![]() On the inside of the lid is a yellow paper label written in Japanese characters. A picture of the abacus is attached to the cover. It is stored in a white box with a turquoise cover. According to the donor, the abacus was built for the blind. They do not slide along rods, as in a usual abacus, but flip toward or away from the cross bar. The beads, held in 23 separate columns by wooden pieces between them, are in roughly the shape a human torso, spherical on top and polygonal below. There are five metal rods parallel to the cross bar, one above it and four below. ![]() Soroban or Japanese Abacus Description This Japanese abacus or soroban has an open wooden frame painted black, with a black wooden cross bar. Location Currently not on view date made before 1959 ID Number MA.316866 catalog number 316866 accession number 228691 Data Source National Museum of American History The object is marked on the back in pen “4504.” It is recorded as found in museum storage in 1959. A sticker attached to the back has characters on it that may represent a price in a vendor's code. Characters printed on the stamp refer to a trademark and to Osaka. A stamp attached to the box below the beads that shows a Japanese diety known as Daikoku sama operating an abacus. The ten beads to the left of the center may represent units of volume, those to the right are units of currency. Every column but the middle one is labeled on the cross piece with a Japanese character. The beads are similar in shape to those on other Japanese abaci. Each has one bead above the cross piece and five below. Twenty-one parallel bamboo rods rods pass through the cross piece. It has a wooden cross piece painted white. Soroban, or Japanese Abacus Description This instrument sits in a wooden box painted black around the edge. Location Currently not on view date made 1959 ID Number MA.335485 catalog number 335485 accession number 321674 Data Source National Museum of American History ![]() Albree put the instrument aside, and returned to using logarithmic tables for multiplication and division. However, the beads were too small for his seventy-year-old fingers and thumb. He found addition and subtraction straightforward and bought this larger instrument to try multiplication and division. According to the donor, his first introduction to the soroban was in 1958. Norman Albree, along with several circular slide rules of his design. The instrument was given to the Smithsonian by G. The abacus is stored in a cardboard box covered with decorated paper. Every fifth column is marked with a white dot. The central column has two black dots and a red dot as well. Every third column of beads is marked with a black dot on the cross piece. On each rod, there is one bead above the cross piece and four below. Twenty-three parallel wooden rods hold the beads. Soroban, or Japanese Abacus Description This abacus has an open wooden frame painted black and a wooden cross piece with an inset white strip on top. Location Currently not on view Date made ca 1885 ID Number 1979.0876.04 catalog number 1979.0876.04 accession number 1979.0876 Data Source National Museum of American History ![]() Tetsu Tamura as a schoolboy from 1885 to 1897 and presented to Cleveland Abbe in 1906. A paper sheet received with the abacus indicates that it was used by Dr. The base of the box contains a large container with hardened black ink, a smaller container with red ink, additional bars of red and black ink, and a brush for drawing characters. The shape of the beads is like that of other Japanese abaci. The beads of the abacus move on 13 parallel bamboo rods, with one bead above the cross bar and five below. Columns 8 through 13 are labeled in units of Japanese currency. Columns 1 to 6 are labeled in units of volume used to measure rice. A wooden cross bar colored white is painted with various characters labeling various columns of the abacus. Soroban, or Japanese Abacus Description This Japanese abacus is in the lid of a rosewood box.
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