Where to Buy an Abacus

Although universally recognized as a fantastic catalyst for intellectual development in children, the abacus is not exactly an instrument you'll find in every corner store.
Fortunately, with this article, you'll know where you're most likely to find what you're looking for.

To choose your type of abacus, we invite you to read this previous article.

How to Choose Your Type of Abacus.

Where to Buy a Wooden Student Abacus?

This is the type of abacus you are most likely to find.

They can sometimes be found during the Christmas season in superstores, supermarkets, and hypermarkets, sold in the toys and games aisles among educational toys like puzzles, construction sets, and wooden toys. They also occasionally end up in the baby care section with baby abacuses.

Indeed, during the Christmas and holiday season, their selection of toys is more extensive and varied. However, there will never be a wide choice.

Toy stores like large chain retailers usually always have a few references available in their catalog and in-store. Specialty educational and discovery stores often have interesting collections as well.

Online, they are easily found on all major e-commerce platforms like eBay or Amazon, with many references available. It would be wrong to say Abacus Universe is the only one offering them, but if you're looking for one, we still strongly invite you to browse our catalog of abacuses for children.

Where to Buy a Japanese Soroban?

Unless you live in Japan and it's the start of the school season: don't expect to find it in big-box retail stores.

Finding a physical point of sale is generally difficult.

You might encounter them sporadically available in large bookstores/stationery stores like major chains.

Forget major electronics/media stores; your best chance of finding one is to go to a genuine Japanese bookstore.

There are also a handful of shops specializing in educational toys and games, scattered in some shopping centers, which might have a few in stock.

In e-commerce, it is relatively common as well; you will have no difficulty finding them on Amazon, but only from third-party sellers on the platform.

Discover our selection of Japanese abacuses.

Where to Buy a Chinese Abacus (Suanpan)?

This is the most complex form of abacus to find (excluding the Russian schoty). As we mentioned earlier, there's a reason for this: for our base-10 decimal system, the Japanese abacus is more suitable, and the Chinese abacus is, in most cases, reduced to being used by ignoring 2 of its beads, like a Japanese abacus. You can learn more by reading this article.

To our knowledge, we have never seen one in France in physical stores. Online it is also quite rare, but remains fairly easy to find if you go to third-party sellers on Amazon and eBay from abroad.

If you want a Chinese abacus, why not take a look at our own catalog of Chinese abacuses.