I first met Mickey Kinley in 1981 while living in West Palm Beach, Florida. I introduced my neighbor, Jim MacNeil, to the sport of boomerang throwing a few months earlier. Jim and I had purchased several hooks from Al Gerhards. Jim was throwing one of his Gerhards hooks in a big field in Boca Raton adjacent to the Florida Atlantic campus. A very excited man named Mickey Kinley introduced himself as a new boomerang maker and thrower. Mickey was a woodworker by profession. He had started making strip laminated traditional boomerangs on his own. He had never seen anything like a Gerhards hook before. Mickey begged Jim to loan him the Gerhards hook for a day so that he could make a copy. Jim agreed and made plans to meet Mickey the following day in the same field. I went with Jim to met Mickey on the following day, which was hot and calm. Mickey arrived with an arm load of his strip laminated traditionals and a single copy of the Gerhards hook. This was a PERFECT COPY, complete with weights! The only problem was that it didn't return. I was not yet an expert at tuning and Mickey decided to adjust the flight by filing down the airfoils using instructions from the Lorin Hawes book. Mickey filed that hook down until it was so thin that it broke. The following year, I moved from West Palm Beach to Ohio, but I stayed in touch with Mickey. In 1983, Mickey sent me examples of his strip laminated hooks and omegas. These were absolutely gorgeous. They were weighted and had a flight range of 75 - 100 metres. These were good returners, but they had a very slight tendency to spiral out of a stable hover at the end of the flight. This was easily corrected by adding some tape flaps to slow the rotation down a bit. In 1984, Mickey moved on to make Boomalums, the first long distance boomerangs made out of Aluminum. Mickey is a famous and early pioneer in the long distance event. His name doesn't show up in the record books because he rarely went to tournaments, but his boomalums were the boomerangs of choice in the long distance event for many years.

This strip laminated Kinley Hook is almost identical to the one that I have in my personal collection. I have not throw this hook, but I would expect it to fly similar to mine. These hooks are very rare. Mickey made very few of these and they were expensive. The strips are made of Mahogany, Ash and Oak. There is a lead weight embedded into each tip. The lead has oxidized to a chalk white color over the years. This boomerang is undamaged, but there is a small amount of wear on the lift arm tip from use.

This boomerang was originally from the estate of Brother Brian Thomas. The price will be slowly reduced every week until it is sold.