HUGE Japanese Wooden Soroban - Abacus / Class Instruction Tool / Side Table Top

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This abacus is 40 inches long, 10 inches wide, 2 inches thick and weighs 7 1/4 pounds. This was from the time before calculators. At that time in Western countries, people used slide rules to do complicated math. In Asian countries people used an abacus. But people had to learn how to use an abacus. So they had abacus classes. It might be at your school or it might be at an after school, school (A juku). In the classroom the instructor would have one of these at the front of the class and would use it along with their instructions to illustrate the lessons. This is a working abacus. All the parts move. Some of them move a little stiff but they all move. If you'll notice the first photos show all the beads in the "Down" position. The last two photos we've moved all the beads to the "Up" position. The only parts not made of wood is the protective corner metal on the outside corners and the two sliding markers in the middle bar. These are not extremely rare, Think we'd rate these as "somewhat" rare. In 16 years of selling Japanese antiques we've had about 6 of them. They often get turned into coffee table tops with a sheet of glass over them but they also make an interesting wall hanging. We have other antique/vintage Japanese items on our ebay site. We will combine items for shipping if we can safely do so. And if you are not completely read more

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