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[the Earl of Whirl]

October 15th....the day Don turned 75.  Congrats, buddy!!!  The inventor of so many things in the top world, especially the penny top and the x tip which was stronger for Captain Crunch cereal boxes.  He found ways to mass produce tops that sent them all around the US and the world.  He came up with top games including my favorite, the top golf maze.  He wrote two books about tops and created a number of top kits that included multiple spinners.  He was involved with the development and production of the Monark top.  He also was the first to make a number of large plastic tops.  He promoted tops like no other and found ways to get top spinners together for gatherings and the sharing of ideas.  What have I missed?  Happy birthday, Don.

[ta0]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DON!

Don is one of the 2 Honor life members of ITSA (the other one is Dale). Here is the write up I made when I nominated nominated him:

According to Don (1), he got his first top, a pump top (without foot) for his third birthday from his aunt. He still remembers after all these years the difficulty of getting the top going without letting the tip slip 

But his true story starts in 1972 when he was manufacturing wooden toys for a living and crafted his first finger tops from a wheel and a dowel made pointy with a battery operated pencil sharpener 

A few years later the breakout came when he became fascinated with tippe tops, which he called flipovers. After an year of experimentation he had a design that worked well. It was a commercial success and sold millions 

Trying to reproduce the success of the flipovers he starts to make all kinds of finger tops and eventually peg tops to complete the line. His great creativity resulted in a huge variety of designs, like the Penny top, and games around them.

A visit to the collection of Judith Shultz got him the collecting bug and he ended up assembling a collection of thousands of tops.

Based on his research of the top history he wrote two books about tops: The Tops Book (Games, Tricks, and New Twists on an Old Favorite) and The Little Book of Tops (Tricks, Lore, and More).

But I have not yet touched his biggest contributions to top playing. Two things happened in the early 90s.

Don bough half of the rights on the Monarc top (2) that had been sitting for 20 years and began to make them again. The (now Monarch) top was the only decent tricking top available in the 90s (well, Herman Lau would say the Duncan Imperial was good  ).

In August 1991 he gave a workshop on top spinning at the 1991 International Juggling Festival. He also distributed 600 pegtops to all the attendees. The workshops at the IJA in the following years created a new generation of players, like Mark Hayward, Jon Gates and Mike Hout, and were the seed to the modern scene.

Alan Gray wrote that he got inspired to turn his first top because the extra tip that came with his first top, a Monarch. Hey, my first throw top was also a Monarch and I learned to wrap it and throw it from the paper strip with instruction that came with it 

Thanks, Don!

[CUPER]

Felicidades don

[Dick Stohr]

Happy B'Day and MANY, Many more !!!!

[Texture]

Happy birthday Don!!!     Hope you have a wonderful day.

[JNeff]

Happy Birthday Don!  You've had an amazing life.

[Jeremy McCreary]

Toycrafter top set with included Little Book of Tops by one Don Olney on the left. The book is a delight. Note bookmark.



On the right is aToycrafter top maze better seen below. All were gifts from Larry D.






The efficient black finger top included with the maze is one of my favorites. Here it is next to a strongly flipping yellow Toycrafter tippe top...

[jim in paris]

happy birthday Don !

jim

PS : I have the" little book" in French !

[Kirk]

Happy Birthday Don.  Though we have never met, your top work has a happy influence on our family.