The Story of the Yo-Yo

From Clay Discs to World Contests

The yo-yo has been around for about 2,500 years. Here is how it got from ancient Greece to your pocket, with the DC-area chapters marked along the way. Every entry lists its sources, so you can dig deeper.

1. c. 500 BC Ancient Roots
2. 1700s Around the World as the Bandalore
3. The Name A Word from the Philippines
4. 1866 American Patents
5. 1928 Pedro Flores Makes the Yo-Yo Sleep
6. 1929 – 1932 Duncan and the First Craze
7. 1932 The First World Contest
8. 1946 – 1960s Factories, TV, and Tricks on Screen
9. 1965 – 1968 “Yo-Yo” Becomes Everyone’s Word
10. 1970s – 1990 Better Axles, Longer Spins
11. 1985 Yo-Yos in Space
12. 1990s The Big Boom
13. 2000s The Modern Era
14. 2013 – Today A Global Sport
15. Today Where the Yo-Yo Is Now

1. c. 500 BC

   Ancient Roots

   The yo-yo is one of the oldest toys on record. Ancient Greek vase paintings show people playing with them, and surviving examples from the period are made of bronze and terracotta. The most common material was likely wood, which did not last.

   

   One Attic drinking cup, a kylix now in Berlin’s Antikensammlung, shows a boy playing with a yo-yo. Nobody knows what the Greeks called it.

   Sources: Yo-yo (Wikipedia) · The Engines of Our Ingenuity: The Yo-Yo · Duncan: A Rich History of a Simple Toy

2. 1700s

   Around the World as the Bandalore

   A Mughal painting from northern India, around 1770, shows a woman with a string toy similar to the modern yo-yo.

   

   By the end of the 1700s the toy was popular in England, where people called it a bandalore or bandylore. A 1791 illustration shows a woman playing one. The French knew it as the joujou de Normandie.

   Sources: Yo-yo (Wikipedia) · YoYo Wiki: History of the Yo-yo

3. The Name

   A Word from the Philippines

   The word yo-yo most likely comes from the Ilocano word yóyo, or a related word from the Philippines. The Strong National Museum of Play translates it as “come come.” Filipino children played with the toy for generations before it reached America.

   Sources: Yo-yo (Wikipedia) · The Strong: Duncan Yo-Yo

4. 1866

   American Patents

   U.S. patents for yo-yo-like toys date to the 1860s. An 1866 patent by James L. Haven and Charles Hettrick described a new way to build one around a central rivet. In America the toy was still called a whirligig or bandalore.

   See photos: Museum of Yo-Yo History: patents and research

   Sources: YoYo Wiki: History of the Yo-yo · The Engines of Our Ingenuity: The Yo-Yo

5. 1928

   Pedro Flores Makes the Yo-Yo Sleep

   Pedro Flores, a Filipino immigrant, opened the Yo-yo Manufacturing Company in Santa Barbara, California, in 1928. It started with a dozen handmade toys. By November 1929 he ran two more factories in Los Angeles and Hollywood, with 600 workers turning out 300,000 yo-yos a day.

   

   His key change was the string. Flores used one continuous loop around the axle instead of tying it tight. That let the yo-yo spin freely at the end of the string, or “sleep,” the move nearly every trick is built on.

   DC Connection Read the full story, from exhibit banners by Robert Reyes, on our Filipino Yo-Yo History page.

   Sources: Pedro Flores (Wikipedia) · Pedro and the Yo-Yo: Man and Myth · The Engines of Our Ingenuity: The Yo-Yo · Our Filipino Yo-Yo History page

6. 1929 – 1932

   Duncan and the First Craze

   Businessman Donald F. Duncan saw Flores’s yo-yos and bought the company, taking over the Flores name by 1932. Duncan partnered with newspaper owner William Randolph Hearst: kids entered yo-yo contests by selling newspaper subscriptions. Duncan says the Chicago paper alone sold 50,000 new subscriptions in six weeks.

   Duncan then sent teams of demonstrators, many of them Filipino, from city to city and schoolyard to schoolyard to teach tricks and run contests.

   DC Connection The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, right here in DC, holds the Duncan Family Yo-Yo Collection. It includes 35 photographs of demonstrator Tommy Reyes, donated by his son Robert in 2017.

   Sources: Donald F. Duncan Sr. (Wikipedia) · Duncan Toys Company (Wikipedia) · Duncan: A Rich History of a Simple Toy · Oak Park River Forest Museum: Donald Duncan · Smithsonian: Duncan Family Yo-Yo Collection

7. 1932

   The First World Contest

   The first World Yo-Yo Contest was held in London in 1932. Harvey Lowe, a 13-year-old from Victoria, British Columbia, won it at the Empire Theatre. He went on to master more than 2,000 tricks.

   Sources: Harvey Lowe (Wikipedia) · World Yo-Yo Contest (Wikipedia)

8. 1946 – 1960s

   Factories, TV, and Tricks on Screen

   In 1946 Duncan opened a yo-yo factory in Luck, Wisconsin. Sales dipped after World War II, so in 1962 Duncan launched a comeback with television ads and the slogan “If it isn’t a Duncan, it isn’t a yo-yo.”

