing and pretend to be something else. But at least we get a free LED and a few coin cells out of this one.
I have gotten 3 of these in the mail. I take them apart and cut up the “lcd” sticker and stick it to one of the battery leads. When put back together it makes a nice little flashlight. Just squeeze the case to turn it on.
I wish they would send me some of those. I’d love to get some free LED’s.