Pedro and the Yo-yo: Man and Myth
/• Jose Rizal on the ship in 1888 from New York to Liverpool?
• Antiwar activist Abbie Hoffman “walking the dog” when testifying before the Committee on Un-American Activities at the US Congress, 1968?
US President Richard Nixon at the opening of the new Grand Ole Opry opera house in Nashville, Tennessee, March 16, 1974? and
US President Richard Nixon getting an impromptu yo-yo lesson at the opening of the new Grand Ole Opry Opera House from the evening’s MC, Roy Acuff. Nashville, Tennessee, March 16, 1974. Four months later, Nixon would resign from the Presidency.
• astronaut David Griggs on board the space shuttle Discovery on April 12, 1985?
Why, the presence of the humble yo-yo (or its application thereof), of course.
Ancient Origins of the Yo-Yo
First off, let’s debunk the popular and apocryphal story that the humble and nimble toy we know today as the yo-yo has indigenous Filipino origins. Not so.
Documented evidence reveals that the yo-yo, or its original principle, goes way back to ancient China. (Another pseudo-Filipino claim to the toy’s name, that “yo-yo” meant “come, come” – supposedly comes from an ancient version of Tagalog. Again, not so. Linguistic experts posit that “yo-yo” is Chinese in origin. “Yo” is Mandarin Chinese for “friendship.”) Then, extant amphora from ancient Greece, at the National Museum in Athens, show that the device was in use in ancient Greece (and Egypt, which the Greeks ruled). It is, however, known that the yo-yo was not one of the original seven sports of the ancient Greek Olympic Games.
The ancient Chinese version still in use today.
From ancient Greek amphora.
Toy or Weapon?
It is surmised that in the 1500s, before Ferdinand Magellan and crew came to our islands, early Filipino hunters perched themselves on trees with a heavy rock and rope, waited for wild game to appear; and then dropped the rock on the unsuspecting animal. If they failed in the first attempt, the rock was simply pulled up again—hence, the principle of the yo-yo. As a food-gathering method, it was quite inefficient. Why not use a spear or a bow-and-arrow to get the game?
To find a more reliable Filipino connection, it’s not until the 1930s that a documented link to a Filipino American in Santa Barbara, California, comes up. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Popularity in Old Europe
The appearance of the yo-yo next picks up in 17th-18th Europe where there is more evidence of the toy’s great popularity. The Brits at the time called it a “whirligig,” or in lower-class English slang, a “quiz.” The 18th century French particularly seem to have had even more names for the toy: l’emigrette, incroyable, de Koblenz (the German city to which many of the French aristocrats ousted by the Revolution fled). The even more technically correct term, “bandalore,” was used in the first patent application in the US).
But perhaps the closest version of the origin of its indigenous name is jou-jou de Normandie, which as one can see, can be an antecedent for the term we know today, yo-yo. Getting the proper terminology right for so mundane an item as a yo-yo is extremely important, as shall be seen later in a mid-20th century landmark judicial decision in the USA.
A Hessian solder, in a 17th century print, showing off the yoyo.
In 1866, the first recorded patent application in the US for such a device was made by a team from Cincinnati, Ohio, by one James L. Haven and a Charles Hettrick. Their application for a “bandalore” or “whirligig” was granted as US Patent No. 56,745 on November 20, 1866.
A “whirligig” is another name for a top or torompo.
Two other inventions of note patented in the same 1866 year: (1) the urinal (wall-mounted version still used mainly for men today); and (2) the chuck wagon (think Señor Sisig food truck today).
Over the next 50 years, other patents for different iterations of Haven-Hattrick’s original 1866 concept appeared. After the Philippines became an American colony in 1898, two articles appeared in US publications in 1916 ascribing some sort of Philippine roots to the “new” toy America was discovering.
First was in the July 1916 issue of Scientific American Supplement, which published instructions on how to craft such a toy and was the first to use the term “yoyo” in print, calling it Filippino Toy. (Note the strange spelling of “Filippino” as the USA of 1916 was still getting used to the proper adjectives for its new Asian colony.)