   On TV, Tom Smothers created his “Yo-Yo Man” character, and Harvey Lowe appeared on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour as his guru.

   DC Connection Duncan champion Tommy Reyes did yo-yo spots on Washington and Baltimore kids’ TV, including Bozo with Willard Scott, who played Bozo on WRC-TV in DC from 1959 to 1962.

   Off-string play has roots here too. Duncan released its first wooden Butterfly in 1958, a design by demonstrator Wayne Lundberg. Former demonstrator Dale Oliver recalled that he, Lundberg, and Ken Filary challenged each other by playing catch with yo-yos off the string, just among the crew, never in public.

   Sources: Yo-yo (Wikipedia) · The Strong: Duncan Yo-Yo · Harvey Lowe (Wikipedia) · Willard Scott (Wikipedia) · Our Filipino Yo-Yo History page · Dave Schulte, “The Past and Future of Off-String Yo-Yo Play” (1999, via YoYoExpert Forums)

9. 1965 – 1968

   “Yo-Yo” Becomes Everyone’s Word

   Duncan sued Royal Tops, a company started by former Duncan demonstrator Joe Radovan, over the word “yo-yo.” In 1965 a federal appeals court ruled the word had become part of common speech, so Duncan no longer owned it.

   Legal costs and other pressures led the Duncan family to sell the company name in 1968 to Flambeau, which had made Duncan’s plastic yo-yos since 1955.

   Sources: Duncan v. Royal Tops (7th Cir. 1965) · Museum of Yo-Yo History: Royal · Yo-yo (Wikipedia) · Duncan Toys Company (Wikipedia)

10. 1970s – 1990

    Better Axles, Longer Spins

    Dentist Tom Kuhn, missing the wooden yo-yos of his youth, built the “No-Jive” yo-yo in the 1970s. Swedish bearing maker SKF made novelty ball-bearing yo-yos in 1984. In 1990 Kuhn introduced the SB-2, with an aluminum transaxle, the first successful ball-bearing yo-yo.

    

    Bearings cut friction dramatically. A cheap fixed-axle yo-yo spins 10 to 20 seconds; a good bearing yo-yo can spin for minutes.

    Before the internet, players shared tricks by mail. Newsletters like Stu Crump’s The Yo-Yo Times and Bill Alton’s The Noble Disk printed readers’ written trick descriptions. Many top players stuck with fixed-axle wooden yo-yos well after bearings arrived; Steve Brown has said he was one of the stubborn ones.

    Sources: Tom Kuhn (Wikipedia) · Yo-yo (Wikipedia) · YoYoExpert Forums: Early yoyo history?

11. 1985

    Yo-Yos in Space

    In April 1985 the crew of Space Shuttle Discovery, mission STS-51D, flew a small collection of toys, including a yo-yo, a Slinky, a paddle ball, and a toy car. They filmed the toys in weightlessness as a physics lesson for students.

    DC Connection The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, on the National Mall, tells the Toys in Space story.

    Sources: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Toys in Space · NASA: STS-51D · Duncan: A Rich History of a Simple Toy

12. 1990s

    The Big Boom

    Dale Oliver restarted the World Yo-Yo Contest as an annual event in 1992, at the International Jugglers’ Association convention in Montreal. It moved to Hawaii in 1999 and to Orlando in 2000.

    A worldwide yo-yo boom peaked in the late 1990s. In 1999 the Duncan yo-yo was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame, and Steve Brown debuted freehand (5A) play, with the string tied to a counterweight instead of a finger.

    Off-string came back in the 1990s. In 1990 in Tucson, Dale Oliver showed a small group the old demonstrators’ off-string moves. Jon Gates was in that group, and he went on to build the style with John Higby. The soft rubber Henrys Viper made off-string practice safer, and Team Hyper Viper tours sent Gates and Dave Schulte across Japan, with demos as big as the Osaka and Fukuoka Domes. A photo of Oliver throwing off-string behind his back on stage at Bandai’s April 4, 1998 yo-yo festival may be the earliest off-string stage photo.

    Sources: World Yo-Yo Contest (Wikipedia) · Yo-yo (Wikipedia) · National Toy Hall of Fame (Wikipedia) · The Strong: Duncan Yo-Yo · Steve Brown (Wikipedia) · Dave Schulte, “The Past and Future of Off-String Yo-Yo Play” (1999, via YoYoExpert Forums)

13. 2000s

    The Modern Era

    After the boom came what players call the modern era. Wider gaps, silicone response pads, and the bind trick made unresponsive yo-yos possible. With the yo-yo no longer coming back on a tug, players invented a huge new vocabulary of string tricks.

    The National Yo-Yo Hall of Fame began in 2003, inducting Pedro Flores, Donald F. Duncan Sr., and Barney Akers.

    DC Connection Springfield, VA performer Dick Stohr, “That Yo-Yo Guy,” played the National Theatre in DC in 2003. The Virginia State Yo-Yo Contest was first held on January 21, 2006. In 2010, 2,036 people set the Guinness record for most people yo-yoing at once at the National Scout Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill, VA.

