An antique Japanese abacus known as soroban in Japan with hand carved kanji numbers across the front. This is a 1/5 soroban: 1 bead above and 5 below. In 1600s 2/5 soroban were imported from China. In 1850 they were changed to the 1/5 type (same as this one). Finally, they were revised to better suit decimal calculation in 1930 and became 1/4. This type is still used today in elementary schools. Therefore, this bead combination shows that this was made somewhere between 1850 and 1930. A lovely art & decorative piece of history for a shelf, vignette or gift. Priced per item 6 available.
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