Takeshi asked me the other day if I could date the Duncan Yankee Boy in the flag card:
Well, I told Takeshi that I didn't know, nobody had been able to tell me and I had asked people like Bob Rule. My guess was that it was from early to middle 1950's. Takeshi did some more asking around and got a consensus that it was probably early 50's but not for sure. In particular, Steve Brown said they were, to his knowledge, late 40s and early 50s but it was difficult to verify.
This exchange motivated me to do a little more research. In this 1962 issue of Clips from Clyde, the internal newsletter from Duncan, they announce the new line of tops:
These are what Steve called 2nd generation Duncan tops on a list he once posted on the old UFT forum. The first generation included the Yankee Boy. Surprisingly it announces: "The first new product in a quarter of a century . . ." It obviously was not referring to just models of products (like different yo-yos). But if spintops were a new product, that would put the older tops (I guess discontinued) as pre 1937! That couldn't be right.
However, the price of 25 cts was a little surprising. The Yankee was obviously a premium top: it has the shaped steel point, "northern hard maple", good size, very nice card. The ones sold in 1963 went from 29ct (Chicago Twister) to $1 (Whistler). So it would be reasonable that the Yankee cost at least the equivalent to 50 cts, 1963 dollars. I used an online inflation calculator and for 50cts to become 25cts I had to go all the way back to . . . 1938!
Next I looked in Lucky's guide to collecting yo-yos. Unfortunately, I could not find any Yankee Boy yo-yo or a similar flag card. But it mentioned that the address on the cards could be used to date yo-yos. If it said Luck, Wi, it was pre-1965, for example. It also said that Duncan made the yo-yo's in Chicago until it opened its own plant in Luck in 1946. Well, I looked at the flag card I have and in the back it says: "835 N. Wood ST., Chicago 22, ILL."
Finally, I wrote to Lucky himself. He didn't know specifically about the top but he wrote:
"I would guess late 30s early 40s. Duncan's address changed to Luck, WI in 1946. They made very few yo-yos and tops during the war years (41-45) due to lack of supplies and work force that was at war. Nice Find."
So it seems the Yankee Boy is probably pre-war but Duncan stop producing tops for a while until 1962.
I got excited about the results so I extended the research to the other 1st gen Duncan tops. More later.