LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Yo: Duncan Yo-Yo
built 618 days ago
Yo-yo sales reached its highest peak in 1962, when Duncan Yo-Yo sold 45 million units. Unfortunately, this 1962 hike in sales led to the end of Donald Duncan's Company. Advertising and production costs far outstripped even the sudden increase in sales revenues. Since 1936, Duncan experimented with parking meters as a sideline. Over the years, the parking meter division grew to become Duncan's main moneymaker. This and bankruptcy made it easier for Duncan to finally cut the strings and sell his interest in the yo-yo.The Flambeau Plastic Company bought the name 'Duncan' and all the company's trademarks, they began producing their line of all plastic yo-yos soon after.
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In 1962, the yo-yo reached new heights in the United States, selling 45 million units in a country that only had 40 million children. Feeling that they were in a position to finally take back the market, Duncan sued its chief rival Royal Tops for trademark infringement. They lost. The court ruled that Duncan could not legally hold a trademark on the name yo-yo because it was, and always had been, simply the name of the toy, like kite or baseball. Three years later, deeply in debt from court battles, expensive television promotions, and the cost of retooling production lines from wooden to plastic yo-yos, Duncan was forced by its creditors into bankruptcy. In 1968, Flambeau Plastics Company bought the Duncan name and restarted production; the company still makes Duncan yo-yos today.
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Duncan saw the toy, liked it, bought the rights from Flores in 1929 and then trademarked the name Yo-Yo ®. Duncan's contribution to yo-yo technology was the slip string, consisting of a sliding loop around the axle instead of a knot. With this revolutionary improvement, the yo-yo 'slept' for the first time. The original yo-yo shape, first introduced to the United States was the imperial or standard shape. The Duncan Yo-Yo introduced the butterfly shape, a design that reverses the halves of a traditional imperial yo-yo. The butterfly allows the player to catch the yo-yo on the string easily, good for certain tricks.
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Everyone is welcome to be involved in the Guiness World Record breaking attempt to have the most people yo-yoing simultaneously. Organized by the Orange County Historical Museum, each participant gets a FREE Duncan yo-yo. see all events
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Duncan Yo-Yo