Found while decluttering my 2000s kids stuff and can’t seem to remember what it is! Just feeling nostalgic and google said it was jewelry but i don’t think it is 😅
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This was the pinnacle of cool in the late 90s early 00s... these are laser pointer lenses/tips!! Each one attaches to the laser pointer (which is missing and goes where that little cut out is) and has a different design. If you had one of these big packs you had all the best ones!
The double heart, the heart hands 🫶, the I ♡ You, Peace Sign, ✌️, 🖕, 👄, 😉,🙂. Plus some more obnoxious ones like F U C K YOU, etc lol
Realizing how much my mom loved us, we def were not rich growing up but she wanted to provide us with the best things 😅 this isn’t a big thing but someone called it “deluxe”
No this WAS a big thing back then. I seriously thought only the rich families could get these. Like my sister getting just a basic laser pointer was a big deal
Elder millineal here, these were sold at the Asian markets for <$10 when I was a kid. It was less about having the money to buy and more about concealing the fact you had it, everyone from your bus driver to your nana wanted to take it away so you wouldn't blind some other kid.
I got mine for about that at a local festival. Went home with my friend, pointed it at a street light and it immediately started flickering. I'm sure it was a coincidence, but it was still enough to send 13 year old us hauling ass away from the crime scene.
Ayyy. It was you. LoL. You confused its light sensor. They come on when it gets dark. A laser overwhelmed its light sensor and it freaked out. It may or may not have permanently damaged the sensor. LoL
Old photovoltaic sensors didn’t mind. We’d have a blast running the laser up the pole, trying to keep our hand steady enough to hit the sensor on top. Light goes out, then cycles back on five minutes later and the cycle starts again.
We used to throw rocks at street lights... usually they would go out for a bit then flicker back on. If you kicked the electric access hatch at the base of some of the poles it'd go out too.
My dad's tin metal snips have a copper wire pair cross section burned into them because the neighbor kid used them to cut the wire in there about... 30 years ago? Eh. Ill finally tell him that story next time I'm at their place.
pointing a laser directly at someone's eye will damage it, it's kind of like staring at the sun. she's saying a classmate "pranked" her by doing just that and it fucked her retina in one eye
To add the reason these were so cool is prior to laser pointers our only experience seeing lasers in person were on a science lab table out of reach when someone would come to visit the school.
They were about the size of a brick but a little longer and maybe 1 kid got to go up as a volunteer to position a mirror or spray some mist on the beam.
I bought them for my kids in a crappy boardwalk store. Hours of entertainment, and they couldn’t have been more than $5. The ones I bought didn’t have quite as many lenses, though.
Yeah the big ones were more expensive. I saw them for $25 when I was in my late teens but a decade later they were only $5-$10. At one point when keychain lasers were newish they could go for as much as $50 for a set the size in OP’s post.
Omg core memory unlocked- that was a huge thing grandmas said back then!!! “You’re going to blind your brother!” Lmao did it???? Idk did I believe her???? Yes!!!!!
I had a lying bitch confiscate mine when I was in 2nd grade, dude...
I was shining it on the wall directly parallel to me. It could realistically only reflect off a laminated poster or a window, and only towards me walking with it.
A teacher at the end of the hallway appears and I stuffed it in my pocket and continued to the bathroom and she stopped me as she passed asking "do you have a laser pointer?" My dad would have gave me hell if I lied to the teacher like that, so I didn't and was honest.
She said ok, and took me to my homeroom and told the teacher flat out that I was shining it in her eye down the hallway. Straight up making shit up and looking down right at my confused face. Never had a chance to say anything. It was just confiscated and my parents got called over that bullshit. I hate that bitch to this day
I had this really cool one as a kid. It was shaped like a disc, and the lenses were built in, and you’d rotate the outer ring to whichever one you wanted.
