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

I am very pleasantly surprised by the build quality of this inexpensive abacus. It's feels very solid and works well.I'm also very pleased with some of the design considerations that went into this model: The brass bars contrast well with the black beads making it easier to quickly read the results. having a lighter colored bead at the top of every third column makes it easier to keep track of which place value you're at. I also appreciate that the pins placed for the decimal/comma place holders are positioned between the columns, rather than in-line, just like you would write the commas/decimal between the numbers when writing the numbers out.The beads are also good sized; big enough to easily manipulate, but not so big so as to be inefficient.This may not be an ultra-fancy display piece, but it is a very functional, well built and attractive abacus to learn with.

I seldom write reviews. Having been fascinated with abaci as a child, I attempted to make one, finding the alignment and construction requiring great precision. So, I purchased the Sorban from Yellow Mountain, expecting a plastic toy. I was wrong. This is a serious instrument, solidly constructed of wood, with mitered corners, reinforced with brass strips and plastic beads that give a satisfying click. It must weigh in at nearly a pound and is a true desktop calculator with rubber feet to stay in place. One feature that surprised me is the reset button, an ingenious device to reset the beads to zero. It includes a short instruction manual on arithmetic functions. I look forward to honing my skills and and using it to help teach my grandson arithmetic skills.

4 stars because the clearing bar causes a couple of the beads to not fully nest against the edge leaving them slightly lower than the others and giving me OCD I didn't know I had.Other than that I love this thing and so do my kids, and I'll probably buy another one because maybe this bar is just slightly defective. Very solid and sophisticated looking.

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!

My girlfriend and I rented a beach house for a few days, and when she went into the bathroom she yelled, "there's an abacus on the wall! I love it!" So, I got on Amazon found this one and ordered it for her birthday. She was so excited! Now she has one that hangs on the wall in her bathroom too.

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.

We are satisfied with this abakus, very well made 👍