Toys From My Childhood

Spirograph is a geometric drawing toy that produces mathematical roulette curves of the variety technically known as hypotrochoids and epitrochoids. It was developed by British engineer Denys Fisher and first sold in 1965.
The name has been a registered trademark of Hasbro Inc. since 1998 following purchase of the company that had acquired the Denys Fisher company. The Spirograph brand was relaunched worldwide with original product configurations in 2013 by Kahootz Toys.
In 1827 English architect and engineer Peter Hubert Desvignes developed his "Speiragraph",^[1] a machine to create elaborate spiral drawings, intended to prevent bank note forgeries.^[2]
The mathematician Bruno Abakanowicz invented the Spirograph between 1881 and 1900. It was used for calculating an area delimited by curves.^[3] Drawing toys based on gears have been around since at least 1908, when The Marvelous Wondergraph was advertised in the Sears catalog.^[4][5] An article describing how to make a Wondergraph drawing machine appeared in the Boys Mechanic publication in 1913.^[6] The Spirograph itself was developed by the British engineer Denys Fisher, who exhibited at the 1965 Nuremberg International Toy Fair. It was subsequently produced by his company. US distribution rights were acquired by Kenner, Inc., which introduced it to the United States market in 1966 and promoted it as a creative children's toy.
In 2013 the Spirograph brand was re-launched worldwide by Kahootz Toys with products that returned to the use of the original gears and wheels. The modern products use removable putty in place of pins or are held down by hand to keep the stationary pieces in place on the paper. The Spirograph was a 2014 Toy of the Year finalist in two categories, over 45 years after the toy was named Toy of the Year in 1967. [Wikipedia]