Texas TopCon - Oct 18 & 19

[PrincessTrouble]

We've got a lot of cool door prizes to give away in addition to the competition prizes.  If any of you are on facebook, our group is:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/texastopcon/

[the Earl of Whirl]

Looks great.  I love the prizes and I am impressed with your fun competitions.  Good luck with everything.  Wish I could be there.

[ta0]

Hey! I have a chance of winning the door prizes!   

Great prizes! I wished I had given more thought to this to see how ITSA could help. Well, next year . . .

[ta0]

I found this photo on the photo gallery from 2016:



It looks like a low-clearance finger top with a stem in the shape of a throw top. But the little lady doesn't like it . . . 

Looking forward to it!

[PrincessTrouble]

Hahahaha.  That particular little lady likes to hammer stuff.

[Jeremy McCreary]

Really sorry I'm missing this event -- especially given that I'll be in Austin 2 says later.

Have fun!

[ta0]

There was a nice meet and greet meeting tonight. Probably as many makers as collectors-only (but all the makers are also collectors).
I was surprised that there were not just people from Texas, but also from all over the country and even Canada!
It was great to finally meet Princess Trouble in person. She looks nicer than her nickname implies.
It's surprising how little finger tops can go for half-an-hour. Some physical law must be broken 
A couple of iTops got a lot of work as people tried to get the maximum score. But the official contests are tomorrow.

[CUPER]

Woooo increíble noticia ojalá Jorge puedas planear algo con ellos próximo año

[ta0]

It was a great meet and very interesting to (mostly) an outsider like me. It's a tight and friendly community. Everybody was super nice as it's usually the case around tops 
I believe Princess Trouble was the main organizer and everything ran smoothly. The venue worked very well for the number of people we had.

I got 4 nice glass spinning bases stations (one was a door prize) and a couple of tops. By the way, I discovered they called them tops, not finger tops! 

Another guy from San Antonio was giving away a bunch of very nice tops with the condition that you donated a reasonable amount of money to a (non political) non-profit of your choice.The tops and a couple of the bases I got were from him.

I didn't win any competition but I did better than I was expecting.
I'm not sure if this time it was Figaro or Simonelli's #40 that created more excitement.

You can see photos and video on the Facebook page. I'll post here some photos tomorrow.

[ta0]

Some photos:

The entrance to TopCon 2019:

Probably half of the people got a door prize 

The other wing of the convention:


Princess Trouble's huge collection. I commented that they looked like jewelry and she agreed.


The contests tables, with the chronometers:


ITSA and me, we had a table. Unfortunately, I did not take a single picture.

[CUPER]

Increíble tengo que ir próximo año

[ta0]

Found a photo on Facebook of the table I put Saturday (Friday I had other stuff):



I believe this was the top from Griffin Precision that was auctioned for over $900 (the last bid I saw on the silent action was $909, but it might have gone higher):



I believe a little tungsten top from the same company won the duration contest with time in the 20's of minutes (26?). I wished I had taken more pictures of tops and their specs and recorded the contest results. I do recall that the iTop was spun around 1,150 revs using both hands.

[PrincessTrouble]

Thank you so much, Jorge, for attending.  You were definitely a crowd-pleaser, and everyone was entertained by and enjoyed your performances and checking out your collection.

[ta0]

Thanks you Andrea for inviting me!

The results of the contests were posted on Facebook, so let me make some corrections to what I wrote above.

The best score with the iTop was 1223 revolutions.
The longest duration with a top you brought was 26 minutes 27 seconds with a Plier brand top (I'm sure tungsten)
Amazingly, I was 3rd on the Minotaur spin contest!  I had 4:50 and the first place official time, by the manufacturer (Tom Griffin), was 5:11 (but in a repeat he got 6:01).
On the board game challenge I started well, with a score of 100 on the first ring but then I messed up and got a 20 and a 40.

[the Earl of Whirl]

Lots of good stuff here!