“Once upon a time (late 2010, early 2011), we were working on a yo-yo called the HALIFAX. When spelled out in all caps, the letters of that fine city contain no curves, just like the profile of that yo-yo, pretty neat huh? Are we a bit crazy? 🙂
Around the same time, we had begun throwing ideas back and forth with team member Daniel Dietz about his signature yo-yo. In addition, as a team tester, it was one of his jobs to throw new designs and offer feedback. To that end, we sent him a HALIFAX prototype to get his feedback. Turns out that he thought it was his signature yo-yo and he loved it! We didn’t have it in us to break him the bad news, so in a two-birds-with-one-stone kind of fashion, the HALIFAX became the Dietz. And later, the lab experiment.
This release is inspired by our 20/20 Hindsight Series, but technically not part of it because the HALIFAX was never released. This feels more like the completion of a story – we wanted to tie up this loose end. This version has a tapped axle system and a hub that looks like a Dietz Side Effect (although a smaller version). There are other small refinements to dial it in: slightly bigger diameter and slightly smaller width. It’s cool to release something we designed so long ago and to be able to refine it with what we have learned in the years since then. It’s smooth as butter.”
“The Rev 2 brings out the first set of tweaks to the Rev as we explore how small changes to a design affect the look and the play.
The first change is to the transition in the catch zone. In the cross-section art on the box the white line is the Rev 2 and the black line is the Rev 1. You can see we added material there which has the effect of making the transition more severe and sharp. Changes to the catch zone (or sometimes called the “profile”) have the biggest impact on how a yo-yo looks. And you can see this change makes the yo-yo appear much less organic and rounded and much of a wing shape.
The second change is to the cup side. On the cup side the changes are less visible to the eye, but end up having impact on weight and weight distribution. In fact, when designing and tweaking yo-yos we commonly use this area to control the final weight. You can see in the cross section we removed some of the cup and the result is almost two grams of weight loss compared to the Rev 1. This change will have the most impact on how the yo-yo feels in play. Side note: we forgot to update the weight on the box art so it shows the Rev 1 weight (65.8 grams), instead of the Rev 1 weight (64.1 grams). Oops 🙂
We still used 7075 aluminum alloy and the other specs remain the same. On future Revs we might look into using a different alloy or changing the specs to a much bigger degree. We received a ton of excellent suggestions from Rev 1 owners and are excited to continue this project into the future and encourage you to submit your feedback after trying the Rev 2.”
The Ring-Bearer™ is an officially licensed Lord of the Rings yo-yo, featuring several designs from the story engraved on different colorways.
From Mark at MK1:
“Back in early ’23 I had what I thought was a really straightforward idea to engrave the ring inscription from Lord of the Rings on a bimetal yoyo design that I had been sitting on for a bit. I called up my Dad (a big Tolkien fan and avid reader) to chat about this, and he reminded me of the reality of trademarks – but he also recommended contacting the licensor to ask for permission. Is it really that easy, I thought.
I looked up the best licensing contact for my proposed use and found one for Middle-earth Enterprises. I sent them an email and waited – for many weeks – until I got the response I was hoping for. This was, however, only the beginning of my adventure!
It’s now quite clearly almost 2 years after “early ’23” so I’d like to talk about everything that went into this amazing project, the Ring-Bearer.
If you aren’t familiar with the behind-the-scenes of licensed products, there’s a lot that needs to happen. Contracts, insurance, brand assurance, approvals. On top of that, I wanted to make this a big release, with extra colorways, cool box art, a mini-poster – the works. All of this extra stuff will get revealed soon, as I’m waiting for the shipment to arrive.
This will be as far as I can tell the first officially licensed Lord of the Rings yo-yo.
I’d like to also give a huge shout-out to my team & all the other people who helped make this happen, especially Mag who made the packaging artwork and many of the engravings for other colorways.“
Ring Bearer™ Colorways
The confirmed colorways are:
The One Ring (Serialized) – Black w/Gold Rims. Numbered. Only 111 were made.
The One Ring (Unlimited) – Black w/Gold Rims.
Vilya – Blue w/Gold Rims – Based off of, the ring that eventually found its way to Elrond.
Narya – Red w/Gold Rims – First given to Círdan the shipwright, and later, to Gandalf, who carried it during the Third Age.
Nenya – Silver – Given to Galadriel by Celebrimbor
UNSeen – Black – Different Elvish inscription on the yo-yo
Smaug – Red w/Gold Rings – YoYoExpert exclusive with Smaug engraved in the cup
Elfstone – Green w/Siver Rings
Arkenstone – Silver w/Rainbow Rings – The Arkenstone is a big plot point (and a big gemstone) in the Hobbit,
The Box
The boxes for the Ring-Bearer are similar to MK1’s hexagonal boxes, but are designed to look like Hobbit Holes:
“The technical idea behind the Seven Summits revision of the Summit was to take a 6061 aluminum alloy yo-yo, redesign it as 7075 aluminum alloy (heavier metal) yo-yo, but make the final result *lighter* while retaining the same profile shape. The Seven Summits are well loved.
We thought it would be cool to do the same thing for our recent super affordable release, the Intro. The redesign is called the Nitro. Clever letter switch aside, the name is very appropriate because it plays faster. Coming in at 62.4 grams (3.6 grams lighter than the Intro) it’s overall weight has been reduced significantly. The weight distribution redesign, coupled with the more dense alloy, gives it a totally new play, even though it still has the nice comfy organic feel in the hand.
The diameter and the width remain exactly the same but you will notice the cup has a slight raise in it while the Intro had a flat cup. This is your visual cue to be able to tell which is which at a glance.
“We are kicking off our 20/20 Hindsight Series with Downbeat. The original Downbeat was created to be heavy, slow and chill. We made it exactly 70 grams with Ultra Lights which meant there was no way to make it lighter than that. 70 grams was a statement.
The point of the 20/20 series is to re-imagine old models so we thought making a much lighter Downbeat would be a signficant change because the weight was key to it’s essence. We were able to do this without changing the size or the profile shape so it still feels like the same yo-yo in your hand. With Ultra Lights it comes in at 65.3 grams – almost 5 grams lighter than the original. They are all shipping with Ultra Lights, except for the Saturday Market which has Flat Caps and weights 66.3 grams.
It’s strange to type this: the Downbeat 20/20 is fast. But somehow it still retains it’s chill.
Limited to a one time run of 120 pieces. New lower price starting at $59 for solids.”
