Ted Bailey is a retired Aerospace Engineer who has been making and throwing boomerangs since the early 1970s. The first boomerangs that he marketed were multi-bladers that he sold on the C.S.U. Sacramento campus in the early 1970s. In the late 1970s, Ted sold traditional boomerangs at the West Palm Beach Mall. In the early 1980s, Ted moved to Ohio and became an active Ohio tournament competitor. He developed a line of miniature boomerangs that performed well in competition. In the mid 1980s, new products included lap joint boomerangs made out of exotic woods and high performance competition boomerangs, especially Fast Catch and MTA. Ted was active in the USBA and served as Secretary, President and as a board member in the 1980s. He was the editor of the USBA newsletter, Many Happy Returns, for two decades and also produced two independent publications: Boomerang Journal and Boomerang News. Currently, Ted is involved in internet marketing of boomerang products (this internet catalog) and teaching flight science in schools in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Find out more about Ted Bailey on the About Ted Bailey web page.

This boomerang is a lap joint boomerang made out of several different hardwoods. The underside is African Paduak, a brilliant red hardwood from Africa which has turned very dark since it was made more than 20 years ago. The elbow of the upper surface is Bubinga, another African hardwood. The tips are African Zebrawood and there are radiating strips of African Purpleheart and Hawaiian Koa. This boomerang was traded to Larry Ruhf in the mid-1980s for one of his fine art boomerangs. It remained part of Larry's collection until the recent past when Larry emigrated to Costa Rica. Very few of these fancy wood lap joints remain and most are in older collections. The fancy wood lap joints were only made for trade and never for sale. This is one of the best. I would prefer that the buyer treat this as a collectable. It is not know if the bonding strength of the wood glue has degraded over the past 20+ years.