The Secrets of X-Ray Spex

X-Ray Spex, the cheap cardboard glasses that promised to show you the bones in your hand or the body of another person beneath their clothes, have been amazing people—and disappointing them—since 1906, when the first ones were patented in the United States. But they didn’t really burst upon the market until 1964. Then, the cheap black-rimmed spectacles, with all but a small hole in the center of each cardboard “lens” obscured by red and black hypnotizing swirls, were widely marketed by novelty dealer Harald Nathan Braunhut, who also “invented” Sea Monkeys.