Just went to grab mine and remembered I have it away a few months ago. Guess I’m making a Walmart trip today.
My daily Butterfly lately has been this 1986 Red Translucent Thick Wing 3058NP, I found it for $0.99 and it weights in at 50 grams. The axle was a bit rusted initially and was cutting strings, but I made a paste out of Baking Soda and Lemon Juice and caked it on around the axle and let it sit for about an hour, came back cleaned it off and buffed it out doing the ProYo trick with an old string. Been playing it for a while now with out any string fray and for that last two weeks been using the same beat 1st Class Kitty Fat white that is so dead it barley leaves neutral tension. This one has the nice balance between spin and response. Butterflies are one of the greatest franchise series in Yo-Yo @bjardin .
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That thing is sick.
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Maybe I need to visit some antique shops, lol, that looks nice. If I have a vintage Butterfly, it it in my mom’s attic and is mid-90s era. Have you ever played any from that era?
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I’ve got a couple slightly newer than this one, but they still have that heft/ solid feeling that the current ones lack. I do enjoy them all, though
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I had one just like that back in the 90’s. It got confiscated when I threw a forward pass at my band director’s head when I was in high school. I miss that yoyo.
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I know you weren’t asking me, but I think those play nicely. Much more closely to what @Exmime has there than what’s on shelves now. As with all butterflies, it’s hit or miss with play characteristics in my experience
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This one is an early 90s right before they started transitioning to the new label. Most from the 90s era are also US made, production didn’t fully shift to Mexico and China until the early 2000s.
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We’ve been trying to fix the discrepancies between batches, I think it’s getting better starting last year. Most of it is with assembly, but we just made a new mold last year, which made the product a lot better. Depending on the location, some Walmart has the newest and best version. 
Also 2022, we will release retro series. Keep an eye out.
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Is there any way to differentiate between old stock and newer stock?
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If it has a five letter stamp like AQJRK (there are several different codes) of any kind on it, its from China and those stamps started appearing in the mid to late 2000s. But really you need to recognize the labels and the Butterfly art. It went from “Made in the USA” to “The Original” when production moved to Mexico. The China Butterflys also have a smaller Butterfly that is silver and not foil.
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Agree they can definitely vary by batch
Ive also been inspired by @Exmime collection and want to collect more butterflies especially the older ones
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Saw a similar model on ebay recently that I’m tempted to snag
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My only small issue with the Butterfly, and honestly this doesn’t matter all that much with most modern 0a play, is they tend to loose spin really quickly. Now I’m not that knowledgeable with yoyo design so I was never sure if that was specifically a plastic vs wood thing as far as weight distribution because this Butterfly weighs 50g which seems substantial enough as far as overall weight for a fixie, or if it was a metal vs wood axle thing
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Yes.
The older ones are harder to track.
The newer ones has XXXXX 5 date codes in the back of the packaging. I forgot if it’s in the yo-yo too, I’ll check.
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Just got this one off the’bay. Remembered I had a coupon. Hope it’s good! 
Gotta make sure to remove that basically-long-sponge-full-of-other-peoples-flesh-and-filth and sanitize before I throw it. 
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Yeah that has to be one of the nastiest strings I’ve ever laid eyes on, please use gloves when you open it and discard it lol
I might have to head to Walmart and pick up a butterfly, I’ve never tried one. The most yo-yoing I did as a kid was with my yomega fireball. Maybe I should pick up one of those again too now that I’ve progressed.
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Lots of those have pretty nasty rusted axles if they have an old string on them. But don’t chuck it if it does have one. They are super easy to rip out though and replace with a wood dowel.
Here’s a bad picture of one I did.
You can also mod them to use proyo guts like I did on this one
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Nice! Might hit you up when it gets here for some more details on that. Might try @Exmime s idea to clean it first.
Definitely.
The single biggest issue with Butterflies is that the halves aren’t parallel. This just should not be so. I got 10 butterflies from the US in a trade a few years ago and they all were wonky. They should never had made it past QC.
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