In December 1916, while the Great War in Europe raged, the El Paso Herald (Texas) published an article on how the Philippine School of Arts and Trades in Manila mass-produced goods, yo-yos among them, for American children in the new colony.
Fast-forward to 1928, a year before the Great Crash and Depression, a newly emigrated Filipino to the US West Coast also started popularizing the toy he knew from childhood. The man was Pedro Edralin Flores from the Ilocos region of the Philippine Commonwealth. Flores was born in 1896, the year the national hero, Jose Rizal, was executed by the soon-to-depart Spaniards.
Viewed in its proper context, Flores more appropriately achieved his place in the history of the yoyo as the first person to seek a commercial application, the first to secure a trademark in conjunction with “mass-marketing efforts” for the device in the first large, consumer-oriented society in history—as the US had become.
Pedro Edralin Flores, 20th century promoter of the Yo-yo, 1896-1964.
(Trivia Note: It is possible that Flores, coming from Ilocos Norte and bearing the Edralin name, might have been a distant relation of President Ferdinand Marcos whose mother, Josefa, was an Edralin. One wonders if Marcos, as credentials-starved and vainglorious as Donald Trump, would have claimed familial ties to Flores and the invention of the yo-yo since that would’ve have given him an extra added glow?)
No Need for a ‘Shark Tank’ Audition
The earliest biographical data notes Flores emigrating to the US in 1926-27, at which time he quickly enrolled in law studies at UC Berkeley’s Hastings College in San Francisco. He did not finish, however. In 1928, he moved to Santa Barbara. While working as a bellhop at a local hotel, Flores started hand-making copies of the yo-yo for local children. He was so instantly successful that he had hired two other workers by November 1928 to handcraft as many copies as they could produce.
Promoted in exhibitions, the toy caught on so quickly that Flores established the Yo-Yo Manufacturing Company and brought on two partners, the brothers James and Daniel Stone of Los Angeles. The Stone brothers provided more financing to purchase machinery that made greater mass production of the item possible.
So great a marketer was Flores that he coined the slogan “If it isn’t a Flores, it isn’t a yo-yo.” The craze took off and attracted the attention of an even more dynamic entrepreneur Donald F. Duncan, Sr., who, by January 1929 had offered Flores $250,000—not $750,000 as inflated in some reports—to buy the business. Remember, this was for a business selling a $1.50 toy, not $500 iPads (and, of course, the Big Crash was ten months away).
The sum of $250,000 as a windfall lump sum for Flores is somewhat deceiving. For a business just starting out and selling $1.50 whimsical toys, it is almost certainly reasonable that the $250K sum was spread out in installments over the years. The Stone brothers as initial backers received a good and early return on their investment; and then some for Flores.
Donald F. Duncan, Sr.
A later Duncan iteration in plastic.
The current high-tech ones which light up.
As the new owner of the company, Duncan would have sealed his acquisition knowing that all patents, copyrights and trademarks were all part of the deal. But the yo-yos being produced by the company at the time bore the words “Patent Pending” or “Patent Applied.”
A surviving example of the early wooden Flores-made yo-yos. A pristine example of Flores’ Yo-Yo Manufacturing Company, vintage 1929-30, can command up to $1,000 among dedicated yo-yo collectors today.
It was not until July 22, 1930 (so, nine months after the Crash of October 1929) that the trademark “Flores Yo-yo” finally came through. Note the fine nuances on all the trademarks associated with this story.
Fulfilling His American Dream
By this time, Flores, no longer a penniless immigrant and supposedly flush with some cash, pushed his American dream one notch higher. He took a break from the whole yo-yo craze and married an Edria Myers in June 1931. So, a year-and-a half-into the Depression, Flores was living his American dream: dollar bills in his pocket, an American wife, and a seemingly secure future. One is prompted to ask: had Flores stayed in the Philippines and not become a struggling immigrant in a foreign land, would he have had the same lucky, entrepreneurial trajectory and fate? Strange that even though the Philippines were already a Commonwealth of the US, it took an immigrant to the new motherland to light the yo-yo fuse. Conversely, why would it not have worked in the old turf?