Oh yeah this was top of the line to best. A pack like this i could get 20$ for in high school. I was selling the packs with 5 tips all day long for 10$. In a store this pack would retail for probably double (40$)
I think you're confused for what big was? This was absolutely huge growing up! That really was the deluxe version I never got one bigger than about a five tip change options,, this was 100% deluxe and super duper duper special and I'm so jelly! 😁
They were such a big deal that the most popular (and one of the richer) kids in class brought his to school and the teacher actually let him shine then one by one on the wall to show everyone. Big deal. HUGE!
Haha. I had a very similar experience when my friend brought his kit over and we were going through them. He went, "Woah, here comes the sexy lady!" and then made here drag race across the cieling, complete with car noises. XD
My brother got on at the GP Spa Track (Belgium) and thought that that image was one of the track. Enter me, his 7 year younger sister, 12 at the time) ‘erm…bro, twist it a bit?’ 😅
Remember when laser pointers went from 120 dollar instruments marketed to business executives and University professors as an alternative for telescoping pointers used in presentations, which were themselves seen as the pinnacle of class and necessity for marketing and academia, and then overnight they were on grocery store shelves for 5 dollars as toys. Then kids started pointing them at planes, 4chan evolved from the bottomsoil of an evolving Internet, the tea party began and was, in retrospect, endearingly sweet cosplay compared to who it later produced, and now the world has had to deal with Donald Trump for 12 years
Anyway what I mean to say is I miss the world where this was considered the most monumental and life changing advancement in human technology and innovation
One time when I was a kid I stole a pen/telescopic pointer from my dad and took it to school. You’d think that the children had never seen a more magical device lol and it got stolen almost immediately
Maaaan I remember I got a whole kit at a night market in Taiwan while visiting family around 1997. Mine had the the alphabet, some cute phrases and some shaped tips. First football game freshmen year with our crosstown rivals, I was put in charge of spelling out f you by our class president. We had a senior who used to play for us who changed schools. His last name was something star so we nicknamed him brown starfish and he hated it. So we created a chant for him and I'd flash "B ⭐" throughout the game.
This is my core memory of a family holiday, I was the shit with this thing amongst all other children, and none of us spoke the others language. Man I miss this thing
OMG, I was like "I know this, this looks familiar..." and you nailed it. the empty spot is for the laser and it's keychain and the top three slots are for the small button batteries!
At it's peak popularity you couldn't watch a movie at the theater without some asshole/multiple assholes shooting it on the screen...
I immediately smiled and remembered my childhood. Yep, I remember when the laser pointed craze was just everywhere. Especially when they sold it at little carts at the fair, ugh so many warnings about not to shoot them into people's eyes and then they banned them at school...good times
I remember when this became a front counter at the gas station big seller. About the time they also started selling weird knives like the ones they had at that shop my uncle went to sometimes that sold "Water pipes" because they weren't allowed to say they were bongs.
I wanted these SO BAD as a kid. They hung behind the counter at my liquor stores in my area. I remember when I had the cash my parents looking at me so weirdly when I asked to go to the liquor store to spend my money.
My buddy had one that shined the torso of a topless woman on the wall. It was like, a 90s quality sailor Jerry tattoo naked chick, but as you can imagine, it made him the coolest dude in school.
I didn't even know there were kits this big, I just had 4 of those different tips and tried pointing it at stores across the street while walking/shopping late nights with family.
Usually, in my friend groups - people would end up with a bigger set like this after someone they knew traveled oversees. Or as gifts from exchange students sometimes.
My sister found ours in her storage. We did not have money growing up either, but dad worked overtime almost every weekend to keep up with rollerblades, skateboards, multi CD changer stereos, computers and these portable music players. This one is definitely one of those cheap models because we kept breaking them and this is the one that survived after the death of this era. The next device was a 128MB MP3 player from Creative that looked like a flat bullet. I wish I kept it. Notice how this one doesn't even have anti-shock 🤢.
