Some people not only restore and drive classic cars and trucks but collect auto related items such as catalogs, brochures, Advertisement plus tokens and medals. The spinners (see below) which commemorate the 1954-1956 General Motors Motorramas are among the more popular Automotive Exonumia (tokens and medal).
These spinners or advertising tokens were passed out by GM for promoting sales of its Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac lines.
It is not known how many spinners were distributed at the 1954-1956 Motorramas. Enough of them come to the exonumia marketplace were token collectors and auto enthusiasts compete for them.
1954 General Motors Motorama Spinner Obverse
1954 General Motors Motorama Spinner Reverse
Each of the Motorama tokens is a spinner that has a small dot of raised metal at the center of the obverse. When placed obverse down on a hard flat surface and flicked with a fingernail, the token will spin like a top. All three spinner were made of
1955 General Motors Motorama Spinner Obverse
1955 General Motors Motorama Spinner Reverse
An arrow on the reverse indicates who will pay for the next round of drinks, coffee etc. after the spinner comes to rest. Spinners were popular 1950s 1960s advertising items passed out by merchants like GM to promote their products. In fact the entire General Motors Motorama was staged to promote their line up of cars.
1956 General Motors Motorama Spinner Obverse
1956 General Motors Motorama Spinner Reverse
The Motorrama spinner series ended with the 1956 piece. By then GM executives
discovered Television was an excellent medium by which to expose the general public to each year's new automobiles.
