The one that got me into this hobby was given to me by my mom as a “halfway night” gift while i was on a submarine on deployment. Family can send things to the boat to be given to the sailors at the halfway point of the underway. It was a FAST 201 from YoYo Factory. This also lead me to my first “good” throw the 401K, also from YYF. I still have that 401k in Oktober red, the 201 however did not fare as well. I think i hit something and it broke. The 401 remains as one of my all time favorites. Everything i know about throwing today started on at throw. It has traveled the world with me and still plays as well as ever.
As for the second question, I’m a bit of a horder when it comes to throws. I’ve never sold one but I’ve given away a few with no regrets. The “best” one i gave away was a Deep State but i have 2 others so not a big deal.
For me it was the yomega saber raider that lead me to get to the next level. this was the yoyo that i could land everything i knew on and it was smooth. Then I wanted to learn more. And found this yoyo has limits when you want to push deeper into more advanced string tricks ( its not heavy enough, spin time is limited, walls are high, trapeze width is fairly narrow, gap is too narrow/responsive for 3 + layers of strings). I feel landing cold fusion on it was very difficult to learn and execute smoothly without getting snagged but I believe it helped me be less sloppy.
a couple years later, in 2002 I found yoyojam. ordered the matrix and the patriot early 2003. that was when I knew much more was possible and I could see the tricks getting way more intense. And they did. I couldn’t keep up no matter how good the yoyo.
Yo yo’s i regret loosing: a couple painted tk no jives, they were easy to come by back then but at the time it was all about string tricks and not fixed axle. also a couple superyo renegades, a black one and a white one. and the first one I could actually get back up after letting it roll down: a klutz maple . I was 10 and was super excited because I could never get a duncan imperial to return before that , I didn’t understand string tension being a factor for response on that slick stainless axle.
The YT Sage got me through the beginner stage and to the point where I knew I wanted to stick with yoyoing. But it was the One Drop VTWO that turned it into a mild obsession for me.
The yoyo I most wish I still had is the ProYo I had as a kid in the late 70s.
A couple of my first throws were the fireball and raider in which I have them both still too! The raider was my first ball bearing yoyo and I thought that thing was just the bees knees when I got it lol
The first yoyo that got me into yoyoing was the Spintastics Terminator Torch when I was 6 years old. That got me through all the beginner tricks back when tricks were still mostly learned through books, cds, and VHS tapes. Developed my throw with this and didn’t know about unresponsive until around 2008. Bought a yoyojam Lyn Fury and a Dark Magic a year later and the rest is history.
The yoyo I wish I still had is that same Spintastics Torch. Played with it so much that it became unresponsive naturally. Lost it on a bus during an overseas trip. I still have its twin at home, but it is not the same playing with a yoyo with half of it being covered in packaging tape and still able to spin like nobody’s business. The skills live on as I play with more modern yoyos these days. Kicking around a speedaholic XX and having a blast.
Addendem: My first boutique metal yoyo is the Chico Yoyo Co. Manimal. Got that as my high school graduation gift from my parents. $100 at the time which to high school me was a lot of money. Beast of a yoyo and it is still going strong today.
My first yoyo, other than a Duncan Butterfly and Imperial, was a Yomega Brain. Yo could do a lot of tricks, but on a time limit. It was a great throw for an elementary school kid. Then about 7 years ago I bought a YYF Onestar to get back into throwing and learn some unresponsive tricks.
One throw I regret selling was one of the first runs of Markmont Classics with the soda blast finish. It was beyond my skill level at the time and money was tight so off it went to another owner. I’ve since purchased 2 MCMO that are awesome.
I don’t really have a throw I regret getting rid of. Closest I come is prob selling my OG Peak to @unklesteve but I’m legitimately more glad he’s got it AND it allowed me to get one of my grails (84 Olympics No Jive). Beyond that I def regret trading a satin-finished Bapezilla for a Phi, mostly because that was just (how to say)… “really, really dumb”.
I had a sequence of yo-yo’s which got me super amped to continue. First was a THP Raider after a summer of throwing a Fireball. Later a blue Renegade which I bought because it came with two strings, but ALSO had the Kickin Tricks mini-cd which blew my mind. And then again later, a Mini-Motu I bought from Jack Finn at A2Z which was my first quasi-unresponsive yo-yo. (Ok and yeah my first No Jive… I’ve had a lot of inspiring yo-yos.)
Entry yoyo was a wood axle Spintastics. Val came to our church and we started a yoyo club in the 90’s. Next was a wooden hummingbird given to me by Bunny Martin. A world champ even further back and magician. He focused his life on reaching out in prisons and especially youth detention centers.
There is something very pleasing about the way you’ve got the colors arranged!
As to the topic, I don’t remember my first yoyo but it may have been the Duncan Ballistic that I unfortunately struck against the planks of a wooden footbridge one day and lost a side cap along with some of the ball bearing weights into a creek. Spent a good hour hopelessly wading downstream trying to locate a clear side cap in clear flowing water. Oh well.
The one that got away was the Variflex “high tech ball bearing yoyo” that I threw the heck out of and carried everywhere until “growing out” of the sport. Don’t know what happened to it after that but I still hold out hopes of finding it in an old drawer or buried in a box of junk somewhere.
The one that kept me going: Yoyojam Surge. I had zero interest in yo-yos till I found a Surge on an incredible sale at YYE. Eight bucks? Why not? I had a Duncan Pro Z and I wasn’t sold on yo-yos yet. Once I got the Surge, it took off.
As for the one that got away, Y Factor. I wish I still had one. I miss that lil buddy.