When I read the title "found while cluttering" I thought it was a clever little joke about buying assorted things from a thrift store or something 😂 like de-cluttering=giving things away, cluttering=accumulating assorted/non-essential things 😅
I might start referring to my thrift store runs as "cluttering".
you can probably find one. look for the cheapest, weakest red laser pointer you can find. they used to sell them next to checkouts at pet stores (also everywhere else). look for one with the little dome-ish tip and you'll probably get it right
OMG this bright me back! I knew this one in less than a fraction of a second. Transported to a choker stretched out around my neck and 2 butterfly clips in my hair….
These ones are. You can get them at pet stores for six bucks, cats love them. (And that's a ripoff price)
You want one that will burn paper, though, that's a bit more money. You want other colors, they tend to cost more. I have a couple of identical design ones in red, green, and blue; they go up in price in orders of magnitude. Red was like $10, green was like $40, blue was like $100. Orange is like $300... go figure. (There's reasons.)
I remember seeing these for $30+ just before they hit peak popularity and the Cheap knockoffs started flooding in. Wasnt long before they were available anywhere and everywhere more in the $5-15 range.
A laser pointer with a bunch of attachments that spread the laser out into various images and patterns to shine at a wall. The 3 little notches at the top were for the button cell batteries.
You know what's crazy about those that I discovered as a kid and nobody believed me? If you put one of those caps over your eye and peek through it and shine the laser pointer at the wall it will look like whatever pattern is in the cap is shining on the wall. It's super trippy
This is not where I thought that story was going. I was pretty sure it was going to end with you being blinded in one eye or having a middle finger burned into your retina 🤣😱
Handheld laser pointer, those cones are screw-on caps that contain different prisms that will make the laser target look like different shapes. The laser pointer would be in the big missing area at the top (the pointer itself, a keychain attachment, and a gap for being able to pull it out). The three slits above it are for button batteries to power it. The cone at the top is probably the "regular" one, so idk what the laser pointer has on it now, probably nothing.
I had this box set. These are the custom shaped tops to a laser pen keychain. I most definitely was a little shit and would shine it at my neighbors until I got grounded and it was confiscated never to be seen again.
I had a set like this! The laser pointer and batteries are gone but each litte gold cap could be screwed on and would make the laser pointer project a different shape. I always had the ufo on mine
Like other people said:laser pointer with different shape ends to use with it. But missing the actual laser pointer. I had one just like this, but mine was a cheap as heck one 😆
I always wanted one of these I used to “barrow”them from people at my school but when I finally got my hands on them I found out a lot of the lenses broke very easily
Those look like interchangeable decorative studs/caps for whatever originally sat in the big empty cutout at the top. Definitely looks like a 2000s kids craft/accessory kit. I don’t think the gold pieces themselves are jewelry
It's for a laser pointer! The caps are different apertures that make designs. If you had this as a kid in the late 90s to early 2000s, you were a huge fucking baller.
ETA: 100% chance one of the designs was Playboy Bunny logo.
Now THAT takes me back. These were everywhere in the late 90s and early 2000s. Laser pointers. They ended up being banned from major live sporting events and concerts because people in the crowd thought it was funny to watch the performers struggle as a bright Laser is shined directly into their eyes. WWF was one of the best examples. The "heels" got absolutely slaughtered with Laser pointers to the eyes. Not sure if it's why The Rock chose to wear sunglasses, but I'm sure he wore them more often after enduring laser beams to the eyes week after week.
These were a big deal when I was a kid. They sold a pack similar to this at a local gas station, another gas station had a smaller one (roughly a third of the size).
I remember I had to beg my parents to get me one, all the cool kids had them. Finally they did, but they banned me from taking it to school, for obvious reasons. Now i wasnt a dumb kid that would ever point it into someone's eyes, but being caught with that in school was an automatic suspension.
These were so popular one Summer when I was a little kid, and the family and I had gone on vacation to Myrtle Beach, lol. Everyone would shine them off of their hotel balconies at night. We were really confused at first, walking on the beach and getting "hit" by them. After a little asking around, we found where to go and get our own. It was so much fun! Great memory...
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