All Things Vintage: Yo-Yo #AprilA2Z

Yoyo, kittens and dawgs! Many of us have come to think of yoyo as a way of saying hello, but in All Things Vintage, I’m sharing a favorite childhood toy of many, the Yo-Yo.

boyplayingyoyoWhen I was a kid, I played with a yo-yo. I can’t remember if it belonged to me or a sibling or a friend, but I do recall that it was a wooden yo-yo. I always thought this was a toy from the 40s and 50s, but I found out that the yo-yo dates back to 500BC. Are you shocked with this discovery? I was!

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This is 1791 illustration of a woman playing with a bandalore. These were used to relieve stress like the modern day stress ball.

The modern yo-yo we know today is a design of Pedro Flores, a Filipino immigrant to the United States. In 1928, he opened Yo-yo manufacturing company in Santa Barbara, California. About a year later, an entrepreneur recognized the potential in Flores product and bought everything. The new owner, Donald F. Duncan. It was 1932 when Yo-Yo became a registered trademark and that same year a gent from London England by the name of Harvey Lowe won the first World Yo-Yo Contest.

 

 

 

 

Tricks performed with a yoyo always fascinated me; here’s some old footage of Yo-Yo tricks.

 

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Here’s an old commercial promoting Duncan Yo-Yos inside Post cereals. Do you remember getting a prize in your cereal box?

Did you play with a Yo-Yo? Could you do neat tricks? Were you good enough to enter a contest?

Applauds and special thanks to the incredible A2Z Team for hosting all the April fun!

Arlee Bird @ Tossing it Out
Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh
Heather M. Gardner
Jeremy @ Hollywood Nuts
AJ Lauer
Pam @ An Unconventional Librarian
Damyanti Biswas @ Daily Write
Zalka Csenge Virág @ The Multicolored Diary
Joy Campbell @ The Character Depot
John Holton @The Sound of One Hand Typing

Now, I invite you to hop with me in checking out some of the amazing A2Zers playing along this year and I hope you’ll come back tomorrow for the last installment of All Things Vintage.

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