In a celebration of traditional Chinese culture, 20 abacuses from the age of dynasties - worth HK$50million - have made their way from the mainland to Hong Kong in time to mark the 14th anniversary of the handover on July 1.
There is much irony in the way their investment value has soared: the general disuse of abacuses has turned them into a rarity, with most schools no longer using them.
Ng Pak-ming, president of Hong Kong's Association of Professional Abacus Education, laments the disappearance of the ancient calculator in modern life. He believes practising on the abacus improves learning, but says it has been neglected because gains are not instantaneous.
'It's a pity,' he says. 'There are so many other more practical subjects now. So why would the government turn to the abacus, which shows no immediate benefit?'
Ng's intuition is right. There are longer-term cognitive benefits, especially among children, as recent neurological and brain-imaging research has shown.
In a 2001 Japanese study, the brain activity in abacus champions while they were using the device was found to be concentrated more in the right side - the part associated with visual and creative thinking - rather than the left side, used for logic, language and computation.