Donald F. Duncan Sr.
Donald Franklin Duncan Sr. (6 June 1892 – 15 May 1971) was an American businessman. The West Virginia Encyclopedia places his birth in Rome, Ohio, and his childhood in Huntington, West Virginia; Wikipedia gives Kansas City, Missouri. He sold candy in Chicago and was an early Chicago franchise owner for Good Humor ice cream, a product created by Harry Burt. After meeting Pedro Flores in California in the late 1920s, he formed the Duncan Toys Company around 1929–1930 and acquired Flores’s yo-yo business, taking initial rights around 1930 and the remaining assets, including the trademark, by October 1932. Duncan did not invent the yo-yo. He promoted national contests with the Hearst newspapers, in which entrants sold subscriptions, and is credited with pioneering premium-incentive marketing. He also ran the Duncan Parking Meter Corporation, which was sold in 1959. Duncan retired in 1957, leaving his sons Donald Jr. and Jack in charge. In 1965 the Seventh Circuit held in Donald F. Duncan, Inc. v. Royal Tops Mfg. Co. that “yo-yo” had become a common word. Flambeau acquired the Duncan name in the mid-to-late 1960s; the Smithsonian dates this to a 1966 auction, while Flambeau gives 1968. Sources differ on where Duncan died: Wikipedia says Palm Springs, California, and the West Virginia Encyclopedia says Los Angeles. He was inducted posthumously into the Toy Industry Hall of Fame in 2011.