Why all the crazy prices for old throws?

General Yo-Yo
41

Wow, what a classic. You want to talk about crazy prices for old things that don’t perform like new things, talk about old harleys.

I love your stories doc. My Dad built hot rods and harleys his entire life and I spent many hours working in the shop with him, even (especially) after I went on the become a hotshot (my dad’s words) computer scientist. I lost him to cancer 5 years ago. I’m lucky enough to have a couple of the cars he built, and I drive/work on them and remember our times together. What you say and the way you say it reminds me of him. Thank you.

Back to old yoyos…

@Doohan nailed it. I love the contrast between how old things and new things work. It is fascinating to actually be able to put your hands on and experience changes in materials, manufacturing, engineering, design and performance as yoyos have evolved. There’s also the nostalgia factor, which is incredibly powerful and seems to gain power as you age.

Peaks and antiyos in particular are really hot right now, probably because the people who owned (or wished they owned) one in their youth now have the spending power to buy one. AKA nostalgia. And the market for them is hot, which attracts those who want to have the “in” thing.

I was active in the hobby from the mid 90’s till the early 00’s. The I got busy with my career and raising a family. I kept playing with my yoyos regularly but I wasn’t keeping up with yoyo world for about 15 years. I was happy with my hitman and other yyj stuff along with my no jives. During my time away CLYW, Antiyo, ILYY and many others happened. I don’t have the same nostalgia for antiyo or peaks because I wasn’t there, I have a historical interest in them, but not at the prices they currently command. I like to own and play yoyos of historical note, because it is really cool to try to understand why they are revered.

Point out a rare yoyojam hybrid for sale and I’m going to be willing to spend some crazy money on it. Why? Because when I was young and getting serious the hobby yyj was top of the game and I missed a lot of their yoyos because I didn’t have the time/finances. Now I have the finances, and maybe the time. I play at least an hour a day, every day. I also collect avidly.

It has been a fascinating experience to acquire and experience many of the notable yoyos from the time I was away. For me ILYY and OneDrop have been the standout experiences, amazing craftsmanship and engineering. They both continue to do cool amazing stuff.

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42

spot on @d34dj3d… love this guy

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43

Let me take a crack at answering the question in the most succinct way possible.

Older people have more money. Tadaaaa!

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44

What’s even crazier in my mind is how young kids think you can’t do tricks or any of the “modern” things on an organic yoyo. If you are willing to refine your play and put the time in you can do virtually anything on an organic yoyo. Sometimes this is when someone says that you can’t do horizontal, and I point them to Jensen’s 44 Clash win when he did horizontal on a CLYW WM1 with a semi responsive bearing :rofl:

It’s possible the older you get you just start appreciating things differently. I’m personally not against any of the newer designs, but Organics feel right to me, based on my experience and my play preferences. They do everything I want them to. Not everyone wants to be riding a GSXR all the time, sometimes you want to be on a Knucklehead and just cruise. And then some of us just prefer not getting on the GSXR’s anymore :grin:

Haha, this was me in grade school. I was the kid with all the home made food. Mom made our lunches each morning, sandwiches, home made cookies, etc. I thought that was normal. Kids at school had all the packaged food my mom wouldn’t buy. Figured real quick I could trade one of mom’s cookies for 2-3 of their Chips Ahoy. Then after a bit I figured out these kids were willing to pay for these. Would make $20-30 a week selling a few cookies a day :rofl: Good times.

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45

I have nostalgia for certain yoyos and brands i found cool when i was 12 years old and couldnt get all the throws I wanted :joy: now at 23 if i see one that i missed out on ill pull the trigger. As for prices i tend to agree

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46

Totally agree with you.
I have never understood these follies and will never endorse them.
All I own I bought at always reasonable prices, reasonable for me and for those who sold, everything else can remain where it is.

47

I don’t think this is quite true, though. Try doing 0a on a competition bimetal. Which yoyo is the “better performing” one in that scenario?

Which yoyo is “better performing” for casual play, a high performance, competition model; or a comfy organic?

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48

I am older–with the disposable funds that come with age–but I have no nostalgic feelings whatsoever towards any yoyo except, maybe, the original Playmaxx ProYo. But even then I doubt I’d pay for a vintage original since the point where minimum acceptable condition and price intersect would far exceed my interest in it.

