Pre-internet penspinning videos

This article aims to list every known penspinning and proto-penspinning videos released before internet.

Proto-Penspinning videos

This section is dedicated to videos of early penspinning tricks performed without a pen or a penmod. The most common occurences of such videos are tricks performed by majorettes, magicians and drummers. The goal of this section is not to be exhaustive but to present the earliest known videos in each discipline.

Majorettes

Baton twirling is one the oldest disciplines in which penspinning-like tricks are performed. That's why the oldest known emergences of such tricks can be seen in videos featuring majorettes.

An example of such a video is this archive from 1938, July 6 in California. In this video, we can see from 16 seconds a majorette performing a continuous "Pass 12-34 > PinkyIndexBackaround 34-12", which is extremly difficult to perfom with a penmod.

<Video on criticalpast.com> (at 0:16) - baton twirlers in Long Beach, California

Further researches could certainly exhume older videos showing similar tricks.

Magicians

Magicians have been interested in spinning wands to draw attention of their audience for a long time. The tricks performed are usually not really sophisticated but may not be totally trivial.

A popular example is the Dai Vernon spin consisting in "Charge 12 > Pass reverse 12-T1" popularized by Silent Mora and Dai Vernon. The date of the videos presented here are yet to be determined.

<Video on youtube.com> (at 1:55) - Dai Vernon at the Magic Circus

<Video on youtube.com> (at 32:29) - Documentary "Dai Vernon: The Spirit Of Magic"

An explanation of this trick can be found in the book "Dai Vernon Book Of Magic Magic" published in 1957 by Lewis Ganson. This could be considered as one of the oldest penspinning tutorial. A copy of the pages 137 to 139 of the 1994 edition is available here : File:Dai_Vernon.png

Drummers

As live performers, drummers use a lot of spin tricks for showmanship. Such tricks are often used during breaks to keep visual activity. Among these tricks, some came be related to penspinning. We can mention the Charge and the Drummer. Here are two examples.

<Video on youtube.com> (at 2:52) - in 1966, Lionel Hampton performs what could be a "Sonic > Neosonic"

<Video on youtube.com> in 1995, Eric Singer speaks about the Charge and how it is used

Further researches could certainly exhume older videos showing similar tricks. Such researches came begin by investigating the drummers mentioned by Jayson Brinkworth ins this article.

Penspinning videos

The goal of this section is to present an exhaustive list known penspinning videos recorded before the internet.

BIC : stylo à 4 couleurs (1970)

The first known penspinning video is a french commercial for the "BIC 4 Colours"". The performer executes quick sequences of Passes between the middle finger, the index finger and the thumb.

<Video on ina.fr> - Sept 01 1970

Billion Dollar Day (1985)

Billion Dollar Day is a documentary about currency trading created by the BBC on 4 June 1985. In this documentary, a trader from Hong Kong perfoms pen tricks with impressive ease. Between the 8th and the 9th minute, we can see him performing Half Fake Gunmans, Passes and Neosonics.

<Video on youtube.com>

GoldenEye (1995)

In the James Bond movie GoldenEye, we can see Alan Cumming (as Boris Grishenko) performing pen tricks (mostly Passes). The character of Boris being a geek, this movie perpetuated the popular image of penspinners seen as geeks.