DUNK (2020)

Release Date: April 1, 2020

Specs: D: 54.30 mm W: 45 mm 64.1 grams

6061 Aluminum

C-size bearing, 19mm pads

OEM: Magic Yo-Yo

Pieces produced: ~600

First Run ~300 pieces

Second Run ~300 pieces

Prototypes: 5 pieces Green with Snow Tire size pads, 5 pieces in Red same as production release

Design began in 2019. The design was inspired by 3 of my favorite yoyos at the time: the Gully by Good Life, the Qubit by Core Co. and the Tourney by Duncan. The outer rim of the Dunk is more or less an identical curve to the Qubit’s rim. The inner bump was inspired by the bubbles of the Gully. I’m not sure what inspiration I drew from the Tourney other than it being a powerful and stable 5A yoyo, my favorite at the time for that style. I wanted a comfortable, very stable, modern organic shaped yo-yo that excelled at 5A and also felt good for 1A. First prototype was Green and featured Snow Tire size pads. I thought these would provide the grippier response I wanted, and while they did work pretty well, they ended up being too difficult to source for a full run. We ran a second prototype in Red, identical but with 19mm pads. I wanted the yo-yo to be as cheap as possible. These were priced at $45. They were packaged in the standard Dunk Chinese food container, I believe the first run was white boxes and the second run may have been red or black. The packaging featured hand drawn art by me, something I at first planned to be a limited edition thing. I’ve been drawing all of my yoyo packaging ever since. The Chinese food containers were stolen from Doc Pop, who packaged his signature edition Buzz-On Element X in a Chinese food container back in the day. They are also the cheapest possible boxes I can find that fit a yo-yo. I have no shame in saving money on packaging, my belief was that it gets thrown in the trash 99% of the time anyway. This mindset carries over to yo-yo strings, which I believe I did actually include with the first run of Dunks, but I soon stopped after realizing that quality yoyo string is expensive, and at least in my own experience, I will never use the string that comes stock with a new yoyo, because I have very specific string preferences. It has bit me in the ass maybe 4 times total since launching Dunk, with folks reaching out asking where’s the string (I always mail them a couple strings in an envelope) but overall people really don’t seem to care. Funnily enough, hand decorating these cheap boxes have made them more desirable for a lot of people and folks often tell me they keep and display all their Dunk boxes alongside their yoyo collections. The first run sold out in 10 days.

PROTOTYPES

Prototype 1. Green with Snow Tire pads. I believe there are 5 of these but I’d have to dig around and check. As far as I know CJ has 1, I have 3 and a collector in Japan has 1. One or two might be missing honestly. Below you can see the first Green prototype compared to the second Red prototype. The Green is a shade lighter than the first run Green.

Prototype 2. Red with 19mm pads. Same as production run. There were 5 of these and I believe CJ and I own all of them. The Red is the same shade as production run which confuses things a good bit.

First Run colors: Red, Dark Green, Black, Silver, Orange, Purple, Brown, Pink, Black/Silver half fade, Raw. 9 Colors plus Raws. I did sell a handful of Raws through the website, maybe 10 pieces? The rest went to be copper plated and powdercoated. There were 25 pieces each of the 9 basic colors, 50 fades and 50 raws. These are the numbers I ordered, but in reality they are estimates, the true numbers have been lost to time. I am sure there are anywhere from 10-30 more Dunks out there from this run, and from basically every run of yoyos I’ve ever made.

First official drop

The first official drop of Dunks was April 1st, 2020 at Midnight EST. The first drop colors were Dark Green, Purple, Brown and Silver. $45

FIRST RUN Half swap official DROPS

Anti-Yo Fluchs inspired Pink/Black swap dropped on my website April 3, 2020. I believe solid Pink and Black were also available to purchase.

Hspin Pyro inspired Red/Orange swap dropped on my website April 7, 2020. I believe solid Red and Orange were also available to purchase.

Eetsit (brown/silver), Ninja Turtle (green/brown), and other unnofficial swaps are definitely out there as I sold a good amount of Dunks directly through DMs and honored most requests.

SECOND RUN

Second Run colors: Light Blue, Light Green, Dark Brown, Dark Blue, Dark Red, Gold. 50 pieces of each color, 300 pieces total. The first run of Dunks sold out so quickly that I immediately ordered 300 more. In hindsight this was insane, but 2020 was a different time, and this Dunk had the hype of being my first ever yoyo behind it, as well as an insanely low price. Kudos to Magic YoYo who turned around 300 more Dunks in like 2-3 weeks. It was crazy. The first drop was April 1st and this second drop was May 4th. I wonder if I was the only guy ordering yoyos at the time due to Covid, maybe that’s why they were able to knock them out so quickly.

SECOND RUN FIRst drop

May 4, 2020 6PM EST. Colors in the first official drop were Aqueous Blue (dark blue), Ponyboy Gold (gold), Vino Red (dark red), Hershey Brown (dark brown) and Paul Han Winston inspired half swap (Dark Blue/Gold). $45

I believe I posted some Dark Red/Gold halfswaps in honor of the Kutztown Golden Bears on my website but it may have only been direct sales, I can’t find a record.