Possibly the only surviving photo of Flores and his wife, Edria Myers?
It seems that Duncan did not sign Flores to a “non-compete” clause in his original acquisition of the fledgling company. Or if there was one, could Flores have simply ignored it? The more business-savvy Duncan would certainly have hauled Flores’ ass into court if Flores had indeed breached a “non-compete” agreement. But some things are known for certain:
• Flores set up two other subsidiary companies, allied with the main yo-yo manufacturing line, but still bearing his name. One was a small subsidiary selling just strings for the lowly toy, like strings for violins and guitars. Three replacement strings for the yo-yos (did they wear out that fast?) sold for 10 cents from a new facility at 1938 Hyperion Ave. (eight blocks from the original Walt Disney Studios at 2701 Hyperion) in the Silver Lake section of Los Angeles.
Wrapper of replacement strings for the yo-yo from Flores’ subsidiary company. It is not clear whether the whole package of three strings sold individually for 10 cents or each string cost 10 cents, but then how could you sell a broken-up package?
• In the summer of 1932, the first worldwide yo-yo contest was held in London. It is not entirely clear but Flores, perhaps for a consultant fee or something similar, was still involved in promoting the product by holding exhibitions and recruiting yo-yo whizzes, especially from the Philippines.
• On November 1, 1932, Duncan obtained a separate trademark, “Genuine Duncan Yo-yo” for his new business. This rendered the earlier “Flores Yo-yo” trademark of 1930, moot and useless.
• Then, three months later, on January 24, 1933, Duncan went for the jugular and succeeded in trademarking the seemingly generic term “yo-yo.” (Thank God, cellist virtuoso Yo-Yo Ma wasn’t around yet in 1930 to challenge Duncan’s pre-emptive “ownership” of the name.) The American businessman had completely rebranded Flores’ original company as Duncan Enterprises, Inc.
• One of the yo-yo whizzes Flores recruited at the time was a newly arrived Filipino, Joseph Radovan, a younger friend of his from Manila.
As World War II approached, the popularity of the fad waned, and Duncan moved on to other things, among them, mass-marketing the new parking meter in 1936. This new invention proved more lucrative for Duncan than the humble yo-yos, and in so doing, passed on the reins of the yo-yo business to his son, Donald, Jr.
In the meantime, Flores supposedly silently partnered with Radovan to create the Royal Tops Manufacturing Company in New York, which also manufactured yo-yos and spinning tops (torompos). Remember, they could not use “yo-yo” because Duncan had registered that trademark in 1932; hence, “Tops.” Nonetheless, Royal Tops later ignored Duncan’s copyright claims on the term “yo-yo” and started using it in its advertising.
But before that, in the late 1940s, out of the blue, Flores and Edria left the sunny West Coast and moved to Coshocton, Ohio, in the middle of nowhere. Flores laid low until 1954 when he resurfaced and supposedly gave the yo-yo business a third go, setting up the Flores Corporation of America, with the goal of reviving interest in the yo-yo. Flores then resumed showing up at yo-yo competition events and conventions, basking under the apocryphal, not-quite-accurate title, “Inventor of the Yo-yo.”
In the late 1950s, a new entity, Flambeau Plastics Company, bought what remained of Duncan company and switched from making wooden yo-yos to plastic ones.
However, in 1950, Duncan finally sued Radovan’s Royal Tops company for “unlawful use of the term ‘yo-yo’” whose registration Duncan had supposedly owned since 1932-33. The lawsuit, Donald F. Duncan, Inc., Plaintiff-appellee, v. Royal Tops Manufacturing Company, Inc., and Randy Brown, Defendants-appellants, 343 F.2d 655 (7th Cir. 1965), ground on for some 15 years until it reached the 7th Circuit Court in Chicago, Illinois in 1960.
But in June 1964, Pedro Flores quietly died in Coshocton, reasons unknown. Edria survived him. He was 68 and did not live long enough to learn of the landmark judicial decision of a lawsuit triggered by his beloved toy.
