Spinning Top

Reg Sherwin revisits his youth and makes a spinning top

1.A finished top

Back

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• 11
• 12
• 13
• 14
• 15
• 16
• 17
• 18
• 19
• 20
• 21
• 22

Next

Spinning tops have been around in various forms for centuries, in fact, one source of information states that they have been traced back to 2000 BC

My earliest recollection doesn't go back quite that far, but I was introduced to what I think of as 'finger spinners' when I was about five years old. I now turn spinning tops, finding that a workshop in a museum is an ideal place to sell them. Grandparents often buy one 'straight from the lathe' and supposedly for a grandchild, but I do sometimes wonder.

I referred to my first spinning top as a 'window breaker'. Traditionally it would have had a hob nail in the end on which it would spin.

It got this 'window breaker' name as it had a somewhat anti-social attitude and it seemed attracted to greenhouses - in one side and out the other was not at all uncommon, and neither was the loss of two weeks pocket money.

Print this page...