The following is archived from 44EMPORIUM’s website:
I don’t even know where to start this off. It is 5 PM, Thursday the 19th, and I am sitting in front of my computer, just blankly staring at the monitor, overwhelmed with the amount of work.
I am from a small and remote city in Canada – it is about a 3-hour drive away from Toronto. In July of 2022 – I just impulsively decided to come to the YoYoToronto meetup. I craved a community of yoyoers since I only meet them at the big national contest maybe once a year or less.
I met a bunch of cool kids that now I become good friends with including… just everyone. I love this community.
Long story short, I started showing up to their monthly meetup regularly – I don’t think I missed a single one yet.
This got me attached to the Canadian / Toronto community a lot.
44Emporium started as a store that sells a selection of yoyos that I love. Jeff helped me set up everything I needed to start off with; and I was like yeah, why not since there are no active yoyo stores in Canada.
What this allowed me was to help my local buddies get the yoyos they wanted a lot easier, and this was such a wholesome thing to do.
I also sponsored local contests including 2023 and 2024 Canadian Nats.
To be frankly honest, if I did not feel this way I wouldn’t have been kept doing 44emporium. I struggle just to break even as a small store compared to the list of stores there are right now. This was literally the only thing that made me inclined to just stick with this idea.
One random day – I bought this yoyo called the GBP from G2Yoyos. 48 grams, bimetal and it played surprisingly well and was pleasing for a light yoyo like this.
Fast forward, a year later, I needed money so I was clearing out my collection – and GBP was sold to Evan Cui at one of the random meetup days in Toronto.
This was literally the very start of the Feather project; because Evan loved it. Like he loved loved it at that time.
Evan told me how he doesn’t buy new yoyos because he just thinks they are all the same, but this time it was different.
This is when Evan saw the potential in lightweight yoyos that are under 60 grams.
He enthusiastically shared with me a bunch of 3D printed prototypes that are sub 60g that he wants to eventually machine. This was only one of the prototypes, he made like 10 different iterations so please go check out his blog if you are curious about it.
At that time, honestly, I didn’t see the vision. They were still fun but that was about it. It died in 10 seconds, pulse vibes, just… everything bad you can imagine of.
But he proved me wrong with this one. The very first feather prototype which we didn’t even have the name of at this point. That little thing engraved is a chicken. you know, Evan’s Instagram tag is walk_the_chiken so…
Keep this in mind – Evan was still unsure of which brand to release this yoyo under at this point. Toronto people and I just made a joke about yeah just release it under 44emporium lol
Evan loved it, I also loved it. I love fun and unique yoyos. But we agreed that something is missing… Evan’s main concern was the little cuts on the profile caught the string while doing horizontal tricks. My main concern was the yoyo was too weak.
I have this strong ego when it comes to yoyoing. I don’t want to release yoyo under my brand or for it to be associated with my name if it is not “cool”. Sounds funny but I do wanna feel confident enough about the product that I sell, whether it is someone else’s product of my original lineup. That is kind of a rough thought I had with the first prototype.
Then Evan made changes based on his liking and everyone else’s feedback including mine, we just sent the second prototype. This was… this was good.
I remember trying it and immediately going “Yup, let’s release it under 44EMPORIUM.”
This must’ve been the point where I suggested the name “Feather”. Lightweight, and it goes well with the current engraving / Evan’s iconic Instagram username.
Evan optimized as much as he could yet still keeping the maneuverability of 55g yoyo.
One last problem we had to tackle was the response area. It was a bit slippy. I don’t exactly know what Evan did to fix this because I am not the designer, so again, please go read his blog if you are curious as to what actually happened between this one and the last prototype haha.
Anyways, this one just had all of our problems fixed and we were at a point where all the local Toronto people could say “Damn, I can compete with this.”, and it still has the floatiness of its lightweight. It also features a nice little 44E logo which is kind of a secondary logo I use for 44EMPORIUM.
This is the one both Evan and I used for Canadian Nationals and Worlds this year. I didn’t accomplish much competition-wise, but Evan got 2nd place at Nats.
Also, lots of people tried this at Worlds and we received numerous positive comments which gives me some hope.
So here we are, the very first original model from 44EMPORIUM, the FEATHER.
Evan is the one who designed this and made it possible. I am just riding along, so please give all the credit to Evan.
My goal with the original lineup is to release as many interesting signature yoyos as possible from fellow local buddies of mine to make their yoyo see the light of the world (2 different prototypes are in the works), so supporting this project helps us to grow and push out more interesting stuffs out to the yoyo world.
Thank you for spending time to read my spiel. I really appreciate it.