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Name: Hand Spinner
Distributor: Fantolon?
Model: 55120A-D
Pcs: N/A
Yes, for our last stop, I bring to you a set I know absolutely NOTHING about! ...Even more so than usual. These have no name, no packaging, no company, nothing that I can use to track down who made these.
There are model numbers, but that doesn't lead me anywhere.
The only thing I have to go on is the listing I bought these from, which says the "Brand Name" is "Fantolon."
Typing it into eBay brought up zero results, and when I used AliExpress, it just brought up a bunch of unrelated brick sets and knock-off minifigures from different companies.
Doing a Yahoo search, the only fidget spinner result was this one at Fidget Spin Store, where they're listed as the brand name for some Star Wars-themed metal spinners. If "fantolon" means something else and this is just a placeholder name, I have no idea...
At least they included the instructions, so I don't have to guess-build based on the images. ...Maybe I should try that with a set sometime. See what emerges from the depths of imagination not meant to be trodden in...
But for a company and a line that apparently don't exist, there's a rather nice banner for it on the listing. This is how I know it's called "Hand Spinner", which, like the LELE branded line, makes no sense. And it's not made by "Parameter" either(at least I don't think it is, since a search turned up nothing with that name related to brick sets) so it's still without a company. What it DOES have is the coolest and most imaginative art I've seen for a spinner line yet! We have blueprints in the background, dragons of fire and ice warring it out around the spinner, some Engrish telling us "Creative Assembling Your Own Hand Spinner", and a Guitar Hero-esque logo in the upper-right where the dragons continue to battle! ...I'm not counting this as the packaging, since I have no idea if packaging even exists, but if I did, it would be a perfect 5/5!
Unfortunately, we need to return to the material world and look at what actually exists. And... These sure exist...!
These are the strangest color schemes of any of the spinners we've looked at. Reds, blues, greens, yellows, oranges, etc. These look like cheap carnival rides, or the stuff you get at the state fair for winning a game you paid a egregious amount to play... To be technical, they're the most... "Kitsch" colored of the spinners.
Each even has its own way of holding onto it. One has a large gear, another has a dome, the next has a transparent nub, and the last has a curved plate! We've seen each line have varied ways of holding onto the spinners, but to have a different method for each of their models is something new. Guess they just told 4 different people "design something", and they did and shipped it out the next day. Didn't even bother to form a brand.
But how do they spin? ...Well, in addition to each one having a different way of holding it, each one spins a little differently as well. This one with the orange plates has little nuts on the other side of the orange pieces, so if they're put on too tightly, the thing won't spin. But after a bit of adjustment, it's all taken care of. You can push down as hard as you'd like and it'll spin fast and smoothly without any problems.
Also I love that when you spin it, it produces a purple halo. Intentional? I have no idea. Maybe it's a magical device and I'm calling on the satanic powers of Barney the Dinosaur.
The one with the nubs is, of course, hard to hold onto, so it's difficult to get a good spin out of it. But once you do, it's pretty smooth and nothing needs to be adjusted to keep it from scraping against the center.
I also like the halos this produces. Looks like a big ol' gummy ring. Yum.
Then we have this one with the domes. ...And this is one that falls into the "you can't push too hard on it" category, since the pieces on either side will clamp against the middle. And since this has relatively smooth surfaces to hold onto, it's very easy to have it fall out of your hands. ...Still, once it gets going, it goes for a good while.
And yes, now that you mention it, it DOES look a lot like a similar one from the LELE Hand Spinners line! It's a palette swap, there's no transparency, it has domes on both ends as opposed to a dome and a gear on either end, and it has little blue nubs instead of orange gears, but it's the same function.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work quite as well as the former, as it is prone to falling apart if knocked too much...
And finally, we have this multi-colored one that looks like one of those spinny rides from a carnival. ...Maybe the transparent buttons are actually people who have turned several shades of sick?
They made the rod WAAAAAY too long for this one, so it has two different "modes." Either you push the gears on either side close enough together to keep it spinning but not rubbing against the sides and try to hold onto the tip of the rod.
Or you push the gears to either end of the rod and hold it that way, tilting the middle as you go. Either way, it produces a decent spin. A bit of slowdown, but at least I can press hard on it without worry.
And that's the line. And with it every single brick fidget spinner I could find. We've seen some good ones, some bad ones, some flashy, some dull, some that worked perfectly, some that didn't work at all, and overall... I'm sick to death of this craze.
Let's go back to Rick Rolling each other.
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Quality: The quality is actually quite decent, with pieces that fit together just fine for the most part and plastic that feels just fine. Not Lego quality plastic, but maybe Block Tech at the very least. However, I am knocking off a point or two for one of the models easily falling apart by simply tapping it...
Design: While not the most aerodynamic of all the models we've seen so far, everything does work and keeps spinning for a good amount of time. However, I don't like that they incorporate the nubs and domes we've already established makes these impossible to hold. Plus there was one that scraped against the middle if you pushed it too hard. Still, they work and they're inventive enough to set them apart from everything else we've seen.
Creativity: ...Well, they're all different colors, and very loud and cheesy colors at that. Is that creative or just laziness, I wonder? The fact that the colors are bright enough to form halos and even blend colors is also a nice touch either way. So while they're not that varied and they don't have any custom features like the previous few lines, there is something about them almost hypnotizingly colorful enough to keep your attention.
Readability: Same as the other lines. Short, small, all there, no problems.
Packaging: ...What packaging?
Compatibility: Mostly your standard Lego & Technic parts. Nothing too out there that wouldn't work with a standard set.
Overall:
Maybe the score would have been higher if I looked at this set first instead of last, but compared to everything else we've seen, these are... average. A few points given for the majority of the pieces not having any problems clicking and staying together, but they lack the flashiness of LELE, the innovation of KAZI, and the utter stupidity of 818. Still, if you want a brick fidget spinner on the cheap and you don't care about collecting boxes, check these out. You could do better, but you could also do much worse...
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