Collection Wednesday: Yo-Yo’s

February 4, 2009 • 2:24 pm • POSTED BY stephen penning

Why do we collect things? Is it for inspiration? Is it to satisfy personal aesthetics? Is it based on a need to inspire recollection? Is it to show individualism? Or, perhaps in extreme cases, is it to engage the collector in a form of worship that functions as a security measure in the event of a loss?

Welcome to a new weekly installment on the blog. Every Wednesday for the next… well however long I stay committed to this I’ll be featuring a collection of some sort. These collections may not be the most grandiose in their respective category. The intent of this is not to highlight the worlds largest Pokeman collection. Rather it is to show the range and diversity of things that we hold on to and to promote discussion on why we choose to collect.

I invite the readership of this blog to contribute links to any personal collections of their own or to point to a collection they know of for consideration in a future post.

In this first installment allow me to introduce you to Wild Jimbo. Jimbo is self-admittedly ‘just a guy with a few banjos and a handful of yo-yo’s’. I think a handful is an understatement. His yo-yo collection is quite impressive as are some of the faces of these toys. Yo-yo’s remained relatively anonymous until the early 1930’s and had a major resurgence in the 1960’s with the introduction of the Duncan Butterfly yo-yo and supporting advertising. While not organized in any manner that I can discern Wild Jimbo’s collection represents much of the U.S. history of the yo-yo. Enjoy.