Pedro Flores

Pedro Edralin Flores (26 April 1896 – 3 January 1964) was a Filipino businessman and yo-yo maker who has been credited with popularizing yo-yos in the United States. He patented an innovation to yo-yos that used a loop instead of a knot around the axle, allowing for new tricks such as the ability to "sleep".

Early history Pedro Flores was born in Vintar, Ilocos Norte, Philippines and came to the United States in 1915. He attended the High School of Commerce in San Francisco from 1919 to 1920, and subsequently studied law at University of California, Berkeley and the Hastings College of Law in San Francisco. Flores dropped out of school and moved to Santa Barbara, California, where he worked at odd jobs to make a living.

While working as a bellboy, Flores read an article about a self-made millionaire who made his money by selling a ball attached to a rubber band. At this point he remembered the yo-yo (previously known as the bandalore), a game which has been played for hundreds of years in the Philippines. Bringing it all together, Flores saw a good market opportunity in the US, and the ability to go into business for himself.

Flores yo-yos

He founded a yo-yo manufacturing company in Santa Barbara, California, in 1928, founded the Flores Corporation in Hollywood and cofounded Flores and Stone in Los Angeles around 1929. Flores has been credited with popularizing the yo-yo in the US, but he never claimed to have invented the yo-yo. Yo-yos were introduced to the Philippines in the 1800s. The word "yóyo" was a Tagalog word that means "come and go" or "come back" Flores is sometimes referred to as the original patent holder of the yo-yo. Although he didn't patent the first yo-yo in the US, his patent included the Filipino innovation

Duncan Between 1930 and 1932, Flores sold his interest in his yo-yo manufacturing companies for more than $750,000, to Donald F. Duncan Sr., which during the depression of the 1930s was a fortune. On this transaction Flores was quoted saying "I am more interested in teaching children to use the yo-yos than I am in manufacturing of yo-yos."

He became one of the key promoters in Duncan's early yo-yo campaigns. During 1931-1932, Flores was instrumental in setting up a large number of the promotions in the cities where the early Duncan contests were being held. The new Duncan contests were vastly different from his contests from two years earlier. These contests required a series of tricks similar to modern day contests with ties being broken by the number of "loop the loops" completed.