History
In 1997, Duncan Toys signed a new licensing agreement with The Coca-Cola Company — independently of and concurrent with the existing Russell Promotions relationship — producing 18 different yoyo designs on the Duncan Professional model platform. This marked Duncan’s return to Coca-Cola co-branding after a gap of nearly four decades, using 1990s tooling rather than the original 1950s molds that had started the relationship.
Each yoyo in the 1997 series carried the Coca-Cola Company logo on one face with various sub-brand logos — Coke, Sprite, Fanta — on the reverse, covering the full beverage portfolio in a single licensed run. The Duncan Professional was a natural vehicle for this: a well-established looping yoyo with broad retail distribution already in place.
The specific names or designations of all 18 design variants are not catalogued in surviving public documentation. What is clear is that Duncan and Russell were simultaneously producing Coca-Cola-branded yoyos through 1997, the only documented period of dual-manufacturer Coca-Cola licensing in the modern promotional yoyo era.
