Description

A rare German education tool to teach fractions and how to calculate with them, from ca.1930’s.

Nine varnished apples, made of wood, are sliced into segments (representing fractions (eights, quarters, thirds, halves,…) that can be folded or moved, complete with the original instructions in the lid.

The set was patented by Hugo Jung in Stuttgart in 1927 and produced, in the same city, by Rudolf Lobelenz.

The apples are in very good condition, the cardboard box has some missing sides (please see the pics).

Measurements of the box are 21 x 20,5 x 6 cm

“From the early 1800s, teachers advocated the use of devices to teach arithmetic, proposing objects such as the blackboard and the teaching abacus or numeral frame. To illustrate the meaning of fractions, some brought an apple to class and cut it up. By the 1920s, some made special beads for the teaching abacus, divided to represent fractions. Hugo Jung of Stuttgart, Germany, developed an improved version of this apparatus. His “apples” were to have a hollow metal core, attached to a flange that allowed various fractions to be removed (halves, thirds, etc.). The core would then slide on the rods of a numeral frame. In this form of his apples, the core is solid, and individual apples are used to teach students about specific fractions”