The story begins in England,1926, where Gösta Elfverson had set up a glass-importing company called Elfverson & Co (London) with the aim of selling Swedish glass in that country. At some point of time he came across a yo-yo, that he felt could be made in wood at his brother's company in Sweden. In 1932 began the production of the yo-yo, which was made in pieces and then glued together, but a short while later the Production Manager, Ivan Pettersson, discovered a way to turn the yo-yo in one piece. It was the birth of Kalmartrissan, the Swedish yo-yo that has been made in the same way since the 1930’s. 

  Kalmartrissan 1932- 1999

  The term Kalmartrissan refers to the one-piece wooden yo-yo sold in Sweden since 1932. The genuine one, has a hot-foiled stamp on it with the picture of Kalmar Castle. In the beginning, the logo of the castle was pad-printed on one side of the yo-yo. This method was used for a few years, until the hot-foil method was introduced. When this was done, the sides of the yo-yo were slightly flattened in order to get a better print.

  The first yo-yos had a very narrow gap of 1.7 mm. This made it very easy to use for the beginner, as the yo-yo came up without hardly any effort, with the consequence that it was harder to make tricks.

  When the design was altered, the gap was widened to 2.2 mm. For decades the yo-yo was to be made the same way.

  In 1999 we changed the gap once again, this time to 2.8 mm. The yo-yo is still a favorite for beginners but is now also better for doing tricks than its predecessors.  

Kalmartrissan enters Cyber-Age

   In 2000 the kalmartrissa.com site was launched and in 2003 the first yo-yos were sold on the internet in our shop  . 

Many of our customers are the small ones, and a normal yo-yo can be quite difficult if you are not tall. That is why in 2004 we developed the Kalmartrissa mini. 

The mini is actually the same shape as the small Zapper which we made in the 60's and the string is shorter than the average one, in order to avoid hitting the floor! The logo was developed after the original Kalmartrissa logo, as it is more appealing to children.

In April 2005 the first Kalmartrissa Cup was held. The competition was an initiative from the school of Påryd, where the factory lies. The school challenged other schools in the Kalmar area and 7 schools responded. Newspapers, TV and radio were present. To see the article (in Swedish) at Östra Småland click here.

In 2007 we celebrated that we have produced Kalmartrissan for 75 years by participating in the publication of a book about yo-yos. The book was written in Swedish by Nisse Larsson and was called "Jojo boken". It was published by Nisses Böcker. To celebrate that, we produced a Kalmartrissa yo-yo with Nisses Böcker foiled on the other side. Only 300 yo-yos were produced that way.

 Return to top