Item GB01
This Item was Sold on 10 August
2007 for $193
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I first met Mickey Kinley in 1981 while living in West
Palm Beach, Florida. I had introduced a neighbor, Jim
MacNeil, to the sport of boomeranging a few months before I
met Mickey. 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, where he was taking Engineering classes. Suddenly, a
man who had been playing golf in the distance started
screaming and running towards Jim. Jim met an excited Mickey
Kinley who introduced himself as a new boomerang thrower.
Mickey was a woodworker by profession and had started making
strip laminated traditional boomerangs on his own. He had
never seen anything like a Gerhards hook. Mickey begged Jim
to loan him the Gerhards hook for a day so he could make a
copy. Jim agreed and told me that afternoon that he would
meet Mickey on the following day. Jim and I drove down and
met Mickey. The day was hot and calm. The ground was covered
with burrowing owl holes, so you had to watch your feet when
you were running. 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. That poor hook was filed down until
there was almost nothing left . It was so thin that it
eventually 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 beautiful and were weighted
with a flight range of 75 - 100 metres. These were good
returners, but 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 Boomalum was made out of Aluminum in the early 1980s
by Mickey when he was trying to set a world record in long
distance. Mickey claimed distances of up to 200 yards with
these, but he was never able to get a full return in
competition to set a record. This is the thicker boomalum
and it is not as safe as the light weight mini-boomalums.
This one should not be thrown around other people or near
property and it should be only thrown by someone who knows
how to tune and throw the extra long distance models. A copy
of Mickey's original tuning booklet is included with this
item. The booklet is also a good collectable. The surface of
the boomalum hook (except on the tips) is spray painted with
flourescent orange paint to make it more visible in flight.
This one is in excellent condition. It is a terrific
collectable and difficult to find, especially in this
condition.