The spinning top, which is at the same time useless and enthralling, awakes in each one among us a part of our childhood. The playgrounds and other playing fields witness the children's eyes filling with wonder in front of the tireless dance of this pear-shaped toy or ballerinas in ballet skirt turning on her point. The rotation of a plastic cap crossed in its medium by a match stick was sometimes enough to enjoy oneself during many hours… Philippe Chacqueneau was one of these children with the pockets perforated by a spinning top perpetually available. Initiated in 1983 into the woodword (joinery and cabinetmaking) by the vocational training centre the GRETA in Tours, it is only five years later that he started practising the woodturning, in the workshop of MELI in Issoudun. He immediately made spinning tops for his two daughters.

Video showing the work
of a craftsman
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Japan, Switzerland, Belgium… are already coveting the "CP" spinning tops

A meeting with a Parisian collector of spinning tops enables him to discover many old models, to reproduce them and to be inspired from them to create new ones. A true passion which will lead him, in 1990, to declare himself a part-time woodtoys creator. He equips himself with wood equipment to make true works of art which he then proposes for sale on the specialized fairs, markets of wood… Settled with his family in Strasbourg Street in Châteauroux, he decides to take the plunge and to give up his civil service's job for the craft industry. Noticed on the professional fair of Paris "House & Object" with his 19th and 20th century models, he starts working with foreign countries, such as Switzerland, Belgium and Japan. In his workshop, the wood is stocked to get old. He takes a piece of wood he estimates sufficiently ripe and put it on one of his woodturns. The gouges follow one another between his hands. Soon, the object takes form. Then it remains to polish it, varnish it or shine it. The boxwood and the ebony are the most used material.Together, they form a massive marquetry. Philippe uses all the precious woods as well as the horn of African animals, and even tin for inlayings.

Seventy different models

His catalogue gathers some seventy references of stamped "CP" spinning tops : the "girolle" (is thrown with a piece of string, spins and flies away), the "gigogne" (by spinning it liberates five small spinning tops), the "turbine" (the blow increases its speed), the "gabille" (of the Thirties), the "Mère Gaspard" (the large spinning top hides seven smaller ones), the handle spinning top, the spinning top with secrets (a threading makes it possible to open the body)… and plenty more. Philippe Chacqueneau also makes "virolons". It is a very original play. With a spinning top the player must push small marbles in holes made in a plate. Each hole has a different value. He also makes decorative personalized objects attached to his activities: pill boxes with threading… Philippe Chacqueneau is a member of the association G.P.T.O (Woodturners Professional Organization) which aim is to promote the occupation of woodturner artists and the woodturning of art. The spinning tops of Philippe are also on sale in the shop "Touchons du Bois", 84 bis Rue Grande in Châteauroux (County : Indre).

Gilles Guillemain