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49

Flips, stalls and varials are totally doable, they just feel absolutely gross to do on wide, metal yoyos. Metal unresponsives would be better in this scenario just because they would also offer strick trick performance.

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50

They “might” be doable, but come on, there is no way I’ll buy that they perform as well as a wooden fixed axle for 0a. Even the shape doesn’t lend itself to them, as they easily fall off the string if the yoyo’s not spinning. Those high walls are close to a necessity for those tricks. How many low wall responsives do you see?

Please! :roll_eyes:

How about Hop the Fence, Planet Hops, Loops, Shoot the Moon, etc…?

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51

Also in my case:

https://media.giphy.com/media/6eGNjH1KbL476/giphy.gif(image larger than 4 MB)

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52

It seems like a “hearkening back to the old days” is fairly common within different collector communities. For example, shoes or board games.

I went fairly deep into the boardgaming community for a while. When certain games go “out of print” people will pay obscene prices to obtain them. Sure, there are newer, fancier, maybe even arguably better games, but people still gravitate to the older games. Probably because they were good and still have something to offer.

This same philosophy could be applied to yoyos.

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53

It makes sense if you have already owned the thing (yoyo) for nastalgia purposes, but i would never ever buy a yoyo that i have not owned or used, and is outdated, at least for yoyos, i look for performance and looks and i try not to have more than 10 yoyos in my collection at the same time

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54

Preach Aaron, preach! Let’s face it @Markmont has incredible style and flow, which, at least some of is likely due to his history with responsive and semi responsive play. Older stuff isn’t bad, it just made you work for it. Look at the tutorials André does with a Dark Magic 2.

New yoyos may make it easier to learn and may let you learn faster. Buddha’s Revenge on a responsive yoyo will definitely help you understand why the trick has ‘revenge’ in the name.

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55

Ah I used to say this about 10 years ago when I was your age. If you’re still around in a few years, you’ll be buying some older throws that you want right now but aren’t able to buy. Trust me, you don’t stop wanting certain yoyos haha. For me, it was the Peak. I always wanted it, couldn’t afford it. Paid more than I should have for one when I could.

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56

This.

Of course yoyos in general are getting better, but I still think maybe peoples’ ideas of performance are a bit narrow. Performance to me isn’t only about contest yoyos.

It’s a toy first and foremost, and also a collectible. Sometimes the best performing thing is the thing that gives you the most joy, and/or the thing you desire the most.

Even looking at how performance evolves, there are often trade offs, or sometimes the changes just might reflect current trends. Look at the trend toward wider yoyos, there is a trade off right there in the kinds of tricks they facilitate over narrower yoyos. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see them trend wider, or back to narrower.

That’s the point I was trying to make about wood fixies. There are just some things that they do better. And even if that’s not an iron clad fact over ever other type of yoyo, like maybe a different type of responsive yoyo, if whatever you’re throwing is bringing you pleasure, especially if it’s helping you achieve what you’re after, then that’s effectively a good performing yoyo.

What a yoyo is worth is up to the buyer, seller, and the market to decide.

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57

I think you’re misunderstanding me. I’m not dissing fixies. I just said that, in an imaginary scenario where yoyos would be valued according to their performance, fixies would be dirt cheap because a lot of the stuff they excel at, you can still pull it off on a metal unresponsive.

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58

call me stubborn, but unless its in the shutter line, i wont be buying any other “outdated” yoyo for a crazy price

59

Right, but you’re only thinking of performance in one direction, flip it around and suddenly it’s the metal unresponsive that’s only worth $3! :wink:

There was a Top Gear episode where a they drove a Bentley Continental GT Speed in a Rally stage. If performance determined value, which car(s) do you think would be considered more valuable? Even if the Bentley did perform admirably…

Not only that, I don’t even buy that you can pull all that stuff off. Post a video of you doing loops, Windshield Wipers, STM (more than one rep or 2 reps), Hops, even Bro Stall, Zipper Stall… Really there are many of those you can’t do, and have them be the same tricks.

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60

Ooooh challenge accepted!!! I haven’t been paying attention to this thread but that sounds like funnn
Edit stm is pretty tough but I’ve seen people pull it off, I got a heart flip and some flow stuff sub 2 minutes, the gif trick looks like garbage but here it isss:

ShockingPopularBluefintuna-size_restricted

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