I’ve always had at least a couple yoyos ever since I was a kid in the late 70’s - early 80’s. Longest break I took was from about 2002-2018, too busy with family and career. I still played with the yoyos I had, I just wasn’t buying new ones or following the latest in yoyos. From this perspective the 5 that revolutionized yoyoing for me:
Some cheap yoyo I got when I was in grade school that actually played pretty good. I think I won it at a school carnival or something. I still remember being sad when I lost it.
Duncan butterfly. A gift from my grandmother. I’d had a few Imperials and similar yoyo’s before I got a butterfly, but the butterfly was where I first learned to reliably throw a sleeper, walk the dog, do some loops, etc. It was the first one that really was something more than just a toy. I played this thing till I wore the wood axle to nothing. Then I got another.
Tom Kuhn 3 in 1 No Jive. Like the butterfly, it took things to another level for me.
YYJ Hitman. The width, the shape, the weight distribution, shave those o-rings and it was darn near unresponsive. I could do things with this I couldn’t do with my Bumble Bees and the ~20 other higher end throws I had. It was my endgame for years. I still have it. I still love it. To me lots of good stuff in modern throws seem to have started here.
Edge Beyond. I bought a half dozen yoyo’s at the end of 2018, mostly curious to see how they’d evolved, all of them well regarded throws. All of them were very good. But the beyond was the one that floored me. It really opened my eyes to how much yoyo design, engineering and manufacturing had evolved.
This is a tough subject. Been thinking about it since yesterday. The 5 yoyo’s that revolutionized yoyoing. I’m not putting these in any order, because I’m not sure it can really be placed in order of significance. Similar to what @yyfben2.deactivated said, this was tough, so many yoyos came to mind, but narrowing it to 5 made some tough decisions
Flores - The most likely yoyo in modern times that got yoyo really going.
Duncan Butterfly - First “butterfly” shape, first plastic yoyo. Opening up different materials and shape ideas.
Turbo Bumble Bee - arguably the first yoyo to use replaceable response “pads”.
Kuhn SB-2 - First metal with bearing yoyo, also first “splash” anodized yoyo
Duncan Freehand 1 - yoyo that got people modding, people were creating unresponsive yoyos with them, creating different response options, etc. This yoyo was the yoyo for so long, so long that in the mid 2000’s most popular yoyos were the same shape as the FH, just with a lot of the modifications people were already doing, or in an aluminum body.
I know, lots of debate could be had with my list, as well as anyone’s list, but I’m comfortable with it. Looking forward to seeing @yyfben2.deactivated list. Would also be interested in what @Markmont and @unklesteve would say as well.
There’s no point in the Shutter getting any extra consideration based on it’s price point. Debate other bullet points for it’s validity in being on that list but pricetag ain’t one of em’. There were definitely other sub 50 metals. One of which being the M1. You know…that throw where certain said individuals tried to put another said company out of business over? There were other metals that predate the M1 as well for sub 50. Not sure why pricetag would warrant so much perceived value in a discussion on revolutionizing. And this isn’t a dig on that throw - but we are talking top 5 here.
Yeah it seems that once you get past bearings and response pads, there aren’t really any revolutionay advances. Evolutionary, sure, but revolutionary? Maybe from a marketing perspective, but not from a technology or play perspective.
Flores
The best history we have credits this with modern yoyo. Duncan was built on this.
I’m going Isaacson. SKF.
He did take apart and bearing first. They show up on eBay so they were distributed. Don Watson who did the sb2 patent referenced him so he stood on his shoulders. More songs have been sung about nojive and sb2 but this is where it came from.
Brain
For capturing a generations imagination. This breathed life into yoyo since nothing like the advent of television advertising. This fueled a craze that started the brands that are responsible for where we are today.
888
Metal was a novelty before this. After 888 there was no going back. It happened almost instantly. Black used an oxy 3 for compulsory at world one year and it was a gasp moment. 2-3 years later more than half the finalists played metal yoyos. And they were ALL 888.
The last one is hard.
I want to say pads but there was a period of blue where people stopped playing with yoyos how they ‘should’ and I can’t credit an item. Was it a bee with worn out pads or a gade with melted starburst or does it really go up to grind machibe when someone first had the guts to sell a yo-yo that didn’t come back?
I dunno, man. Which one of these was thrown on the Space Shuttle? Because that makes it quite iconic. I’m gonna go ahead and strongly disagree on this particular one. For first popular bearing, the only choice is the SB-2.
And to @The_Machinist’s point, I’d rate the SB-2 as more historic than the 3-in-1 though I loooove the 3-in-1.
I do like the rest of your list, especially the 888
On April 12, 1985, the yo-yo was first taken into space by NASA on the Space Shuttle Discovery as part of the Toys in Space project. A basic spinning yo-yo was used to see what effect microgravity would have on it. What they discovered was that a yo-yo could be released at slow speeds and gracefully move along the string. However, the yo-yo refused to “sleep.” Without the downward force of gravity, the yo-yo could not spin against the loop at the end of the string and so, rebounded up the string. It was also found that the yo-yo must be thrown, not dropped, as there was no gravity to pull it down. And on July 31, 1992, the yo-yo (an SB-2) again made its way into space, on the Space Shuttle Atlantis, this time for an educational video including slow-motion yo-ing. Museum of Yo-Yo History
SB2 has a place. It offered amazing tech in gap adjustability, opened up a relm of precision and luxury pricing. They just kinda sucked. Competitors and performers found old Russels, Proyo 1s and eventually Raiders to be superior performers. When pad response came along they quickly acknowledged the improvement and retro fitted their stock.
Was the tiger shark or cherry bomb mentioned? Actually I’d say the FHZ, since it was probably the yo-yo guys like Paul Escobar and Gabriel Lorenzo were using to innovate what is now considered “new school style” a la sector Y. Whatever was used in sector Y was part of the revolution.
