Brass Abacus Keychain

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The abacus or ‘suan pan’ is an ancient Chinese calculation tool used widely by Chinese merchants and clerks for daily trading and transactions. This abacus is made of high quality brass with a keychain attachment, so you can carry it with you. The beads slide smoothly on the wires. It makes a great calculator and conversation piece.

This brass abacus measures approximately 3.5" x 1.625" x 0.25" (8.9x4.1x0.6cm) Weight: 2.3oz (65 g).

An abacus is able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. It handles decimal points as well. For serious abacus users, it aids in advanced math.

How does it work? In a nutshell, an abacus works using the following concepts:
-The middle bar is the number bar. Beads moved against this bar represent a number.
-Each bead below the number bar represent one. Each bead above represent five.
-A column to the left is ten times bigger than the column to the right.
-For example, to show the number 16, move up a "one" bead in the second column from the right to represent the 10. In the first column at the right, move up a "one" bead and move down a "five" bead to get the 6.
-To add numbers, the appropriate number of beads are added to each column. The instructions give easy to remember rules for how to carry beads to the next column.
-Subtraction is just as easy.
-Multiplying requires knowledge of the multiplication table up to 9x9=81. The abacus becomes a worksheet where you multiply and add each column.
-Division is similar but the worksheet layout is different.

While modern calculators are useful and important educational instruments in the right setting, they also can be a crutch where children miss out on fundamental math manipulation skills. An abacus, however, provides a tool to arrive at the answer quickly, but still allows children to deeply learn the fundamental skills.

See our complete abacus selection.

Availability: In stock! Ships next business day when order is placed by 6pm PST. Please allow an additional 4-6 business days for UPS ground delivery. If you need faster delivery, please use expedited shipping options.

Qualifies for free ground shipping on orders over $75. See shipping details and restrictions. See transit time map.

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