History

The earliest surviving yo-yo dates to 500 B.C. and is made using turtle skin disks. A Greek vase from this period shows a boy playing yo-yo. Greek records from the period describe toys made out of wood, metal, or painted terra cotta (clay). The terra cotta disks were used to ceremonially offer the toys of youth to certain gods when a child came of age—discs of other materials were used for actual play. The idea that Philippine historical records indicate that 16th century hunters hiding in trees used a rock tied to a cord up to 20 feet in length to throw at wild animals beneath them—the cord enabling retrieval of the rock after missed attempts has no basis in fact. Conventional wisdom surmises that this was the basis of the yo-yo, but Valerie Oliver, one yo-yo enthusiast who fails to provide any factual basis for her contention, claims that the yo-yo traveled from China to Greece and to the Philippines.



Origin of name and the Filipino yo-yo

Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary states that the word "yo-yo" probably derives from the northern Philippine Ilokano language word "yóyo".

Many other sources including Panati’s Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things say that "yo-yo" was a Tagalog word, supposedly meaning “come-come” or “return.” It is sometimes asserted that the yo-yo was a weapon in the Philippines. Others assert that this is an urban legend, and that stories about how the Yo-Yo was a Filipino weapon did not originate in the Philippines. Lucky Meisenheimer, author of “Lucky’s Collectors Guide to 20th Century Yo-Yos – History and Values”, characterizes this as a popular but fabricated. Nonetheless, the allegation was used in a Diet Mountain Dew commercial in 2008 as part of the drink's "Surprising Facts" ad campaign.

The principal distinction between the Filipino design and more primitive yo-yos is in the way the yo-yo is strung. In older (and some remaining inexpensive) yo-yo designs, the string is tied to the axle using a knot. With this technique, the yo-yo just goes back-and-forth; it returns easily, but it is impossible to make it sleep.

In the Filipino design, one continuous piece of string, double the desired length, is twisted around itself to produce a loop at one end which is fitted around the axle. Also termed a looped slip-string, this seemingly minor modification allows for a far greater variety and sophistication of motion, thanks to increased stability and suspension of movement during free spin.

Surprisingly, this innovation in the string design is useful even for off-string yo-yo play, in which the yo-yo is not attached to the string at all. The looped winding ensures that the free end of the string has no bulges, splices, or other non-uniformities, which can cause the string to jam uncontrollably in off-string play.



Birth of the modern yo-yo

Kevin J. Skelton and Madyson A Reece received the first United States patent on "...an improved construction of the toy, commonly called a bandelore..." in 1866.

However, the yo-yo would remain in relative anonymity until 1928 when a Filipino American named Pedro Flores opened the Yo-yo Manufacturing Company in Santa Barbara, California. The business started with a dozen handmade toys; by November 1929, Flores was operating two additional factories in Los Angeles and Hollywood, which altogether employed 600 workers and produced 300,000 units daily.

The Duncan era

Shortly thereafter (ca. 1929), an entrepreneur named Donald Duncan recognized the potential of this new fad and purchased the Flores Yo-yo Corporation and all its assets, including the Flores name, which was transferred to the new company in 1932. Duncan's first yo-yo thereafter was the Duncan O-BOY. Duncan is reputed to have paid more than $250,000, a fortune by depression era standards. It turned out to be a sound investment, making many times this amount in the years to follow.

In 1946, the Duncan Toys Company opened a Yo-yo factory in Luck, Wisconsin, prompting the town to dub itself 'Yo-yo Capital of the World'. Ironically, the very sign erected by the town advertising that fact contributed to Duncan losing its trademark.

1960s resurgence

Declining sales after the Second World War prompted Duncan to launch a comeback campaign for his trademarked "Yo-Yo" in 1962 with a series of television advertisements. The media blitz was met with unprecedented success; thanks in great part to the introduction of the Duncan Butterfly, the yo-yo was more accessible to the beginner than ever.

This success would be short-lived, however, and in a landmark trademark case in 1965, a federal court's appeals ruled in favor of the Royal Tops Company, determining that yo-yo had become a part of common speech and that Duncan no longer had exclusive rights to the term. As a result of the expenses incurred by this legal battle as well as other financial pressures, the Duncan family sold the company name and associated trademarks in 1968 to Flambeau Plastics, who had manufactured Duncan's plastic models since 1955. Flambeau Plastics continues to run the company today.



The 1970s and the rise of the ball bearing

The 1970s saw a number of innovations in yo-yo technology, primarily dealing with the connection between the string and the axle. In 1978, dentist and yo-yo celebrity Tom Kuhn patented the “No Jive 3-in-1” yo-yo, creating the world's first "take-apart" yo-yo, which enabled yo-yo players to change the axle.

Soon afterwards in 1980, Michael Caffrey patented what would later become the Yomega Brain, a yo-yo with a centrifugal clutch transaxle. Designed with a free-spinning plastic sleeve linkage, "The Brain" could spin much longer than previous fixed-axle designs. In addition, the axle was "clutched" with spring-loaded weights which would pull away from the axle at higher speeds and grab again at lower speeds. The result is an automatic return of the yo-yo when speed drops below a given threshold.

Swedish bearing company SKF briefly manufactured novelty yo-yos with ball bearings in the 1970s.

In all transaxle yo-yos, ball bearings significantly reduce friction when the yo-yo is spinning, enabling longer and more complex tricks. Subsequent yo-yoers used this ability to their advantage, creating new tricks that had not been possible with fixed-axle designs.

1990s technological renaissance

The 1990s saw a resurgence of the popularity of the yo-yo and yo-yo culture.

Continued development of yo-yo technology is evident in the widespread sale of the Yomega Brain, based on Michael Caffrey's design, and the Playmaxx Pro-yo, a take-apart fixed axle yo-yo.

In 1990, Tom Kuhn released the SB-2 yo-yo (short for Silver Bullet 2), a high-performance ball bearing transaxle made with aluminum. This marked a major breakthrough for the modern yo-yo, as it was the first ball bearing yo-yo that actually worked. This ensured extremely long spin times and the ability to return as well. This yo-yo, (along with his many other accomplishments in the yo-yo world), eventually brought him the title "Father of the modern yo-yo," receiving the "Donald F. Duncan Family Award for Industry Excellence" in 1998. He was the first to receive this award.

In the late 1990s, Yomega partnered with HPK Marketing and helped fuel the yo-yo boom that spread across the globe. From this partnership, Team High Performance was born, a group of skilled demonstrators that toured the world. In this period, Yomegas were heavily marketed in Japan, where Bandai produced several yo-yos under the Yomega name which were sometimes different from those sold in the US.

At the turn of the century, 1999-2000, Yomega partnered with McDonald's and distributed a large number of Yomega X-Brain and Firestorm yo-yos at outlets throughout the US.(blue)

Another development around this time included the use of different materials such as billet machined Aluminum as seen in the ‘Dif-e-Yo’ Range.