Last month I bought an old wooden Creative Playthings kaleidoscope on eBay. The transaction went fine, but the toy itself is not that great.
Now don't get me wrong: I'm with it enough to dig the potential beauty of a straightforward, mirrored box. I'm not one of those hippie guys who insists a kaleidoscope must use embedded glass or plastic color bits and produce only psychedelic patterns. But somehow, it's just a bit boring.
I don't know, maybe our house is too monochromatic; we need to take it out into the sunlit autumn trees or something.
I think the mirrored sort is the best. One can get far more trippy visuals with those, than with the bead sort, which are rather repetitive after 5 minutes' time.
Good source of amusement for kids: have them look at people, waggling fingers, pets, that sort of thing. It can get them screaming with hilarity.
[that's what the CP one is. I guess I should point it at something other than the corner of the room. I'm beginning to see the error of my ways. -ed.]
I'm giving a few of these this year... http://www.kaleidoscopestoyou.com/cakabyge1.html
Never mind the kaleidoscope, what's with the monkey fabric?! ;-)
[d'oh, I should've asked the seller to throw that in. we're just reupholstering the chair for the kids' room. -ed.]