This beautiful natural elbow boomerang was made out of a Norwegian Maple sapling and decorated with Quetzal art by Pat Cardiff in 1999. I had a role in the construction of this boomerang. In the early 1990s, Eric Darnell told me that he tried to make natural elbows by bending saplings and then waiting several years for the sapling to grow into a full size elbow. I used to run in a forest behind a school in Ann Arbor. Shortly after my conversation with Eric, I noticed that a large tree had fallen and it had pulled the mid section of a Norwegian Maple sapling down to the ground, leaving the sapling with a bent U shape between the sapling's roots and where it was pinned on the ground by the large fallen trunk. The top of the sapling lay on the ground, but it was not damaged and the top started growing up towards the sunlight given it the shape of the letter "S". For 5 years, the top of this sapling grew skyward and the pinned base grew thicker and it remained in the shape of the letter U. Then the sapling died and I harvested the U shaped base of this sapling. I then cut it into multiple natural elbow sections. I gave this elbow to Pat Cardiff and he did the airfoiling, finish and artwork. The elbow has a pair of Quetzals. The male has the long tail.

This boomerang is in like new condition. When I got this boomerang from Pat, it had a nice 35 metre flight. I have had it in storage for more than a dozen years. I gave this boomerang a test throw before listing it and found that it now needs tuning for a full return flight. Most collectors would just hang this one on the wall, but if you want this to be a good flyer, you would need to heat the blades and add a small amount of dihedral to both arms and maybe add some negative angle of attack to the left arm. I will leave it up to you to do the tuning. Pat did not make very many natural elbow boomerangs. That makes this one a beautiful collectible.