This piece measures 13" x 4.25"x 1.25". Soroban or an abacus is a type of calculator used in banks, businesses and at homes for over 450 years in Japan. Encased in a wooden frame and suspended with the metal rods, the top beads represent fives and bottom beads represent ones. Each column represents decimal point and beads are counted by sliding them on the rods. When one of the columns is set as the ones column, in this case the 4th and the 11th column from the right, the next adjacent to the left becomes the tens column, then hundreds, thousands, ten thousands and so on. The decimal fraction can be displayed on the right side of the ones column as well.

In Japan, the art of using the abacus has been carefully cultivated. In 1928, the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry established standardized abacus examinations and many millions of people had been participating to take the test to be certified. Although computers now carry out complex calculations, abacus is still used in offices, shops alongside computers and electronic calculators even today. Abacus is also a very useful tool in general mathematics education because of its concrete visible display of numbers by beads that enable students to grasp of numbers, particularly in understanding place value. As a math tool, abacus has been continuously used by the blind and visually impaired in Japan since the first school for the blind was established late in the 19th century.

This is an Itsutsudama type Soroban. The earlier prototype abacus consists of a rectangular wooden frame divided into two parts by a beam, with two rows of 5- beads in the upper deck instead of one bead like this particular piece and five 1-beads in the lower deck called the Mutsudama type Soroban. This is probably close to the original style when abacus came from China and this was because the Chinese unit of weight was base sixteen count, 15 numbers (two 5- beads plus five 1- beads) in each column were needed.

This style was slightly modified in the early Meiji Period (1868-1912) and replaced by only one 5-bead in the upper deck, called the Itsutsudama Soroban like this particular piece. Most people had switched to this style from the older Chinese style by around 1880. In the 1930's, yet another modification was implemented by reducing the lower deck to just four 1-beads, called the Yotsudama Soroban. This was because one 5-bead and four 1-beads were considered sufficient to do all the calculations. When primary school textbooks were revised in 1935, the four-beaded Yotsudama Soroban became the standard. The inscription in the back of the piece reads "Commemoration, Yamahisa & Fumitani, Yamaichi Yarn Shop." The red mark in the center of the inscription is probably the logo of the business. The overall condition of this piece is still very good although one bead (fourth from the right and two down from the group of five) is chipped from use and its age is from the 1930's.

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