And how do you think it plays?
I’m looking more in the flesh pictures
So you want a yo-yo … made of flesh?
No, no. They mean naked photos of the SB4.
Joking aside, I don’t think you’re going to find a lot of photos of or info about the SB4 since not many people own one. It’s more of a collectors yoyo than a player yoyo.
That said, there is a video of @edhaponik throwing one here:
And perhaps he will pop onto this thread if he notices the ping. He’s probably the best person to ask about the SB4.
It is kinda weird for Tom Kuhn to make a “standard” metal unresponsive yo-yo. Looks like they did it together with Chico yo-yo company?
Hahaha wow I can safely say that I haven’t thought of that video since I made it. TK paid for a 1-off shirt design from like cafepress or something, and uh… there weren’t too many more SB-4’s than that lol.
There were even fewer of the Cobalt version - I may have had the only one lol:
It was a perfectly serviceable yo-yo in a world of significantly better yo-yo’s. It wasn’t bad - just sort of ordinary - which is what they were going for. If you think about it, most of the TK releases were pretty radical for their time - No Jive, Silver Bullet, SB-2, Sleep Machine, Pocket Rocket, RD-One… all of these took cracks at designs which really had zero precedent. SB-4 was LITERALLY the opposite, farmed out to a fine but kinda run-of-the-mill metal yo-yo outfit and meant to bring TK into the world of the run-of-the-mill modern metal yo-yo’s which were being consumed with relish.
IMO that was sort of a betrayal of the Tom Kuhn brand. For whatever reason, it really did not make the leap in terms of yoyo community appeal. The yo-yo was basically crowd-funded, and I don’t know the details of how overextended the company became with regard to production, but I do know that A LOT of the pre-orders were not fulfilled, with no immediate plan to fix it. That became the main reason why I walked away from my relationship with the company.
There was nothing “wrong” with the yo-yo, but that was the best you could say about it - that and the fact that it still had Tom’s name on it. I should emphasize that I retain enormous respect for Tom Kuhn (he has nothing to do with the day-to-day running of the company) and I was always treated well by Brad and Lisa Countryman. I left that arrangement on good terms, with efforts being made to fulfill orders. But I think that yo-yo did more harm to the TK brand than good.
Well there ya go … straight from the horse’s mouth! It don’t get much better than that!