Spinning Tops
It wasn’t a very exciting toy, but if you were a child in the 50’s, you probably had one or two. It was a spinning top, made of tin with elaborate and beautiful painted designs. None of us knew how they worked, but if you pushed the top handle down multiple times, the top began spinning faster and faster and when you released the handle, the top would dance and spin merrily around the room for an incredible long time.
Spinning tops are among the oldest known toys of all civilization dating back to those found in Turkey in 3000 B.C. and China in as far back as 2,000 B.C.
It was a fairly durable toy – they never broke. They just languished in toy boxes, occasionally coming out for a spin or two. The elaborate designs were really works of art and the tops are quite collectible even today. The Bryan Ohio Art CO was a top maker.
I still don’t know how they work – it has something to do with centrifugal force. All I know is that if you gave one a couple cranks, it would spin the morning away.