    Bigger bearings helped. Players once stacked two small bearings to widen the gap. YoYoJam popularized the larger C-size bearing on models like the Dark Magic and Hitman, and Frank DiFeo’s KonKave bearings spread it further. Doctor Popular’s PopCast traces the history of the bind, from the first freestyle bind to the first “bind return only” yo-yo.

    Sources: Yo-yo (Wikipedia) · YoYo Wiki: National Yo-Yo Hall of Fame · YoYo Wiki: Dick Stohr · YoYo Wiki: US State Contest Virginia · Guinness World Records · YoYoExpert Forums: first yo-yo to use a size C bearing · YoYoExpert Forums: The history of binds!

14. 2013 – Today

    A Global Sport

    In 2013 the International Yo-Yo Federation (IYYF) formed to run the World Yo-Yo Contest, which now rotates between the Americas, Europe, and Asia. After online contests in 2021 and 2022, Worlds returned in Osaka in 2023, then Cleveland in 2024, Prague in 2025, and Himeji, Japan in 2026.

    In the U.S., the National Yo-Yo League runs contests across nine regions. Maryland and Virginia sit in the Mid-Atlantic region. The Hall of Fame restarted in 2020 under Doc Lucky Meisenheimer, and in 2025 it inducted Filipino Duncan champion Tommy Reyes.

    Sources: International Yo-Yo Federation · World Yo-Yo Contest · World Yo-Yo Contest (Wikipedia) · National Yo-Yo League · YoYo Wiki: National Yo-Yo League · National Yo-Yo Hall of Fame roster

15. Today

    Where the Yo-Yo Is Now

    Players learn from free video tutorials and trick apps, and share tricks on Instagram with the #trickcircle hashtag, on YouTube, and on TikTok. Duncan, still based in Middlefield, Ohio, became an independent company again in 2024. National Yo-Yo Day is June 6, Donald Duncan’s birthday.

    DC Connection DMV Throwers meets free every month in Arlington, and the Virginia State Yo-Yo Contest came to Dulles Town Center in 2026. Pick up a loaner and start your own chapter of the story.

    Sources: Yo-yo (Wikipedia) · Duncan Toys Company (Wikipedia) · Donald F. Duncan Sr. (Wikipedia)

The Contest Circuit

• U.S. Nationals: first held in 1993, for years every October in Chico, California, home of the US National Yo-Yo Museum, hosted by the Bird In Hand shop. It moved to Redondo Beach in 2015 and 2016, returned to Chico in 2017, then traveled to Chicago in 2018 and Philadelphia in 2019, skipped 2020 and 2021 for the pandemic, and returned in Mesa, Arizona. Winning one of the NYYL’s nine regionals earns a seed into the 1A final.
• Mid-Atlantic Regional (MAR): first held in 2000, before the NYYL existed, and hosted by Mitchell’s Trains, Toys & Hobbies in Wilmington, Delaware.
• Virginia State: first held January 21, 2006, with Beginner (8 and under), Sport Ladder, 1A Freestyle for Virginia residents, and an Open division for any style. The 1A winner earned a seed to a regional. Ian Clark won the first Open and Sebastian Brock the first 1A.
• 2026: the Virginia State contest came to Dulles Town Center as VSYC-26. See the results.

See photos: YoYo Archive: competitions

Sources: YoYo Wiki: U.S. Nationals · YoYo Wiki: US Regional Contest Mid-Atlantic · YoYo Wiki: US State Contest Virginia

Myths, Legends, and Lore

Every old toy collects stories. Here’s what’s true, what isn’t, and what’s just fun to tell at a meetup.

• “The yo-yo started as a Filipino hunting weapon.” You’ll hear it everywhere, but there is no sound historical evidence for it. Historians think the story was a marketing line spread by Duncan’s early demonstrators. Forum players have even tested it for laughs; a wooden looping yo-yo makes a poor weapon.
• A prince and his bandalore. The toy was so fashionable in 1790s England that caricaturist James Gillray drew the Prince of Wales lounging with one in 1791.
• Off-string began as a dare. Duncan demonstrators in the late 1950s played catch with yo-yos off the string, just to challenge each other. It took 40 years to become 4A.
• The President learns a trick. The night the new Grand Ole Opry House opened in 1974, country star Roy Acuff showed President Richard Nixon how to yo-yo on stage.
• The worst “yo-yo master” on TV. That viral clip of a local news guest fumbling every trick? It was comedian Mark Proksch playing “K-Strass,” a fake yo-yo master he took onto small-market morning shows. He later played the energy vampire Colin Robinson in What We Do in the Shadows.

Sources: Yo-yo (Wikipedia): purported use as weapons · YoYoExpert Forums: yo-yos as weapons · Gillray, Bandelures (1791), British Museum · Dave Schulte on off-string (1999, via YoYoExpert Forums) · Roy Acuff (Wikipedia) · Mark Proksch (Wikipedia) · YoYoExpert Forums: Lore behind a legendary yo-yo clip