Finger Spinners: Classic             (Back to the )
    These are garden variety tops that you spin with your fingers. The large ones with Hebrew letters are called dreidels (dray-duls).  They are often part of the Hanukkah celebration.

Finger Spinners:  Optical Illusions          (Back to the )
   All tops are optical illusions in that they change appearance from rest, to spin, to rest again, but some tops are manufactured to specifically create optical illusions.  These finger spinners create optical illusions when you stare straight down at them while their spinning! Very meditative and relaxing.

Finger Spinners:  Tippe Tops (Filpovers)         (Back to the )
    These finger spinners begin spinning on their round bottoms, but eventually flip over and spin on their stems! There has been several articles in science journals about these mysterious tops.  Scientists refer to these tops as "tippe tops", but the Toycrafter sales them as "Flipovers".

This is the first top I  became enamored with as an adult.  In fact this is a picture of my first top, which I bought at a museum gift shop  (pretty sure it was a Don Olney top):
 
    Rest of of my Flipovers:
 
    A neat trick I learned from one of Olney's books, The Tops Book,  is to snap the flipover so that it skips its first  stage and goes directly to spinning on its stem.  Just point the round end up, snap your fingers, and let the top drop. Takes practice, but I picked it up rather quickly.

By the Way, The Tops Book, is part of Olney's Tops Discovery Kit:  a MUST for the beginning top enthusiast.  It includes the very informative book, plus an assortment of different types of tops.  The kit is now out-of-print, but, the last I checked, Don still had extra copies.  You can e-mail Don at topman@toycrafter.com .

Finger Spinners:  Exotic           (Back to the )
    I only have one top that I consider exotic.  I bought it at a local flea market from a stall of Indian crafts.  I was really excited since our flea market is usually very topless (excuse the pun).

Finger Spinners:  All of my Finger Spinners         (Back to the )

Literary Finger Top

"He turned me about with his
finger and his thumb, as one would set up a top."
Shakespeare, Coriolanus, Act4 Scene 5

Please let me know if you have any questions or just want to talk about tops:

John Sandstrum at pegtop@sandstrum.com