Collector from Poland

[ta0]

Jerzy Marek Łapo from Węgorzewo, Poland, created the Mobile Museum of Spinning Tops:



It seems this collection of 500 tops travels around and it's exhibited a different locations.

Jerzy Marek Łapo is a museologist, archaeologist and historian. He admitted in an interview with PAP  that children's toy tops, formerly commonly called frigs, intrigued him when he saw how beautiful and well-preserved specimens of toys from the late Middle Ages were found by archaeologists during excavations in Elbląg (north Poland). "Because I'm an archaeologist, I was interested in how they were set in motion. It wasn't that simple, but after the experimental archaeology I was able to solve this mystery. Then it turned out that there are other questions for the next fares and I learned that the world of spinning tops is very large"

On his Facebook page he re-posted some videos from the Loon-Plage festival.

The google translations were funny as it seems bąków(bąki) can be translated both as spinning top(s) and as fart(s). 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Excellent find! How about a podcast where you interview top-related figures like Jerzy Lapo? Can't think of a more qualified host. Would also love to hear interviews of a traditional Japanese topmaker, Iacopo, a major collector like Cyril, Judith the top lady, and highly ranked performers from different countries.

Love the whimsy in the children's tops. These clearly put form and storytelling before function. But that's fine: A top with only 15 seconds of spin time can still be quite entertaining.

By relieving the stems on the 2 string-pulls of spin-up duties, their makers were free to turn the stems into fun hats that would never have been good twirling interfaces. (See far back left and right.)

The maker of the simple but elegant finger top at front left was perhaps more interested in spin time but still stopped short of a full-on endurance mass distribution.