Lorin Hawes is one of Australia's most famous boomerang manufacturers. Lorin is an American who moved to Australia in the early 1960s and started a boomerang factory that produced large quantities of wonderful plywood traditional boomerangs. The Wham-O plastic traditional boomerang is based on Lorin's famous M-17 design. Lorin occasionally made special traditional boomerangs out of lapped Australian hardwood boards. The most famous of these lapped boomerangs was the Silky Spinner which was made out of Silky Oak (also called Lacewood in the USA). Lorin also made Spinners out of other Aussie hardwoods such as Blackbean and Hoop Pine. Lorin is also well known for the wonderful book that he authored titled " All About Boomerangs ". Although Lorin no longer makes boomerangs, his daughter, Jenny Stone, has a thriving business making boomerangs. These are marketed around the world in large numbers.

This traditional boomerang is very rare. In 30+ years of collecting, this is one of the first of these that I have ever seen. You can find a picture of a similar traditional with copper plate on page 61 of Lorin Hawes' famous hard cover boomerang book. Many of the illustrations in the throwing instructions section also depict one of these traditional boomerangs with copper plating weights. This is a large traditional. It is out of the Brother Brian Thomas collection and it has been thrown and has some wear and scratches, but no cracks or tip/edge dings. Brian wrapped colored plastic tape on the edges of the copper plate as reinforcement and to add visibility. The copper plate on the elbow has some oxidation. On the underside of the elbow, you can see a portion of the Hawes logo with the map of Australia. Very nice and a good collectable.