Up and Down and Around the World

QUESTION: I used to love playing with yo-yos as a kid. In fact, I was quite good at it. Recently, while rummaging through some boxes in my attic, I came across my favorite yo-yos. At the time in the late 1950s, I thought they had just been invented, but saw a kid playing with one in a period drama on Netflix. Can you tell me when and how these neat little toys came to be? Are they collectible today?

ANSWER:  A yo-yo in its simplest form is a toy consisting of an axle connected to two disks, similar to a slender spool, with a length of string looped around the axle. To play with it, a person creates a slip knot into which he or she inserts one finger, allowing gravity or the force of a throw to spin the yo-yo and unwind the string, then allowing the yo-yo to wind itself back to the hand. This process is known as  "yo-yoing" and first became popular in the 1920s. But the yo-yo goes back a lot further in history.

Although first recorded on ancient vases from early Greece showing boys playing with thin disks on a string, the invention of the yo-yo probably first occurred in China. The first yo-yos probably consisted of two painted terracotta clay disks, followed by ones made of wood, then metal. But once the yo-yo became commonplace, its popularity spread. By the mid 18th century, its use had spread to India where a handpainted miniature box depicts a young girl playing with a yo-yo. Over the next 25 years, yo-yos made of glass and ivory appeared in all over Europe and the Orient.

During the French Revolution, people used yo-yos to relieve stress—they had to do something while waiting for the next head to fall. They also became fashionable toys, called l'emigrette—a French word that referred to leaving the country---for the nobility. A painting of future King Louis XVII displayed in 1789 depicted the four-year-old palming his l'emigrette. Sketches of soldiers made during the 1780s, including General Lafayette and his troops, show the men tossing their yo-yos. As yo-yo usage gained in popularity throughout France in the late 18th century, the toy became known as the joujou de Normandie, or toy of Normandy, which some believe to be the origin for the modern American name of "yo-yo."

The yo-yo earned the title "Prince of Wales" toy in 1791 when a picture appeared of the future George IV twirling a bandalore as the English called it. Legend says that during the Battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815, Napoleon and his troops used their yo-yos to "unwind" before battle.

But it wasn’t until 1866 that the yo-yo reached the United States after two Ohio men applied for a patent for their invention which they called "an improved bandalore." Their  improvement was a weighted rim.

An article published in the Scientific American Supplement in 1916, entitled “Filipino Toys,” included a picture of what it called a yo-yo, a word some people defined as Filipino for "to return"or "spring."

Pedro Flores, a Filipino immigrant, introduced the Filipino yo-yo to the United States in the 1920s. He established the Yo-yo Manufacturing Company in Santa Barbara, California in 1928. Flores’ yo-yos had a unique feature. His workers hand-carved his yo-yos from one piece of wood. They were the first such toy that could spin or "sleep" because the string looped around the axle. Players could not only make this forerunner to the modern yo-yo go up and down, but they could also perform endless tricks. Flores began making a dozen handmade toys, but by November 1929, he had two additional factories in operation, one in Los Angeles and one in Hollywood, which together employed 600 workers and produced 300,000 units daily.

One day, Donald F. Duncan Sr., an American businessman, watched Flores perform his tricks in San Francisco. Eyeing the large group of people watching Flores' demonstration, Duncan realized the possibilities of this toy. In1929, he bought the rights to Flores’ yo-yo, patented the name "yo-yo," and promoted it in the United States. Duncan hired 42 demonstrators— one of whom was Pedro Flores—to teach and demonstrate yo-yo feats and hold contests as a means of increasing sales throughout the country and in Western Europe.

In 1946, Duncan relocated his company in Luck, Wisconsin. The company produced  3,600 yo-yos each hour. Four years later, Duncan introduced the Electric Lighted yo-yo, marking the first such toy to light up. During the late 1950s, Duncan released the Butterfly model yo-yo, a high-tech design that made it much easier to land on the string while executing complex tricks. Plastic yo-yos soon followed in 1960. In 1962, the company sold a record 45 million yo-yos.

