Anyone see some thing like this? Tom says it’s a rare bird. Experimentation with staining the first days of the mandalas
David
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I’ve not seen one like that, but I’ve seen where the laser engraved areas are stained. Not sure if those were something someone did at some point, or if they came from the factory that way.
They are factory. Tom said they were. Here is his response.
Hi Dave,
All’s well and hope you are too.
You have a very ‘rare bird’. Where did you find it?
The first Mandala Yo-Yos were lasercarved to a wider diameter. That’s why some of the brown boxes had a larger cutout hole, so the entire design could be seen. You also have the flat hex nuts which where used initially and then changed to the raised taper style. We experimented with some staining, so this may have been a prototype. The more reddish side was probably hand stained by my workers in the yo-yo workshop. You’ll notice that the middle part is more like the color of the lighter side. At that time I used Lasercraft of Santa Rosa. Initially the lasercarving was very deep. I felt that the the spin times were diminished compared to a No Jive or Clean Machine, so I asked them to make the carving depth more shallow.
Hope this helps,
Tom
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Wow that’s a beauty Dave. The first thing I noticed was how deep the laser cuts are, then I saw Tom mentioned it in his email.
Woah, those are words straight from the man? Thanks for sharing! I didn’t know Tom was involved still and thought anything/ everything No Jive had to go through Countryman.
As a small-time collector who is friends with a super-mega-collector, this info is super interesting and informative. Personally, I had always assumed that the deep carving was an example of their oldest/finest work and that the shallower carving represented a move toward more mass-produced/ less time intensive production methods. Very cool to know the head man in charge requested the change for performance reasons.
Tom no longer deals with the production and sale of yo-yo’s, but his recollection is as sharp as ever, especially as pertains to the yo-yo’s he made. Would love it if he ever wrote a book chronicling the strange pre-internet era which made up TK yo-yo’s heyday. 
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Oh man, I’m right there with you on the book concept Ed. I’d find it fascinating.
As a 41 year old Canadian, I grew up in a time and place where yo-yos seemed to explode in popularity for a super brief window (rough sometime when I was in grades 6-8). For us, the best option was to cross the border to KB toys and grab a red or white Yoyo Man yoyo. Or, you could get the Klutz Yoyo book (with included Yoyo, of course). That book was where I first saw the mail-order ads featuring hand drawn No Jives and the super cool sounding Flying Camel. Those were the holy grail at the time.
I still remember when my buddy (the super-mega-collector referenced above) brought that Silver Bullet to school. You paid how much for that? Using your own money??? Oh, but that leather case…and the ridiculous spin times! Worth every penny.
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