This beautiful strip laminated hook was made in 1978 out of White Oak. It is signed and dated and numbered 272. This is the standard weighted hook with a full lead weight in each blade tip and a half lead weight in the elbow. There are numerous light penciled notes on the underside. Al always put his hooks through numerous tuning sessions and after each test throw, he would add notes about how to heat tune before the follow up tuning session. Usually these notes were erased from the underside before it went to a buyer. Al left these notes on the boomerangs that he kept in his throw kit. Very few of these hooks survive. Most customers threw them until they hit trees or barns or were lost in the forest. This one has light wear, but the half weight is starting to come lose from the elbow pocket and there are a couple of small cracks starting to radiate from the elbow hole This happens to most of the standard hooks with an elbow half weight. After number 500, Al stopped putting in the half weight. Al would probably tell you to lightly tap the lead weight into the hole and add add some epoxy to the surface or let the weight come out and fill the hole and surrounding area with epoxy. I will tell you to keep this as a historic treasure and make replicas to throw.

I visited with Al Gerhards in early 2006 and asked him about the integrity of his boomerangs after 25-30 years. Al assured me that he used strong epoxy glues and that he still throws boomerangs that he made 30+ years ago without any problems. Al recommends that the owners of his boomerangs rub the surface with Tung oil or Gun oil prior to throwing if it has been in storage. The boomerang should be oiled at least once every 3 months if it is thrown regularly. However, I discourage the throwing of old collectable boomerangs unless it is thrown under very carefully controlled conditions. I would prefer that the owner make a copy of this boomerang for his own use and save the original as a fine collectable.