An expensive lawsuit to protect the yo-yo trademark from competitors forced the Duncan family out of businesses in Nov. 1965. Flamboyant Products, manufacturer of Duncan’s plastic models, bought the company and still owns it today. The yo-yo’s popularity hasn’t waned.

The yo-yo holds the honor of being the first toy in space when astronauts put it through its paces in 1985 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. They discovered that gravity is needed to play with a yo-yo.

A Pen in Hand

QUESTION: I was going through some drawers in an old desk and came across a couple of fountain pens. I wondered if they’re collectible. Also, what can you tell me about their origins. I’m young enough not to have ever used one.

ANSWER: Technolgy has changed our lives a lot in the past 75 years—that marked the date in 1939 when Lizlo Biro, a Hungarian proofreader, first patented the ballpoint pen. It was also the year the 1939 New York World’s Fair offered a vision of the future to thousands of people. Up to that time, the main writing implement that people used was the fountain pen. And it was 108 years before that when John Jacob Parker patented the self-filling fountain pen, paving the way for an easier way of writing.

But it was three inventions that occurred in the mid-19th century that helped the average person accept the fountain pen—the invention of hard rubber, which replaced steel for pen cases, iridium-tipped gold nibs for increased flexibility, and an improved ink formula which contained less sediment.

However, it wasn’t until Lewis Waterman created his Ideal Fountain Pen that the public embraced the fountain pen. After his Ideal Pen became a success, Waterman patented the coiner mechanism where a slot in the heel of the pen enabled a coin to deflate the internal pressure plate.

Probably the most well known of all the fountain pen companies was the Parker Pen Company. George Parker started the Parker Pen Company in Janesville, Wisconsin., and patented his “Lucky Curve” ink feed system in1894. His design allowed the ink to flow back into the reservoir when the pen was upright, reducing the possibility of leaks, creating a new industry standard. He patented an improved version in 1911. You could purchase one of his pens back then for $2.50 to $6. He even made one the size of a  penknife, suitable for a lady's purse.

The Parker Pen Company was an innovator and came out with several firsts, including a safety screw-on cap and the button-filler. An alternative to using an eye-dropper to fill the ink, the button-filler used an external button which connected to the internal pressure plate and deflated the reservoir when pressed.

In 1921, Parker introduced the Duofold pen line. These pens were available in Oversize, Litty, or Junior models, and came in red or black rubber—previously, all rubber pens came only in black. The company added other colors, such as lapis lazuli and jade green, later on in the decade. Originally priced from $5 and up, today these pens, especially the red ones, sell for around $1,000.

Parker continued to be innovative in the 1930s with the introduction of the vacuumatic filler, which worked with a plunger and allowed the entire barrel to act as a reservoir. Some pens also featured a transparent window so the user could see how much ink remained in the barrel. Prices ranged fro originally ranged from $5 to $10.

The next most well known of the fountain pen companies was the Sheaffer Pan Company, which began in 1912 in a small back room of a Fort Madison, Iowa, jewelry store with just seven employees. Its founder, Walter A. Sheaffer; was 45 years old when he risked his life savings to start the company, but his invention of a lever-filled fountain pen quickly proved to be the leader in the industry.

Shaeffer's mechanism used an external lever which depressed a flexible ink sac, but fitted flush with the barrel of the pen when not in use. For the next 40 years, the lever-filler was the most popular design in fountain pens.

In 1920, Sheaffer introduced its Lifetime pen which came with a serial number and a life-time guarantee. A white dot on the pen clip distinguished the pan. Selling for $8.25, they cost almost double what Sheaffer's other pen did. Nevertheless, people bought them. 

Sheaffer continued to influence the pen industry with its introduction of the Radite, the first plastic pen, in 1924---one of your pens. Originally available only in Jade Green in an Art Deco design, it eventually inspired a variety of additional colors.

