Everyting you ever wanted to know about the Yo Yo and Then Some
When I was about eight years old I was given a very nice yo-yo for Christmas. I rather liked the
toy, and having learned a few simple tricks, my parent's started buying me books on yo-yo's and
a couple other nice yo-yo's. This is how my yo-yo collection started, and it has grown ever since. I
used to fancy myself as being pretty good with the yo-yo but a mini fad, probably contained
within my Washington's elementary sixth grade class of 89, put me in my place. I may not have
been particularly good at it, but I did have the most yo-yo's, and possibly the best yo-yo around.
So naturally I was somewhat upset when that first yo-yo I had gotten for Christmas so many
years ago walked. I knew of the shop that my father bought the yo-yo at, and I went back there to
buy another one. I was delighted to see two of the yo-yo's I had lost sitting there in the display
case. I asked what the price for one would be, and to my horror and the workers astonishment,
there was a "not for sale" sign on both of them. I got the worker to call the owner of the store
who absolutely refused to sell either of them. I soon found out the Hummingbird yo-yo company
had quickly and mysteriously vanished, it soon reapeared as the now very succesfull B.C. YO company owned by Bradd Countryman. In trying to track down another Hummingbird Trixter
Yo-yo I have written to countless yo-yo dealers and several toy companies. In my search which
has turned into more of a quest I have learned more about the origin, history, and mechanics of
yo-yo's then most would ever care to know. I have yet, however to find anyone willing to give up
a Hummingbird Trixter Yo-yo. (:-) I found one. Not quite as pretty as the one I had but along the same lines) The origin of the yo-yo is a mystery. No one is quite sure where,
when, or how they came about. We do know Yo-yo's were popular toys in the Philippines and,
that Donald Duncan bought the rights to a small yo-yo company form Pedro Flores. Flores was a
Philippine immigrant who had a small business selling yo-yo's in Los Angeles. It is said that the
yo-yo's in the Philippines had developed from some sort of hunting weapon. Duncan's
contribution to the yo-yo was the introduction of the slip string, which allowed yo-yo's to sleep
for the first time. (some confusion exists weather this was Duncan's or Flores doing. Donald Duncan was an entrepreneur who made his millions bringing us not only
the Duncan O' Boy Yo-Yo Top, but Eskimo Pie's, Good Humor ice cream trucks, the first
premium incentive "Kids, sent in two box tops and get a great...." , and the beloved parking
meter. Duncan Enterprises "Continues to lead the market with innovative answers to the changing
parking issues of today". Duncan sent demonstrators to cities and town far and wide popularizing
the yo-yo. Duncan teamed up with William Randolph Hearst, of Chicago newspaper lore. Contests were
held in which kids had to sell newspapers to be eligible. Yo-yo's became very popular. Duncan's
factory in Luck Wisconsin could turn out 3,600 yo-yo's an hour or 1 yo-yo every second and at
times could not keep up with demand. The yo-yo company slumped, but survived through the
second world war, and yo-yo sales hit an all time peak in 1962 The Duncan company alone sold
45 million yo-yo's The yo-yo's heydays had come Despite staggering sales volume Duncans yo yo days came to an end. Eexuberant spending,
and the violent fluctuations of sales figures forced Duncan to leave the yo-yo business. The
Duncan name was sold to Flambau Plastics who makes the Duncan yo-yo's you see today. Yo-yo's
have been made out of wood, plastic, tin aluminum, in the shape of hearts, cars, clovers, globes,
baseballs, footballs tennis balls and any other balls you can think of, with an impression of any
cartoon character you can think of. You can buy yo-yo's that glow in the dark, battery powered
light up yo-yo's, spring-loaded comeback yo-yo's, yo-yo's with a clutch, ball bearing yo-yo's, singing yo yos, yo yo that measure r.p.m.s,
titanium yo-yo's, laminated yo-yo's, butterfly yo-yo's, Imperial yo-yo's, laser carved
yo-yo's, yo-yo's with superior weight distribution and one yo-yo weighing 256 pounds which was
yo-yoed form a crane. It is this unending variety of yo-yo's that draws me to collect them. There
are two main categories all yo-yo's fit into. The simpler Fixed Axle yo-yo generally required in
competition's and preferred by most serious yo-yoers, and the bearing yo-yo. The bearing
yo-yo will sleep for what seems forever, but will not do loops. I have heard of a bearing yo-yo that
will do loops, which is an amazing feat, but reportedly not very well compared to even the crudest
fixed axle yo-yo's. While fixed axle types will do loops well, they will not sleep more than eight or
nine seconds for the average user. The best axles are made of wood, as any serious yo-yoer will
tell you. The drawback being that wooden axles wear out rather quickly and have to be replaced.
Steel or brass axles last longer but do not sleep very well. The reason wood axles sleep better
remains an unanswered question. We owe much of what we do now about the performance of
yo-yo's to Tom Kuhn. He did exhaustive research trying to come up with the perfect yo-yo.
Important aspects of a yo-yo are the axle, the balance, and its weight distribution. The thinner the
axle the better a yo-yo sleeps. Wood is the best known substance to let the yo-yo sleep. The yo-yo
being perfectly balanced is a must. The majority of the weight of a yo-yo should be around the
rim. Yo-yo's rely on the gyroscopic principle to keep them from twisting and to keep them
spinning. Moving the majority of the mass of the yo-yo's to the rim improves the gyroscopic
principles of the yo-yo. The thinner the axle, the less friction and the longer the yo-yo will sleep.
Tom Kuhn also gave The astronaut David Griggs a crash course for the toys in space experiments.
Alas, it was discovered though that yo-yo's do not sleep in micro-gravity. The Physics department at
the University of Illinois has also done quite a bit of research on the physical aspects of the yo-yo as well.
We owe the slip string to Donald Duncan or perhaps Flores, it is his son however, Donald Duncan Jr., Who holds
the patent on a yo-yo that sleeps up to 50% longer due to better weight distribution (at the time this was written anyway). He owns the
company PlayMax which is the maker of arguably the best performing yo-yo in production. There
are numerous stories about how yo-yo's can save your life, get you out of speeding tickets, and
various other practical uses for yo-yoing. I have yet to see any of these stories verified, and it is
my belief, and even hope, that yo-yoing and the collecting of them is a completely useless, but
wonderfully fun activity. I will leave you to form your own opinion. Back Home
