The good old days!

[TTTYo]

After seeing the topic with listing the yoyo’s in the order of receiving, I had to dig out the old throws in the back of the closet.

My question might not be able to get answered. It is for all of you old school players that were in the boom before the year 2000

I have a 1999 samurai by superyo that is mint. I got it when I was a kid and it was soooo much money for a toy at the time. It is easily surpassed by today’s standards, but it so fun to throw.

I was wondering if it is actually worth something, or it is just a piece of metal. It has a lot of memories and I do not plan to sell it ever.

Thank you for the help if someone that had been around that long can actually that might be a collector to tell me if it is actually valuable.

Thank you!

[SR1 (SPENCE)]

I haven’t been around since 2000, but I have been around for awhile and know what the Samurai is. I would say yes, it is pretty much a collectors item. And it first was released in 1999… so you have one of the first. I found some interesting stuff on the Nation that might be useful information for you.

@YoDaddyYo

Samurai was pretty slick when it came out-  '99-ish I think.  At the time I think it was one of only about 3 yo-yo’s that cost $100 or even close to $100.  (Cold Fusion and SB2 were others) plastic ruled the day and there was really not much reason to ever spend more than 20 bucks on a yo-yo.

SuperYo had some other neat products too- Their Renegade yo-yo was lots of fun and very popular- easy to customize, nice price, came in lots of colors.  Anyone who’s been playing for more than 10 years probably has (or had) serveral of these in their collection.  (first 3 -in-1 ball-bearing yo-yo)
Their Super-Sonic was interesting too, it had a crazy plastic bearing that screamed when it spun.

I agree that the Samurai doesn’t play the same as “today’s” unresponsive yo-yo’s, but I’ve tried one back in the day and I found it to be very smooth and nicely balanced and pretty cool in general.  I still think it’s a very cool collectable (provided you are happy about what you paid for it) from an era when metal was not the norm.  Cool shape, neato graphics, and if it’s still in good condition, probably very playable.

@Ben

It did some out around 1999.  At that time the Cold Fusion, Isotope, SB2 and Tom Cat were the most expensive yo-yos on the market being around $100 to $150.  The Samurai hit the market with an MSRP of $199.  I should know.  I bought it from xxxxxx at that price  :idiot2:

I still have a paper catalog from 1999 at home with the Samurai pictured in it at the original market price.  I was going to look at it tonight to confirm the original MSRP, but I don’t have to as I just found a web site that confirms it was $199

I bought pretty much every high end yo-yo that came out in the 1999 - 2003 timeframe.  Pictures with detailed captions of all of them including 10 pictures of the Samurai (with all original packaging and contents) can be seen here: http://picasaweb.google.com/benjustinbaker/OldSchoolYoYos#

Whereas this yo-yo pretty much sucks by today’s standards, to my knowledge it is still unique being the only aluminum yo-yo I know of with hallow halves.

I can’t recall what the Intelligap system is, but I don’t recall any Loctite. I think the axle can be completely removed.  I’ll check tonight to see if the axle can be removed and I’ll check the documentation to see what the heck the Intelligap is.

Oh, and to this day no other yo-yo sounds like this yo-yo when thrown.  The hallow halves give this yo-yo a unique high pitched noise similar to that of playing a dry ceramic bearing… or for all I know it might be because the stock ceramic bearing it shipped with is dry.  I really need to pop the shield off that stock bearing and check out its guts.  The bearing might just be as good if not better than most of todays bearings.  Now that I’m thinking about it I really should try putting that bearing on some recent yo-yos and find out.

• Ben

So, although it is a collectors item and not really made for modern play, considering the fact that you have an original AND it is mint, I think it’s worth quite a bit- it’s original retail price at least. Since one hasn’t really been for sale recently, it’s hard to judge how much it’s worth, but I would say definitely over the original price, $200.

Hope this helped, and if you have any other questions just ask!

[TTTYo]

Thank a lot for the quick response!
I am going to look at it closely to see if it has a number.

I got it for a birthday present when I was 8, when the exception that I could only play with it if my dad was around haha

I still have the original string, because I hated how slick it was when I was that young so I played with the cotton.

If someone else has one let me know!

[TTTYo]

Bump. Anyone have one?

[TTTYo]

@TTTYo

Bump. Anyone have one?

[TTTYo]

Last time I am going to bump. It looks like nobody really has one, or anymore information that can get there hands on with how many we’re produced.

I looked and saw no numbers, but it came with a piece of paper with some foreign language on it. I will post pics if someone knows something about it.