Yo-Yo
It's from 1928, before you were born.
- Maker
- Duncan (popularizer)
- Type
- Skill toy
- Debuted
- 1928
- Note
- Ancient toy, mass-marketed by Pedro Flores & Donald Duncan
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About
As of 2026, it's 98 years old.
The yo-yo is genuinely ancient — versions go back thousands of years — but the modern craze began in 1928 when Filipino immigrant Pedro Flores started manufacturing them in California, crucially using a looped slip-string that let the toy 'sleep' and perform tricks. Donald Duncan bought the company and turned it into a phenomenon.
Duncan's traveling demonstrators and contests sent yo-yo mania sweeping through generations, with 'Walk the Dog' and 'Around the World' becoming rites of passage. The word itself is reportedly Filipino for 'come back.'
Simple, ancient, and endlessly trick-able, the yo-yo is the string toy that's been coming back — literally — for a hundred years and several thousand before that.
