Yellow Mountain Imports Vintage Style Wooden Abacus - 13.9 Inches (35.3 Centimeters) - Professional 17 Column Soroban Calculator with Reset Button - Made

I’ve been using the Yellow Mountain Imports Wooden Abacus, and it’s dope! This 13.9-inch, 17-column soroban looks vintage and feels solid with its wooden frame and ABS beads. The reset button is a total win—clears it fast for my next calc. Rubber feet keep it from sliding, which is clutch on my desk. It’s awesome for brushing up math skills or just messing around. Only downside? The beads are a tad loose, so they shift if I tilt it too much. Not a huge deal, just gotta keep it flat. Super cool for geeking out or teaching kids!

This is not my first abacus, but it is the first with a reset button, and I like it.First one I ever got was a "transitional" soroban which I picked up from an antique dealer in Korea. It has one bead "topside" and five "below decks," with the former owner's name painted on the back.This one is about the same size - somewhat large, meant to stay put and not be carried around. For the true old-timers reading this, imagine the difference between a pocket calculator and an office adding machine. As I recall abacus use from my time in Korea (1990-1991), examples in this size were what you'd see at the cash drawer of the small restaurants and stores in the little village just off-post.Among the things to like about this abacus, a few things stand out:o It has rubber feet to help it stay put. Another reviewer said the arrangement of the feet makes it wobbly and perhaps it does. The obvious solution is to not lean one's hand on the thing. Proper technique discourages leaning on it anyway.o The placement of the little brass brads BETWEEN the rows of beads rather than in line with every one-in-three makes designating a "unit" column that much easier. It makes the brads appear to be where the decimal point and commas ought to be, which is visually easier to grasp.o Materials and workmanship imply practical utility over aesthetic beauty. It is built to be used.In the same way exercise makes the body stronger, use of the abacus makes the mind stronger. One of the advantages of archaic aids to calculation such as the abacus, the slide rule and the log table book, is that of instilling in the operator an intuitive sense of the relationships between the numbers he or she is working with and the things those numbers represent. In other words, one develops a sort of "sixth sense" regarding quantity, spatial relationship, magnitude, etc. by working with these old devices, which in turn makes the operator better at the math he or she is called upon to perform. Calculators and computers are more convenient, certainly, but we lose something valuable when we rely on electronic devices to do our thinking for us all the time.

This is a decent soroban for the price. It is a good deal larger than a standard Japanese soroban, and thus may be better for large-handed folks or those simply not used to fiddling with little beads. The finish a little rough: you can tell this thing was meant to reach a price point. Inner wood surfaces are not varnished/treated the same, and the fittings are cheap sheet metal. That said, the beads are smooth, consistent enough, and the clearing mechanism works well enough. The beads aren't exactly all the same size, so the clearing bar can't quite push every bead clear perfectly, but it's enough for practical use. I also had to tighten down a couple screws on the clearing mechanism by hand: they simply weren't driven in all the way out of the box.Finish and detail aside, this soroban is very sturdy, and seems like it could take a good deal of punishment. I could see this being the soroban at a cash register in a market.I wish the brown beads that mark unit columns was a little lighter: in some lighting it's hard to differentiate it from the black ones.If you're just getting into learning a soroban, this would be a fine choice. The beads are heavy and satisfying, and the rubber feet and sheer weight mean it stays put on a table. Someone unfamiliar with using a soroban may find the standard-sized ones too small.I would NOT get this soroban if you're looking for an "authentic" Japanese soroban. The smaller, black-framed, brown-bead soroban is the "standard" size and design. This is more like a Chinese abacus made in the style of soroban. If you're going to transport your abacus (say, to school), you may also want to look for a smaller, lighter one.