Adventures in Spirography

The other day, I was at a yard sale and discovered a wonderful find. First-edition copies of the original and Super Spirograph!

These beauties came out in 1967 and 1969, respectively. And the best part?

While both sets were missing a few pieces, between them I had enough for a nearly-complete Super Spirograph set, minus the backboard. Fortunately, I had a suitably-sized piece of foam board that I could use instead. It even still had all the paper, which while yellowed, is still good paper for practice.

The boxes do not have recommended ages listed on them, only pictures of school-age children drawing with Spirograph. Given the number of small pieces and the presence of pins, this seems like a bad idea. Children under 8 won't necessarily understand the importance of keeping the pieces in the box so they don't get lost, and the smaller gears are definitely a toddler choking hazard. Fortunately, Kenner (and later, Hasbro) did get the memo and later began labeling the box accordingly.

Spirograph hasn't changed much over the years. You pin your stationary piece through the paper to the backboard, then you poke your pen through a hole in the moving piece and follow it around, making sure that the gear teeth mesh nicely and don't slip. Here are a few pieces I did:

I really need to find my colored pens, so I can make more interesting drawings.

Remember how I said I had all the paper? Well, that includes the ones that the original owners had drawn on. There is a law of the universe that a certain type of preteen boy will, when presented with drawing tools, draw at least one penis with them. And if he has a sister nearby at the time, she will be disgusted and let him know in no uncertain terms.

All in all, I'm satisfied with my Spirograph sets. The old booklets even have suggestions for more Cool Stuff to draw, so I can get this out whenever I'm bored and make fun art.