Vintage Chinese wooden abacus – Curiosity China schoolboy accounting

This curious Chinese abacus is made of dark wood and gilded metal. It is a board with beads for counting, an abacus. This abacus has an alternating base: each rod has two parts - an upper part on which the balls are worth 5 units (or 5 tens, 5 hundreds depending on the position of the rod) and a lower part on which the balls are worth 1 ten, 1 hundred, etc. These abacuses are mainly found in Asia. This one bears a metal label "RED LION Made in China". It has scratches from use and traces of its past life. It measures 25.5 X 13 cm.