Sure, but metal doesn’t biodegrade and will last past the next ice age. 
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Yea but… Woah, can you imagine a petrified wood yoyo? 
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Metal corrodes, though.
Good thing about aluminium is that the surface corrosion it develops acts as a protective barrier to further corrosion. Anodisation is actually an accelerated and controlled method of producing this corrosion.
Anyway… Back to the topic!
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As a complete newcomer to yoyo, with my trick repertoire being very limited atm.
The amount of information about and videos on the internet is really helpful.
I didn’t even know you could slow down youtube clips until recently !!
@anon19434144 I also brought yomega mania 
One thing I have noticed is we definitely don’t have as much choice in yoyos here in the UK.
Although I guess nothing is out of reach nowadays with international shipping.
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I would totally have a sig model, except we already made the Creep.
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Yoyo booms always have a sad ending. It is hard to imagine another boom like before when yo-yos were inexpensive and the level of play was much simpler. But I agree with Steve, it is a great time to be a player!
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I started yoyoing in 2007. Back then YoYoFactory was the bonafide king of the hill in terms of contest team. They had Yuuki, Augie, Shinji, Miggy, Severance, even Steve Brown then they eventually added Jensen too. CLYW was still a small shop that differentiated themselves by doing small runs of interesting yoyos basically only sold direct from their site. They were what the cool kids were talking about and throwing. Duncan at this point only had the metal freehand and the MG which were both completely outclassed by everyone. The only yoyo from Duncan that folks respected was the freehand zero that required hours of modding to actually play. YoYoJam plastic-metals were considered fantastic and it seemed impossible that they would ever go bust. Mickey, JD, Andre, Grant Johnson were all on that team. OneDrop was making the M1 as one of the first affordable metal yoyos while somehow sponsoring the coolest guy in yoyos, MarkMont. YoYoNation was the YYE of that time, it had the best forum and the most yoyos being sold.
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Woah, thanks for that trip back in time. That’s insane, times have certainly changed
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Those smaller brands seem like a really good way to make a yoyo to me. It’s not like they rely on making the yoyos to support themselves, but simply for the love of it.
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Yeah but that was Heaven Sent. A smaller diameter Gorge with caps, it could be the “Couloir”. I would need to buy that yoyo.
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Everyone always talks about the M1 as the “first affordable metal yoyo” but people forget about Custom. Those guys were doing $40 aluminum yoyos in 1998, and they played great for the standards of the time.
http://www.yoyomuseum.com/museum_view.php?action=view&manufacturer=Custom%20Yo-Yo&category=1
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I think I’ll break out my reactor when I get home.
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This is Exactly what I’ve been hearing from everyone as I’ve dove deeper into the “Industry” side of yo-yoing as a contest organizer. It’s the little boutique companies who are making the contest possible, BUT my biggest concern is the main reason why I’m organizing in the first place… Accessibility of community.
Planning a state contest has proven to be difficult. As much as I would like to have big name competitors from the NE and West coast come out, the competitors that I’ve spoken with can’t make it because either A. They can’t afford it (even though they’re sponsored) and B. Their sponsor can’t afford bringing them to the contest AND sponsor the contest.
I’ve been wishing that I just went ahead and shot for a regional contest where winning it determines more on the national scale… Then I know I’d have the interest of people outside our region to come and compete. As difficult as it was to fund a state contest I can only imagine how hard a Regional (or Nats or WORLDS!) is.
Perhaps 2019 will shape a better way for the community to grow closer. As that’s really all I want. I want to be able to hang out with more yo-yo people. Yo-yo people are my favorite people.
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I always want to bring them up but I’ve stopped log ago because nobody ever knows them. I’m not intimately familiar with their business but I vaguely remember them doing lots of other machining as a large chunk of their business, which allowed them to price their yo-yos competitively
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Yeah, Custom started as (and still is) just a great machine shop. Yoyos were something they jumped into for a while and then eventually just got out of. They still do a lot of nice paintball stuff, if I remember right. Nice guys, too.
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So we can conclude that paintball is a larger and more reliably lucrative industry than yo-yo? Not surprising, I guess… gruntbull also does a ton of paintball gun anodization, if you look at their portfolio.
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Yes I completely agree with you. Although I am younger than your good self I grew up reading magazines and I still do buy ones related to my various interests, something yoyo related would make a fantastic read!
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Probably the most comprehensive summary of the ongoing sport of yoyo! Addressing the state of the sport and it’s contributors with an educated insider/participants, eyes wide open vantage point… I agree with everything you stated in this post…I’m paraphrasing here: In order to attract new players, emphasis absolutely needs to be placed on finding those who will sponsor attractive events for the sport of yo yo. It’s not an easy task. I would love to see a yoyo event in a non league night at a bowling alley for example. I don’t have the answers…Just encouragement for you and those who are also forward thinkers in the sport of yoyo.
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I think that for the current generation, video games pretty much satisfy the “skill play” urge for most teens and tweens. I think t’ll be tough for yoyos to get any substantial traction in this environment.
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