Sleeping Yo-Yos On Rise Again

It’s had its ups and downs over the past 50 years and Irvin Kipper has experienced them all.

Still, the veteran Los Angeles toy shop owner doubted he would ever see the yo-yo rise again--not with things like Nintendo video games, Teletubbies and Beanie Babies fighting for children’s attention and merchants’ shelf space.

But there 8-year-old Alex Sarkissian was, peeling open his Velcro wallet and carefully counting out $16.38 of his allowance money Tuesday for a new X-Brain Yo-Yo on the counter at Kipper’s Fairfax district toy shop.

“I have two X-Brains, but I’m giving one to my sister. So I’m buying another one for me,” said the second-grader from Hancock Park.

“Everybody has them. Everybody brings them to school. The teacher is always telling us to put away our yo-yos.”

As it has every seven years or so since the 1930s, another yo-yo craze is sweeping the United States, delighting just about everyone except maybe frazzled elementary school teachers like those at Alex’s St. Michael’s School in Studio City.

To kids, yo-yos are the hottest thing on the playground. To parents, they are inexpensive gadgets that provide hours of challenge and diversion for children. For toy shop owners they are sturdy, simple items--things that certainly won’t be returned by a disgruntled buyer because some computer chip inside went on the fritz.

“It’s such an old-fashioned toy. When my son asked for one, I couldn’t believe it,” said shopper Terri Beck, who was checking Kipper’s yo-yo stock for her son, William, 9.

“Yo-yos are back, no question about it,” said the 82-year-old Kipper, who opened his toy store in 1945. “Kids being introduced to yo-yos this time are finding it’s much more lasting than something you wind up.”

After sweeping high-tech Japan last year, yo-yos have taken off here. Sales have jumped 400% so far this year, according to one market research firm. That’s a pace that will make 1998 the best year ever for the humble string toy. Prices range from $1.98 to around $100.

Yo-yos’ popularity historically has run on a seven-year cycle, according to Stuart Crump, editor of the Yo-Yo Times Newsletter, which he publishes from his home near Washington. (“I’m the only yo-yo in Washington who knows what he’s doing,” cracks Crump.)

That’s because youngsters between the ages of 7 and 14 are typically those who play with yo-yos. The toy is usually too difficult for younger people, Crump said, and is seen as too much of a toy for older teenagers.

Although it is believed yo-yos originated in China, the first historical mention of it was about 500 BC from Greece, according to officials of the American Yo-Yo Assn. They were popularized in the United States starting about 70 years ago by businessman Donald F. Duncan, who filed a trademark for the name “yo-yo.”

For decades, Duncan’s company sent “yo-yo men” around the country at seven-year intervals to demonstrate yo-yo tricks at schools and candy stores to a new generation of youngsters, according to Crump, a 53-year-old writer who has penned four books about the yo-yo.

The Duncan company went bankrupt in the mid-1960s after an unsuccessful legal fight to keep the “yo-yo” trademark, said Crump. Another firm acquired the Duncan name; these days, as many as 50 companies sell yo-yos.

Modern yo-yos come with ball bearing and spring-equipped innards. Some have string clutch systems that let users “sleep” their spinning yo-yos for minutes at a time.

Hancock Park homemaker Rachel Revere was purchasing a yo-yo that would sleep Tuesday for her son, Aaron, 11. He has eight others at home, she said. Last year at Thanksgiving, Aaron packed up his Nintendo games for a family trip to the desert, Revere said.

“This year, all he took was a little bag of yo-yos.”

Yo-Yo Facts

Origin: The yo-yo has been traced to ancient China, and to a drawing of the toy on a Grecian vase in 500 BC.

Meaning: “Yo-yo” means “come, come” or “come back” in Tagalog, the language of the Philippines, where one version of the toy was used as a weapon for 400 years.

U.S. model: A wooden yo-yo was first made in California by a Filipino named Pedro Flores in the 1920s. Plastic yo-yos were introduced in 1957.

Speed: Yo-yos can spin at more than 11,000 rpm.

Sales: Yo-yos reached their high point in 1962, when 45 million were sold.

Proper handling: Loop should be placed behind the first knuckle of the middle finger.

Source: Times research