Inventions in Everything: A New and Useful Bandalore

You know the old saying. “Invent a new and useful bandalore, and the world will beat a path to your door.”

The Inventions in Everything team lives by that motto. And what better way to seek out new and useful bandalores than seeking them out among the more than ten million patents awarded by the U.S. Patent Office.

Although we had gone seeking the oldest patent for a different invention, we chanced across U.S. Patent 59,745, which was issued by the U.S. Patent Office on 20 November 1866. The patent’s abstract proclaims the inventors’ achievement:

Be it known that we, James L. Haven and Charles Hettrick, both of Cincinnati, Hamilton county, Ohio, have invented a new and useful bandalore, and we do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying drawings making part of this specification.

By this point, you’re probably wondering just what a bandalore is. As they used the word, it seems to become a name lost to history, soon replaced by the more futuristic name that inventors Haven and Hettrick gave to their invention: The Whirlygig!

Oddly enough however, that name never caught on for the modern incarnation of what they invented. Their new and improved bandalore is much better known today as the yo-yo. HEre are Figures 1, 2, and 3 from the patent illustrating their vision of a new and useful bandalore.

Although not as refined as what today’s versions of it have become, Haven and Hettrick’s invention is immediately recognizable as a yo-yo. Speaking of which, we easily found where you can buy the more modern versions of their “new and useful bandalore” in beginner, intermediate, and expert level models.

Unless you’re an intense yo-yo enthusiast, its unlikely you’ll ever come across the name “bandalore” in any product catalog. Perhaps it’s a name that can be resuscitated in the future by the inventors of a new and useful whirlygig, which is a name that’s now most closely associated with today’s garden spinners. Stranger things have happened.

From the Inventions in Everything Archives

The IIE team has never previously featured a bandalore, but we have featured a couple of other inventions that fall into the category of “new and useful” toys:

• Inventions in Everything: Water Talkies
• Inventions in Everything: Lawnmowing Trikes for Tykes