Flores’ gravesite in Coshocton, Ohio.
The Yo-yo’s Legacy
It was on May 4, 1965 that the 7th Circuit Court handed down its judgment on Duncan, Inc. v. Royal Tops, Brown, in a landmark decision in trademark/copyright matters. The court enjoined plaintiff Duncan from claiming proprietary rights to the term “yo-yo.” It negated Duncan’s previous “ownership” of the word and ruled that the earlier filings and decisions (i.e., the 1930 “Flores Yo-yo,” 1932 “Duncan Yoyo” and 1933 generic “yo-yo” trademark designations) were “incorrect and improper.” Thus, the term “yo-yo” could not be copyrighted, and the court recognized its usage as “generic and common as ‘thermos’ and ‘aspirin,’” citing those two precedent cases litigated on the same merits.
By November 1965, the original Duncan Enterprises was forced to file for bankruptcy. In hindsight, Duncan, Jr, said: “The mistake we made was trying to fight the trademark battle. We spent thousands trying to keep it.” But, believing in the yo-yo and the axiom that “you can’t put a good idea (or man) down,” Duncan, Jr., like Flores, later went on to open still another yo-yo company, Playmaxx.
Where Are Today’s Filipino “Yo-yo” champs?
In the decades since, interest in the pastime went on the upswing so that national championships as well as a world championship (also called YoyoCon) have been staged on a regular basis. When matters yo-yo finally needed to be standardized and codified, a world confederation, the IYYF—International Yo-yo Federation, was formed in February 2013, in Prague, the Czech Republic. The IYYF started with five countries as charter members. Strangely enough, the Philippines was not one of the founding five, although it is currently a member in good standing.
But today, for a country which claims to have originated the toy, there are no Filipinos or hybrid-Pinoys who are in the ranks of the world’s best yo-yo players. There is this fellow from Hawaii, Evan Nagao (who might be of Japanese-Filipino-American extraction). Here, watch an exhibition by Mr. Nagao:
While Flores factually did not invent the yo-yo, one can credit him with being the first “promoter” of the humble toy in a mass-market setting. On Rizal’s voyage from New York to Europe in 1888, our national hero later wrote about regaling his fellow passengers with displays of the yo-yo. The yo-yo made its appearance in outer space in April 1985 and on board the International Space Station again in 1992. In outer space, however, where no one can hear you scream and neither can you feel the pull of gravity, yo-yo’ing doesn’t work so well. But just recently, pioneer Filipino marketer Flores did make it to the post-Alex Trebek Jeopardy! wall of clues, in connection with the yo-yo, of course.
Finally, if rock-climbing and break-dancing will make their Olympic debuts at the Games of Paris 2024, perhaps the yo-yo would see its own Olympic appearance in Los Angeles 2028? After all, it kind of got started in ancient Greece.
SOURCES:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJkGtRb0Kqs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._National_Yo-Yo_Contest
https://bestskilltoys.com/yoyos/yoyo-recommendations/yoyo-history/
https://www.thoughtco.com/pedro-flores-inventor-1991879
https://yoyo.fandom.com/wiki/History_of_the_Yo-yo#cite_note-2
http://www.yoyomuseum.com/museum_view.php?action=profiles&subaction=yoyo
Distinguished Asian American Business Leaders - Naomi Hirahara, Henrietta M. Smith - Google Books
Myles A. Garcia is a Correspondent and regular contributor to www.positivelyfilipino.com. He has written three books:
· Secrets of the Olympic Ceremonies (latest edition, 2021);
· Thirty Years Later . . . Catching Up with the Marcos-Era Crimes (© 2016); and
· Of Adobo, Apple Pie, and Schnitzel With Noodles (© 2018)—all available in paperback from amazon.com (Australia, USA, Canada, UK and Europe).
Myles is also a member of the International Society of Olympic Historians, contributing to the ISOH Journal, and pursuing dramatic writing lately. For any enquiries: razor323@gmail.com
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