LIME REALTY GROUP brings you The Rainbow Hand Spinner Group’s first post. Enjoy!
Hey Everybody!!!! It’s our first post!!! And we wanna talk about Hand Spinners, or Fidget Spinners as they’re more commonly known. These hand held toys are similar to yo-yo’s or other simple skill toys. It takes very little effort to get one spinning. I could spend the next bit talking about the history and impact of this unique toy, but I’ll let Wikipedia do that by linking to their article. You can find it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidget_spinner
Spinners come in all shapes, sizes, colors and even materials. Some are ceramic, some are plastic and some are metal alloys. Certain high end spinners are often made of precious and semi-precious metals. If you search pintrest, google or even eBay for hand spinner, you’ll get an astounding array of different options at all price ranges.
I owe my interest to my mom who got me started when she wanted to buy some for her grand kids. One of them told her he wanted a rainbow metal spinner and she sent me shopping for her on eBay. Over time, as we saw more and more spinners, our interest grew and we both started keeping certain spinners we thought were unique and beautiful. In the back of my mind I know I’d have to pick an area of interest and focus on spinners that fell within parameters I’d have to define.
My first attempt at a collection happened with a gold colored spinner. I loved the soft, dull coloring and made my decision to pick up any spinner that was offered in that gold coloring. I ordered five more spinners and waited anxiously for them to arrive. My collection was off and running!
This photo is that spinner. Yes, I still have it! I call this spinner “3 Fox Heads”.
When the first one did, I was shocked. Instead of the soft, muted gold from my original spinner, the new one was colored what I affectionately refer to as “Las Vegas Glitter Gold”! It was a bright, shiny gold color that looked fake and ugly. Completely different from the advertised pics I’d been searching on eBay. When the subsequent gold spinners failed to deliver a consistent look and quality, I decided not to pursue that collection and tried to come up with a new angle.
But the decision was already made for me.
Mom and I were becoming adept at identifying the different spinner types and shopping for deals, but we rarely branched out beyond the rainbow metal criteria. And that’s when I realized how nuanced the rainbow spinners were.
Around the same time, mom and I started our individual collections. We eventually realized we were buying the same things. So now, we look for new spinners, new designs and help each other flesh out our collections while at the same time, buying more common and inexpensive ones we can give away as gifts. We love to excite others about these amazing toys.
The decision to start this blog and Facebook group is to help other collectors out there. I realized early on that different manufacturers produced different products from each other. Even if there is a popular style spinner selling well online, one you buy from seller A may be drastically different from the one you buy from seller B in a variety of ways. They can be different sizes. That was a huge shocker for me. The actual designs can also vary. Here’s an example… Let’s take a look at the “Mermaid Spinner”…
When it first came out, it was very popular. It strongly resembles Disney’s Little Mermaid character, Ariel. And eBay auctions for this item could generate a lot of competition and inflated prices. In the next pic, you can see the original eBay pic of the first “Mermaid Spinner” I bought on the left. The second pic, the one on the right, is the design of a company who started manufacturing their own version a short time later.
If you compare the two closely, you can see the obvious differences. Ariel’s facial features are less defined in the first and her hair is more wild and free flowing. She appears to be rearing back while in the second she seems like she’s leaning forward. Her hands in the first pic curl back almost like hooks and her tail and fins appear to have more definition. The rainbow coloring on the metal alloy is brighter and the manufacturers of the second version replaced the rainbow metal alloy finger grips with a hot pink plastic grip that snaps on rather than screws.
There was a third version of this spinner with a dramatically different pose and a more detailed face made to look less like Ariel, but as far as I know, it was only produced in the fake gold color.
There’s no set way to categorize or accurately label these spinners. In fact, the same spinner may have several different names depending on how the seller interprets the look of the toy. There are certain categories that reoccur. I separate them into one of two main types. The first type are “Shapes”. There are certain shapes the lend themselves well to spinners and the variations of the designs within these sub-sets can be quite stunning.
In this pic you can see some examples of “Shape” spinners. In this picture, you see Wheels, Discs, Stars, Flowers & Rudders; but let me also point out… These are not the only shapes that get repeated with different designs, but they’re a good way to help illustrate why I separate the two main types.
My second category is “Numbers”. Like the Little Mermaid spinner we looked at earlier, these spinners feature anything from geometric shapes or patterns to more sculpted figures to help theme the toy and then repeat it to create the balance it needs to spin well. The number of times these shapes and figures repeat allows me to further sub-categorize them. The Little Mermaid would be classified as a “Numbers” hand spinner. Because it features 3 duplicate figures, I put it in the “#3” family of spinners. So the identification number I assign to it has yet to be determined, but when it finally is, the first two digits will be N3.
Sometimes a manufacturer will create a figure so popular they will use it multiple times to create a series of that particular spinner. A great example of this is probably the fish spinner. I won’t try to pin down a more permanent name just yet, because almost every seller assigns it another name. Carp, Goldfish, Trout, Catfish… The figure itself appears in three rainbow colored variations. The first repeats the fish twice, the second repeats the figure three times and the last one… repeats the figure four times. In this image, you’ll see all 3 variations created by the manufacturer and the first two digits of the number I’m gonna assign it.
And finally, the real purpose of most of these posts… I’m going to feature a spinner from my collection and the first one I’m going to show you is a “Shape” spinner from the “Flower” family.
I asked my niece, Brooklyn to help me pick my inaugural spinner and this is the one she was adamant I should go with.
So here it is….
I call it the “Outlined Flower” spinner. This is my graphic of it along with photo showing the actual cataloged spinner, a pic from the original eBay listing and a short Youtube video of the spinner spinning on my desk.
Enjoy the pics and media!!! And thanks for checking us out!