Retail box of National Yo-Yo Limited's Pro Tournament yo-yo. This model was essentially an Elfverson one-piece Swedish wooden yo-yo (the same lineage as the Kalmartrissan yo-yo) that was made in Sweden and then branded/distributed for the Canadian market under Pro / Pro Tournament labeling. Elfverson explicitly notes that it made yo-yos for other companies with different logos, including Olympics and Pros in Canada, and that these were known as "the Sweden yo-yo" because "Sweden" was stamped on one halve.
The Pro / Olympic was Canada’s everyday classic yo-yo in the same way the Duncan Imperial was for kids in the U.S. There was actually two Pro Tournament versions that were sold in Canada. The first version was sold by National Yo-Yo Limited of Toronto from the 1960s through about 1978. The second version was sold by Parker Bros. of Concord, Ontario starting about 1978. Both versions were wood and with the same body shape. The differences were mostly graphics/markings and branding details.
The Pro Tournament was turned from maple wood as a single piece (not two glued halves), which was a hallmark of Elfverson’s long-running design tradition. Elfverson’s own history places the big Canadian business context right where you’d expect: it had Canadian customers starting in the late 1950s, and during the 1970s boom Parker Bros. in Canada was buying yo-yos in huge volumes.
The image of the Parker Bros. retail box also features the Cheerio yo-yo trick book, The Art of Yo-Yo Playing and two yo-yo-related pinback buttons. It also shows the Double Doozer Rainbow and the Double Doozer Whistler. These models are vintage wooden yo-yo / spin-top hybrids most often associated with Cheerio (Canada) and Swedish manufacture. They’re designed to be thrown like a yo-yo, but also used as a return-top style spinner with a press-fit cone/tip attachment (see the black yo-yo with the yellow tip in the lower-right corner of the image).
