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 Traditional is an excellent flyer. I threw it several times and found that it makes a circular flight with a range of approximately 35 metres. These are uncommon boomerangs and good collectibles. Mickey made very few strip laminated boomerangs and the ones that he made were expensive. The strips are made of Mahogany, Ebony Ash and Oak. This boomerang is in nearly mint condition.

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