Yo-Yo: An Old Dog With A Lot Of New Tricks

There are times in life when you can only find the solution to a problem by playing with a yo-yo. I’ve been a writer for a long time and early in my career worked at a fairly progressive ad agency. I was thrilled that when faced with a creative problem I was able to step outside of my office and do a few yo-yo tricks to get my brain working in the right direction. Some say that Napoleon, too, was a yo-yo enthusiast and would often relieve stress by throwing a yo-yo. Setting aside speculation, the yo-yo was first uncovered in history in 500 B.C. Greece.

The ancient form of yo-yos were produced using wood, metal or painted terra cotta discs simply referred to as discs. An example is on display in the National Museum of Athens in Greece along with a vase depicting a young boy playing with a yo-yo. The toy’s history moves through Egypt, China, Britain and France among other nations. The toy was very popular in the early twentieth century in the Philippines and helped the yo-yo gain ground in the U.S.

An image from a French fashion journal in 1791 shows a woman playing with what was then known as a Bandalore.

In 1866, James L. Haven and Charles Hittrick of Cincinnati, Ohio were given the first patent for a yo-yo in the U.S. It was for a yo-yo ‘coupled together at their centres by means of a clutch’. This was the first but many more followed using great names for the toy such as Wheel Toy, Bandalore and Whirligig. A very popular yo-yo was manufactured in San Francisco in 1920s by a man named Flores. Yo-yo in Filipino means spring.

D.F. Duncan Sr. worked for Flores, marketing the yo-yo and eventually bought out Flores. In 1930, he started the Genuine Duncan Yo-Yo Company and trademarked the name ‘yo-yo’. There have been many companies in the yo-yo business over the years and they all benefited us as consumers because, lets face it, we get a better selection of yo-yos to play with and collect. It is an endearing, unflappable, stalwart in the toy world and has become collectible as well.

Popularity in Yo-yo collecting caused a spike in prices between ‘97 and ‘01

Where does one start collecting yo-yos and what should one collect? Like any collection, it comes down to finding what you enjoy. Collect what you love and you’ll never go wrong. There are a lot of variations to consider when tracking down yo-yos: manufacturers, old or new (pre and post 1970), material (plastic, wood, metal), design (butterfly, traditional, adjustable), colours, sizes…

The Grind Machine by YoYoFactory
A sleeping yo-yo that is designed to do long lasting tricks.

The Velocity by YoYoFactory

An adjustable yo-yo that allows you to adjust the width of the gap which allows a full range of tricks.

Toy collectors are well versed in the art of toy hunting so, finding older yo-yos isn’t really that tough but paying for them can be. Prices for pre-seventies yo-yos can run anywhere from under ten dollars to over five hundred. Always remember to keep a budget in mind for any collection. To help you manage those funds efficiently you’re going to want to keep an eye out for condition when picking up a yo-yo, especially older ones. The graphics on the yo-yo should be sharp and clean and the move vibrant the colours are the better the piece. Flaws hurt value so keep your eye out for chips and dents. Clean paint on wooden yo-yos is almost impossible and repaints are tough to spot but you can see the chip paint under most repaints. Make sure that the two halves are even and aren’t loose. If the yo-yo is stillpackaged, unopened, clean and bright are the best.

There are many brands of yo-yos still sought after by collectors today. Here are just a few:

Duncan

American Spinners

BC/What’s Next

Medalist

Royal

Tom Kuhn

Oxygene

Visit the Museum of Yo-yo History for a yo-yo directory (with photos). It’s a great resource.

Basic Yo-yo Styles

To collect and play!

I took a look at a few yo-yos from an online dealer here in Canada (YoYo-Canada), and as a long time yo-yo enthusiast jumped in and purchased a new, modern yo-yo. I really didn’t know what to expect and when my Grind Machine yo-yo arrived in two days I was ecstatic. It was unlike any yo-yo I’d owned or even played with and it proved that you can teach an old dog new tricks.

The Grind Machine in action

The newer yo-yos come in two categories; imperial with a more traditional shape and a butterfly or wing design. The imperial shape is good for looping tricks since it has a smaller gap which allows the string to catch more easily. A butterfly design is great for sleeping tricks. Yo-yos have advanced to a high state of play when you consider you can now buy string of differing materials depending on your preference. Add to that counterweights, off-string tricks and hub stacks and you have a world of possibilities to collect and to show off.

