Richard knerr and arthur spud melin biography
Richard knerr and arthur spud melin biography
Richard knerr and arthur spud melin biography wife...
The Hula Hoop and Wham-O
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Good morning. It’s March 5. In 1963, the U.S. government awarded U.S. Patent Number 3,079,728 to a creative Los Angeles tinkerer named Arthur Melin.
The patent request was for something called “Hoop Toy,” although the world already knew it by another name: Hula Hoop.
Melin was called “Spud” by his friends, who included his boyhood chum and business partner, Richard Knerr.
Richard knerr and arthur spud melin biography wikipedia
The two young men grew up in L.A., attended Southern Cal together, and then resisted pressure to work for their fathers by starting a business of their own selling toys and specialized sporting goods.
Their first innovation was a new slingshot design.
In 1948, they put $7 down on a Sears & Roebuck table saw, and began building slingshots in the Knerr family garage. They tested their contraptions by shooting food in the air to falcons, and sold them via mail order after advertising in Field & Stream magazine.
They named their little company Wham-