Oh God! What have I done? I am such a huge hypocrite. I cannot believe after lambasting the stupidity of the custom tactical knife scene, I have gone out and spent a combined total of $215 on spinners. Spinners are so stupid. They are so goddam stupid. Let me be clear--they are a tremendous mark up, a waste of space in your pocket, and an unjustifiable expenditure of money. In a world where people still die of malaria, there is no rational way to justify buying a spinner, let alone one that costs $180. These are stupidly simple devices that, even in their most exotic form, probably cost less than $10 to make and yet, given the hype waves that wash through the gear community, they are appreciating in value on the secondary market, if you get the right one. No one said us gear geeks were brilliant with money. I am so stupid.

I resisted the Torqbar's siren's song for a long, long time, then for no real reason at all I bought a cheap 3D printed spinner.

It cost $25 and ran on bearings that worked like bad breaks. It didn't spin so much as shuffle. But it gave me enough a feel for the spinner thing that I was intrigued. I have two sons, one is six and the other is 21 months old, and both were transfixed. But the three wings on the spinner were too big and unwieldy for little hands. In all, I would strongly suggest avoiding all spinners, but if you can't then get a small one. These big ones, especially non-metallic ones, are pretty bad. They do not have the features that allow collectors to fetishize them and they lack that addictive feel that made spinners so intriguing in the first place. The best I could do with this spinner, with my air compressor was about 28 seconds. Again, it shuffled more than spun.

But then I hopped on the Mass Drop for the Vorso Spin Flat Top v.2 for about $180. The wait was, of course, longer than Mass Drop advertised, but that is to be expected. The end product, however, was a gleaming beautiful gem of machining. Its not Steelcraft levels of machining prowess--its a simple shape and there are marks that should have been cleaned up--but it is still quite nice.

The design, aside from being a superior way to siphon money out of your wallet, is decent. The spinning column in the middle of the unit, which slides out for replacement, stands proud of the two wings, allowing it to act as both a spinner and a top. I guess that is what qualifies as versatility in the spinner world. The Flat Top v.2 that I got ran ceramic bearings and stainless steel. The heft is nice and the ceramic bearings run very smoothly. I have hit spins 3 minutes and 1 second using the same air compressor set up. Finally there is a small divot on one side of the spinning column allowing you to balance the spinner on a ball point pen or something else of the sort. I have yet to get that trick down.

Overall, I would advise against buying any spinners. They are really stupid and the nice ones are stupidly expensive. I had thought that the custom OPMTs were the height of gear excess. They look like expenses made by a financially prudent Shaker by comparison. My wife, the tolerant soul that she is, doesn't balk at most of my gear purchases. As she reasoned a knife, even an expensive one, can still cut, and a light, even a pricey one, can still illuminate things. But a spinner, it does nothing. And she is right. These things don't do anything. AT ALL.

That said, I find the Flat Top v.2 a very fun trinket to play with. I do carry it regularly (it is sometimes half the weight of my carry--the Dragonfly II and the MBI-HF-R don't weigh much at all). It is a good thing to play with when in stop and go traffic or talking on the phone. But it is the height of first world excess. When archeologists unearth these in a million years they will either think they were some how related to a game of chance or that we were a bunch of morons. And just so we are clear, one of those two conclusions is clearly correct.

If the Vorso Spin was $35, which it easily could be--there is nothing expensive here--it would still be a bad way to spend money, but its purchase would not be a moral failing. For me, spinners are just too expensive and too wasteful. I am done buying these things and, having bought two now, I wish I wouldn't have bought either.

And before you run to defend the spinner or notions of absolute freedom and spending money as one chooses, do two thought experiments with me. First, go find someone that lived through the Depression and explain to them your desire to own a $180 spinner. That will work well. Second, imagine owning a $180 yo-yo. Because that is what the spinner is--a yo-yo for people that lack hand-eye coordination.

I hope the spinner craze dies a horrible death. Until then I will have to survive on knowledge that I too am a sucker.