THY COLLECTIBLES Vintage-Style 13 Rods Wooden Abacus Soroban Chinese Japanese Calculator Counting Tool w/Reset Button 9.75

This is a nicely made soroban. You can tell it was made with care. The frame is made of sturdy wood with a nice finish. The beads seem to be made of wood also. The rubber feet and the clearing button are nice touches. The beads slide well and stay where you put them. The abacus is attractive and easy to use .I'm glad I purchased it.

Would I buy again? Yes.I have a few styles of soroban laying around the house. The others were plastic and this was the first wooden soroban I purchased. I wanted one with the quick reset. After watching videos online of kids in Japan using them – and using them fast – I wanted to learn how they worked. As a bit of a math nerd, I figured it would be something fun. My man-hands tend to make mistakes with the smaller plastic ones I own, so this was a huge improvement. The wooden beads are easy to move and make it a lot harder to knock them out of place like the plastic ones. The one-touch reset is an awesome feature.As for learning the soroban, I found myself using a giant jug of change as a way to learn. Once I mastered the basic motions and learned how you’re supposed to move the beads, I was trying to find something useful to practice. I dumped out my giant jug of change I’ve accumulated over the years and started using the soroban to tally up the amounts. Grab a handful of change, count what’s in your hand, add it to the soroban, lather-rinse-repeat. It definitely helped for practice.If you have an interest in learning something new or figuring out “how” these old-world tools work, definitely pick one of these up.

I looked at a lot of these before buying this one. Thought I'd have to settle for a plastic model based on the amount of money I was willing to spend on my first abacus. I have never used one before and didn't want to invest a lot in something I was going to use to learn on. Turns out this abacus is a beauty! It's wooden, has a reset level, and is just the right size. The only drawback is that it didn't come in a box. It was shipped in a padded envelope wrapped in bubble wrap. I have since converted an empty paint box kit into a carrying case for my abacus.

The package arrived earlier than expected. Easy to use, but not flawlessly made. Varnish is a bit uneven at the back. My reset button is a bit bent to the right, however it functions without any problem. This abacus is certainly sturdy, such aesthetic problems does not interfere with why I bought this product. It is portable and quality corresponds with value. :-)

Works perfectly, and is small enough to fit on my work desk easily - about the size of a long TV remote, if that helps you visualize. The beads are full circles, and don't have a seam that I can see (I was worried, after one I saw at a store had a big seam down each bead, just begging them to crack in half). Great quality, and super fast delivery!