Basic Types of Yo-yo

The F.A.S.T. 201 Yo-yo put through its paces

One of the catches to the butterfly or sleeping yo-yo is that it is only designed to sleep so, that makes the traditional gravity pull impossible (palm up, throw yo-yo over the top down toward floor, turn hand over, pull, yo-yo returns). Like my Grind Machine, you must learn the bind return. It’s a way of getting a sleeping yo-yo to return and believe me, it takes practice.

The Gravity Pull

Binding Return

The yo-yo may not be as popular as it once was but it definitely has evolved into an amazing toy. Whether you reach back into your youth and search out some older yo-yo versions or look for the newest yo-yos, you just can’t lose with a toy that’s this much fun.

A Fun Yo-yo Fact:

The Primo:

Check out some great tutorial videos at Yo-Yo Crazy.com

Yo-yo photos courtesy of YoYo-Canada; fantastic online retailer who really know their stuff.

My Spider-man Collection

He's still my hero!

I’ve come across a few fanatical collectors of Spider-man memorabilia and I’ll confess that I’m nowhere on their radar, hell, not even in the same hemisphere. Yet, I still feel like a crazed collector even though I’ve spent maybe a few hundred dollars on my collection, where others have spent tens of thousands. That sounds more like a small gathering of items rather than a collection, but I disagree. I would wager that my little group of Spidey collectibles has the same effect on me as another person’s large collection would have on them; it makes me happy, is a very pleasing thing to look at and it has meaning to me.

Why Spider-man?

Aside from the obvious reason that the fictional superhero is just badass, there is the notion that many readers of Spider-man connected with Peter Parker, the guy under the mask. Here was a kid that had all the same problems we had; acne, couldn’t connect with girls very well, a loner, B.O., awkward…all the stuff that adolescent males deal with was right there on the page. While I’m quite certain this was likely one of the reasons that I connected with Spidey, it wasn’t the main reason.

When I was a kid I had a minor reading disability. Well, now I think it was a minor problem, but then it was a whole other story. I couldn’t read more than one or two words at a time. So, where some kids were scanning whole paragraphs and flying through their reading assignments, I was jerkily crawling along. I dreaded oral reading, when each kid the class would read a sentence or paragraph out loud. I was terrible at it unless I figured out which sentence or paragraph I was meant to read, then I’d go over it as many times as I could and sound so smooth and polished when my turn came. Reading was awful, it was a chore; I hated reading.

My parents were pretty smart and felt that reading anything was better than nothing so, they supplied me with comic books. My favourite being, you guessed it, Spider-man. If not for Stan Lee I never would have understood reading for enjoyment or possibly reading at all. I recently wrote a thank you letter to Mr. Lee for his part in my reading happiness. Not that it’ll mean much to him, probably receives thousands of letters a week. Still, it made me feel good.

So many moons later and I still get a thrill when I pick up a new piece to the collection. For those interested in starting their own collection of Spidey goodies, point yourself to the nearest dollar store. You’ll be amazed at what you can pick up for a buck or two. Items that I’ve purchased, often for one dollar, go for much more online. I’m not suggesting that you go to the dollar stores and pick up items that you can sell for more on Ebay. Far from that. I’m telling you to keep those items, open them up and display them. Hell, you want to keep them packaged to leave them to the kids, go ahead. But, keep them. Enjoy them.

Dollar stores aren’t the only place to hunt down treasures. I visited a local Party Packagers store and picked up a Spider-man Marvel Legends (Sentinel Series) for $8.50. I found an Ebay listing for the exact same figure, mint in box, for US $50.

I love my collectibles and don’t see myself ever selling them, though I have given stuff away. You can blame my mom for that; she really was right when she said it was far better to give then receive. I enjoy the feeling of random acts of kindness (RAOK). That’s just part of the experience of collecting Spider-man memorabilia or any kind of collectible for that matter. I encourage you to join in the fun by visiting Spider-man sites, toy sites and other collecting sites. Heck, get out to a toy show, you’ll love it! You meet some very interesting folks with similar interests – face to face, too!

What’s So Cool?

I’m often asked what my favourite piece is from my collection. That is so difficult to answer since I love them all, but when pushed I come up with these three items:

A wrestling mask my wife brought back for me from Mexico.

A crocheted blanket in the shape of a spider web that a good friend made for me.

A plastic head used at retail stores to hold bubblegum that my mom got for me from a local variety store.

There are countless items to collect in the world of Spider-man and countless more in so many other areas. Get out there, enjoy yourself and do a little collectible hunting face to face – you’ll be glad you did.

Here's a few more photos of items I've collected over the years.