History / About
Chemtoy was a yo-yo manufacturer based in Cicero, Illinois. The YoYo Wiki, citing Lucky Meisenheimer’s Collector’s Guide to 20th Century Yo-Yos, says it produced three plastic, unpromoted yo-yos and that all were blister packed with a 1972 copyright date. The Yo-Yo Museum says Chemtoy was founded in the 1940s by Henry and Stanley Cohen in Chicago, began with bubble solution and bubble toys, licensed a Chemtoy Shark for the 1975 film Jaws, and was later acquired by the Strombecker Corporation. The Crown Royal, model 2072, dates from 1972-1974 per the museum and was Chemtoy’s top-of-the-line model. It has a classic tournament-shaped translucent dark-green plastic body with the name and logo hot-stamped in gold foil, a metal fixed axle, starburst response and a cotton string. It was sold shrink-wrapped on a card for an original retail price of $1.
