Traditional Skeet Shooting Boomerang Designed by Frank Donnellan

Description

Traditional Skeet Shooting Boomerang Designed by Frank Donnellan
This traditional boomerang was designed by by Frank Donnellan in the 1950s. The design was modified to include a snap-in plastic target at the center of rotation and then made in West Germany. The elbow has " Sceettrainer " in bold print and the underside has " Made in W. Germany " embossed on the elbow. The boomerang was made for the American market and it includes part of the cardboard packaging that shows the boomerang being used for skeet shooting. Bright red in color and with a single black plastic insert, both in very nice condition and very rare. This is the only one I have ever seen. I acquired this one from Ben Ruhe in 1988.
Specifications: Right Handed ; Tip-to-tip Span = 42 cm ; Weight = 100 gm
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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