Item JK03
This Item was Sold on 9 July 2020
for $148
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This medium-large traditional boomerang was hand carved in the 1950s/1960s by Frank Donnellan out of a very dense and stiff red fibre composite material that is similar to Paxolin. The material is 5 mm thick and there are more than 10 layers of a laminate layered within the matrix. I don't think you can break this boomerang. The shape and airfoiling is similar to the plastic Donnellan, but this one is hand made and larger for longer range throwing. " Made by Frank Donnellan Champion Granville N.S.W. " is etched into the underside of the elbow. Frank's name is his signature in cursive. This boomerang is painted red and yellow and designs are etched into the yellow regions on both tips. There are three small puncture holes on the underside, one on each tip and one on the elbow. Frank would push blanks down on a board with nail points sticking up to hold the blank in position while he carved the airfoils. These small holes are from the nail tips and will not degrade the integrity of the flight or the strength of the boomerang. This boomerang is in very nice condition. This boomerang has been tuned so that there is gentle dihedral along the length of the blades. This one was made for advanced throwers and not for the tourist trade. It was acquired in Australia in the 1960s. A wonderful collectible.
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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