Over the next 28 years, Sheaffer brought out several other significant products, including a fast-drying, non-clogging formula ink called Skrip, the Balance pen, a bullet-shaped pen designed to balance in the hand, the Crest, the first pen to use a plastic body with a fitted metal cap, the Touchdown, a pneumatic- filling pen, and the Snorkel, a longer edition of the Touchdown.

The introduction of the Pen for Men, an oversized version of the Snorkel, in 1959 put the company way ahead of its competition—indeed, way ahead of its time. Unfortunately, the public didn’t buy it and production ceased within a few years. However, oversize pens came into vogue during the 1990s, so the company produced the Legacy, a pen based on the original Pen for Men.

Even though most people don’t used fountain pens for everyday writing, they offer a bit of nostalgia and a remembrance of days long past.

Romancing the Road

QUESTION: My mother saved every map she and my dad collected on their many road trips. Some of these go back as far as just after World War II.  Do these have any value today?

ANSWER: Road maps, especially the ones produced by oil companies for their service stations, are highly collectible. While older ones can be worth higher amounts, depending on their condition, newer ones aren’t as pricey. They’re also easy to store, so a collection won’t take up a lot of room—always a good thing for those living in apartments.

The systematic mapping of roads and the installation of route signs by the government didn’t occur until the auto arrived. Prior to the mid-1890s, bicyclists were the ones who demanded road maps. But as the new century dawned, the number of automobiles on the roads began to increase. The Chicago Times-Herald printed the first automobile road map in the country for a race they sponsored from Chicago to Waukegan.

In 1918, Wisconsin’s state legislature initiated a numbered highway system., which the federal government adopted in 1926. The new highway system gave us the names for legendary roads like Route 66 or California’s scenic Highway 1. Rand McNally became the first major publisher to adopt the system, which it also helped promote by installing numbered signs along these national roadways.

Before World War II, service stations gave out road maps free. These featured elaborate artwork. Oil producers such as Esso, Chevron, Shell, Gulf, Standard, Texaco, and Socony-Vacuum (later known as Mobil) all distributed maps.

Raod maps belong to the growing category of collectibles called “petroliana,” or anything to do with gas stations and the petroleum industry. For the most part, they’re reasonably priced, and some estimate that during their peak service stations distributed over 8 billion. Oil companies provided them as a service. They were made to be disposable, marked up by the gas station attendant as he gave directions and sent his customer on their way. But people often saved maps as souvenirs of the trips they made.

As automobiles proliferated, the marking of routes changed. Before numbered roads, stripes of paint on telephone poles, fence posts or trees delineated the various routes. In 1925, states began numbering their roads. At first it was an adventure to drive, but by the 1930s it had turned into a method of tourism. Tourist cabins sprang up along the way, as motorists made their way across country. Historians consider this time the road map’s golden age.

The Sinclair Oil Company hired noted artists like Peter Helck, who also produced advertising illustrations for car companies. Maps featured images of a carefree and playful life on the road, with service stations welcoming children and dogs, many of which were Scottish terriers, like the ones popular in movies like “The Thin Man.”

Maps produced during World War II reminded motorists to slow down to save tires. After the War, maps featured dynamic scenes, vibrant colors, and great graphics.

By the baby booming 1950s, the images tended to show nuclear families—a mom, dad, son and daughter, all enjoying life on the road. During the 1960s, maps displayed the dotted lines of planned Interstates and aerial views of highway cloverleafs.

Three companies—Rand McNally, H. M. Gousha, and General Drafting—produced most of the service station maps. These became a vehicle through which oil companies could promote the service at their stations, for it was service that differentiated them.

General Drafting produced maps for Esso, whose attendants handed out some 34.5 million maps in 1965.
After 1965, the quality of service station maps declined until their virtual disappearance in the 1980s.

Today, of course, free maps are long gone. They faded away, along with so many other aspects of the highway culture, with the 1973 energy crisis.

Early road maps from the first decade of the 1900s can be worth $75-100 today in good condition. Those from the 1920s and 1930s range in price from $20-40.  Groups of maps from the 1950s sell for $10-20.