Item CUO
This Item was Sold on 17 September
2020 for $140
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This traditional boomerang was made by Frank Donnellan in the 1940s. or 1950s This boomerang is made out of Whalebone which is not the bone of a whale, but a composite made out of sawdust and whale balleen that is heated and pressed and used as a linrt on railroad box cars when whales were processed in Australia. Whalebone is similar in density and stiffness to Paxolin. The upper surface has a band of yellow and yellow tips on both blades. The lower surface has " Msde by Frank Donnellan Champion Granville NSW AUST." burned into the surface at the elbow. There is a small chip on the underside of the dingle arm near the elbow and a couple of tiny edge dongs, but this is common on these. Whalebone is tough and it does not affect the integrity of the boomerang. At the chip, you can see the underlying dark color of the Whalebone. A very nice collectible that was used by Frank Donnellan and then given to a friend.
Frank Donnellan was one of Australia's earliest boomerang champions and record holders. Frank did amazing feats and he claimed to be the holder of "all records" long before there were any official boomerang clubs or sanctioned competitions. On May 4th, 1934, Frank threw a long distance boomerang of his own construction at Centennial Park, Sydney in the presence of "Sun" news representatives. The boomerang circled a pole 140 yards away and then it was caught on the return. This, and other feats included throwing over Watson's Bay Gap one hundred yards over the water and caught on the return and throwing off the "Sun" Office Buildings seventy-five yards out over the city, and caught on the return. Frank made and sold boomerangs well into the 1950s. His commercial models were constructed out of plywood and his long distance models were constructed out of Whalebone, a composite material similar to Paxolin, but made out of pressed whale baleen and wood products. Whalebone was used by the railroad companies to line the inside of railroad box cars for shock absorbing purposes. Frank obtained his whalebone material by jumping into empty box cars as trains passed by his home and he would then rip out a sheet and take it home to make his long distance boomerangs. Frank's commercial boomerangs were plentiful in the 1940s and early 1950s, but they have become quite scarce and they are hard to obtain by contemporary collectors, especially in mint condition. |
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