Johnson City ? It started, in part, because brothers Steve and David Parman didn’t like lugging their handcrafted furniture, grandfather clocks and cedar chests to craft shows.

“They’re heavy,” Steve Parman said.

Then one day in 1984, sitting in their booth at a craft show, inspiration struck. Across the aisle sat a vendor selling ceramic kaleidoscopes.

“We were looking at them, kind of amusing ourselves, when we thought, ‘We could probably make wooden kaleidoscopes,”‘ Steve Parman said.

Stopping at a discount store on the way home, the Parman brothers purchased a toy kaleidoscope made out of cardboard and began tearing it apart.

Several weeks later, they had about a dozen of their prototypes – a lathe-turned, three-mirrored kaleidoscope – ready for display at another craft show.

“They sold out,” Parman said. “I was really surprised.”

And so began Parman Brothers Ltd. kaleidoscope company, designers and makers of a creative array of cylindrical viewing scopes – each one hand-crafted and individually made.

Steve Parman stands in front of a display of the many different types of kaleidoscopes made at the Parman Brothers Ltd. store in Johnson City. Parman and his brother David have been making kaleidoscopes for 22 years.

The Parmans’ kaleidoscopes aren’t anything like the toys most people remember playing with as kids. Some larger or more intricate designs can cost several hundred dollars, and all models use specially made mirrors designed for kaleidoscopes.

Today, Parman Brothers sells between 4,000 and 5,000 scopes a year, selling them wholesale to retailers across the country. Dave Parman moved from Johnson City to Virginia, but he remains active with the company by displaying their product at craft shows.

Two new designers – Carla Leiker and Ubaldo Montoya – have taken over the brothers’ creative reins, designing items like a lighthouse-inspired kaleidoscope and one designed to look like a hot air balloon.

Montoya, who joined the company six years ago, said although he’s always enjoyed woodworking, he never imagined having a job where he got to design and create kaleidoscopes.

Longtime Parman employee Millie Watson fabricates the kaleidoscopes together and puts the different objects – colored beads, springs and bits of metal – into each scope’s viewing window, creating a unique design with each piece.

“Every day it’s something different,” Watson said. “I start on one thing, and when I got tired with it, I try something else.”

Although Steve Parman said the kaleidoscope industry isn’t what it used to be, interest still remains strong for their products, especially different and fancier designs. “A lot of the challenge now is to try and do something different than what’s already out there,” he said. “This day and age we’re selling (fewer) kaleidoscopes, but what we’re selling is more expensive.”