Item TB78
This Item was Sold for $160
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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 the following day in the same field. Jim and I
drove down and met Mickey on the following day, which was
hot and calm. The ground was covered with burrowing owl
holes, so you had to watch your step 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 strip laminated Kinley Hook is almost identical to
the one that I have in my personal collection. I have not
throw this hook, but I would expect it to fly similar to the
one in my own collection. These are very rare. Mickey made
very few of these and they were expensive. The strips are
made of Mahogany, Ash and Oak. There is a lead weight
embedded into each tip. The lead has oxidized to a chalk
white color over the years. This boomerang is undamaged, but
thee is a small amount of wear on the lift arm tip from
use. This boomerang is from the estate of Brother Brian
Thomas. The price will be slowly reduced every week until it
is sold.